I just wanted to let you guys know about a few new projects I'm working on. Mail API, IMAP API, and Webmail.
Mail API will provide both an abstraction layer for front-end webmail user interface modules, or whatever else people come up with that could use the API, and a hooking system for back-end modules that will communicate with mail servers.
IMAP API is a back-end module (obviously for communication with IMAP servers), which will implement the Mail API hooks.
Webmail is a front-end module that will provide a webmail interface for users to access their email accounts, and will use API from Mail API to access the mail server.
The overall goal is to create the modules necessary to build a highly flexible Drupal-based webmail solution, without 3rd party webmail projects, like RoundCube or whatever else, being involved...only Drupal and the mail servers.
The project is fairly new, and in the planning/alpha stages, right now. This was the only email related group I found on groups.drupal.org, so I thought I'd subscribe and inform everyone here about it. It would be awesome if there's anyone that would like to help work on these projects. I just setup a homepage for the planning/development of the project at http://mailapi.gcopenhaver.com. I setup a forum there, and we will be documenting things in books on the site as we go. As of recent, there's two of us working on this project so far.
If anyone wants to help, feel free to contact me, or go to http://mailapi.gcopenhaver.com.
Comments
Please consider participating in an existing project
There are already several competing "frameworks" for mail handling, covering the 3 basic bases of 1) message formatting/parsing, 2) Delivery/queuing, and 3) managing listings of recipients. There has also been extensive work on http://drupal.org/project/pontomail - which I'm in no place to comment on - but that module may benefit from upgrades, patches and a little TLC.
If you are itching for new development my general sense is that coming up with some kind of IMAP interface that works with other projects complements existing efforts without creating noise. Perhaps you can work with existing projects to get your needs met in a way that continues to leverage others' development efforts.
Submitting, discussing and testing patches is also a great way to learn the Drupal community process and pick up on coding standards and implementation guidelines.
voicemail ?
I am trying to do asterisk + drupal integration. As a part of that I am trying to reuse some module to display asterisk voicemail .
I wanted to extend Mail API folder related hooks .. But it cannot figure out how to give you the emails in a folder .. And how to
create a view so that I can show a player to playback the voicemails ..
I have a specific problem .. anything I think it turns out to be extending node.module ..... Is there any way to give you the emails in a certain folder ? Is there any integration of GUI related hooks that take the rendering/viewing hints from my module.
I think we are in the same stage with our modules .. We have tons of works to do !
Not a bad start
I have reviewed the little code that's in the MAIL_API and I have to say it's a very good beginning. I am currently in the process of finishing these libraries so that they could be used for the Webmail Plus (http://drupal.org/project/webmail_plus) project.
Subscribing...very
Subscribing...very interested in a drupal-based webmail system.
Thanks to all for the effort.
Dr. Goose! No ordinary genius