[haiku-development] Re: Working on Haiku's Mail app

  • From: "Alexander G. M. Smith" <agmsmith@xxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:12:16 -0500 EST

Humdinger wrote on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:36:23 +0100:
> I like Haiku's email system very much, and the idea of single files, 
> queries and a quick and simple app like Mail. That said, there are a 
> few small bug-fixes and improvements that would make it so much better.
> From past comments, I gather that the code of it all is kinda messy. Is 
> that correct?

I like the messages as files system too.  As for code quality,
I've seen worse.  I've seen better too.  It's sort of in the middle,
nothing super stupid but it could be better organised and commented.

> I was wondering, how feasible is it for somebody (not me, goodness!) 
> not familiar with the code to change and improve stuff? For example 
> some of the open tickets:

Some are fairly easy to add, like adding CC display.  You mostly need
BeOS GUI code writing experience.  Others require understanding the
underlying library for MIME data (and fixing it) or fidding with the
daemon code.

> Plus, I have an IMHO neat little idea concerning queries that doesn't 
> strike me as difficult to implement, but would change the view layout 
> of the New-Mail window a bit. (Can the window layout when reading mails 
> be different than when writing a mail?)

It could be, but why should it?  Other than headers, the user has to
put in the same information that the mail recipient reads (subject,
To, etc).  There are already slight variations, but they're mostly
just the addition or removal of a field at the top of the window.

You have noticed the pre-made queries in the mail menu on the deskbar?

Perhaps it should be reworked to use a newer window layout system?
And have better localisation.

Or write a new mail viewing/editing program using the existing
MIME libraries to parse the messages.

- Alex

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