Jazilla

I have divided the things that need to be done into different lists for each of the components of the Mail/News Client:

1. General
2. Front End/User Interface
3. Mail/News Preferences
4. Jazilla Mail/News Back End
5. Jazilla/Grendel Interface
6. Grendel

If you would like to work on any of the Mail/News code, let me know.

• We need is a cool name for the Mail/News client. Mail/News tends to lack something and is too much of a pain to say over and over. In Netscape, it's called Messenger. For right now, I'm soliciting suggestions. We can make decisions when something starts working. As I get suggestions for the name, I'll list them here.

  Suggested Mail/News Client Names

  1. Messenger - Would Netscape/AOL object to us using this name_

• Another thing we need is something that extends beyond Mail/News into the browser part; access and handling of Apple specific MIME types and the resource fork. I recently discovered it doesn't require native methods, but it does require someone who is Mac-savvy to work on it. If you're interested in working on Mac-specific things, give us a shout.
• Other things that affect multiple levels of the Mail/News client:
  1. JavaMail NNTP Implementation (as part of Grendel_)
  2. JavaMail AOL Mail Implementation (as part of Grendel_)
  3. Address Book/LDAP Server
  4. Intelligent Filters
  5. Integration and testing of everything (when it works)
  6. Display of complex letters/articles (e.g. graphics, sound, etc.)
  7. Encryption and Authentication of letters/articles with these formats:
     • S/MIME
     • PGP (both old and new styles)
  8. Integration of technologies like vCard (and vCalendar)

• Basically, everything. I've started some basic code in the "org.mozilla.mozilla.javafe.mail" package. It only brings up a basic window there. To test what I've got, run "org.mozilla.mozilla.javafe.mail.MailWindow". Please ask before starting to work on anything in the package. I don't check in my current work until it compiles, so very often I have modified several files locally.

• We need to list all preference strings used by mail and news. Many of these can be discovered by examining the prefs.js file generated by Netscape 4.x. Most of the relevant strings start with "mail.", "news.", or "mailnews.". As I identify them, I'll list them here.

  Mail/News Preference Strings

  • Mail directory - "mail.directory"
  • News directory - "news.directory"

• Someone needs to create the preferences pages to set all this up.

• Basically, everything (do you see a theme developing here_ ;). The basic code lives the "org.mozilla.mozilla.lib.mailnews" package, but so far nothing is checked in. I'm going to try to get something here before I expose you to it. ;)

• Everything. My effort to date is in trying to understand which part of grendel I need to look at. If grendel gets hooked into JavaMail properly, this section may be moot (everything goes through JavaMail). If not, hopefully we can keep this section to a minimum.

• We need to make grendel hook itself into JavaMail. From what I understand, right now grendel needs to be called directly.
• In some cases, Grendel (actually, in any Java-based mail client) will require native methods. These are:
  1. File-locking on UNIX - This is low priority
  2. File permissions on multi-user machines (UNIX, WinNT Server) - This is a must have item

  If you want my extended explanation of these cases, email me and I'll forward a copy. In any case, this is low priority. If the rest of the client is non-functional, there is no point in bothering.

  Unfortunately, I haven't examined grendel code closely enough to know exactly where these go. I'm guessing the file locking and permissions code will need to be applied somewhere in the grendel.storage package.