Re: [PATCH v2] send-email: add ability to send a copy of sent emails to an IMAP folder

Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@live.com> writes:

Exactly. You sold this feature as "have send-email send the message, and keep an extra copy you sent in your Sent imap folder".

I pointed out that "have send-email do everything it would normally do before it talks to MSA or talk SMTP to send messages out, and instead drive imap-send to store these messages in a folder like imap-send users have used the program so far---as the user will send the messages out of their draft folder as was traditionally done by any imap-send users, send-email will *not* send anything out itself" as a possible different way send-email may want to use imap-send.

These are two very different use cases. We could organize things this way:

 A1. When imap-folder is specified, that IMAP folder will get an extra
     copy, in addition to what send-email sends out;

 A2. When yet another new option, --send-email-no-send, is
     specified, send-email would not send any messages out.  Even
     when this option is in effect, if --imap-folder is specified,
     that IMAP folder will get an extra copy, in addition to what
     send-email would send out (which is nothing).

Or alternatively, we can have two very different operation modes that both involve imap-send:

 B1. When --imap-sent-folder is specified, that IMAP folder will get
     an extra copy, in addition to what send-email sent out via its
     usual route (like by invoking MSA or talking SMTP)

 B2. When --imap-outgo-folder is specified, that IMAP folder will
     get the outgo copy, later to be sent by the user (just like a
     user of imap-send would usually use), and send-email would not
     send out anything by its usual route.

I thought the latter would be easier to explain to end-users, which is why "sent" or "fcc" or something like that should be in the name of the option when operating in the mode the patch implements.

This brings up a yet another possibility. Invoking imap-send can be a new third way send-email uses to send out the messages, in addition to existing (1) invoking a local "/usr/lib/sendmail" program, or (2) talking SMTP to smarthost. That would be very easy to explain the operating mode B2 to users of send-email or users of imap-send, but it would be a bit awkward to find where B1 conceptually fits.