MBOX-Line: From dwhite at olp.net  Tue May  3 06:45:41 2011
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Dan White <dwhite@olp.net>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:45 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] Re: Looking for help implementing an
 IMAP-to-HTTP	gateway for web app developers
In-Reply-To: <7D2A9AA5-CC8F-4C8A-A917-4E242E7BCE12@gmail.com>
References: <7D2A9AA5-CC8F-4C8A-A917-4E242E7BCE12@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110503134541.GB6295@dan.olp.net>

On 02/05/11?14:42?-0700, Brian McConnell wrote:
>The idea is quite simple, to make a web service look like an IMAP server
>that a mobile email client can subscribe to. The IMAP-HTTP gateway
>presents an IMAP interface to the email client, which thinks it is talking
>to a mail server, and converts IMAP requests into RESTful HTTP queries to
>the upstream web service.
>
>This will be a simple way for web app developers to create mobile versions
>of their service, by using IMAP to deliver information to the mobile
>device. The logic is that IMAP clients are baked into most devices, run in
>the background as a core service, and have been thoroughly tested. It is a
>bit of a hack, but it makes use of something that is already there.
>
>The only missing piece is a reliable IMAP-HTTP utility. This need not be
>an especially complex program, since it just speaks IMAP to the client,
>and translates IMAP commands (e.g. a request to fetch a list of folders)
>into HTTP requests that are submitted to an upstream service, which
>replies with a formatted response (e.g. a JSON recordset) that, in turn,
>is converted back into IMAP form.

Brian,

A much simpler approach would be to inject your RSS feeds (or other HTTP
content) into an IMAP server via traditional email delivery semantics.

You could probably prototype such a setup in a matter of days by piecing
together existing procmail/sieve, and http/lmtp/smtp/imap libraries for
your preferred scripting language.

-- 
Dan White

