Question

Im developing a webmail client using Zend framework and gmail IMAP.

Features like moving email from one folder to another ,Flagging,
mail composing,Drafts etc.

Simply it should reflect the same way as you see in the Gmail.

Technically Can any body point me towards right direction.? I mean the zend library supports REST ,JSON,IMAP,

As far as database is concerned im fine and im able to get all the data around 100 MB of data im able to store.

How should my approach be as far as architecture is concerned.Does REST & GMAIL IMAP combinedly can be used to perform manipulations ?

because always the server should always get new mail instantly may be at 5-10 min gap .
PLEASE Advise.

Also does gmail provide REST support to get new emails? OR we have to develop REST SERVER and consume the Rest client?

Also i would appreciate good hyper links to point over for kind of architecture.

Thanks

Mark

Answer 1

Technically Can any body point me towards right direction.? I mean the zend library supports REST ,JSON,IMAP,

These three acronyms have nothing do to with each other.

• REST is an architectural philosophy.
• JSON is a data encoding format.
• IMAP is a protocol for accessing mailboxes.

Yes, Zend Framework has components that deal with all of these things, but that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them.

If you want to access your Gmail account through IMAP, then use one of the Zend_Mail_Storage classes.

Does REST & GMAIL IMAP combinedly can be used to perform manipulations ?

If by that you mean “Can I write a RESTful application that uses IMAP to communicate to Gmail?”, then the answer is yes, yes you can.

the server should always get new mail instantly may be at 5-10 min gap

It sounds like you want a cron job running to continuously poll the server for mail, instead of using an active IMAP connection live whenever the user is making requests.

Also does gmail provide REST support to get new emails?

It took them years to give us just basic IMAP support, I don’t think we’re going to see a RESTful API out of them any time soon. Keep in mind that they earn money based off of ad views. You aren’t viewing ads when you use IMAP.

Also i would appreciate good hyper links to point over for kind of architecture.

Are you kidding? No, really, look at what you’re doing. You’re building a webmail client designed to access another webmail client. Do you realize how incredibly silly that is, my friend? You’re re-inventing a re-invented wheel.

I don’t know of a single worthwhile webmail client outside of Gmail. If you want to study the architecture of other webmail clients in PHP, then take a look at IMP (designed for PHP 4, and therefore ancient), Roundcube, or SquirrelMail. I am not responsible for any brain damage you suffer from reading the source.