[X4U] Following a link to a message in Mail.app?

[Stroller]

On 13 Jul 2006, at 15:32, Robert Nicholson wrote:
>
> I maintain a log of incoming email and how it's processed as it's  
> own mail folder using IMAP. So all I basically do is copy the  
> original headers and make the body a short notice about how the  
> mail was filtered.
>
> Q. I want to put a link in the body that actually directs me to the  
> actual message.
>
> Any url style that Mail.app can follow using an IMAP connection if  
> I give it the path to the folder and message id say in the link?
>
> So for example I have the following as the headers
>
> From:   devlists at softchaos.com
> Subject: Re: Newbie - Transparent Path stroking/filling question  
> [Solved]
> Date: July 13, 2006 9:20:28 AM CDT
> To:   vinayprabhu at tataelxsi.co.in
> ....
>
> and the body is just
>
>    Accepting to folder lists/mac/apple/quartz-dev
>
> to let me know where it was processed. I'd like to be able to  
> follow a link in the body to the actual message.

Because, as you say in your later message, your IMAP server doesn't  
know where Mail is going to store the message, I don't think there's  
any way to create a direct link that Mail.app will be able to use to  
open ITS copy of the message.

I can immediately think of two alternatives:
- run a webserver on the mailserver & export the maildir over http.  
It would then be relatively simple to have a link to http:// 
mail.myserver/lists/mac/apple/quartz-dev
- export the maildir over Samba or AFP and have the messages  
associated as an email message filetype. Again, it would be easy to  
create a link.

In both cases the mailserver (realistically) has to use the maildir  
format for storing messages. This stores each message individually,  
rather than as a single file (as in mbox).

In the former case, the message would open in your browser & you can  
only view it, and do nothing else useful with it.
In the latter case you have some work to do for the file association  
(recompile your mailserver to name messages with a reasonably short  
UID & an .emlx suffix??) ; the message opens in Mail.app but you  
still can't do much that's useful with it (beyond clicking "reply" or  
"forward"). The message will not be marked as read on the IMAP server  
(or therefore within Mail.app) and you won't be able to move it  
within folders (without using Finder); I'm not sure what effect  
clicking the delete button would have, but it -might- work as expected.

It seems to me that the best thing to do is have the milter (is that  
the right word? the mail filter on the server - procmail or I use  
Courier's maildrop) add a custom header or a tag to the subject of  
the email (such as "[interesting]") and create a Smart Mailbox  
(10.4.x) to show these messages. I'm not sure, but doubt, if  
Spotlight will search on custom headers, so you might find all the  
square brackets in a subject like "[interesting] Re:  
[NameOfMailingList] Newbie - Transparent Path stroking/filling  
question [Solved]" annoying.

Throwing out more ideas here, it might be possible to modify the  
message subject uniquely, so that one message gets the tag [12345]  
and another [12346]  (use a UUID not a counter, tho'. See `apropos  
uuid`); you may then be able to embed a link into your logging email  
which calls a Spotlight search for [12345] or whatever that unique  
identifier is (something like <spotlight://[12345]> would do this??).

I hope this makes sense. It's kinda early in the morning for me here,  
and -someone- has been sufficiently demanding of attention that my  
brain hasn't had a chance to wake up yet.

Stroller.