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Open Source AJAX Webmail
scrasher writes "It seems AJAX webmail is all the craze. Right on the heels of both Microsoft and Yahoo launching beta versions of their new AJAX webmail clients, an Open Source startup RoundCube has released an alpha of a GPLed AJAX webmail client. While there are still many features missing (like search!), the demo they have is completely cross-browser compliant and overall very impressive."
except that is just another fancy name for a bundle of not so recent technologies
Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!
No one is "falling" for anything. It's a name that works for a useful technology.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Zimbra is pretty much full featured, and does allot more (AJAX wise and otherwise) than Roundcube. Give it a look too. Having said that, Roundcube is basically one person, and it's a very impressive project in that regards; nice clean UI, and a somewhat new way to deal with 'webmail'. I see Zimbra as being a great comapany (all stuff is 'ZPL' btw) but Roundcube should attract some devs now, and I expect it to be a real nice 'light' solution for us home mailserver folks.
fak3r.com
I would recommend that you use a system that has some horsepower. I installed Zimbra on a p4 3.0 Ghz HT 1GB ram box (my workstation), and experienced some heavy load. Not only that but it takes the liberty of rewriting your firewall ruleset, so I wouldn't use an existing system without being prepared for service / connectivity interruptions (linux gateway/firewalls). Sure, it is still in beta, so I will give it that excuse, I couldn't imagine releasing the horde on it for production use yet. If this one doesn't require all sorts of backends, I might give it a try.
I haven't yet installed it, but it sure looks slick. Damn, and the installation requirements are just this simple. 1. Decompress and put this folder somewhere inside your document root 2. Make shure that the following directories are writable by the webserver - /temp
- /logs
3. Create a new database and a database user for RoundCube
4. Create database tables using the queries in file 'SQL/*.initial.sql'
5. Modify the files in config/* to suit your local environment
6. Done!
Whats commonly confused in the community, if there is no client-side xsl transformations using the browser, their is still interface load. This is not a true AJAX imap client, it is an AJA, and the xml is rendered server-side to xhtml standards.
If you are interested in a pure implementation that has been around longer thats true ajax, check out http://www.communik8r.org/
I have just installed it for the first time, but it appears that the caching portion is completely optional.
// enable caching of messages and mailbox data in the local database.
// this is recommended if the IMAP server does not run on the same machine
$rcmail_config['enable_caching'] = FALSE;
yeah, Zimbra is a collaborative suite, presumably a replacement for another one.
Roundcube is a nice client for IMAP email access that leaves everything in tact (probably a lot lower requirements too).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
right, so I see it like this:
RoundCube = Squirrelmail = Horde != Zimbra = Hula Project = OpenExchange = Exchange
Ok I'm oversimplifying it, but that's how I'm thinking of the relation of the various projects now.
fak3r.com
Microsoft Outlook Web Access, included with Exchange Server, is widely recognized to be the first real AJAX application. The 2000 version was the first browser app I every used that made me say "wow, how the hell did they do that?". No Java applet or ActiveX, but it felt like a real, usable desktop application. Context menus and everything, with few full-page refreshes.
Google has done quite a bit to elevate the profile of AJAX with the Slashdot crowd, but other people were definitely "really using it" long before Google.