This is an alpha of a Mail::Folder module package for perl5.

This module provides an interface to email folders that is independent
from the physical folders.  The actual work on folders is done with
folder interface modules lying 'beneath' the Mail::Folder interface.

WARNING! Think twice about using this module to modify folders that
WARNING! you consider important.  At the very least make sure you have
WARNING! backup copies.

WARNING! This code is in evaluation phase.  The interface will
WARNING! probably change in non-backwards-compatible ways.

To build and install the package execute the following commands:
	perl Makefile.PL
	make			# optional
	make test		# optional :-)
	make install

The TODO file has information on features that aren't present yet.
The NEWS file has summary information on the changes from release to
release.

The following modules are required:
    MailTools		- for handling mail messages
    File-Tools		- for file copying in the mbox interface
    TimeDate		- for date field slurping in the mbox interface
    File-BasicFLock	- for folder locking in the mbox interface

I've included two folder interfaces:
    + Mail::Folder::Mbox - ye olde standard mailbox format (ugh).
    + Mail::Folder::Emaul - an amoebic folder interface of my own design.
	It is vaguely MHish. Eventually, it will grow into a
	full-featured folder architecture, but for now it's an
	adequate example.  It will never be a 100% MH interface, but
	it can actually read MH folders, albeit without some of the
	fancier MHisms like sequences and the like.

These interfaces should serve as reasonable examples of hooking a
folder interface into Mail::Folder.

I don't plan on writing a lot of interfaces, myself, but here is a
list of some of the ones I'm interested in enough to write (in order
of likelihood):
    + maildir (qmail)
    + nntp
    + imap

The examples directory contains some sample uses:
    + getpop.pl	- a simple pop slurper (uses Net::POP3).
	It doesn't do anything fancy like use a config file or store
	the password in encrypted form, but it actually works. If you
	use it, make sure you use the appropriate permissions on the
	executable.  I might get around to adding encrypted storage of
	the configuration information at some later date. (contact me
	if you would like to add that feature yourself - I'll probably
	incorporate your changes into the base)
    + from.pl	- a simple variant of from(1).
	It doesn't do any command-line processing, but it does the
	basics.  You will probably note that it is considerably slower
	than from(1) or frm(1L).

Check the documentation for Mail::Folder and the provided folder
interfaces for information on using the package and adding folder
interfaces.  Please let me know if you run across something needs to
be documented better.

I'm still pondering the details of interfacing to MailTools and
MIME-parser.  Expect changes related to this.

It is 'highly unlikely' that Mail::Folder will ever be capable of
abstracting every folder feature of every MUA out there in a truly
transparent way.  I don't, however, think that this detracts from some
of it's more interesting potential uses:
    + 100% pure perl MUAs
    + perl scripting against mail folders
      (folder conversions are a snap :-)
    + accessing folders from otherwise non-email packages

Please report any bugs/suggestions to <kjj@primenet.com>.

Copyright (c) 1996 Kevin Johnson <kjj@primenet.com>.

All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.