dm.zope.notmuchmail 0.1b1
Zope interface to the email indexer and retriever `notmuch[mail]`
License: BSD
Keywords: email retrieval zope notmuchmail notmuch

This package contains a Zope [2] interface to the ``notmuch``
package (http://notmuchmail.org/). ``notmuch`` is used for email
indexing and fast retrieval. This package exposes its retrieval
capabilities through Zope.


Functionality
=============

The package defines two email search views ``email_search_simple``
and ``email_search_combined``.

``email_search_simple`` presents a simple search form with
a single field ``Search terms``. In this field, you specify
what should be retrieved according to the following
extract from the ``notmuch`` documentation::

       The  search  terms  can  consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases)
       which  will  match  all  messages  that  contain  all  of   the   given
       terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or recipient headers.

       As a special case, a search  string  consisting  of  exactly  a  single
       asterisk ("*") will match all messages.

       In  addition  to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force
       terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets>
       indicate user-supplied values):

            from:<name-or-address>

            to:<name-or-address>

            subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>

            attachment:<word>

            tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)

            id:<message-id>

            thread:<thread-id>

            folder:<directory-path>

       The  from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of
       an email message.

       The to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any recipient
       of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).

       Any  term  prefixed with subject: will match only text from the subject
       of an email. Searching for a phrase in  the  subject  is  supported  by
       including quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following subject:.

       The attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or
       extensions) of attachments to email messages.

       For  tag:  and is: valid tag values include inbox and unread by default
       for new messages added by notmuch new as well as any other  tag  values
       added manually with notmuch tag.

       For  id:, message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID:
       header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.

       The thread: prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are  generated  internally  by  notmuch  (and do not appear in email messages).
       These thread ID values can be seen in the first column of  output  from
       notmuch search

       The  folder:  prefix can be used to search for email message files that
       are contained within particular directories within the mail store. Only
       the  directory  components  below  the top-level mail database path are
       available to be searched.

       In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can  be  combined  with
       Boolean  operators  ( and, or, not , etc.). Each term in the query will
       be implicitly connected by a logical AND if  no  explicit  operator  is
       provided,  (except  that  terms with a common prefix will be implicitly
       combined with OR until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed).

       Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the  Boolean
       operators.

       Finally, results can be restricted to only messages within a particular
       time range, (based on the Date: header) with a syntax of:

            <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>

       Each timestamp is a number representing the  number  of  seconds  since
       1970-01-01  00:00:00  UTC.  This  is  not  the most convenient means of
       expressing date ranges, but until notmuch is fixed  to  accept  a  more
       convenient  form, one can use the date program to construct timestamps.
       For example, with the bash shell the following syntax would  specify  a
       date range to return messages from 2009-10-01 until the current time:

            $(date +%s -d 2009-10-01)..$(date +%s)


When you submit the form, an overview of those threads will be presented
containing at least one matching message. You can then examine
a selected thread: this shows you selected header information for
the contained messages. Finally, you can examine a selected message.
Currently, the package does not yet show message attachments
and is tested only for plain text messages (as I do not use
HTML messages, for security and privacy reasons).

``email_search_combined`` combines the search form and the thread overview
in a single page. It is this view, you would usually use.


User interfaces
===============

The package currently supports 2 user interfaces: one based
on JavaScript (more precisely ``jquery`` (http://jquery.com/))
and a pure HTML interface.

In the JavaScript based interface, thread and message details
are shown directly on the threads overview page (using AJAX calls
and dynamic HTML); in the pure HTML interface, those details
are shown in separate windows (or tabs).

The interfaces are not switched automatically based on
JavaScript availability in the browser. However, the
JavaScript based interface should work similar to the
pure HTML interface if JavaScript is disabled (though it looks
a bit funny in this setup).

You decide during configuration which of the two interfaces
is used.


Installation
============

This package requires Zope 2.12 or higher.

This package should be installable by any of the typical means used
in a Zope 2 environment ("buildout", "easy_install", "pip").

However, it depends on the ``notmuch`` Python package
(https://pypi.python.org/pypi/notmuch). In order to facilitate
the use of a corresponding operating system package (called
``python-notmuch`` in Debian systems), this dependency is not
declared and you must make this package manually available in
your Zope environment.

In addition, this packages is only useful, when you have set up
a ``notmuch`` database which indexes the email messages you are
interested in. Consult the ``notmuch`` documentation for details.


Configuration
=============

The configuration consists of 3 mandatory parts:

 1.

   register the package's views.

   This currently is done by including the ZCML
   of ``dm.zope2.notmuchmail.browser.standalone``
   in your overall ZCML configuration.

   I plan to support a Plone integration in the future.
   This integration would use Plone's ``formlib`` integration
   and Plone's ``main_template`` as base rather than provide
   a standalone base. Looking at the source of ``standalone``,
   it should not be difficult to implement a Plone integration
   (in case, you need one before I support it).

 2.
 
   provide access to the ``notmuch`` database which indexes
   the interesting mails.

   This is done by registering a
   ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.interfaces.INotMuchDatabase`` utility.
   To implement such a utility, you can use
   ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.notmuchmail.NotMuchDatabase``.
   Its constructor gets the path to the maildir indexed by
   ``notmuch``. If you do not provide the path, then
   standard ``notmuch`` configuration decides where to find
   the database - usually one configured for the user running
   the Zope process.
   ``dm.zope.notmuchmail:user.zcml`` registers the utility in
   such a way.

 3.

   define at what objects (in the Zope hierarchy) which
   user interface should be available.

   The JavaScript based interface is available at an object,
   if this objects provides
   ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.browser.interfaces.IJqUi``;
   the pure HTML based interface is available, if it
   does not provide
   ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.browser.interfaces.IJqUi``
   but provides ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.browser.interfaces.IUi``.

   You can use the ``Interfaces`` tab of the
   "Zope Management Interface" (aka "ZMI")
   of an object, to add interfaces to its set of provided interfaces.
   Alternatively, you could use a ZCML ``class`` directive
   to let all objects of the respective class provide a specified
   interface.

Beside these mandatory configuration steps (whithout them, you
cannot use the functionality), there is an optional configuration:
you can define additional message header fields.
To do this, you register an adapter providing
``dm.zope.notmuchmail.interfaces.IAdditionalHeaderItems``
for ``dm.zope.notmuchmail.notmuchmail._Delegator`` objects (those
are wrappers around ``notmuch`` messages). It must return
a sequence of name/value items. Each element
in the sequence is interpreted as an additional message header field
(with its corresponding value).