Re: [Jmap] WG Review: JSON Mail Access Protocol (jmap) - reducing configuration complexity

[Ted Lemon <mellon@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 7, 2017, at 9:21 AM, Dave Crocker <dhc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It would be nice to see config dialogs where user’s are asked for
minimal information (user name, perhaps server name) and then the device
discovers what is available there (Mail/Contacts/Calendar/…) and offers
the user a way to select them and

This issue is for user interface design, not underlying protocol design.  Hence while it is extremely important in terms of usability, it is outside the scope of the IETF.

I must beg to differ.   While it's true that we don't care explicitly about UI, we certainly care about enabling UIs that work.   Providing a query that returns the information required to send mail is definitely worth doing.   Of course, that could be just allowing a message to be uploaded, and having a command that says "deliver this message".   It's not clear to me that submission by way of SMTP is actually a win here—it's really an extra step, since you probably were going to save the draft using the mailbox protocol anyway.