Re: Modern mail archive layout using mhonarc

[Earl Hood <earl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On February 23, 2009 at 11:54, Ngieen Siao-Mak wrote:

> Did anyone try to layout a mail archive with features and layout that are
> similar to Google Groups? Is it possible? What does it required?

Not sure if this will help you, but years ago, I did a custom job for
Cisco to support the generation of a "discussion" pages.  These were
pages that contain all the messages of a thread.  The nature of
the contract allowed me to do the work under the GPL, so I can
redistribute it.

I was hoping to modify the work and repackage it for a more general
audience, but never did it.  However, for those interested, your
can download the custom script at the following location:

  http://www.mhonarc.org/cisco/

v0.2.3 was the last version done.  Documentation is provided
describing how it works.  The mha-cisco script is a good example
of utilizing the simple API mhonarc provides to extend it functionality.

BTW, the core, venerable code base of mhonarc makes certain things
difficult, especially functionality that implies a more dynamic nature.
And scalability is a problem for large archives.  Mhonarc is a good
example of a program that has out-grown its original intentions :)

Work-arounds do exist to work with scalability issues, but they
can vary depending on the operating model one wants to achieve.

I've considered numerous times to redesign and re-implement mhonarc,
but there has been little motivation to do so.  The work will take
a non-trivial amount of time, and I have other priorities.

--ewh