[plug] client-server e-mail query system?

[Denis Brown]

At 23:47 9/07/2003 +0800, I wrote:
<snip>
>I'd like to search for, retrieve and display only selected e-mails from a
>large mail spool rather than use a more conventional IMAP+browser or
>MTA+text client like pine, elm, ...   I'd like to do this over a low
>bandwidth link.   Consider this example:
<snip>

Many thanks to those who responded.   I'm happy to know that it wasn't 
quite the trivial query I feared and also there seem to be a variety of 
solutions on offer.

Russ, I will look into swish++ since I do have rights on the server.

James, yes mbox format was what I had in mind and the lack of indexing 
seemed the stumbling block.   Hence the DB-like thought.  I'll have a look 
at the alternative formats you suggested, as well as the procmail index 
creation.   Storing e-mails in discrete folders is a great idea but mayn't 
be ideal for me because my search criteria may not marry with my folder 
design.   But it is a good start.   As to "how would it download unwanted 
mail?", perhaps I need to do some reading on how IMAP works.

The concept of running the mail client on the same host as the mail server 
is intriguing.  And access it from the remote (thinly-connected) machine 
how?   VPN of some sort.   Sorry, a mental block.   And apologies... "mutt" 
is what I meant :-)

Ryan - thanks, Horde IMP3 is sounding close.   You say it's an LAMP 
app?   I can see a bit of candle-burning going on by me tonight!

Andrew - grepmail?   Sounds intriguing.   More candles!   James' response 
to this got me thinking - the results could go to a "results" mailbox 
(folder, whatever) and the client gets pointed to that.   "Results" mailbox 
gets overwritten whenever a fresh query is generated.  Feasible?

Craig - IMAP then just sends to the client (browser) a results page?   No 
flicking through page after page of mails?   Maybe I've been guilty of 
misunderstanding IMAP.

Many thanks for the responses, now it's reading time :-)
Cheers,
Denis