I should have been more clear about #3.
Basically as noted, on the IMAP server, all user folders as sub-folders of INBOX. So a standard users folders are actually.
Code:
INBOX
+- Drafts
+- Sent Items
+- Trash
These have the full respective names
Code:
INBOX
INBOX.Drafts
INBOX.Sent Items
INBOX.Trash
Now the web-interface automatically promotes the sub-folders of INBOX to the next level up, and renames INBOX -> Inbox to create
Code:
Inbox
Drafts
Sent Items
Trash
For most email clients, setting the "root prefix" to INBOX will do that as well making the web interface and your IMAP clients folder list look the same (eg Outlook Express, Mail App, Thunderbird, etc)
Now if all folders are already sub-folders of INBOX, how do you really create a sub-folder of INBOX? Well you do it by appending Inbox again. Eg.
Code:
INBOX
INBOX.Inbox.foo
INBOX.Inbox.bar
INBOX.Sent Items
Would appear as:
Code:
Inbox
+- foo
+- bar
Sent Items
In the web interface. It seems many email clients don't handle that well at all, and Mail App seems to "bounce" between working/not-working each time you restart it if you have sub-folders of Inbox, at least I believe that's what was being reported by some people.
Additionally there's one other problem. There's a second "namespace" that's not "INBOX". It's "user". When you use shared folders, those folders appear in the "user" namespace. So if you have standard folders, and the user "foo" shares their INBOX & their Drafts folders with you, the underlying folder listing will be:
Code:
INBOX
INBOX.Drafts
INBOX.Sent Items
INBOX.Trash
user.foo
user.foo.Drafts
Which the web interface would display as:
Code:
Inbox
Drafts
Sent Items
Trash
user
+- foo
+- Drafts
Now when you set the INBOX root prefix in some clients, that will make them "hide" the "user" namespace, so you won't be able to use shared folders (eg Outlook Express, Mail App). Others still do show it (Thunderbird). In fact TB shows it almost exactly the same as the web interface!
So if you're using shared folders, and you use Mail App or Outlook Express, you have to set the root prefix to "" (blank), and you have to live with the folder tree looking like:
Code:
Inbox
+- Drafts
+- Sent Items
+- Trash
user
+- foo
+- Drafts
However there's now one additional problem! Mail App checks with the IMAP server for the available namespaces, which our IMAP server returns as "INBOX" and "user". If your root prefix isn't "INBOX", it now warns you and asks you if you want to reset it to INBOX. Doing so of course hides the "user" namespace.
So at the moment, users who want to use shared folders in Mail App are a bit screwed unfortunately. Yay Apple for trying to fix a problem, and in the process, screwing it up, and giving no way to stop it trying to "fix" the problem every time. *sigh*
Hmmm, one other thing to try in Mail App for shared folders. Create two accounts. In one account, set the prefix to "INBOX", in the second, set it to "user". I wonder if it's smart enough to see that "user" is the second namespace returned, and not prompt the user to change it back to INBOX...
Rob