[Alpine-info] Re: no message status updates from gmail

[Eduardo Chappa]

On Wed, 4 Aug 2010, Tim K. (Gmane) wrote:


:) I think if I hit ctrl+l in Alpine it pushes the changes, it seems to 

:) for me. If I leave the Inbox in TB, go to a different folder and back 

:) to Inbox I see the flag update.


I do not know how Thunderbird handles the situation you describe. In 
Alpine, unless you are using a "stay open" folder, the folder you leave is 
closed, and so when you come back to it, the folder is reopened and all 
new status appear.

But here is the bottom line. One of the reasons IMAP exists is so that you 
do not have to do these kind of "tricks" to see updates. The "know it all" 
server is supposed to tell its clients that updates have happened. It is 
not the job of the client to guess them, or even ask if any updates have 
happened. The server is supposed to say "a flag has been changed", "a 
message has been expunged". Unfortunately, I do not see certain updates 
being reported from the Gmail server, such as "this message that you have 
flagged with a N, was actually read, and so you should delete the N". The 
Gmail server just won't report that. Alpine has no way of knowing that 
information under normal conditions. I will try the IDLE command, maybe 
that will change things.

-- 
Eduardo
http://staff.washington.edu/chappa/alpine/