Re: Fetching short text snippet for mails

Hi Paul -

My responses are inline

On 12/11/14 8:48 AM, Paul Smith wrote:
>
> On 11/12/2014 13:41, Stuart Brandt wrote:
>> Is snippet intended to be immutable? A server figuring out how to best
>> parse an HTML body part and offer up of the most meaningful snippet
>> for a user almost assuredly will result in versioning of the
>> extraction algorithm, thereby leading to the potential for a mutable
>> snippet element.
>
> Does it matter?

Yes. Mutable implies the need for synchronizing snippet changes between 
client and server, which in turn might have implications for 
QRESYNC/CONDSTORE or other synchronization approaches.

>
>> Additionally, a fixed sized snippet seems limiting given the trend of
>> using the 'stretch' gesture on mobile devices to expose an increasing
>> amount of snippet/message while viewing a message listing.
>
> Surely the point of 'snippet' is to allow the client to get 100+
> snippets in one FETCH command (like they can get subject, sender, date).
> That has to be quick. If it takes 0.1 seconds per message to
> generate/retrieve the snippet, that's too slow in this situation. Having
> a fixed size snippet will mean that the server can cache/precalculate
> it, making the responses potentially really quick.
>
> Once the user starts interacting with a particular email, then the
> client will probably want to fetch the whole body content, as the user
> is interested in the message. If it takes 0.1 seconds here, it doesn't
> matter.

I don't dispute the value of fixed sized snippet for caching. What I'm 
questioning is whether all clients and all servers should use a single 
fixed size indicated by this spec. Whether it be 'relaxed' vs. 'compact' 
list spacing in desktop Web clients, or pinch/stretch gestures performed 
on a tablet's message list, user viewable snippet sizes are something 
that's been changing over the last few years. Given these changes, 
something along the line of...
- server advertising its max snippet size
- client indicating how much of the snippet it wants
...seems to be a bit more flexible than a fixed size.

- Stuart


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