Managing IMAP

SilkyMail

When we saw the racy opening graphics of the SilkyMail demo, we weren’t sure whether we were at the right site. Our anticipation was rewarded with a web-based IMAP client that meets the same high standards as Cyrusoft’s MUA, Mulberry (evaluated in Chapter 4, IMAP Clients ).

Overview

SilkyMail is a PHP application that is based on the IMP client mentioned earlier in this chapter. SilkyMail’s added values are IMSP support, an improved user interface, simplified packaging, installation, and improvements in ease of customization. SilkyMail is different from all the other clients we evaluated. It’s more like a complete IMAP client that runs within a web browser. In fact, the look and feel of SilkyMail are strikingly similar to the popular Mulberry IMAP client for Windows and Macintosh.

SilkyMail is robust enough to point to any IMAP server containing mailboxes with huge numbers of folders. Like its standard IMAP client cousin, Mulberry, SilkyMail gives you access to all the IMAP state and flag information for each folder. The message indexes can also be selected or sorted on any header field or flag. This is definitely the webmail client that could wean your users off their free email accounts.

Like IMP, SilkyMail relies heavily on the features of PHP. What this means to the user is that SilkyMail is very non-demanding of their particular browser. No JavaScript, Java support, or other whiz-bang features are required.

More information on SilkyMail, including a FAQ, is ...