IDLE-like support for web client

[Rich Graves]

Now that you have IDLE in the IMAP server, are you looking to do the same for the web?

The minimum 2-minute lag between email delivery and visibility in the web interface is going to be noticed by our users. Having them bang on "check mail" isn't in anyone's interest.

There are AJAX toolkits out there (used especially in the financial industry; heard some Dow Jones engineers talk about theirs about a year ago) that replace polling with persistent connections and server-push. The DJ guys said they were supporting 50,000 simultaneous real-time push connections per Dell 1850, using custom multithreaded C# code. It "should" be possible to scale Java similarly.

[dkarp]

Yes, we'll be adding this functionality to the AJAX client in a future release. The infrastructure for this is already in place -- see some of the recent checkins on bug 7074 -- but tomcat (our current servlet container) requires a thread per connection in order to make that work, which won't scale. Once we support an alternative container (e.g. jetty), you should see this feature.

[Rich Graves]

Okey-dokey, thanks for the explanation.

I guess our users will learn to hit "check mail" then. Guess that's no worse than the current habit of flapping in and out of INBOX in IMP or GroupWise Web Access.

Btw, the bug is private, so I can't vote for it.

[yonatan]

Originally Posted by dkarp

Yes, we'll be adding this functionality to the AJAX client in a future release. The infrastructure for this is already in place -- see some of the recent checkins on bug 7074 -- but tomcat (our current servlet container) requires a thread per connection in order to make that work, which won't scale. Once we support an alternative container (e.g. jetty), you should see this feature.

I know that this is an old thread, but I'm using 6.0.9 and incoming emails are not appearing "instantly" as they do with a client mail app supporting IDLE. It seems as if the web client is polling with the default 5 min interval.

Does the web client support instant delivery?

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by yonatan

I know that this is an old thread, but I'm using 6.0.9 and incoming emails are not appearing "instantly" as they do with a client mail app supporting IDLE. It seems as if the web client is polling with the default 5 min interval.

Does the web client support instant delivery?

No, it's polled for incoming email per the setting in the user preferences. IMAP idle is used when you connect to the server via an IMAP client only.

[yonatan]

Originally Posted by phoenix

No, it's polled for incoming email per the setting in the user preferences. IMAP idle is used when you connect to the server via an IMAP client only.

Ok, so what dkarp said above was never implemented or still work in progress?

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by yonatan

Ok, so what dkarp said above was never implemented or still work in progress?

I don't believe it's in the current Ajax client but I'm sure Dan will correct me if that's wrong. You will find that Zimbra Desktop gets email instantly for a connection to a Zimbra server.

[Rich Graves]

It's been in the Ajax client since 6.0. Your account or CoS needs zimbraFeatureInstantNotify TRUE. In the web interface, that's Instant Messaging -> Enable instant notifications. I don't know if it's still supported in 7.0, from which IM is removed.

[yonatan]

Originally Posted by Rich Graves

It's been in the Ajax client since 6.0. Your account or CoS needs zimbraFeatureInstantNotify TRUE. In the web interface, that's Instant Messaging -> Enable instant notifications. I don't know if it's still supported in 7.0, from which IM is removed.

Rich, I just checked and by default "Instant Notifications" is enabled. However, I'm not receiving email via the web client "instantly". I'm not sure, but doesn't this option refer to the IM feature and has nothing to do with email.

[Rich Graves]

"Works for me." Set my prefs to poll only every 8 minutes, email a message, and it instantly shows up in Inbox. Email another message, instantly shows up.

There are two prefs settings, an umbrella for InstantNotify and another for IM.

It's posssible that something else is needed at the gacf, localconfig, server, or cos level, but I can't immediately find anything relevant.