Webmail The new WING Tony Brett Oxford University

Webmail: The new WING Tony Brett Oxford University Computing Services Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Agenda • • • History Why the change? What the users wanted – the ‘competition’ Early mock-ups and the final result What it runs on Major changes Gotchas Future Developments Resources Questions Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

History • Herald came into existence in 1998 • WING – Web IMAP News Gateway • Never intended to be used as heavily as it is now. Meant as a backup, with most people using IMAP clients with a few POP 3 • WING predates ethernet in all student rooms Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Why the Change? • • WING considered outdated Clumsy interface Hard to act on multiple messages Volume of E-mail, especially SPAM has increased dramatically – Better tools needed to handle this • Needed a more intuitive and modern feel to web interface • Chose an interim fix rather than a complete rewrite Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

What the users wanted • Consistent visual appearance • Easier message selection and sorting – Operations on multiple messages • • Word wrap on read and compose More powerful search tools More flexible filtering Improved attachment/browser handling • Easier-to-use address book – Including import from WING Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

The Competition Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Some early mock-ups Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

The final result Move around the folder Where you are in the folder Folder heirarchy Sort columns Folder name Message select checkboxes Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

What it runs on • 8 PCs running Debian Stable (Woody) – 2. 66 Ghz P 4 – 1 GB RAM each – Load-balanced cluster • Apache & mod_perl • 800 concurrent users as of 11 am today, have seen 10, 000 different people already! • WING ran (runs) on 8 Machines, PII 350 512 MB RAM Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Major Changes (1) • Consistent and clearer visual appearance • Checkbox selection of messages – Operate on multiple messages • Sorting in the folder view • Wrapping – read and compose • Filtering – Blacklist & Whitelist – Junk-mail spam assassin threshold – Trash (do not deliver) spam assasin threshold • SSL-only. Globalsign certificate – webmail. ox. ac. uk and *. herald. ox. ac. uk so browsers shouldn’t moan now Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Major Changes (2) • No longer supporting the SPAM filtering on XOxmail-Warning: header. – SPAM scores give user much more control • Attachments work better for users – We’ve worked round the IE bug that causes corrupted filenames and [1] on the end of extensions • Manage and Options screens merged and made consistent • Status Page – Bar display for mailbox usage – Last login details – Completion date • Context-sensitive help Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Gotchas • Netscape 4 • Lynx • Auto-forwards after the filters now. – WING sent everything • Vacation, forward and filtering have no effect on WING once they’ve been modified on Webmail • WING address book migration – Finding the button! – Multiple WING address books – Groups Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Future Developments • Remote access to address book (LDAP) by mail clients • Import from other address book formats • Flexible server-side filtering • Rewrite in XML • Forward with attachment Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004

Resources • • https: //webmail. ox. ac. uk/ http: //www. oucs. ox. ac. uk/email/webmail/ http: //web-imap. sourceforge. net/ http: //www. oucs. ox. ac. uk/network/smtp/scores. txt/ Tony Brett IT Support Staff Seminar 2 March 2004