[SM-DEVEL] Seriously Dated Interface

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Hi everyone,

I will prefix this by saying that this is my first time posting to this
list and that I have never contributed to SquirrelMail development so feel
free to ignore my question.

However I own a software development firm. We write mostly web-based
business software on .NET framework with an MS-SQL backend. We have been
doing this since the days of “classic” ASP in the late 1990’s. So while I
haven’t contributed specifically to SquirrelMail I do nevertheless have a
pretty good idea of what it takes to develop a robust modern web-based
application that people use every day. I also have a good grasp of what
users expect when it comes to web-based applications. Nevertheless, as I
said before, feel free to ignore my question.

Has the issue of the *seriously dated* user experience of SquirrelMail got
anyone’s attention? With the explosion of web-based email apps (Gmail,
Outlook.com, Microsoft Exchange, RoundCube, etc) users expect a radically
different experience then what they are getting from SquirrelMail. Any IT
administrator deploying SquirrelMail today is likely to be perceived by
their user base as having deployed an archaic solution.

Web-based apps in general (Office 365, Google Docs, Facebook, etc) are
pushing the limits of what’s possible and redefining what users expect.
Let’s ask the hard question: is SquirrelMail even close?!?? Are there any
plans to get it there?

It seems to me (if the screenshots on the squirrelmail.org website are any
indication) that all serious development on SquirrelMail stalled in 2002 or
thereabouts.

Sorry if this sounds harsh...  Today if I was looking for an open source
web-based IMAP client I would be looking at RoundCube – no question.
SquirrelMail was the pioneer. Why aren’t we there?

Best,
Solid Iron

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 9:10 PM, Kevin Buckley <Kev...@ec...>
wrote:

> OS              NetBSD 7.0_STABLE
> Software Stack  PkgSrc
> SquirrelMail    1.4.23pre14605
> Apache 2        Apache/2.2.31 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.31 OpenSSL/1.0.1u DAV/2
> PHP/7.0.13
> PHP             7.0.135.6.28-1
>
>
> Before I start, a bit of info on the SquirrelMail version, because I
> was told that we are reasonably up-to-date, in that the PkgSrc commit
> says:
>
> ----------------------------
> revision 1.131
> date: 2016-11-18 04:10:07 +1300;  author: taca;  state: Exp;  lines: +2
> -3;  commitid: TckPzUpbAFssFuuz;
> Update squirrelmail to 1.4.23pre14605, latest snapshot.
> PHP 7.0 support should be improved, too.
>
>    - Added new "smtp_helo_override" hook; allows plugins to override
>      the HELO host sent to the SMTP server when sending messages
>    - Added STARTTLS support for both IMAP and SMTP connections
>    - Added PDO support for database connections, so no external
>      database module needs to be installed
> ----------------------------
>
> furthermore, I also note that this issue echoes that described in
> this (Dec 2016) devel list posting
>
>     - https://sourceforge.net/p/squirrelmail/mailman/message/35527151/
>
> except that ours
>
> 1) is only using a secure (https) connection
> 2) exhibits the "blank page" but DOESN'T send a message.
> 3) is using PHP7, not the PHP5.
>
> but here we go with the actual issue.
>
> Our School's webservers updated to PHP7 over the weekend and one of the
> issues in the wake of that has been that SquirrelMail works to a degree
> (we're a Uni, but no pun intended) but no longer seems to be able to
> send out mail, either when doing a "Compose" or a reply to.
>
> The webserver logs tell us that, following a click on the "Send" button
> we're falling foul of these four routines
>
> squirrelmail/class/html.class.php
> squirrelmail/class/mime/Disposition.class.php
> squirrelmail/class/mime/Language.class.php
> squirrelmail/class/mime/ContentType.class.php
>
> which give error (not warning) messages akin to
>
> PHP Deprecated:  Methods with the same name as their class will not be
>   constructors in a future version of PHP;
>
> although that might not be the whole story as some parts of SquirrelMail
> clearly still work.
>
> I tried adding in "proper" __constructor functions, in the manner of the
> fix described here
>
>     - https://cweiske.de/tagebuch/php4-constructors-php7.htm
>
> to those four files, however that just moves the same issue down into
> (or possibly across) the SquirrelMail stack, and we see some other
> webserver error logs, three indicating similar "deprecated constructor"
> stuff from different fucntions:
>
> squirrelmail/functions/addressbook.php
> squirrelmail/functions/abook_local_file.php
> squirrelmail/functions/abook_ldap_server.php
>
> however, two more exhibit different errors
>
> PHP Deprecated:  Non-static method Message::parseStructure() should not
> be called statically in
>
> squirrelmail/functions/mime.php  on line 36,
> squirrelmail/class/mime/Message.class.php on line 296,
>
> both with the same referrer
>
> referer:
> https://our.host/squirrelmail/src/right_main.php?PG_SHOWALL=
> 0&sort=0&startMessage=1&mailbox=INBOX
>
>
> Reading around the interweb thing, especially this posting in the
> squirrelmail-devel list
>
>     - https://sourceforge.net/p/squirrelmail/mailman/message/35457393/
>
> suggests that there's a snapshot version out there in which all this may
> have been
> fixed ?
>
> What I'd like to know is whether there is an identifiable set of patches
> that I could use, so to to patch the PkgSrc version of SquirrelMail, rather
> than go straight to a /newer/the most recent/ snapshot version that will
> have extra (or even reduced) functionality, which the PkgSrc folk clearly
> decided wasn't the way forwards for them.
>
> I suppose what I am asking is, did you do the PHP7 updates in an SVN branch
> that I could take the top off, rather than taking the most recent branch
> and
> extracting out only the "solution" to the "deprecated" errors ?
>
> I also suppose that the errors we're seeing could be something else
> altogether!
>
> Either way, and it pretty much covers most "ways", any insight would be
> useful,
>
> Kevin Buckley
> eScience Consultant
> School of Engineering and Computer Science
> Victoria University of Wellington
> New Zealand
>
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