mail features
We have been developing web-based mail systems since 1996, and we have sold
web-based mail products on the commercial market since 1997. The feature set
provided by Endymion Mail is the culmination of years of experience in the web-based
mail market. Our experience has taught us what features your users will be interested
in seeing in a mail product. We also have a sense of what features are not worth
including because they confuse users or provide little benefit. We have seen
first-hand the sort of problems that you might run into when you plan and implement
your web-based email system and we have worked to make the entire process as
smooth as possible Endymion Mail provides a feature set that is the result of
years of thoughtful refinement, we do not simply throw in every new feature
possible. We consider these features to be of critical importance to a web-mail
system:
elegant interface
The mail interface in Endymion Mail is the result of years of refinement
of web-based mail interfaces in several different products. We design for
simplicity and usability and we always have the user's overall experience
in mind. The features that we include are the features that we know that users
really do commonly request. Features that we know that users don't really
use, we leave out of the interface. Our interface is easy for your users to
understand, so you will hear fewer questions and problems from your users.
We hear fewer questions and problems from you, and everybody wins.
IMAP and POP3 support
Endymion Mail can display mailboxes on IMAP mail servers, display mailboxes
on POP3 servers, or it can download mail from POP3 mailboxes into a local
message store on the web server. Configurable, swappable drivers provide access
to the mail store, so we can provide drivers that directly access mail spool
files or "maildir" mailboxes if there is a demand. If you need your
web site's web mail system to access a custom mail store of some kind and
you are looking for a web mail application that provides you with the flexibility
to develop your own mailbox access drivers, then Endymion Mail is what you're
looking for.
SMTP or Sendmail support
Endymion Mail can send outbound messages using either a standard SMTP server,
or it can directly access your "sendmail" executable on your web
server for sending messages. We can add support for any new outbound mail
systems that we see demand for.
attachments
The MIME processor component is extremely sophisticated and can
handle extremely complex MIME messages and display them elegantly to the user.
Our message rendering engine has been under constant development and refinement
since 1997. We know how to build a MIME processor. Looking for a web mail
system that can handle those forwards of forwards of forwards of MHTML messages
that include HTML-formatted newsletters with some images referenced externally
and some images included as attachments in the message? Endymion Mail can
do that, no problem.
address book
The Endymion Engine provides a mechanism
for providing an address book while staying agnostic about where the data
lives. We can plug in drivers that support any kind of address book that you
can imagine. We provide one that we like that stores address books in simple
flat text files. We can provide other modules when we see demand for them,
or if you have a unique system that you need to build custom access software
for, you can do that. We will help you to develop the simple Perl drivers
necessary to access your data or you can hire us to do it for you.
directory
The directory component provides an address book that is write-only
and shared with other users. Like the address book component, the directory
component's data is provided by drivers that can be swapped into your system
and tweaked. We provide an LDAP directory access component, we can provide
others as there is demand. Ask us about custom drivers for unique situations.
settings
Endymion Mail uses the settings engine provided by the Endymion
Engine. This settings system allows you to easily configure default and forced
settings for your users using a web-based administration application or by
editing text configuration files. Settings are stored and read using an interchangable
driver component that can be customized if you need to store your user preferences
in a specific type of database.
architectural features
Many of Endymion Mail's most useful features are provided by the
Endymion Engine. These features are shared by other web applications and components
that use the Endymion Engine. Since the underlying engine that supports Endymion
Mail is shared with other web applications, your web mail system and any other
Endymion Engine components will benefit from improvements and refinements through
instant automated updates as we improve our products. The Endymion Engine provides
these helpful benefits:
interface themes
Every application's look and feel is completely decided by HTML template files.
The specific set of templates called a "theme" can be selected as
your program runs. Interface themes define the structure of the entire application,
including images, colors, fonts, style sheets, and the positioning of elements
on pages. Some web applications come with optional components that can be included
your application themes, to give you the maximum possible degree of customization
over our applications. Two different users can access an application using two
different themes at the same time, so you can maintain one copy of a web application
that you use on several different web sites with different appearances.
language translation
Language translation files define any language-dependent phrases in an application.
Two different users can access an application using two different languages
at the same time. The language translation files are not tied to the interface
themes, so any theme can be translated into any available language. We are too
small to be able to provide official translations of every possible language
for every possible Endymion Engine component, but we collect translations provided
by our customers and make them available to you whenever possible.
CGI or mod_perl
Any .endymion. engine application can integrate with your web server either
as a CGI application or as a mod_perl module. Applications act as true mod_perl
modules, which provide their own handlers to Apache. They do not run in the
less efficient "CGI emulation" mode under Apache::Registry or Apache
Perl*Run. Using mod_perl is a free and simple way to push the performance of
your web site's dynamic elements through the roof. The Endymion Engine is designed
to effectively leverage the opportunities provided for accelerating a web application
under environments like mod_perl. If we see demand for other server interface
technologies such as FCGI, then we have the option of supporting it.
no dependencies
The Endymion Engine does not require anything but a Perl interpreter. You do
not have to have mod_perl, and you do not need to install any special libraries
or Perl modules. Each download of any application is totally self-contained
and provides everything necessary to operate, as long as you already have Perl
installed. You get everything that you need from us, and our distributions and
automated update scripts ensure that your supporting software is up to date.
fast output
The Endymion Engine provides a general template language that uses <%
%> and <? ?>
directives like many other template processing systems. The Endymion Engine
processes template files in advance into Perl code. The fast pre-generated Perl
code is used at runtime, so an application can fling pages to your users entirely
from your server's memory without ever touching your server's disks. Each Endymion
Engine application is a pre-optimized, highly specialized Perl script that generates
output much more quickly than other systems that process templates as they run.
This is especially useful when running under mod_perl, where in-memory caching
can very effectively improve the runtime performance of a web applicaion if
used well.
