Talk:Thunderbird:Autoconfiguration:ConfigFileFormat

Local test of the autoconfig file?

Hi, I would like to know if it is possible to record the file in local (like for the old *.cfg files) in order to test it.

Multiple Identities

Some providers allow multiple identities to be used for every account. We can assign multiple email aliases for each account and a way to configure that would be helpful.

I am currently thinking of something like this:

/---------------------------\ | Thunderbird Configuration |

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| | | Enter your email address: | | somechap@some.org | | | | Next > |

---

Using the TXT DNS information thunderbird loads https://www.some.org/mail/thunderbird.jsp .

After parsing thunderbird.jsp, Thunderbird asks the user for his password and makes a new Authenticated HTTP request for https://www.some.org/mail/thunderbird.jsp?email=somechap@some.org where it receives an updated XML with all the identities of the user as well as the correct IMAP, SMTP, LDAP and CalDAV server (the EU, America, Asia), plus the mandatory Extensions and configurations (basically extensions + a prefs.js for everything except the accounts).

We don't need to lock down the settings, but we need all the installations to have identical and sometimes sane defaults that unfortunately are more Outlook like (full reply header and top-posting).

We also need to dynamically update the identities information for the account at every Thunderbird start-up, so a reload of the XML at every start-up is required.

Currently we have a wiki page with 45 screenshots that show each step of the Thunderbird setup process and that takes about 1 hour to go through for an average user. This is way to much and a really bad idea, because they invariably make at least one mistake when they configure their Thunderbird installation.

I can come up with an extended XML schema that adds the features that we consider to be required, if anyone is at least interested in this.

Contacting the author?

"Author: Ben Bucksch. Please do not change this doc without checking with the author."

It's a wiki, people change stuff. I suggest just dealing with that, or hosting it somewhere within your own control.

--Juerd (talk) 04:50, 13 December 2013 (PST)