squirrelmail

Last revised: December 26, 1999

Contents
--------
General Information ................................................. 1.0
About SquirrelMail ................................................ 1.1
History ........................................................... 1.2
Contact Information ............................................... 1.3

Installation ........................................................ 2.0

Liscensing .......................................................... 3.0

FAQ ................................................................. 4.0
Can SquirrelMail run with PHP3? ................................... 4.1
Why PHP4 when it's only in BETA? .................................. 4.2
Where did you get the name "SquirrelMail?" ........................ 4.3
Is SquirrelMail stable enough to actually use? .................... 4.4





-- Section 1.0 --
General Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.1 - About SquirrelMail

So what exactly is SquirrelMail? It's a web interface to email that's
written in PHP4. It was designed to allow email access through your
server from anywhere in the world via the Web.



1.2 - History

The need arose in our organization for the access of email and address
books from anywhere in the world. Obviously a web interface is ideal
for this, given that the user has access to the Internet. After
reviewing several open source projects we realized that we were going
to need to do some fairly major customizations to get things to be a
nice fit for our needs. So the decision was made to create our own for
some of these reasons, and for fun (we really like PHP4). We decided
to open source the project to contribute to the community that has
contributed so much to us.



1.3 - Contact Information

If you need to contact the developers of SquirrelMail for some reason,
please email the mailing list. Bug reports and ideas should be sent
to the mailing list also.

Mailing List: squirrelmail-list@sourceforge.net

If for some reason, you need to contact us directly, you can also
email us at:

Luke Ehresman: luke@usa.om.org
Nathan Ehresman: nathan@usa.om.org

Web Page: squirrelmail.sourceforge.net


-- Section 2.0 --
Installation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Please view the INSTALL document that was included in this package.





-- Section 3.0 --
Liscensing
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This product is distributed under the GPL liscense. Please read
COPYING for more information.





-- Section 4.0 --
Frequently Asked Questions
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Can SquirrelMail be run with PHP3?

Yes, and No. It is fully developed under PHP4 BETA3, however PHP is
pretty good about backwards compatability. Theoretically, it
shouldn't be too hard to port it to PHP3, but you definately would
have to do some code tweaking. Let us know of any success or horror
stories if you attempt it.

Q: Why PHP4 when it's only in BETA?

PHP4 is significantly faster than PHP3. When we were viewing
mailboxes with 500-1000 messages in them, it would take about 15-30
seconds to sort them. With PHP4, that time has been cut down to 5-10
seconds for large boxes.

Q: Where did you get the name, "SquirrelMail"?

It's derived from the over-abundant squirrel population in Georgia
this year. We were playing volleyball one day, and saw a squirrel
try to jump between trees. He failed miserably and fell 40 feet to
the ground. So, we had squirrels on our mind the next day when we
were coming up with a name.

Q: Is SquirrelMail stable enough to actually use?
SquirrelMail is stable, however, many of the features that are
usually desired from an email client have not yet been implemented.