Aeromys is a speedy webmail app for efficient email management through the web.
The concept of Aeromys was born when the founder realized that PHP was not an ideal technology for building a web application due to its limitations. The founder makes a clear distinction between a website and a web application. While the former is merely an online platform that displays information, the latter is highly interactive and requires more processing power. The problem with most web applications built with PHP was their slow speed due to the limitations of HTTP and PHP.
To overcome this challenge, the founder believed that the application server model was much more appropriate. This model has been available for some time; however, applying it to webmail was relatively new and exciting.
Using PHP for web applications can cause downtime, which ultimately impacts user satisfaction. A delay in the processing of any webpage can lead users to look elsewhere. In webmail applications, this delay can occur when connecting the PHP process to IMAP servers.
Aeromys has an innovative webmail daemon called webmaild, which continuously runs in the background, keeping track of user activity and keeping IMAP connections alive. While users read their email, webmaild caches information that it believes will be required for the next page load. This approach is known as predictive caching, which reduces the likelihood of any downtime when the user requests a new page.
The founder of Aeromys initiated the project as an independent study project while studying at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. The goal was to continue working on the project as part of their master's thesis and even possibly a doctoral dissertation. This level of dedication creates a personal, vested interest in the project and a higher level of commitment to ensuring that Aeromys reaches its full potential.
The latest release of Aeromys includes a basic sorting method, a switch to libEtPan as the back-end library, improved interactive mode, improved logging and debugging capabilities, and several crash bug fixes. All these improvements ensure users enjoy a better and more efficient experience using Aeromys.
Version 0.5.0: N/A