When documenting these functions I described support for a
NOTMUCH_BASE environment variable to be consulted in the case
of a NULL path. Only, I had forgotten to actually write the
code.
This code exists now, with a new, exported function:
notmuch_database_default_path
This is helpful for things like indexes that other mail programs
may have left around. It also means we can make the initial
instructions much easier, (the user need not worry about moving
away auxiliary files from some other email program).
This is the beginning of the notmuch library as well, with its
interface in notmuch.h. So far we've got create, open, close, and
add_message (all with a notmuch_database prefix).
The current add_message function has already been whittled down from
what we have in notmuch-index-message to add only references,
message-id, and thread-id to the index, (that is---just enough to do
thread-linkage but nothing for full-text searching).
The concept here is to do something quickly so that the user can get
some data into notmuch and start using it. (The most interesting stuff
is then thread-linkage and labels like inbox and unread.) We can
defer the full-text indexing of the body of the messages for later,
(such as in the background while the user is reading mail).
The initial thread-stitching step is still slower than I would like.
We may have to stop using libgmime for this step as its overhead is
not worth it for the simple case of just parsing the message-id,
references, and in-reply-to headers.
