How are google gmail contextual gadgets related to the IMAP API?

Question

I've built a gmail contextual gadget, and it does what I need it to within the context of a gmail message. For the additional features I am looking to incorporate, it looks like the IMAP API is required.

My question is how to house both of those under one gadget?

For instance, I've seen apps that do things like change the label of an email or send a message to archive with a button. Since the gadget itself cannot do that (but the button that initiates it is in the gadget), what is the actual method to "link" the button trigger with the server side code calling the IMAP function? I've seen lots of answers instructing people that they need to do this, but I am stumped on the actual implementation. Also, would that mean changing the scope of my widget (since IMAP can pretty much do/access anything email related)

Sorry for muddling several questions there, but I am pretty confused. thanks for any help on this...

Answer 1

I would suggest creating an AppEngine app. Have your gadget communicate with the AppEngine App and have a AppEngine App using IMAP work with the email. Ensure you pass the message ID from the gadget to the AppEngine. Its messy but should work. We looked into it to implement in one of our projects but after discussing with the client we decided to drop some of the functions related to IMAP because it would open up a whole bunch of admin/procedures related stuff on their end.

Answer 2

You need to send the message Id to a server side application, which can use the Message ID to do whatever manipulations via IMAP;

Answer 3

You can learn an IMAP messages Unique Gmail ID (which should match the gadget's message ID) via the X-GM-MSGID custom command documented at:

https://developers.google.com/google-apps/gmail/imap_extensions#access_to_the_gmail_unique_message_id_x-gm-msgid

Jay