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Reading email in the browser with Horde

Taming the Horde

Article from ADMIN 08/2012

By Gunnar Wrobel

If you want to provide webmail for an IMAP server and need a groupware component on top, Horde may be exactly what you are looking for – especially if you want a web mailer that you can access with your smartphone.

The Horde webmail project has been around a long time on the free software market. Chuck Hagenbuch launched it 13 years ago for his university back when the Internet and PHP – the language in which Horde is programmed – were still cutting their teeth. Today, Horde is a free software project licensed under the GPL.

From its beginnings as a web mailer, the project has developed into mature groupware with PHP underpinnings comprising many modules and an awe-inspiring set of configuration options. But, feature richness and flexibility come at a price: Configuring the system is complex. If you are unfamiliar with the configuration, you can easily lose your way in the plethora of settings.

Package Management

The installation itself isn't too complicated, although it will probably surprise administrators to see that it differs from the standard procedure of extracting a packed archive in the web server directory. As of Horde version 4, released in April 2011, you need PEAR to install the software; specifically, the PEAR package manager that comes with PHP installations. Horde is a very modular program, split into more than 100 packages, so the PEAR package manager delivers Horde's many programs via a PEAR server [1]. This modularity allows administrators to select various features and applications at install time and necessitates the production of high-quality code because interfaces between the modules force the developers to comply strictly to program specifications.

Most of the modules make up the PHP framework for developing web applications. Webmail, the calendar, the notepad, and the wiki are all modules that build on this framework. If users need a feature that the existing Horde applications do not provide, you can easily program a module to match on the basis of the framework and integrate the module with your existing

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