Programming Python, Second Edition

The PyMailCgi Web Site

Near the end of Chapter 11, we built a program called PyMailGui that implemented a complete Python+Tk email client GUI (if you didn’t read that section, you may want to take a quick look at it now). Here, we’re going to do something of the same, but on the Web: the system presented in this section, PyMailCgi, is a collection of CGI scripts that implement a simple web-based interface for sending and reading email in any browser.

Our goal in studying this system is partly to learn a few more CGI tricks, partly to learn a bit about designing larger Python systems in general, and partly to underscore the trade-offs between systems implemented for the Web (PyMailCgi) and systems written to run locally (PyMailGui). This chapter hints at some of these trade-offs along the way, and returns to explore them in more depth after the presentation of this system.

Implementation Overview

At the top level, PyMailCgi allows users to view incoming email with the POP interface and to send new mail by SMTP. Users also have the option of replying to, forwarding, or deleting an incoming email while viewing it. As implemented, anyone can send email from the PyMailCgi site, but to view your email, you generally have to install PyMailCgi at your own site with your own mail server information (due to security concerns described later).

Viewing and sending email sounds simple enough, but the interaction involved involves a number of distinct web pages, each requiring a CGI script ...