Basic question about groups

[Don Pedro]

Hi,

I am in the init phase of dealing with forums programmatically and have some basic questions:

- Are forum posts identical to GMail mails, i.e. the forum is just a web presentation of GMail?

- Have are Google forum posts/threads stored and through which api can they be fetched (is there a forum/groups api for this)?

Thanks!

/ Don Pedro

[Jay Lee]

Hi Don,

1) No, the interfaces are fundamentally different. For example, groups doesn't currently have the concept of labels that a Gmail mailbox has.

2) There is currently no API to export messages in a group. However if the messages are all being sent to a user, they can be extracted from the user mailbox via IMAP.

Jay

[Don Pedro]

Hi Jay,

"2) There is currently no API to export messages in a group. However if the messages are all being sent to a user, they can be extracted from the user mailbox via IMAP. "

Does this mean that posts, if NOT sent to a user, are stored separately (i.e. not always as mails)? Or are they stored as mails, but for the group address?

/ Don Pedro

[Jay Lee]

Hi Don,

  If the group has archiving turned on, a copy of all messages sent to the group are archived and visible in the group's discussions page. This assumes you have Google Groups for Business service enabled for your domain.

Jay

[Don Pedro]

Hi Jay,

Ok. And is it possible to access the archived posts through some api?

/ Don