Integrating webmail with XP

[Blapto]

In my office network, workstations do not have access to the internet directly, there is an HTTP proxy server for security.
One of my clients (the boss!) wants to be able to integrate webmail and XP. What this means in real terms I suppose is to have a gmail style task bar addon that checks for new mail. Also, when he clicks a mail link in one of his applications he would like a webmail interface to come up (horde, neomail, squirrelmail, any other that I can install, that's not too important) so he can send it with one click instead of having to copy the e-mail address, paste it into a new squirrel mail window etc.
Before I start looking for my PHP book, has anybody done something like this before? I own a dedicated server outside of the network that is the mail server, so I can install new software on that if the CPanel webmail interfaces aren't up to the job. Google is drawing blanks on this.

Thanks

Martin.

 

[pirania1]

Well, seems to me like you have some serious programming ahead of you.
Theoretically you could put a server inside the network and use fetchmail to sync the accounts, then relay any outgoing mail to your server, but that needs some tweaking as well.

Good luck.