Re: more mutt questions
On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 01:02:26AM +0200, Richard Lyons wrote:
> I assume from the popularity of mutt here that it must be good. Over
> time, I have received the impression from various discussions here that
> it is possible to filter incoming mail to different folders and then
> read it with mutt.
Indeed, for that you will need a mail filter tool however. Mutt is a
mailreader, and in the UNIX tradition, does precicely that. Procmail can
be used to filter mail.
> [snip]
> ... eliminating nested folders (which are invisible in mutt whether mbox or
> maildir).
There are no standardised mail formats for nested folders - kmail is
either using Maildir+ (which is an extension of Maildir and not widely
adopted) or a proprietry extension.
I think it would be quite useful for some collaborative work on the part
of MUA authors to bash out an agreeable way of managing this.
> To compare with mutt, I have simply opened the ~/Mail directory in which
> the folders are, and tried to read new mail. Unread mail is not
> identified by default
It should be ... a 'N' if the mail has never been seen before, or an 'O'
if it has been seen but you haven't opened it, assuming kmail is setting
the mailbox flags correctly.
> , so I went through a handful of the 70-odd
> folders and marked some recent mail as unread. Then I tried to find it
> again. The read next unread instruction in mutt appears to only
> operate inside a folder. The folders containing unread mail are not
> flagged in any way.
The `mailboxes' command can be used to tell mutt to watch folders for
new mail. Then the 'Inc' thing at the bottom counts the number of boxes
w/ new mail[1]; and after pressing c to open the change mailbox query,
another key (I think space by default) cycles the folders.
> I can only find the 'unread' mail by opening every
> folder (c then ? then scroll to the next folder and press enter -- not
> very simple) and looking for entries marked N.
Note the distinction between unread mail, and new mail.
> I'm baffled. If so many d-u members use it there must be a simpler
> strategy other than reading all mail in the inbox and manually sorting
> it to folders _after_ reading.
Yup - absolutely - the F1 key brings up a text manual, and the html one
is included in /usr/share/doc/mutt; although you may find learning by
example (/usr/share/doc/mutt/examples) easier[2].
> Even supposing I eventually manage to set up spam filters to cut out the
> 150-200 spam messages each day,
Highly recommended - see spamassassin, and
/usr/share/doc/spamassassin/examples/muttrc to manage mails that manage
to get through[3].
> In mutt it seems that I would need to c-?-scroll-enter
> to the spam folder, then mark each message for deletion.
Oh no, much better would be to cronjob a deletion and make sure you
check regularly, or failing that, there are key combinations to delete
all messages (D ~N, D .*, etc.)
> And then, I have found no method to get back to the mail spool file that
> is displayed by default at opening, other than laboriously stepping
> back through the directory tree from the ~/Mail directory, or typing
> the spooldirectory by hand, or closing the application and reopening
> it.
I personally find it annoying that my spool file is in one place, my
mbox in another, and my folders in a third; so I change it all using the
configuration options mbox and spoolfile, followed by a little procmail
script to move everything out of the spool file automatically[2].
> This isn't intended to be a rant. I just want to know how mutt can get
> near to the convenience of a gui mail client like kmail.
Depending on how far you go, you may well find it far surpasses the
convenience of kmail, but there is a significantly larger investment of
time near the start.
I'm busy trying to make mutt warn me if I mention attachments but fail
to attach anything - there are numerious attempts at this, ranging from
macros, via abusing the ispell integration to full blown patches[4].
[1] note that I think it means really `New' mail, not just unread.
[2] see also http://jon.dowland.name/unix/mail/ ; my attempt to reach
mail nirvana
[3] use in conjunction with `unset wait_key'
[4] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=182069
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
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