Re: Email programs that work.

["Dmitri Minaev" <minaev@gmail.com>]

On 8/31/06, Michelle Konzack <linux4michelle@freenet.de> wrote:
> Am 2006-08-29 16:13:05, schrieb Dmitri Minaev:
> > If you pardon my jumping in, gentlemen, I would say that Mutt does not
> > work with IMAP.
>
> False

Dear Michelle,

Sorry, I was wrong. Two days ago I configured Mutt to work with my
IMAP server and I want to thank all of you who talked me into that :).

Indeed, IMAP support in Mutt has become much better than it was 1.5
years ago when I tested it last time and I'm glad that Mutt is going
in the right direction.

Still, there are some unpleasant problems I couldn't solve. The worst
one was that Mutt downloads the whole message. That is, it does not
support selective retrieval of MIME parts, AFAIU.

Also, I haven't found a way to define new message flags (besides
'important'). And Mutt's address book really depressed me :/

There are some things I don't understand about IMAP search in Mutt,
but I didn't explore it extensively enough.

> Filtering is nut a MUA question but MDA like procmail and maildrop
> since they are integrated in the server.
> Filtering is THE JOB of the Mailserver receiving the messages.

This is generally correct, but how do you manage your filtering
settings when your mail server is on a remote server, which is almost
always the case with IMAP?

Modular approach has its advantages, but it leads to certain
difficulties with too loosely coupled programs. Say, if we 'outsource'
mail-related tasks like filtering, storing address book, message
composition, etc., to other programs, we need a way to control and
configure these tasks. I would prefer to use one place to control all
these related tasks. Preferably, it should be done in the mail client.

> Can you GUI BS handel 20.000 Messages per day?
> ...
> mutt can much more as all GUI BS together.
> ...
> Maybe you go back to Windows?
> Someone like you will never understood, why Unices are more
> powerfull as Windows and all this GUI stuff which is only
> there to make bad publicity (powered by M$) over the Unices

I have an impression that you confuse two mostly orthogonal things --
GUI vs text mode and modular approach vs monolithic software.

I don't think this thread is a suitable place to discuss inflammable
topics, like where the Unix way leads to (although I would like to
attract your attention to R.Gabriel's articles on 'worse is better'),
but, please, note that I did not say that Mutt's modular approach is
wrong. What I said was "considering the number of tools Mutt uses for
work, I suspect that it 'sucks less' just because it does less", which
is a rather trite and obvious observation, I believe. I have other
reasons not to use Mutt than this :).

> You read more then One message at a time?

Sure. When I compose a new message referencing or using extracts from
2 or 3 or 5 other messages, I have to open all or some of them
together with the one I am writing.

> Are ou an extraterest?

I don't know what'is it, but I wish I were :)

--
With best regards,
Dmitri Minaev