[NTLUG:Discuss] Mail Clent Recommendations

[Jeremy Blosser]

Kevin Brannen [kbrannen at gte.net] wrote:
> Jeremy Blosser wrote:
> > This is correct, and it's not just related to POP mail.  Mutt doesn't do
> > any filtering on it's own.  One of the design goals is to keep with the
> > Un*x philosophy of "do one thing and do it well", eg. stringing lots of
> > small utilities together to get a complete package.  Mutt is a MUA (mail
> > user agent, aka mail reader), and a darn good one.  Filtering incoming mail
> > is the job of an MDA (mail delivery agent) such as procmail.
> 
> Please define filtering.  Do you mean:
> a) remove mail so I never see it?  [e.g. delete spam or email from
> people in a "kill" list]
> b) sort and place in specific "folder" based on the To:, CC:, Subject:,
> ...
> c) something else?

Take any newly arrived mail and deliver it to a given location, be it a
folder or the bit bucket or someplace else.

> I think any decent mail reader should be able to do (b).

And then if you want to do any kind of interesting filtering, like
launching scripts or auto-forwarding it or even auto-deleting spam, you
have to either leave your reader always open or wait til you read mail from
the right folder for the stuff to happen.  Just one of the limitations of
asking an MUA to do an MDA's job.  Even if you don't want to do complicated
stuff, since other people *do* there are very good filtering tools out
there that are easy to install and use, and it doesn't make a lot of sense
for the MUA to duplicate this code.

> > ...a bunch of interesting stuff about Mutt...
> 
> It's gotta do Mime, attachments, folders, threading, let me define my
> own editor (where Netscape fails), address book (with groups), and a
> bonus would be to let me edit messages sent to me (so I keep the small
> nugget in a large piece of garbage, and Netscape can't do this either). 

It does all of these, and I'll note that its MIME handling is some of the
best you'll find.

> GUI not required but highly desireable.

Depends on how graphical you want.  It's a curses/slang-based console app
with full color support, split screen message/index view, etc.

> > > I still don't know of a good client that has the ability to check
> > > multiple POP accounts anlong with all the above.
> > 
> > Mutt+fetchmail.  Retrieving mail isn't the job of the MUA, it's the job of
> > an MTA.
> 
> I don't know how Netscape gets mail, but I'm happy it's all transparent
> to me.

Transparent... except that if you change mailers you have to re-configure
that info (including any filters you had set up), and if your ISP's mail
servers have "issues" you get to wait til they fix them before you can
send/receive mail, etc.

> > Again, to those of us that are used to it, this method of not having all
> > our needs met with one app is a very good thing, not a bad thing.
> 
> To those of us who aren't used to it, it's a real hassle.  IMO, both
> views are correct, it's just what you get used to.  And there are some

Try to *get* used to it, is my point.  IMO the tradition of utilities
strung together as opposed to the tradition of monolithic apps is one of
the main things that makes Un*x so much better and more useful than Windows
could hope to be, just like having the source open/free is one of the main
things that's made Linux so much more stable and secure than the others.

> After reading the Mutt web page, maybe I should try it, if I can figure
> how to get my mail off my ISP's mail server.

Enjoy... feel free to ask the mutt-users lists any questions you have, it's
pretty active.

-- 
Jeremy Blosser   |   jblosser at firinn.org   |   http://jblosser.firinn.org/
-----------------+-------------------------+------------------------------
"If Microsoft can change and compete on quality, I've won." -- L. Torvalds
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