[kwlug-disc] Does anyone want to take over Thunderbird?

[Chris Irwin]

On Tue, Dec 01, 2015 at 05:58:12PM -0500, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> - Any client that does not let me throw all my mail into a big pile
>   easily is broken. Mutt is semi broken at this because I cannot put
>   all my mail into one giant file; instead I can only put in mail for
>   a couple of years at a time before mutt gets too slow to process it
>   nicely.

My requirements were the opposite.

I vastly prefer maildir, where every mail is an individual file.
Thunderbird is one of the few clients that doesn't do maildir, and thus
I've never given it any serious use.

I do use mutt (plus notmuch for searching)

> - Any client that does not allow me to search for mail quickly and
>   flexibly is broken (and mutt is not that good at this for me).

It took me a long time to get around to learning how to use notmuch. If
I have a particularly complex search (mails from Paul with 'Mutt' in the
subject, and not 'thunderbird' in the body, before 2015-12-02)… I still
have to open the man page. But generally, "<F8>from:pnijjar<Enter>", and
I've got a list that's close enough.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I could do a talk on trying to PIM
on the command line, including searching in Mutt. I'll send a separate
message.

> - Any client that forces me to use a different text editor to compose
>   messages is broken. I am a dinosaur who has learned enough vim that
>   I miss it when using other mail programs, so I have decided email
>   clients are obligated to adhere to my preferred tools and not the
>   other way around.

There are extensions to replace the text edit field in gmail in firefox
with vim.  It requires vim built with certain capabilities, a firefox
plugin, and likely will break SELinux rules (browser executing local
programs). It is the craziest workaround I've ever heard of, and is
entirely local configuration anyway, so why not just use a MUA.

> - Any client that forces bells or chimes or popups when I get new
>   messages is broken and borderline evil. I have enough trouble
>   staying focused without new message notifications. 

I've moved from a cron job mail update to manual <F6> to fetch. Only
downside is I have people at work chasing me for not answering email
fast enough.

> - Any client that does not give me the option of whether I want to see
>   an attachment/graphic/etc is broken and probably dangerous.

Turns out, Mutt doesn't automatically show graphics :)

> Nobody handles email encryption well, which is why I still don't do
> this even though it is a sensible idea. 

-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
 xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
  web: https://chrisirwin.ca