[kwlug-disc] Collecting opinions about chat and mail console clients

[Hubert Chathi]

On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 12:14:02 -0500, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> said:

>> Heavily influenced by yesterday meeting, I want to ask about your
>> experience of console clients for chat and mail. What experience do
>> you find best? Email and/or chat.

> Clarifying,

>  - what email experience in console you find best?

My main email client is GNUS (Emacs-based), and although I use it in
X windows, it does run on the console.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend
it to anyone unless you're an Emacs fan.

The biggest downside to using a text-based mail client, as Chris
mentioned, is HTML mail.  Some mail only comes in HTML format, which
doesn't always render well in a text-based mail client, especially if it
relies on images.  Some email comes with both text and HTML versions,
but (especially with email newsletters) sometimes the text version is
non-functioning, which is worse than sending an email with just an HTML
version.

But aside from that, a text-based mail client works fine.

I tried using mutt for a while, and it seemed pretty good, but at that
point, I had invested heavily in GNUS, and it didn't seem worth the
effort to switch to.  But it seems like there are a lot of people who
like using it.

Back in the day, I used Pine, which was decent for starting out with
email, but wasn't very featureful.  It isn't developed any more, but
there is a rewrite called Alpine.

In general, I think I would suggest Alpine for if you want something
quick and simple, and Mutt for if you want something more powerful.

> and/or

>  - what chat experience in console you find best?

>> Exploratory context: It may be possible to have some communication
>> from messaging whatever and presented via some hack in existing
>> console app.


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