Re: auth-source multiple accounts

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Uday S Reddy]

Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> Maybe it's better to use auth-source-pick parameters, something like
> (account "my-account-1") coupled with "account my-account-1" in the
> netrc file.  In Gnus we can do it since each server entry has its own
> name which can be separate from the actual server address.  Will that
> work in VM, giving a logical name to each account?  See auth-source-pick
> and auth-source-user-or-password for the details; the query data format
> is pretty simple thanks to Michael Albinus' help recently.

I don't follow everything you say.

We do have logical account names in VM.  Are you saying that we could use them 
in the netrc file as the "machine", instead of the actual host name?  We could. 
  But I suppose the users will wonder why these things are supposed to be 
called "machines".

But I am not sure how auth-source-pick can help with this problem.  It seems 
like a way to pick a source file.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:21:19 +0100 Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: 

USR> We do have logical account names in VM.  Are you saying that we could
USR> use them in the netrc file as the "machine", instead of the actual
USR> host name?  We could. But I suppose the users will wonder why these
USR> things are supposed to be called "machines".

I mean "machine" will still be the server name but VM will also pass an
optional (account "xyz") query parameter to
auth-source-user-or-password, which will find "account xyz" in the netrc
file.

I'll add another optional parameter QUERIES to
auth-source-user-or-password.  It will be an alist.  When a query is not
specified you'd still get the first match (thus it's backwards
compatible).  Does all that sound reasonable?

USR> But I am not sure how auth-source-pick can help with this problem.  It
USR> seems like a way to pick a source file.

Sorry, I made a mistake, just see auth-source-user-or-password.
auth-source-pick deals with auth-source backends, which VM doesn't care
about.

Ted

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Uday S Reddy]

Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> I mean "machine" will still be the server name but VM will also pass an
> optional (account "xyz") query parameter to
> auth-source-user-or-password, which will find "account xyz" in the netrc
> file.
> 
> I'll add another optional parameter QUERIES to
> auth-source-user-or-password.  It will be an alist.  When a query is not
> specified you'd still get the first match (thus it's backwards
> compatible).  Does all that sound reasonable?

Adding a QUERIES parameter is good but I would urge you to allow (login "xyz") 
as a possible query.

For looking up email passwords, the "account" attribute seems like an overkill. 
  What would users put as their "account", if not their login id?  Since they 
are already using the "login" parameter to write their login id, it seems like 
unnecessary duplication.

Thanks for all your help!

Cheers,
Uday

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:19:13 +0100 Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: 

USR> Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> I mean "machine" will still be the server name but VM will also pass an
>> optional (account "xyz") query parameter to
>> auth-source-user-or-password, which will find "account xyz" in the netrc
>> file.
>> 
>> I'll add another optional parameter QUERIES to
>> auth-source-user-or-password.  It will be an alist.  When a query is not
>> specified you'd still get the first match (thus it's backwards
>> compatible).  Does all that sound reasonable?

USR> Adding a QUERIES parameter is good but I would urge you to allow
USR> (login "xyz") as a possible query.

USR> For looking up email passwords, the "account" attribute seems like an
USR> overkill. What would users put as their "account", if not their login
USR> id?  Since they are already using the "login" parameter to write their
USR> login id, it seems like unnecessary duplication.

I want to make it more generic with QUERIES since not every auth-source
API user will want the login ID to be a query key.  VM and Gnus have
this kind of data hierarchy but url*.el doesn't, for example.  I think
that's a good compromise and doesn't extend the API too much.

From VM you would pass me (k v) as the query, e.g. (login "xyz").  In
the netrc/authinfo file, then, I would match only lines with

.... login xyz ....

in them.  So the query key and value are a contract between the
application and the user.  auth-source is just a conduit.  If VM
standardizes on (login "xyz") then we'll add a VM-specific section to
the auth.texi manual giving an example.  For Gnus we'll probably use
(server "xyz") because the Gnus configuration hierarchy is structured
that way.

Ted

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Uday S Reddy]

On 7/27/2010 6:59 PM, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

>
> I want to make it more generic with QUERIES since not every auth-source
> API user will want the login ID to be a query key.  VM and Gnus have
> this kind of data hierarchy but url*.el doesn't, for example.  I think
> that's a good compromise and doesn't extend the API too much.
>
>  From VM you would pass me (k v) as the query, e.g. (login "xyz").  In
> the netrc/authinfo file, then, I would match only lines with
>
> .... login xyz ....
>
> in them.  So the query key and value are a contract between the
> application and the user.  auth-source is just a conduit.  If VM
> standardizes on (login "xyz") then we'll add a VM-specific section to
> the auth.texi manual giving an example.  For Gnus we'll probably use
> (server "xyz") because the Gnus configuration hierarchy is structured
> that way.

Hi Ted, I am entirely in support of the general queries feature. as long it 
includes login-queries.

However, there is another problem.  (Sorry to be bringing up so many problems:-(

I suppose auth-source is part of the Gnus distribution.  Am I right?  So, 
people are going to be using different versions of auth-source, obtained via 
the Gnus distribution, FSF distribution and XEmacs distribution (not to mention 
other independent distros).  It will take years for all of these distributions 
to converge.

So, I won't be able to use the new version of auth-source-user-or-password in 
VM until I can be sure that all our users have retired the old version.  Sounds 
terrible, doesn't it?  When we deal with independent distributions, it appears 
that backward-compatibility is not enough; forward-compatibility is also needed.

One solution is to add a new function instead of adding an optional parameter 
to the existing function.  Then I can test to see if the new function exists 
and use the querying functionality if it does.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Uday S Reddy]

On 7/28/2010 2:07 PM, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> auth-source.el (specifically, auth-source-user-or-password) will work
> either way.  The new query parameter is optional so at worst the user
> will get the wrong password.  There will be no error.  So you don't have
> to give up on old versions.  Just warn the user that the account won't
> be part of the lookup.

Yes, but, if I call auth-source-user-or-password with the extra parameter, and 
the user is using an old version of auth-source.el, there will be an error. 
But the version number idea is good.  I can test for it before calling.

Let me know when you have the new version ready so that I can test it along 
with VM.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:39:11 +0100 Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: 

USR> On 7/28/2010 2:07 PM, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> auth-source.el (specifically, auth-source-user-or-password) will work
>> either way.  The new query parameter is optional so at worst the user
>> will get the wrong password.  There will be no error.  So you don't have
>> to give up on old versions.  Just warn the user that the account won't
>> be part of the lookup.

USR> Yes, but, if I call auth-source-user-or-password with the extra
USR> parameter, and the user is using an old version of auth-source.el,
USR> there will be an error. But the version number idea is good.  I can
USR> test for it before calling.

USR> Let me know when you have the new version ready so that I can test it
USR> along with VM.

Please see my auth-source API proposal in the Gnus 'ding' mailing list
or in the Tramp mailing list.  I need to know if you find it acceptable
to resolve the multiple account issue.

Thanks
Ted

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Alan]

On Nov 21, 3:09 am, James Freer <jesseja...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm just starting to use emacs for editing and thought about using it
> for email as well. I'm a moderator for several groups and have found
> Thunderbird a bit slow. I'm hoping that a text email may be quicker. I
> tried Cone and Mutt a while ago. I need to use imap and was wondering
> if i'd be better off with emacs addons.
>
> What are folk using WL or VM? I've read the gnus pdf and i think i'd
> be better off with one of those two.
>
> As for installing:
> WL seems ok to followhttp://box.matto.nl/emacsgmail.html
>
> VM i find a little heavy! for my knowledge - is there another site
> which is easier to follow for a newbiehttp://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap
>
> thanks
> james

I'm a VM user on XEmacs.  I wasn't even aware of Wanderlust until
reading your post.

I used to use Rmail with Emacs 19.34 on a Unix machine, but then moved
to XEmacs and eventually started using VM. I now use a laptop at home
and a desktop at work, both running Windows XP (very rarely logging
into a Unix machine).  VM understands the babyl mail folder
organization that Rmail used at the time, so that was a feature that I
appreciated.  The newsgroup gnu.emacs.vm.info is moderately active and
the current VM developers are active there.  I use VM with an imap
server at work.  That was changed to use SSL and I had to resort to
using stunnel with VM to continue.  A VM feature that I find to be
quite handy is a function "vm-delete-duplicate-messages".  This allows
me to combine multiple mail folders (e.g. folder at home and folder at
work) and eliminate duplicate mail messages.

I've even converted my old CompuServe emails to a VM mail folder.
When desired I can read my Thunderbird email folders with VM.  I go
back and forth between using Thunderbird and VM with my work IMAP
server (favoring Thunderbird for emails with embedded HTML tags).  My
personal email is on a Yahoo POP server and I mostly use Thunderbird
for that.

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Elena]

On 21 Nov, 09:09, James Freer <jesseja...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I tried Cone and Mutt a while ago.

You can run Mutt inside Emacs.  I don't remember if you have to
download a third-party package.

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:39:11 +0100 Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: 

USR> On 7/28/2010 2:07 PM, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> auth-source.el (specifically, auth-source-user-or-password) will work
>> either way.  The new query parameter is optional so at worst the user
>> will get the wrong password.  There will be no error.  So you don't have
>> to give up on old versions.  Just warn the user that the account won't
>> be part of the lookup.

USR> Yes, but, if I call auth-source-user-or-password with the extra
USR> parameter, and the user is using an old version of auth-source.el,
USR> there will be an error. But the version number idea is good.  I can
USR> test for it before calling.

USR> Let me know when you have the new version ready so that I can test it
USR> along with VM.

There's a much improved `auth-source-search' function in Emacs now.  I
think it will do what you need, and you can simply check if it exists
and fall back on `auth-source-user-or-password' otherwise.  The
docstring is as complete as I could make it and I hope it answers any
questions.

Thanks
Ted

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Uday Reddy]

On 11/21/2010 9:09 AM, James Freer wrote:

> VM i find a little heavy! for my knowledge - is there another site
> which is easier to follow for a newbie
> http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap

Hi, I haven't checked this newsgroup for a while, and just noticed that 
there were queries about VM here.

I rewrote to EmacsWiki page on ViewMailAndImap to make it easier. 
Please try it and let me have any comments.  It is not hard, really. 
Just a bit of detail.  For the next release of VM, I am planning to 
introduce the URL syntax for IMAP folders, which is now pretty much 
standardized.  That should make things easier still.

For queries on VM, you would better of writing them or cross-posting to 
gnu.emacs.vm.info newsgroup, which gets monitored much more regularly.

Cheers,
Uday Reddy

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[James Freer]

On 22 February 2011 22:56, Uday Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 11/21/2010 9:09 AM, James Freer wrote:
>
>> VM i find a little heavy! for my knowledge - is there another site
>> which is easier to follow for a newbie
>> http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
>> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap
>
> Hi, I haven't checked this newsgroup for a while, and just noticed that
> there were queries about VM here.
>
> I rewrote to EmacsWiki page on ViewMailAndImap to make it easier. Please try
> it and let me have any comments.  It is not hard, really. Just a bit of
> detail.  For the next release of VM, I am planning to introduce the URL
> syntax for IMAP folders, which is now pretty much standardized.  That should
> make things easier still.
>
> For queries on VM, you would better of writing them or cross-posting to
> gnu.emacs.vm.info newsgroup, which gets monitored much more regularly.
>
> Cheers,
> Uday Reddy
>

Many thanks for the suggestion. I have to say that i don't find emacs
particularly user friendly... i get the impression that it's intended
to be like that - even after one's gone and bought the book. I did
look into offlineimap but again i haven't found it easy to follow.

james

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[trebol55555]

James Freer <jessejazza@googlemail.com> writes:
> Many thanks for the suggestion. I have to say that i don't find emacs
> particularly user friendly... i get the impression that it's intended
> to be like that - even after one's gone and bought the book. I did
> look into offlineimap but again i haven't found it easy to follow.
>
> james


Emacs is more or less a lisp interpreter. The basic macros that are part
of emacs are "newbie" user friendly (In fact there are a lot of buttons,
menus an other things which a experiment user never use).  When you try
make other things a little more sophisticated like fetch your mail, people
who write docs think you already have experience with emacs
configurations. The wiki is good, the docs are good, and both are user
friendly (not "newbie" user friendly, it's impossible). 

I think the best way (just for me...) to fetch mail from a external
server is download it with fetchmail, filtered it with procmail, and
read it with gnus. Gnus can fetch the mail directly but this method is
slowly (when you open gnus, you must wait for the
connect-identification-download-filter process).

Gnus is a big toy with a lot of functionalyties, so if you are new in
emacs and just read the manual, you'll shoot your head, not your
foot. If you want, send me a private mail with a fictitious data (imap
or pop server, user id, password, and smtp server if you want send mail
via external server) and I will send you all the information necessary
to get a working MTA & MUA with this applications and emacs-gnus.

More possibilities you want, more configurations you must do!
At first is slowly... and hard... and bored... very bored...
But when you start to walk a little more fast, oooh, you don't want do
anything outside emacs!

So don't give up!

Best wishes,
Trebol.

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Uday Reddy]

On 2/23/2011 9:20 AM, James Freer wrote:

> Many thanks for the suggestion. I have to say that i don't find emacs
> particularly user friendly... i get the impression that it's intended
> to be like that - even after one's gone and bought the book. I did
> look into offlineimap but again i haven't found it easy to follow.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that you were an Emacs newbie.  Then the 
first thing to do would be to get comfortable with using Emacs.  You 
need to give it some time, perhaps a month, reading the manual and 
trying things out.  You will definitely need to put in more effort than 
for the "user friendly" tools you allude to.  But, hopefully, in the 
end, you would have mastered a tool that can make you much more 
productive in your daily tasks.

VM was designed for people that already use Emacs.  That said, we do 
seem to have some users that have picked up VM without being habitual 
Emacs users.  They probably came in during the 80's and 90's when there 
weren't any easier tools like Thunderbird.  And, they probably also got 
a lot of help from the gnu.emacs.vm.info newsgroup to get things set up.

If you are still trying to decide between VM-WL-GNUS, then my opinion is 
that VM fits somewhere in the middle between WL and GNUS.  Its advantage 
is that it inter-operates with Thunderbird, as Alan mentioned already. 
So, you can switch back and forth between VM and Thunderbird.  It is 
also possibly more "powerful" than WL while being easier than GNUS.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Uday Reddy]

On 2/22/2011 10:56 PM, Uday Reddy wrote:

>
> For queries on VM, you would better of writing them or cross-posting to
> gnu.emacs.vm.info newsgroup, which gets monitored much more regularly.

I forgot to mention that there is also a mailing list

   viewmail-info@nongnu.org

if you prefer mailing lists to newsgroups.  It gets less used than the 
newsgroup, but at least the developers monitor it.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Jonathan Groll]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:11:11 +0000, Uday Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> If you are still trying to decide between VM-WL-GNUS, then my opinion
> is that VM fits somewhere in the middle between WL and GNUS.  Its
> advantage is that it inter-operates with Thunderbird, as Alan
> mentioned already. So, you can switch back and forth between VM and
> Thunderbird.  It is also possibly more "powerful" than WL while being
> easier than GNUS.

In what ways do you think it is more "powerful" than WL?

Cheers,
Jonathan
--
jjg: Jonathan J. Groll : groll co za
has_one { :blog => "http://bloggroll.com" }
Sent from my computer device which runs on free software

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Ted Zlatanov]

Uday, I tried posting and e-mailing this to you several times now.  I
hope you see it if I cross-post to the vminfo mailing list.

The auth-source library has been much improved.  Can you please take a
look at the new `auth-source-search' function and see if it fits VM's
needs as we discussed a while ago.  Let me know if you want to discuss
only on the vminfo list; I'll assume otherwise you'll reply to
emacs-help.

Here are the thread message IDs, all posted on this group under this
subject.

<370a1897-25aa-418f-9631-1570dfa99de3@z7g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
	<barmar-C56D33.00021721042010@news.eternal-september.org>
	<87633kaess.fsf@lifelogs.com>
	<8d7c78ee-6ba8-448a-8f86-3d585e1af77f@u32g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>
	<87vd8z2myy.fsf@lifelogs.com>
	<01ea3506-d715-491d-b360-3abf34e98013@i31g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
	<87r5iq1hjk.fsf@lifelogs.com> <i2k762$rck$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>
	<87630211kx.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com> <i2ku8g$53t$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>
	<87mxtdvx2d.fsf@lifelogs.com> <i2n4eh$q2f$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>
	<87pqy8vmah.fsf@lifelogs.com> <i2njfj$1fl$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>
	<87y6cvu53t.fsf@lifelogs.com> <i2q827$rvg$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>
        <8762smntzg.fsf@lifelogs.com>

Thanks
Ted

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:11:11 +0000 Uday Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: 

UR> If you are still trying to decide between VM-WL-GNUS, then my opinion
UR> is that VM fits somewhere in the middle between WL and GNUS.  Its
UR> advantage is that it inter-operates with Thunderbird, as Alan
UR> mentioned already. So, you can switch back and forth between VM and
UR> Thunderbird.  It is also possibly more "powerful" than WL while being
UR> easier than GNUS.

GNUS is not in use anymore (it's an old abandoned project).  You
probably mean "Gnus."

Ted

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Uday Reddy]

Jonathan Groll wrote:

> 
> In what ways do you think it is more "powerful" than WL?

Oh, don't hold me to that please.  I haven't looked at Wanderlust in any
great detail.

For an impartial third party review of both, I refer you to about.com:

  http://email.about.com/cs/linuxclientrevs/gr/vm.htm

  http://email.about.com/cs/linuxclientrevs/gr/wanderlust.htm

Looking at things feature by feature, it would seem that VM and
Wanderlust are comparable, and Wanderlust might even have an edge
because things like selective downloading of attachments and message
expiration ideas are yet to be implemented in VM.  The reviews are
several years old, and I know that the comments on VM's IMAP support are
not true any more.  I would expect that Wanderlust might have advanced
similarly as well.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: auth-source multiple accounts

[Uday Reddy]

Ted Zlatanov wrote:
> Uday, I tried posting and e-mailing this to you several times now.  I
> hope you see it if I cross-post to the vminfo mailing list.

Hi Ted, I have indeed received your email prompt a week or two ago, and
I have it on my TO DO list to look at the new version of auth-source
library.  I will get back to you.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Andrea Crotti]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>
> GNUS is not in use anymore (it's an old abandoned project).  You
> probably mean "Gnus."
>
> Ted

And by the way what's the difference between no-gnus and Gnus?
And what is the version included in emacs 23.2 then?

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:50:16 +0100 Andrea Crotti <andrea.crotti.0@gmail.com> wrote: 

AC> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>> 
>> GNUS is not in use anymore (it's an old abandoned project).  You
>> probably mean "Gnus."

AC> And by the way what's the difference between no-gnus and Gnus?

"No Gnus" is the currently in-development version of Gnus.

AC> And what is the version included in emacs 23.2 then?

It was a snapshot of No Gnus at the time, IIRC.  I didn't handle the
release and I don't recall the details, sorry.  Some details are in
http://gnus.org/history.html and some aren't.

Ted