Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[James Freer]

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 follow
http://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 newbie
http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap

thanks
james

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Byung-Hee HWANG]

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James Freer <jessejazza@googlemail.com> writes:

> 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 follow
> http://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 newbie
> http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap

Actullay, WL is fast on IMAP. But..

As time goes by, Gnus will be getting fast on IMAP. There are so
many developers for Gnus. That's why i settled down at Gnus. 

Sincerely,

-- 
소여물 황병희(黃炳熙) | .. 출항 15분전..

"You needn't speak to her about it, she's a proud woman."
		-- Vito Corleone, "Chapter 14", page 208

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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

[Henri-Paul Indiogine]

Byung-Hee HWANG <bh@izb.knu.ac.kr> writes:
> As time goes by, Gnus will be getting fast on IMAP. There are so
> many developers for Gnus. That's why i settled down at Gnus. 

Some time back I tried many email add-ons to Gnu Emacs.  They are
simpler to use than Gnus, however I decided to use Gnus for the
following reasons:

1. it is included in Gnu Emacs.  No messing around with installations
and dependencies.

2. I can place all my configuration into .emacs.

3. It is actively developed and completely integrated in to the
development and distribution process of Gnu Emacs itself.

4. If you want, it is easy to keep updated by using git.

The largest problem is configuring it into something that does what you
want and does not look too "ugly".  That is a big headache.  You need to
look at many examples and read lots of documentation before you have
something that both "works" and "looks decent".

However, it is worth it.  It is a one time chore and then you can just
go ahead and use it with minimal further adjustments.

Best,
Henri-Paul

-- 
Henri-Paul Indiogine
Email: hindiogine@gmail.com
Skype: hindiogine
Website: http://people.cehd.tamu.edu/~sindiogine

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: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Jason Earl]

On Tue, Nov 23 2010, Elena wrote:

> On Nov 22, 6:11 pm, Eric S Fraga <ucec...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
>> I highly recommend gnus even though the learning curve is steep
>> initially especially in terms of configuration (but, as already stated,
>> you only need to do this once...).
>
> You've forgotten to mention the steep learning curve means messing
> with your mailbox too, possibly deleting some mails from your server.
> Yeah, I know the Unix way: steep learning curve and shooting in your
> own foot all the way to achieve even basic tasks.  Every mail client
> I've tried just asks you about your mail address and addresses of your
> servers.  Gnus is not smart enough to do it.  Stay away from Gnus,
> this is my advice.

Here is a basic setup that will connect gnus to an IMAP server on port
993 via ssl.  In short, if all you need is the sort of basic setup that
you get from other mail clients this will suit you just fine.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnimap "mail"
                (nnimap-address "your.mail.server")
                (nnimap-server-port 993)
                (nnimap-stream ssl)
                (nnimap-authenticator login))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Jason

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Michal Sojka]

On Sun, 21 Nov 2010, James Freer 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 follow
> http://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 newbie
> http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap

You may also try http://notmuchmail.org/. It is a search-based email
client with Emacs UI. It is relatively young, but already very usable.
If you need IMAP, you will probably want to combine it with offlineimap
(https://github.com/jgoerzen/offlineimap/wiki).

-Michal

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Richard Riley]

Jason Earl <jearl@notengoamigos.org> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 24 2010, Elena wrote:
>
>> On Nov 23, 4:18 pm, Jason Earl <je...@notengoamigos.org> wrote:
>>> Here is a basic setup that will connect gnus to an IMAP server on port
>>> 993 via ssl.  In short, if all you need is the sort of basic setup that
>>> you get from other mail clients this will suit you just fine.
>>>
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
>>>       '((nnimap "mail"
>>>                 (nnimap-address "your.mail.server")
>>>                 (nnimap-server-port 993)
>>>                 (nnimap-stream ssl)
>>>                 (nnimap-authenticator login))))
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> Thank you very much, Jason.  However, my server is a POP one,
>> otherwise I guess Gnus would not have been dumb enough to start
>> downloading my mails and deleting them assuming I knew some bizantine
>> settings to avoid that beforehand.  Thunderbird may be big and slow,
>> but at least it does not make such assumptions.
>>
>> For a text-based mail-client, I'm looking into Alpine now.
>
> It has been a long time since I have used a pop3 client, but when I used
> to support such beasts downloading the messages (and deleting them from
> the server) is precisely what they were *supposed* to do.  I would not
> be surprised if most modern email clients still downloaded the messages
> and deleted them from the server when using pop3.

I've never had a POP3 client delete from the server when it reads.

Certainly using Gmail one of the first in your face options is whether
to retain a copy on the server.

It's a server side setting normally isn't it?

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Jason Earl]

On Wed, Nov 24 2010, Richard Riley wrote:

> Jason Earl <jearl@notengoamigos.org> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 24 2010, Elena wrote:
>>
>>> On Nov 23, 4:18 pm, Jason Earl <je...@notengoamigos.org> wrote:
>>>> Here is a basic setup that will connect gnus to an IMAP server on port
>>>> 993 via ssl.  In short, if all you need is the sort of basic setup that
>>>> you get from other mail clients this will suit you just fine.
>>>>
>>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>>> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
>>>>       '((nnimap "mail"
>>>>                 (nnimap-address "your.mail.server")
>>>>                 (nnimap-server-port 993)
>>>>                 (nnimap-stream ssl)
>>>>                 (nnimap-authenticator login))))
>>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>>
>>> Thank you very much, Jason.  However, my server is a POP one,
>>> otherwise I guess Gnus would not have been dumb enough to start
>>> downloading my mails and deleting them assuming I knew some bizantine
>>> settings to avoid that beforehand.  Thunderbird may be big and slow,
>>> but at least it does not make such assumptions.
>>>
>>> For a text-based mail-client, I'm looking into Alpine now.
>>
>> It has been a long time since I have used a pop3 client, but when I used
>> to support such beasts downloading the messages (and deleting them from
>> the server) is precisely what they were *supposed* to do.  I would not
>> be surprised if most modern email clients still downloaded the messages
>> and deleted them from the server when using pop3.
>
> I've never had a POP3 client delete from the server when it reads.

I just checked and deleting on pop is the default in both Outlook and
Evolution.  If your server supports IMAP recent versions of Thunderbird
are very hard to set up to do pop3, but I would not be surprised if the
default wasn't to download the messages as well.

> Certainly using Gmail one of the first in your face options is whether
> to retain a copy on the server.

It depends on whether you are talking about Gmail as a pop3 client or a
pop3 server.  If you are talking about google importing your email, they
delete it from the server.  As a pop3 provider google defaults to
keeping your email, but that's basically a googleism.  They are more
than happy to store your stuff forever.

> It's a server side setting normally isn't it?

No, the client tells the server to either delete the message after it is
received or to keep it.  However, early versions of the protocol did not
even have a way to query the server for message-ids.  So if the message
was not deleted then it ended up getting downloaded every time the
client connected.

Keeping the messages on the server is basically why IMAP was invented.

Jason

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Richard Riley]

Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> writes:

> On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:59:08 +0100, Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>Jason Earl <jearl@notengoamigos.org> writes:
>>>On Wed, Nov 24 2010, Elena wrote:
>>>> Thank you very much, Jason.  However, my server is a POP one,
>>>> otherwise I guess Gnus would not have been dumb enough to start
>>>> downloading my mails and deleting them assuming I knew some
>>>> bizantine settings to avoid that beforehand.  Thunderbird may be big
>>>> and slow, but at least it does not make such assumptions.
>>>>
>>>> For a text-based mail-client, I'm looking into Alpine now.
>>>
>>> It has been a long time since I have used a pop3 client, but when I
>>> used to support such beasts downloading the messages (and deleting
>>> them from the server) is precisely what they were *supposed* to do.
>>> I would not be surprised if most modern email clients still
>>> downloaded the messages and deleted them from the server when using
>>> pop3.
>>
>> I've never had a POP3 client delete from the server when it reads.
>>
>> Certainly using Gmail one of the first in your face options is whether
>> to retain a copy on the server.
>>
>> It's a server side setting normally isn't it?
>
> No, it's a client option.  There may be clients out there that default
> to "keep" mode, retaining the messages downloaded from POP3 servers.

It's a server side option too. As I mentioned above you have the option
to retain server side.

>
> One should bear in mind though that keeping everything on the server and
> re-reading the messages to see what is new puts a *lot* of load on the
> server, and may be frowned upon by mail admins.  I believe this is
> pretty much why IMAP was invented ;-)
>

Does POP3 really re-read all retained messages? I cant say I ever saw a
POP3 client freeze on my gmail pop3 connection and there are thousands
of thousands there. That said I now use IMAP/offlineimap.

I thought IMAP was more about dual direction and multi client syncing
- nothing to do with retaining messages as such. Certainly its advisable
to leave emails on the server for obvious reasons. In this day and age
of multiple laptops, PDAs, Smartphones etc, the low price of storage, it
would be ludicrous NOT to keep a central repo of your email. (obviously
filtering and removing spam etc).

Certainly I dont want one client to download email which I am yet to
read and then not be able to pull that email up on another client.

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Francis Moreau]

Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

[...]

> And gnus integration with org mode is very nice...

Hm, I'm not sure what you mean here.

Could you develop just in case I missed some cool stuffs ?

Thanks
-- 
Francis

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Xavier Maillard]

Hi,

On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:29:25 +0100, Michal Sojka <sojkam1@fel.cvut.cz> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Nov 2010, James Freer 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 follow
> > http://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 newbie
> > http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap
> 
> You may also try http://notmuchmail.org/. It is a search-based email
> client with Emacs UI. It is relatively young, but already very usable.
> If you need IMAP, you will probably want to combine it with offlineimap
> (https://github.com/jgoerzen/offlineimap/wiki).

+1 for notmuchmail which is just awesome.

Why ? No time wasted in tweaking the system -i.e. your setup -, it has
an awesome GNU Emacs cli, bindings if you need to script something in
python, haskell, ... Plus it is extra fast, after all it is just a
mailstore !

In the past, I spent many hours configuring gnus/wl/your MUA here/ to
make it works like I wanted. In the end it was just a (bad) fork of the
original and I was not reading my e-mails (my .gnus file was 23k
lines...) ;)

rmail has been my best companion for years: basic features, simple to
setup (m-x rmail), simple to use. Just worked like a charm no useless
things (but no MIME support and no IMAP). Sadly I changed from POP to
IMAP and thus just had to give up my old good and lovely friend, sadly
:( Without this switch, I would have probably sticked with it.

I love simplicity and notmuchmail permits that :)

/Xavier

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Xavier Maillard]

Hi,

[ sending it again since I can't see it ]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:29:25 +0100, Michal Sojka <sojkam1@fel.cvut.cz> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Nov 2010, James Freer 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 follow
> > http://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 newbie
> > http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/user-manual/vm_2.html#SEC5
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailAndImap
> 
> You may also try http://notmuchmail.org/. It is a search-based email
> client with Emacs UI. It is relatively young, but already very usable.
> If you need IMAP, you will probably want to combine it with offlineimap
> (https://github.com/jgoerzen/offlineimap/wiki).

+1 for notmuchmail which is just awesome.

Why ? No time wasted in tweaking the system -i.e. your setup -, it has
an awesome GNU Emacs cli, bindings if you need to script something in
python, haskell, ... Plus it is extra fast, after all it is just a
mailstore !

In the past, I spent many hours configuring gnus/wl/your MUA here/ to
make it works like I wanted. In the end it was just a (bad) fork of the
original and I was not reading my e-mails (my .gnus file was 23k
lines...) ;)

rmail has been my best companion for years: basic features, simple to
setup (m-x rmail), simple to use. Just worked like a charm no useless
things (but no MIME support and no IMAP). Sadly I changed from POP to
IMAP and thus just had to give up my old good and lovely friend, sadly
:( Without this switch, I would have probably sticked with it.

I love simplicity and notmuchmail permits that :)

/Xavier

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Henri-Paul Indiogine]

Hi Xavier!

Xavier Maillard <xavier@maillard.im> writes:
> Why ? No time wasted in tweaking the system -i.e. your setup -, it has
> an awesome GNU Emacs cli, bindings if you need to script something in
> python, haskell, ... Plus it is extra fast, after all it is just a
> mailstore !
>
> In the past, I spent many hours configuring gnus/wl/your MUA here/ to
> make it works like I wanted. In the end it was just a (bad) fork of the
> original and I was not reading my e-mails (my .gnus file was 23k
> lines...) ;)

I am intrigued.  I have now been using gnus for quite a while and still
I am baffled by its complexity.  I am wondering whether notmuchmail has
the following features that I have implemented in Gnus:

1. mail splitting into groups according to who sends it

2. posting styles: according to which group I am in it will place a
different signature file in my email.

3. Gnus is part of Emacs, thus nothing to install, no prerequisites and
other nastiness.  What is involved in installing notmuchmail?

Thanks,
Henri-Paul


-- 
Henri-Paul Indiogine
Email: hindiogine@gmail.com
Running: Ubuntu Linux 10.10, Emacs 24.0.50.1, org-mode 7.3

Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Michal Sojka]

Hi Henri-Paul,

On Sat, 04 Dec 2010, Henri-Paul Indiogine wrote:
> Xavier Maillard <xavier@maillard.im> writes:
> > Why ? No time wasted in tweaking the system -i.e. your setup -, it has
> > an awesome GNU Emacs cli, bindings if you need to script something in
> > python, haskell, ... Plus it is extra fast, after all it is just a
> > mailstore !
> >
> > In the past, I spent many hours configuring gnus/wl/your MUA here/ to
> > make it works like I wanted. In the end it was just a (bad) fork of the
> > original and I was not reading my e-mails (my .gnus file was 23k
> > lines...) ;)
> 
> I am intrigued.  I have now been using gnus for quite a while and still
> I am baffled by its complexity.  I am wondering whether notmuchmail has
> the following features that I have implemented in Gnus:
> 
> 1. mail splitting into groups according to who sends it

Notmuch is a search-based client. It can do very fast searches though
all of your mail. You can configure it to search for (almost) whatever
you want. sender address included. However, automatically splitting your
inbox based on the sender would require some scripting to generate the
appropriate queries.

> 2. posting styles: according to which group I am in it will place a
> different signature file in my email.

Notmuch uses standard message-mode for composing and sending mails. I
guess you can configure message mode to do so.

> 3. Gnus is part of Emacs, thus nothing to install, no prerequisites and
> other nastiness.  What is involved in installing notmuchmail?

It is either in your distribution or a simple configure; make; make
install should do the job. It needs Emacs 23 and the following
libraries: glib, gmime and xapian.

-Michal

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: 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: 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