Re: Moving from Thunderbird to Emacs for mail and calendar

[ken <gebser@mousecar.com>]

On 09/09/2009 05:59 AM Sébastien Vauban wrote:
> ken,
> 
> ken wrote:
>> On 09/09/2009 03:18 AM Sébastien Vauban wrote:
>>> notbob wrote:
>>>> On 2009-09-09, Bastien <bastienguerry@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ...
>> But gnus has been problemmatic for me. I have multiple email accounts which
>> I access using imaps (running on different servers). Setting these all up
>> and managing them is a snap with Thunderbird. On the other hand, I've spend
>> *days* trying to get gnus to do the same and never did get them anything
>> close to working. So I gave up. There's too many other things in my life to
>> do.
> 
> It's true that setting up everything takes some time. But, once it's done, you
> can go wherever (to client sites) with your config file and get the same level
> of functionality as you had on your first PC.

That's a nice thing about text config files: you can copy them to other
machines, save previous versions for easy testing of new functionality,
adding another account simply by copying a block of text and changing a
few words.  Granted.  That's what I like about Linux too.


> 
> I am using Gnus for accessing the company IMAP server and different newsgroups
> (from our provider and from Gname).

I did all that years ago.  As I said, the difficulty I had was setting
up *multiple email accounts* (like eight or nine of them), all of which
use IMAPS (secure IMAP) and most of which use different IMAP servers and
different SMTP servers (using TLS + something else).  Tbird does all
this easily, plus:  some mail accounts have PGP keys, all different from
one another of course.  Incoming mail with and encryption key is
automatically signature-checked or decrypted, as applicable.  Add to
this folders and filters, color-coding of inbox mails (either
automatically by ruleset or manually with a couple mouse-clicks), mail
templates, multiple address books, searches (of course), and a lot more.

Under the category of "a lot more" are the add-ins, little apps (written
by computer Joes, Tbird outsiders who write code) that you can plug into
Tbird for added functionality.  E.g., one I use occasionally
transliterates English characters into Cyrillic (Russian alphabet).

Hey, I didn't start out this email trying to be an ad for Thunderbird.
I just started talking and all this stuff came out.  I almost went on a
tangent wherein there was pseudo-code.  But the more I thought about
that pseudo-code, the more I just kept thinking: TB's got this and this
and this and this and this.  And it's pretty simple to set up and use.
(With more than a half dozen accounts, you know I have to read and write
a lot of email, so I can't use software that's going to slow me down.)

Here's an idea (take it or leave it... just a suggestion): somebody
should write a plug-in for Tbird so that when I write or reply to an
email, instead of going into Tbird's editor, emacs springs up in the
composition space.  That way I get all (or a lot) of emacs' features:
the key combos I'm so accustomed to, easy searching/replacing, abbrevs,
paging up and down without need of the mouse, etc.  That would be THE
Killer Tbird plug-in.


> 
> 
>> If there's ever clear and accurate enough documentation on doing this, I
>> might attempt it again.

Then again, perhaps not.  I'm liking Tbird pretty good.


> 
> My goal is to get my .gnus file published on the Web, for helping people (the
> same way I got helped by looking at other's config files).
> 
> Though, I need to get my private stuff removed from this file. Not yet done.
> Could be in a couple of weeks from now.

That's great.  It might not tip me back, but I'm sure a lot of other
folks would love to have at it.


> 
> 
>> (But then, how does gnus handle html-formatted emails with images (e.g.,
>> photos)...?  PDFs?)
> 
> Not a prob'.

I actually meant "how?"... like what does emacs do with them.  What do I
have to do to read a PDF-- or Word doc (shudder)-- which comes attached
to an email?  E.g., in Tbird I double-click on the text name of the
attachment (or together-selected attachments).


> 
> Inlined photos are just seeable directly in the buffers.

And then if I want to forward that email containing photos...?  In Tbird
I'd do C-l (a composition window pops with the photos in it and the
cursor blinking in the To: field), type in the addressee(s) (Tbird does
type-ahead... guesses the name or address or nickname of the
addressee(s), displaying them in a drop down if I want to scroll or read
through them and select one or more of them), then do C-Return to send.
 You can see, TB's doing a lot more work than I am when I send an email.
 It's like it knows what I need to do next.  Well, a lot of the time it
does.  And most of the time I can let the mouse be lonely... just use
the keyboard.


> 
> The same for HTML (with emacs-w3m and the w3m browser available from Cygwin).
> For HTML with Java inside, just K H to fire up Firefox with the mail
> contents...

:(


> 
> PDF are normal links. Just clicking on them opens up SumatraPDF under Windows
> or okular under Linux.

That's cool.

> 
> All of that in one config file, usable under both Windows and Linux, without
> any change. Just conditional setup.

Sounds like it gets a solid B.  But Tbird gets an A-.


> 
> Seb
> 

Thanks for the info.  Emacs is definitely doing better things with email
than just a few years ago.

Best,
ken