What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Don Saklad]

What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?






.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[W. Greenhouse]

Don Saklad <dsaklad@gnu.org> writes:

> What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

RMAIL and MH-E (of which the function `mh-rmail' is a part) are similar
in that they assume the presence of a traditional UNIX mail system (Mail
Transfer Agents such as sendmail, postfix, exim, etc., and possibly Mail
Delivery Agents such as procmail, maildrop, etc.).  That is because they
normally only handle mail arriving at the system mailbox for the user,
leaving it to the user or the user's site administrator to arrange for
that to happen.  There are exceptions to this; RMAIL offers some basic
ability to deal with POP3 on its own, and some MH implementations
(notably the GNU Mailutils version of MH) can handle POP and IMAP in a
simple fashion.

They differ in the handling and formatting of the mail once it arrives.
RMAIL stores the mail in one big file, similar to UNIX mbox format and
usable with external tools designed for that.  MH-E deals with the mail
in a directory structure, one message per file and one directory per
mail folder.  Unlike RMAIL, which manages its own mailbox on its own,
MH-E is a frontend and set of Lisp functions to exploit the RAND Mail
Handler (mh)[1], one of the first mail systems to use a "message-as-file"
concept.  Modern mh implementations suitable for use with MH-E include
nmh and GNU Mailutils.  With MH-E you have the option of using the MH
implementation's command line tools to manipulate your mail as well as
using Emacs.

So, in short, you need an MH to use MH-E, which uses the legacy mh mail
format.  Or you can use RMAIL which also uses a legacy format.  Or, you
can use Gnus as `read-mail-command' instead of either of these, which is
my own preference.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/

--
Regards,
WGG

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:

> With MH-E you have the option of using the MH
> implementation's command line tools to manipulate your
> mail ...

100% correct, and that is a great advantage. If you go
from a web mail service, be it Hotmail or even
Gmail... -- to experience this transition is a *dream*!

> Or, you can use Gnus as read-mail-command instead of
> either of these, which is my own preference.

How do you do that? It was very easy to setup RMAIL, I
think below 30 minutes, but every time I see some
tutorial about mail in Gnus it seems it requires hours
of hacking (?).

I use Gnus for Usenet and RMAIL for mails. But sometimes
I get both Usenet posts *and* mails (with the same
contents) as is often the case for this group, for
example, so it is not optimal. Also, the "one big file"
solution for RMAIL is not good.

What's more, why shouldn't you use Gnus (or your
favourite newsreader) for mail, as well? I use message
mode for both (this required some minor hacks), and
there seems to be noting separating them apart from the
broadcast character of Usenet (but that can be
implemented as a listbot as well, so again I see almost
no difference).

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[William G. Gardella]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573-oe7qfRrRQfc4M/bo5TPICw@public.gmane.org> writes:

> wgreenhouse-sGOZH3hwPm2sTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org (W. Greenhouse) writes:
>
>> With MH-E you have the option of using the MH
>> implementation's command line tools to manipulate your
>> mail ...
>
> 100% correct, and that is a great advantage. If you go
> from a web mail service, be it Hotmail or even
> Gmail... -- to experience this transition is a *dream*!
>
>> Or, you can use Gnus as read-mail-command instead of
>> either of these, which is my own preference.
>
> How do you do that? It was very easy to setup RMAIL, I
> think below 30 minutes, but every time I see some
> tutorial about mail in Gnus it seems it requires hours
> of hacking (?).

That's because a lot of the tutorials suffer from bitrot; timeliness in
wiki pages and blog posts is a real problem, especially since software
configuration advice necessarily changes over time.

To set up Gnus for locally delivered mail (similar to how you'd use
RMAIL or MH-E, with system MTA/MDA facilities routing the mail to your
inbox, and the system MTA sending mail) is a very brief configuration.
Something like this is all that's really needed for this:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnml "")) ;; This is similar to an MH mail store, with the
                   ;; addition of news-server-like "news overview" files
                   ;; that make the summary buffer's display faster.
      message-send-mail-function 'message-sendmail-send-it
      mail-user-agent 'gnus-user-agent ;; `compose-mail' and related
                                       ;;  commands will use
                                       ;;  message-mode with full Gnus features
      read-mail-command 'gnus) ;; Clicking on the "Mail" flag in
                               ;; display-time-mode launches gnus
                               ;; instead of RMAIL
      
I use a setup similar to this, with the addition of other
`gnus-secondary-select-methods' elements corresponding to my IMAP
mailboxes.  It is very nice seeing everything in one coherent interface.

> I use Gnus for Usenet and RMAIL for mails. But sometimes
> I get both Usenet posts *and* mails (with the same
> contents) as is often the case for this group, for
> example, so it is not optimal. Also, the "one big file"
> solution for RMAIL is not good.

Gnus offers a number of file-based mail backends.  See (info "(gnus)
Choosing a Mail Back End").

> What's more, why shouldn't you use Gnus (or your
> favourite newsreader) for mail, as well? I use message
> mode for both (this required some minor hacks), and
> there seems to be noting separating them apart from the
> broadcast character of Usenet (but that can be
> implemented as a listbot as well, so again I see almost
> no difference).

Indeed, for Gnus an "article" is an article, regardless of how it was
delivered :)  That abstraction has certain nice advantages (e.g. Gnus
can let you use score files and killfiles for mail as well as news).

-- 
Finally, Zippy drives his 1958 RAMBLER METROPOLITAN into the faculty
dining room.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

William G. Gardella <wgg2@member.fsf.org> writes:

> Something like this is all that's really needed for
> this ...

That did it. Thanks. The below code if what I can tell
complete (on my system) for sending mails from message
mode, storing them in Gnus, and reading incomming mails
in Gnus as well.

I hope I'm right :)

;;;; Gnus
(load "gnus")

;;; send mail
(load "smtpmail")
(setq smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.uu.se")
(setq smtpmail-local-domain "student.uu.se")
(setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
(setq user-full-name "Emanuel Berg")

(let ((username "embe8573"))
  (setq user-mail-address
        (format "%s@%s" username smtpmail-local-domain) )
;;; read mail
  (setq mail-sources `((pop :pop "pop.uu.se"
                            :user ,username
                            :password "secret") )))

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnml ""))
      mail-user-agent   'gnus-user-agent
      read-mail-command 'gnus)

;;; save sent mail
(setq gnus-message-archive-group
  '("archived-news-and-mail") )

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

>> Something like this is all that's really needed for
>> this ...
>
> That did it ...

Oh no... did anyone write a tool to populate a Gnus
group from an RMAIL file?

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Glyn Millington]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>
>>> Something like this is all that's really needed for this ...
>> That did it ...
>
> Oh no... did anyone write a tool to populate a Gnus group from an
> RMAIL file?


http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rmail#toc11



Converting Babyl files to mbox format

If you tried Rmail with an Emacs version prior to 23 and you decide that
Rmail is not for you, you can later read mail from the Babyl file if you
are using Gnus. For all other mail readers, you’ll have to move the mails
back into mbox format. Use ‘M-x unrmail’ to convert the mail file. You
can also use the command-line tool b2m to do it. Starting with version
23, Emacs converts Babyl files back into mbox when it first reads them.


hth





Glyn

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[James Freer]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 7:38 AM, Glyn Millington
<glyn.millington@gmail.com> wrote:
> Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>
>> Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>>
>>>> Something like this is all that's really needed for this ...
>>> That did it ...
>>
>> Oh no... did anyone write a tool to populate a Gnus group from an
>> RMAIL file?
>
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rmail#toc11
>
>
>
> Converting Babyl files to mbox format
>
> If you tried Rmail with an Emacs version prior to 23 and you decide that
> Rmail is not for you, you can later read mail from the Babyl file if you
> are using Gnus. For all other mail readers, you’ll have to move the mails
> back into mbox format. Use ‘M-x unrmail’ to convert the mail file. You
> can also use the command-line tool b2m to do it. Starting with version
> 23, Emacs converts Babyl files back into mbox when it first reads them.

Glyn

I also had a problem trying to use Rmail. I wanted to use Rmail  as it
is what's shipped with Emacs (Gnus I also failed with). I wanted to
use Rmail remotely reading Gmail servers which seems the best way to
me when using Linux (Xubuntu) as one has the 6 month releases. Stunnel
seemed the problem but now Emacs 24 has it built in I am going to try
again.

james

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Tassilo Horn]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

Hi Emanuel,

> Oh no... did anyone write a tool to populate a Gnus group from an
> RMAIL file?

Rmail until emacs 23 used the babyl file format, and Gnus has a backend
for that (nnbabyl).  Later versions of Rmail use the standard mbox
format, and of course Gnus can also use that (nnmbox).

So in either way, you can set up Gnus to be able to read the Rmail file,
and if you want, you can simply copy all messages over to some other
group.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Rmail until emacs 23 used the babyl file format, and
> Gnus has a backend for that (nnbabyl).  Later versions
> of Rmail use the standard mbox format, and of course
> Gnus can also use that (nnmbox).

Thanks, but I didn't get it to work.

I use:

GNU Emacs 23.4.1

file (the shell tool) tells me that the RMAIL file is an

HTML document, ASCII text, with very long lines

I appended an nnmbox element to the Gnus secondary
selection list but something is missing as I get news,
and mail (with nnml), but nothing more (and no error
message), as always.

I didn't know what to make of the -active file, so I
just created an empty such file with touch.

Note that I don't want to use nnmbox for new incommings,
I'm happy with nnml, I just want a Gnus group populated
with the messages now in my RMAIL file, and then use
that group as an archive. (But it can be a separate
group. It doesn't have to be merged with the nnml inbox,
mail.misc, although that would be optimal.)

(require 'nnmbox)
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
 '((nnml   "")
   (nnmbox ""
     (nnmbox-mbox-file   "~/rmail_gnus/rmail_mb")
     (nnmbox-active-file "~/rmail_gnus/.rmail_mb-active")
     (nnmbox-get-new-mail t) ))
   mail-user-agent 'gnus-user-agent
   read-mail-command 'gnus)

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Note that I don't want to use nnmbox for new incommings,
> I'm happy with nnml, I just want a Gnus group populated
> with the messages now in my RMAIL file, and then use
> that group as an archive. (But it can be a separate
> group. It doesn't have to be merged with the nnml inbox,
> mail.misc, although that would be optimal.)

OK, it seems the nnml inbox ended up in

~/Mail/mail/misc

where the mails (one file for each) looks like this (on
ls)

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Now, in my old RMAIL mail file, I selected what I
thought was one mail, and wrote it to (the file)
13. Then, in Gnus, I opened that mail, and it all worked
seamlessly, except - the subject (in the Gnus summary)
was wrong, it hadn't changed.

Turned out, in the misc directory, there is an .overview
file with one line per file (mail), that looks like

13
Subject
A Name <a.name@mail.com>
Thu, 26 Sep 2013 20:52:01 +0200
(and then some more metadata)

But instead of line breaks, it seems - sometimes
whitespace, and sometimes a tab, and sometimes both.

So, the Gnus summary reads from the .overview file, and
only when you select a message you get it from the
actual file (e.g., 13).

Now, I guess this could be solved by a parser that reads
the RMAIL file, and for each entry, creates a numbered
mail file, *and* append to the .overview file the number
and the headers?

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[W. Greenhouse]

Hi Emanuel,

Emanuel Berg <embe8573-oe7qfRrRQfc4M/bo5TPICw@public.gmane.org> writes:

[...]

> But instead of line breaks, it seems - sometimes
> whitespace, and sometimes a tab, and sometimes both.
>
> So, the Gnus summary reads from the .overview file, and
> only when you select a message you get it from the
> actual file (e.g., 13).
>
> Now, I guess this could be solved by a parser that reads
> the RMAIL file, and for each entry, creates a numbered
> mail file, *and* append to the .overview file the number
> and the headers?

Fortunately there is no need to do all this work manually, and the
parser is already written. :)

If you have old mail in an RMAIL file, you can open the entire RMAIL
file in Gnus with G f (`gnus-group-make-doc-group') and "respool" it
with M P a (mark all) and B r (respool).  This will make your nnml setup
re-process all of that mail as if it were brand new from the server, and
it will be automatically incorporated and the .overview file
regenerated.

This process is synchronous, so if you have a great deal of mail stored
in the RMAIL file, you may want to go make a coffee, or possibly a
sandwich and a coffee. :)

-- 
Regards,
WGG

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:

> If you have old mail in an RMAIL file, you can open
> the entire RMAIL file in Gnus with G f
> (`gnus-group-make-doc-group')

Yes, this creates a group with the same name as the
RMAIL file, unfortunately, the group only shows the
*first* message in the RMAIL file, and even that, in a
strange way (*three* times, threaded, with the same
message, though "filled" differently).

Perhaps my RMAIL file is not "sound"? (But, rmail
processes it correctly.)

> and "respool" it with M P a (mark all) and B r
> (respool).  This will make your nnml setup re-process
> all of that mail as if it were brand new from the
> server, and it will be automatically incorporated and
> the .overview file regenerated.

Yes, this works. (But the above problem makes it work
only for a single mail.)

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[W. Greenhouse]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573-oe7qfRrRQfc4M/bo5TPICw@public.gmane.org> writes:

> wgreenhouse-sGOZH3hwPm2sTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org (W. Greenhouse) writes:
>
>> If you have old mail in an RMAIL file, you can open
>> the entire RMAIL file in Gnus with G f
>> (`gnus-group-make-doc-group')
>
> Yes, this creates a group with the same name as the
> RMAIL file, unfortunately, the group only shows the
> *first* message in the RMAIL file, and even that, in a
> strange way (*three* times, threaded, with the same
> message, though "filled" differently).
>
> Perhaps my RMAIL file is not "sound"? (But, rmail
> processes it correctly.)
>
>> and "respool" it with M P a (mark all) and B r
>> (respool).  This will make your nnml setup re-process
>> all of that mail as if it were brand new from the
>> server, and it will be automatically incorporated and
>> the .overview file regenerated.
>
> Yes, this works. (But the above problem makes it work
> only for a single mail.)

Hmm...this sounds suspiciously like Gnus misidentified the format of the
RMAIL file.  Is it an older (so-called Babyl format) or newer (mbox
format) RMAIL file?

You can try both ways by giving a prefix arg to
`gnus-group-make-doc-group' (that is, C-u G f) and choosing the
appropriate file type.  Hopefully, one or the
other will parse correctly.

-- 
Regards,
WGG

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:

> Hmm...this sounds suspiciously like Gnus misidentified
> the format of the RMAIL file.  Is it an older
> (so-called Babyl format) or newer (mbox format) RMAIL
> file?

I don't know! file (the shell tool) says

RMAIL: HTML document, ASCII text, with very long lines

In this thread, it has been mentioned that since I use
Emacs

GNU Emacs 23.4.1

it should be mbox. The tool b2m says

b2m: standard input is not a Babyl mailfile.

Also, when I use C-u G f with "guess", the guess is
mbox.

mbox gets the best result, and it makes sense (no
threading the same mail etc.), *but* it goes on only for
30 messages (that are all very recent). Perhaps some
message isn't sound, and it works from the present, and
back, and it gets stuck on that?

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[W. Greenhouse]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573-oe7qfRrRQfc4M/bo5TPICw@public.gmane.org> writes:

[...]

> mbox gets the best result, and it makes sense (no
> threading the same mail etc.), *but* it goes on only for
> 30 messages (that are all very recent). Perhaps some
> message isn't sound, and it works from the present, and
> back, and it gets stuck on that?

Sounds like a likely guess.  I would cross-check with RMAIL to see what
that 31st message is, and perhaps quarantine it temporarily, moving it
to another file to see if you can continue.

-- 
Regards,
WGG

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:

>> mbox gets the best result, and it makes sense (no
>> threading the same mail etc.), *but* it goes on only
>> for 30 messages (that are all very recent). Perhaps
>> some message isn't sound, and it works from the
>> present, and back, and it gets stuck on that?
>
> Sounds like a likely guess.  I would cross-check with
> RMAIL to see what that 31st message is, and perhaps
> quarantine it temporarily, moving it to another file
> to see if you can continue.

Good thinking, but it wasn't that. When I started all
this ruckus, I made a copy of the RMAIL file to bring it
out of the havoc.

But by now, I had forgot about it, so those 30 mails
were the correct number (in the new file). I should have
known that by now, (just ask Assange), *no* good deed
goes unpunished...

Of course, good news is, there is nothing wrong with the
respooler.

But:

> If you have old mail in an RMAIL file, you can open the
> entire RMAIL file in Gnus with G f
> (`gnus-group-make-doc-group') and "respool" it with M P
> a (mark all)

No matter how hard I looked (I even used Google!), I
couldn't find any mark all or M P a shortcut. So I wrote
this

(defun gnus-summary-respool-all ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((lines (count-lines (point-min) (point-max))))
    (beginning-of-buffer)
    (gnus-summary-respool-article
     lines
     (gnus-find-method-for-group "nnml:mail.misc") )))

Anyway, *thanks so much*! Usenet and mail with one
interface (with message mode, .mailrc, etc. already
perfect), and now also shell access to the mails
(instead of that T-Rex RMAIL file), this is something
that I've visualized for *years*.

*sob*

--
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 10:59:33 +0200
> 
> shell access to the mails (instead of that T-Rex RMAIL file)

There's nothing wrong with Rmail in this respect, it's your usage of
it that was broken or at least sub-optimal.  E.g., I use Rmail for the
last 20 years, and don't have any "T-Rex RMAIL file" problem with my
mail archives.

For the benefit of others who might be misled by your messages, here's
how I suggest to avoid too large Rmail files:

 . Use the 'o' command in Rmail to file messages you want to keep in
   folders, one folder for each topic.  E.g., I have an 'EMACS.rmail'
   folder for Emacs-related discussions, 'BIDI.rmail' folder for
   issues related to bidirectional scripts, 'PORTS.rmail' for ports of
   GNU/Free software to MS-Windows, etc.  After I read a message, if I
   think it's worthy of being archived, I immediately press 'o'.  You
   can customize the value of rmail-output-file-alist to make Emacs
   guess the best folder for filing a message, by matching it with
   some regular expressions.  If Emacs guesses correctly, you don't
   even need to type the folder name, just press RET.

 . Periodically use the 'x' command in Rmail to expunge deleted and
   filed messages from the inbox file.  This keeps the inbox size on
   disk at bay.  I expunge my inbox once a week.

 . Use the FCC facility to output every message you send to a separate
   sent-mail folder.

 . Each Rmail "folder" is actually an mbox file.  To keep these files
   from becoming too large, I rotate them from time to time: FOO.rmail
   becomes FOO.rmail.NNNN-MMMM, where NNNN-MMMM are the years covered
   by the file's contents.  (The sent-mail folder should probably be
   rotated at least once a year.)

 . To look up past discussions in my mail archives, I use the mairix
   utility, which has an Emacs front end, is very fast when searching
   the archives, and searches all the folders together, including
   inbox and the sent-mail folder.  My single gripe about mairix is
   that it only supports the current locale's non-ASCII characters
   when searching, but if most of your mail archives are in English,
   that won't be a problem.  mairix can also be used from the shell,
   although I consider this usage sub-optimal, as the best way of
   formatting the search results is to produce another mbox file,
   which is then visited by Emacs for reading in Rmail.

I realize that Gnus is much more powerful than Rmail, and also
supports newsgroups, which Rmail doesn't.  But those of you who find
Rmail "good enough" should not be fooled into thinking that you cannot
organize your mail archives for fast and efficient management and
search.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> shell access to the mails (instead of that T-Rex RMAIL file)
>
> There's nothing wrong with Rmail in this respect, it's
> your usage of it that was broken or at least
> sub-optimal.

Wrong (see below).

> E.g., I use Rmail for the last 20 years

We can disagree without having to pull rank. Because
this was a misunderstanding, I'm not going to be angry
about it.

> and don't have any "T-Rex RMAIL file" problem with my
> mail archives.
>
> For the benefit of others who might be misled by your
> messages, here's how I suggest to avoid too large
> Rmail files:

That's *size* is not the point. The problem is it is
only *one* file. I want *one file per mail*. That way, I
can employ all my shell tools, and my Emacs shortcuts,
in a faster and more refined way.

But your advice are, I'm sure, beneficial for Rmail
users.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 11:40:00 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> shell access to the mails (instead of that T-Rex RMAIL file)
> >
> > There's nothing wrong with Rmail in this respect, it's
> > your usage of it that was broken or at least
> > sub-optimal.
> 
> Wrong (see below).

Not wrong (see below).

> > E.g., I use Rmail for the last 20 years
> 
> We can disagree without having to pull rank.

There's nothing wrong in citing a long experience.

> Because this was a misunderstanding, I'm not going to be angry about
> it.

Likewise.

> That's *size* is not the point. The problem is it is
> only *one* file.

If you read my description, you now know that it's not one file, but
multiple files.

> I want *one file per mail*. That way, I
> can employ all my shell tools, and my Emacs shortcuts,
> in a faster and more refined way.

I also explained how to employ tools, perhaps not yours, but
nonetheless very useful, to manage and search mail archives without
having to put each message on a separate file (which IMO is just the
opposite extreme of having them all in a single file, and thus
similarly inefficient and inconvenient).

> But your advice are, I'm sure, beneficial for Rmail users.

Sure hope so.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> We can disagree without having to pull rank.
>
> There's nothing wrong in citing a long experience.

Yes, that's called pulling rank, and especially if it
doesn't relate to the issue. "20 years" doesn't relate
to Rmail or Gnus, and nothing can be deducted from it,
apart from, perhaps "Rmail is at least 20 years
old". (But we are not discussing the age of Rmail.)

>> Because this was a misunderstanding, I'm not going to
>> be angry about it.
>
> Likewise.

Your Rmail folders may be what you desire but I always
wanted *one file per message*, and fully automated. This
is what I meant by the T-Rex metaphor. This metaphor
wasn't crystal clear so I don't blame you for
misunderstanding.

What you did was turning the T-Rex into packs of
velociraptors, but I want a swarm of paleo-bees, each
and every one separated from the other.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 13:38:04 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> We can disagree without having to pull rank.
> >
> > There's nothing wrong in citing a long experience.
> 
> Yes, that's called pulling rank

You can call it what you want, the essence will not change: this was a
valid data point, see below.

> and especially if it doesn't relate to the issue. "20 years" doesn't
> relate to Rmail or Gnus, and nothing can be deducted from it, apart
> from, perhaps "Rmail is at least 20 years old".

You are missing the point.  I said I was using Rmail for the past 20
years, and yet didn't bump into the "single huge file" problem that
you claimed was the problem with Rmail.  If 20 years of continuous
usage do not produce large files, the problem of large Rmail files you
cited can only be explained by sub-optimal use patterns.

> Your Rmail folders may be what you desire but I always
> wanted *one file per message*, and fully automated.

That's fine.  But "one message per file" is not the only reasonable
way of maintaining mail archives.  The alternatives are not limited to
"one huge file", they include "a number of messages in each file".

> This is what I meant by the T-Rex metaphor.

That metaphor simply doesn't fly, because Rmail does support multiple
Rmail files in the same Emacs session.

> What you did was turning the T-Rex into packs of
> velociraptors, but I want a swarm of paleo-bees, each
> and every one separated from the other.

I did nothing of the kind.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Yes, that's called pulling rank
>
> You can call it what you want, the essence will not
> change: this was a valid data point

No.

>> and especially if it doesn't relate to the issue. "20
>> years" doesn't relate to Rmail or Gnus, and nothing
>> can be deducted from it, apart from, perhaps "Rmail
>> is at least 20 years old".
>
> You are missing the point.  I said I was using Rmail
> for the past 20 years, and yet didn't bump into the
> "single huge file" problem that you claimed was the
> problem with Rmail.

You misread me; I already told you that. My point was
always that I wanted *one file per mail*.

> But "one message per file" is not the only reasonable
> way of maintaining mail archives.  The alternatives
> are not limited to "one huge file", they include "a
> number of messages in each file".

Yes, you made that fine-grained point, but that is still
not what I want and that was what I meant. I don't see a
huge difference between one big file, and several small
files, if they still include several mails, not when it
comes to my purposes. (And I never said my way was the
way for anyone else.)

>> This is what I meant by the T-Rex metaphor.
>
> That metaphor simply doesn't fly, because Rmail does
> support multiple Rmail files in the same Emacs
> session.

I already said the metaphor might not have been crystal
clear. That's why I didn't instantly blow up on you for
taking those shots at me, and then pulling rank. I gave
you a shot at saying, "OK, I misread you, in that case,
you are not leaving Rmail because of 'broken usage'." -
but you didn't, you just went on.

Let me tell all of you reading this that I don't
discourage anyone from using Rmail. When I first
switched to it from the horrible web GUIs, that were
literally destroying my hands and eyes (and, for Rmail,
including the configuration I made, and the work I did
on the message mode, .mailrc, etc.) - this was an
*enormous* improvement, and I experienced it almost like
a love affair.

However, some time after that, I found Gnus and Usenet,
and I use Usenet everyday, and I can't see why the mail
and Usenet interface shouldn't be the same. Also, Gnus
is threaded; and, I had much more luck configuring Gnus
(there is a very ambitious homepage, and manual, and on
gnu.emacs.gnus you can get help from the man
himself). With Gnus, I can use the one-file solution
that is described above, with no fuss whatsoever. Last,
during my Usenet time, I learned a lot of useful tools
for example to filter traffic, and those can be employed
for mails as well - again, I don't see why the interface
shouldn't be the same for mail and Usenet.

To say that I, even in part, switched from Rmail to Gnus
because I didn't know how to use Rmail, does not deserve
any serious discussion. So step down, or I'll consider
you a flamer that is here to fight, and not to be
productive with Emacs.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 20:00:11 +0200
> 
> I already said the metaphor might not have been crystal
> clear. That's why I didn't instantly blow up on you for
> taking those shots at me, and then pulling rank.

Yes, you did blow up.  As you usually do with anyone who dares to
disagree.

> To say that I, even in part, switched from Rmail to Gnus
> because I didn't know how to use Rmail, does not deserve
> any serious discussion.

I don't care why you switch.  You are free to choose whatever Emacs
packages you use.  I do care when you misrepresent packages you don't
like, because that might dupe other users to think your lopsided
opinions are well based.  They are not.

> So step down, or I'll consider you a flamer that is here to fight,
> and not to be productive with Emacs.

You are free to consider me whatever you want.  I don't really care.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Yes, you did blow up.  As you usually do with anyone
> who dares to disagree.

Wrong. Disagree is fine. I said so first thing. That
wasn't the point. You take shots at me for no reason
(and incorrectly so), and then you pull rank. I gave you
a shot to reconsider by clarifying what I meant. But you
didn't.

> I do care when you misrepresent packages you don't
> like

Is there some other user here who can support you in
your claim that it is a misrepresentation of Rmail that
you get *one* file (or several with many mails in each,
as is Eli's whole line of defence, which by the way has
to be setup manually) with Rmail, *but*, with Gnus and
nnml, you get one file for each mail?

> You are free to consider me whatever you want.  I
> don't really care.

This whole thing is disgusting. You are in my KILL file.

If anyone would like to express support (without
arguments, as this discussion is over for my part) for
Eli's behaviour, I urge you to do so now, I'll put you
in my KILL file as well and be done with it.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 21:14:29 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Yes, you did blow up.  As you usually do with anyone
> > who dares to disagree.
> 
> Wrong. Disagree is fine. I said so first thing. That
> wasn't the point. You take shots at me for no reason
> (and incorrectly so), and then you pull rank. I gave you
> a shot to reconsider by clarifying what I meant. But you
> didn't.

This isn't some game where you set the rules.  If I have to say
something I consider important, I will, whether you like it or not.
So will others.  Learn to live with that.

> > I do care when you misrepresent packages you don't
> > like
> 
> Is there some other user here who can support you in your claim

I need no support for that, we are not in court or in parliament.  I
described my setup.  It is based on existing features.  Others will
read that and make up their own minds.  They can like it or not, it's
their decision.  Let them do that, as I do, and stop arguing as if
every disagreement with you is "taking shots" at you.  That is just
silly and childish.

> If anyone would like to express support (without
> arguments, as this discussion is over for my part) for
> Eli's behaviour, I urge you to do so now, I'll put you
> in my KILL file as well and be done with it.

How typical.

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 28 Sep 2013 11:40:00 +0200
Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> I want *one file per mail*. That way, I
> can employ all my shell tools, and my Emacs shortcuts,
> in a faster and more refined way.

Emanuel,

You might look into MH-E.  It's an Emacs front end to the nmh mail
package.  Nmh, itself based on the old mh package, stores each email
as a single file.  It can organize messages into various folders.
I've never run into a size limit on either the size of the message, or
the number of messages per folder.  If memory serves, which it may
not, MH-E is hosted on SourceForge, and nmh is on Savannah.

I've used mh/nmh/MH-E/Claws-Mail for years (about 20, now that I think
about it -- where does the time go?) and I've been quite satisfied
with it.  Give it a try, you might like it.

--Dale

--
A sad spectacle.  If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly.
If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
		-- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Dale Snell <ddsnell@frontier.com> writes:

> You might look into MH-E.  It's an Emacs front end to
> the nmh mail package.  Nmh, itself based on the old mh
> package, stores each email as a single file.  It can
> organize messages into various folders.  I've never
> run into a size limit on either the size of the
> message, or the number of messages per folder.  If
> memory serves, which it may not, MH-E is hosted on
> SourceForge, and nmh is on Savannah.
>
> I've used mh/nmh/MH-E/Claws-Mail for years (about 20,
> now that I think about it -- where does the time go?)
> and I've been quite satisfied with it.  Give it a try,
> you might like it.

Yeah, that sounds interesting. Thanks!

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[W. Greenhouse]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:


[...]

> Of course, good news is, there is nothing wrong with the
> respooler.

Yay!

> But:
>
>> If you have old mail in an RMAIL file, you can open the
>> entire RMAIL file in Gnus with G f
>> (`gnus-group-make-doc-group') and "respool" it with M P
>> a (mark all)
>
> No matter how hard I looked (I even used Google!), I
> couldn't find any mark all or M P a shortcut. So I wrote
> this

M P a is `gnus-uu-mark-all'.  My instructions were a small variation on

(info "(gnus) Incorporating Old Mail") 

where Lars instead (for some reason) uses M P b, or
`gnus-uu-mark-buffer'.  Both of these commands exploit the Gnus concept
of the "process mark" described in 

(info "(gnus) Setting Process Marks")

which you'll become familiar with as you do more operations on large
globs of messages.

-- 
Regards,
WGG

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:

> M P a is `gnus-uu-mark-all' ... where Lars instead
> (for some reason) uses M P b, or
> `gnus-uu-mark-buffer'.

Yes, got both of those.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573

Re: What are advantages and disadvantages of RMAIL and mh-rmail ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Glyn Millington <glyn.millington@gmail.com> writes:

> If you tried Rmail with an Emacs version prior to 23
> and you decide that Rmail is not for you, you can
> later read mail from the Babyl file if you are using
> Gnus. For all other mail readers, you’ll have to move
> the mails back into mbox format. Use ‘M-x unrmail’ to
> convert the mail file. You can also use the
> command-line tool b2m to do it. Starting with version
> 23, Emacs converts Babyl files back into mbox when it
> first reads them.

Thanks. b2m tells me the RMAIL file isn't a Babyl file,
and that is consistent with what you say because I'm on
Emacs 23. (Check out the post I just wrote for some more
material.)

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573