Re: RMS Setup

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Tomas Hlavaty <tom@logand.com> [2021-03-27 10:09]:
> On Sat 27 Mar 2021 at 00:50, Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> wrote:
> > It certainly works but why enter the tiny shop when there is
> > a HUGE one right next to it?
> >
> > It is like learning Czech instead of Russian...
> 
> Czech here.  Bad logic, why learn Russian instead of Chinese?  What if
> your logic is used for text editors?  Or operating systems?  Or anything
> else?  No need to blindly flock.  Diversity is good.

I got idea that this is about Gnus being better than Rmail.

It may be more complex or better for somebody, but it never worked for
me as I use maildirs, and Gnus cannot handle so many maildirs I have,
like 48177 -- while mutt, the loyal dog https://www.mutt.org can
handle that without breathing problems, by simply accessing file
directories. The concept of accessing file directories is simple, yet
Gnus will die on the attempt.

mu4e is slow, I have already said to author that I could never even
reach the time point where mu4e can show me the list of my Maildirs.

Rmail cannot handle Maildirs, but is good for simple mailboxes. It can
be used to handle retrieved emails, send emails, and save them. After
that, I recommend `sieve' from GNU Mailutils package and automatic
sorting of emails into corresponding mailboxes.

That is why I send emails often from Emacs, save them in a mbox, and
use sieve later to sort into specific maildirs.

Maildir format comes handy for one useful feature, if all emails
related to tom@example.com are sorted in ~/Maildir/tom@example.com as
a directory, then the full conversation related to Tom may be
retrieved or opened in a second. In fact I have made a key binding in
mutt and also functions in Emacs that as soon as I find the person I
can press a key and get the list of all related conversation in a
second.

The principle of sorting emails send TO: tom@example.com and received
FROM: tom@example.com into mailbox folder named "tom@example.com" is
useful regardless of the mailbox format.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

Sieve:
https://mailutils.org/manual/html_section/sieve.html
https://mailutils.org/manual/html_chapter/Sieve-Language.html

Emails need not be sorted into Maildirs, they can be sorted into any
type of email file format. 

Example function that saves emails from mbox created by Emacs into
Maildirs related to specific email address (recipient in this case):

function save-maildir-by-to () {
    sieve -f /your/script/dir/save-by-to.sieve" && echo Sieve DONE.
}

Script save-by-to.sieve:
========================

require [ "fileinto", "variables" ];
if address :matches [ "to" ] "*" {
  set "recipient" :lower "${1}";
  fileinto "~/Maildir/${recipient}";
            }

Configuration ~/.mailutils:
===========================

tls {
    enable true;
}
    
mailbox {
	# Use specified URL as a mailspool.
       	mail-spool /home/data1/protected/Maildir;

       # Default mailbox type.
       mailbox-type Maildir;

     }


Jean