From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Riley Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Moving from Thunderbird to Emacs for mail and calendar Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:59:37 +0200 Organization: aich tea tea pea dicky riley dot net Message-ID: References: <4AA6E9D5.9050800@chaosphere.com> <871vmgoaav.fsf@mundaneum.com> <87y6ool9pw.fsf@mundaneum.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1252543257 15696 80.91.229.12 (10 Sep 2009 00:40:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:40:57 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 10 02:40:50 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MlXiR-0000yL-H2 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:40:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:34104 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MlXiQ-0007YJ-Q9 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:40:46 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!usenet.stanford.edu!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!feeder.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 226 Original-X-Trace: news.eternal-september.org U2FsdGVkX1/rUI52SSe3VSNyzV1KSOgwvBuTyqwTbkFXJZ5O/nx+mcsp09Jv6IbAjg6Af1ur7UXt6/3i6rnnP2tRCAcilV7bkkM+/RaJTF3tMDj4tWdISd9427/M3SU18iuRiGyKV8Xq7snp99iu1A== Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@eternal-september.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:59:38 +0000 (UTC) X-Auth-Sender: U2FsdGVkX1+MICsYnkzMwF9f2ApH4ZxnwCjHGTTLH9A= Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZHdIpEDS/SqNdjWXsQ1eAez4/e4= User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (gnu/linux) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:172880 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:68016 Archived-At: ken writes: > 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 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 Year ago eh? Wow ... > up *multiple email accounts* (like eight or nine of them), all of > which That many .. :-) > 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 So does Gnus. > one another of course. Incoming mail with and encryption key is See posting-styles. .authinfo. epa. > 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. Yeah, if you need all that then maybe gnus is not for you since it is tricky at times to configure. I got some nice colour coding going though : http://richardriley.net/projects/images/gnus_scr.png Probably not as good as Thunderbird for sure ... > > 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. It certainly reads that way. > 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: I already use emacs from web forms and mailto links using mozex and "It's all text". But thunderbird I dont know about. I would be surprised if there was not something already. But I guess most TB users don't really use Emacs : it's kind of a clash of cultures :-; The excellent emacs daemon now means things like mailto from firefox are instant .. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MailtoHandler#toc4 > 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. There are quite a few out there. Mine's currently a bit of a mess but viewable here: http://richardriley.net/projects/emacs/ > > >> >> >>> (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). Read the manual. You can view images inline, or you can open the links in an external viewer. There are countless possibilities. > > >> >> Inlined photos are just seeable directly in the buffers. > > And then if I want to forward that email containing photos...? In > Tbird Forward the email? Whats so special about that? > 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. I'm not sure what you're enthusing over here. To forward an email (containing attachments or not) is trivial and a standard gnus function. > > >> >> 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... > > :( I'm not sure I understand why the grimace. I read most of my html emails as "washed" html - ie the text only. HTML email is the invention of Lucifer anyway. > > >> >> PDF are normal links. Just clicking on them opens up SumatraPDF under Windows >> or okular under Linux. > > That's cool. And very much depending on how your emacs & gnus are setup. > >> >> 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. Like what? Most of this has been in gnus for ever and day. > > Best, > ken > > Do try gnus. If you like emacs then you can't go wrong : it's great having email integrated with the rest of my eamcs life : live translations from german, spelling, org-mode links, one key google search, w3m browsing or optionally launching an external browser, fancy-splitting, bbdb .. i could go on. Gnus is not for the feint of heart : but I think you'd like it if you're willing to forget how thunderbird does it and open your mind to the Gnus "style". ps I think you might have got your Thunderbird posting styles mixed up. Weren't you John earlier? If not you sound very similar.