Re: Moving from Thunderbird to Emacs for mail and calendar

[Richard Riley]

ken <gebser@mousecar.com> 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 <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

Year ago eh? Wow ...

> up *multiple email accounts* (like eight or nine of them), all of
> which

That many <shakes head in amazement> .. :-)

> 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.