Re: smtp issues: progress indicator and gracious failure

[Kevin Rodgers]

On 5/20/11 2:30 AM, emacs user wrote:
> hi all,
>
> These aren't bug reports, but more like feature requests, in the hope
> that these features already exist and I dont know how to activate
> them.
>
> I use vm with smtpmail to send mail.  when on a slow wireless
> connection, sending 20Mb attachments can take over 10 minutes.  I am
> wondering if there is a way to get some progress indicator, such as a
> continuously updating "percent uploaded" in the echo area?
>
> also, smtp fails quite often, and then I am left with the outgoing
> mail buffer.  I can press c-c c-c to try again and that works in most
> cases, but then it adds the message to the outgoing folder again, so I
> need to erase the .FCC line by hand.  wouldn't it be good if a failed
> message was automatically put in "outgoing folder" such as a queued-
> mail directory, and then sent at a later time?  perhaps when smtpmail
> is called again to send another message?

There should be a "*trace of SMTP session to HOST*" buffer, where HOST is
smtpmail-smtp-server.

I used to use smtpmail under VM, and added this to my ~/.emacs:

(defadvice smtpmail-send-it (around display-trace-buffer activate)
  "If an error is signalled, display the process buffer."
  (condition-case signals-data
      ad-do-it
    (error (shrink-window-if-larger-than-buffer
            (display-buffer (get-buffer (format "*trace of SMTP session to %s*"
                                                smtpmail-smtp-server))))
           (signal (car signals-data) (cdr signals-data)))))

--
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA