[Users] Need help, moving from kmail-1.13.5 to claws-mail

Gene Heskett gheskett at wdtv.com
Mon Feb 24 03:54:12 CET 2014


On Sunday 23 February 2014 21:33:34 Steve Litt did opine:

> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 15:08:45 -0500
> 
> Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday 23 February 2014 14:17:08 Steve Litt did opine:
> > > On Sat, 22 Feb 2014 22:05:35 -0500
> 
> > > Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> [clip]
> 
Thanks.

> > > That's not how I would do it. I'd just copy all your directories to
> > > an IMAP server, then copy the IMAP directories locally. And
> > > personally, I use a local IMAP server.
> > 
> > IOW setup dovecot first.  I like that.
> 
> [clip]
> 
> > > Holger already gave you a way to do this in Claws, but I have to
> > > ask: are your needs for immediacy so great that you can't just set
> > > Claws to look for new mail every five minutes?
> > 
> > If Claws is anything like kmail, with its smorgasbord of functions,
> > that means the mail composer will summarily die for about a minute
> > once each 5, going away as you are typing in mid-word.  That is to me
> > very disconcerting, and is the major driving force behind my doing
> > the scripting that except for the fetch and sort from the
> > local /var/spool/mail/$user, takes  all that "external" crap away
> > from kmail, background duties it no longer has to worry about.  Those
> > pauses now, unless somebody sends 20 megs of images, are a 100
> > millisecond job I don't notice all that much.
> 
> Your preceding point is why I actually don't have Claws pick up
> automatically, but force myself to click the Get Mail button. Claws'
> greatest annoyance is that it cannot do two things at a time, so I'm
> pretty sure your composing progress *will* stop when it downloads,
> whether by time or by the inotify system.

Actually, best of both worlds would be to have it do it by itself, unless 
there was a composer screen open.  :)
 
> > > > How would one go about doing that from this looping script since
> > > > claws-mail doesn't have a dbus port?
> > > 
> > > You use inotifywatch, so why would you need a loop?
> > 
> > Because inotifywatch exits, returning the name of the $USER as the
> 
> LOL, my bad, I was thinking of inotifywait -m.
> 
> [clip]
> 
> > > I'll also leave you with my philosophy on email clients...
> > > 
> > > All email clients suck. Claws-Mail sucks the least. But once upon a
> > > time, that could have been said of Kmail, and we all know what
> > > happened to Kmail. With that in mind, I've tried to decouple my
> > > email client from as much as possible. Instead of having my email
> > > client contain my past emails, I have a Dovecot IMAP server contain
> > > them, and my email client just reads them. Instead of relying on my
> > > email client's filters, I implement them in .procmailrc. My email
> > > client is nothing more than a viewport into my collection of emails
> > > with reply mechanism, and that's the way I like it.
> > 
> > The ideal situation I am indeed shooting for.  I use my procmailrc
> > for lots of stuff, but only have one non-normal mail file target
> > setup in it. But now that you mention it, kmail apparently see's new
> > mail placed in that ~/Mail/cur mail folder in a timely manner.  I'd
> > ask then, can I do that same thing with dovecot, you indicate it can
> > work?
> 
> I set up my fetchmail to grab mail every three minutes. My fetchmail
> passes off to procmail, which, after filtering, drops the messages
> directly in the correct maildir directories of Dovecot, and once
> they've been so dropped, they're immediately available via Dovecot. I
> believe your procmail calls spam detectors to do their thing, so that
> might jam up the works a little, but probably not to the point of
> impracticality.

And it means I don't have to reinvent all those wheels when I am awake 
enough to invent them.  Which is not the case ATM.  Looong day. 
> > I've no experience with imap, to am a  total noobie.  OTOH, I am
> > subbed that dovecot list also and will not trouble this list with
> > such questions.
> > 
> > Too bad there is not a mailing list for "mail systems" where such
> > questions would not be "off topic".  IMNSHO, Claws/Courier, or
> > Claws/Dovecot should be treated as a pair of complete solutions, each
> > with its own combined mailing list.  But I am just an old fart
> > thinking out loud, without a hand on the tiller. ;-)
> 
> I've found most mailing lists and IRC channels to be pretty tolerant of
> adjacent technologies. Of course, there are exceptions (#html comes to
> mind, don't go there unless you want conflict), but I think the Claws
> list is pretty cool.

We shoot html offenders on sight, right? ;-)  Thats another sore point, 
this old kmail will change almost anything, including the stuff you have 
checked as sticky. 

> [clip]
> 
> > > I do that often when trying to
> > > figure whether a malfunction is due to Claws or not. And, if a
> > > future band of Claws developers decide to do something as stupid as
> > > binding Claws-Mail to Akonadi and Neepomuk, no big deal, I just
> > > plug in a different (IMAP compatible) email client. Now *that's*
> > > worry-free.
> > 
> > And that is exactly what I want, worry free, once its up and
> > running. Because 90 days later, I will have mostly forgotten how I
> > did it, and will have to start my troubleshooting from scratch.
> 
> I'd say the only worry is this: Be sure to put a catch-all recipe at
> the bottom of your .procmailrc, and a special test recipe immediately
> above that, and every time you change something, you send test mails to
> make sure that you haven't accidentally diverted good emails. Also,
> 
> never do this:
> :0:
> * ^Subject.*[Dovecot]
> .dovecot/
> 
> The preceding sends every email with d, o, v, e, c or t in its subject
> into the dovecot folder. In other words, most messages. Heaven help you
> if the destination were /dev/null instead: You'd never get them back.
> 
> You need to escape the square brackets, as follows:
> :0:
> * ^Subject.*\[Dovecot\]
> .dovecot/

I will make every effort to remember that.  I know its required in a 
mailfilter recipe.  But as an anchor point, I normally include the : just 
in case there is a Subject without the : it might trigger on.
 
> The preceding sends all messages whose subject contains "[Dovecot]" to
> the dovecot folder. And as you probably know, procmail recipes are case
> insensitive.

That can cut both ways, I believe mailfilters rules are case sensitive.
 
> > I don't recommend getting old, its not for wimps. ;-)
> 
> I was thinking the same thing. I've forgotten where I put my walker.

I'd borrowed one from the neighbors last fall after I tore up my left knee, 
but its good enough to walk on for the distances I might walk now, so I 
took it back about 6 weeks back.  My cane is leaning on the door frame 
leaving my man cave.

> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
> Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> Users at lists.claws-mail.org
> http://lists.claws-mail.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users


Cheers, Gene
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

NOTICE: Will pay 100 USD for an HP-4815A defective but
complete probe assembly.




More information about the Users mailing list