Dominik Vogt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said something to this effect on 07/09/2001:
> On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 12:09:49PM +0100, John Arundel wrote:
> > Sure, you can do extraordinary things with mutt, but sometimes it's
> > better to use the tool for the job. Adding procmail-style mail filtering
> > functionality to mutt would not make it a better mail client, just a poor
> > cousin to procmail (vide mutt's POP support if you still need convincing).
>
> I strongly disagree. Of course it does not make sense to
> re-implement procmail in mutt. But the average user does not need
> 5 percent of procmail's functionality anyway. On the other hand,
> many users like to have some mail filtering but are unable to set
> up with mutt. I believe this is one of the most common features
> people expect from their mail client - and I don't mean UNIX
> freaks but just an office user like our secretary.
This is a stronger argument for something like procmail, i.e.,
mail-server-level filtering, than it is for client-side
filtering. What would make procmail useful for people like your
secretary (meaning, non-technical people who have no interest in
learning procmail, or mutt) is some sort of a non-technical interface
for building filtering rules. This is, in my mind, what, for
example, Netscape's client side filtering has over procmail--a
nice forms-based interface for creating filters. Of course,
these rules won't be as powerful as a regex-based solution
carefully crafted by a procmail wizard, but for most filtering
jobs, it would be more than adequate.
I don't necessarily mean a web-based interface, either! I once
consulted at a place that had a unix-based mail server and
Windows clients (they connected via IMAP), and they used procmail
to filter mail. Each user had a "login" on the mail server, and
their shell was /usr/local/bin/proc-config, which was a bash
script that configured procmail through a curses-based interface
(this was where I learned about whiptail and dialog), complete
with forms and other things vaguely gui-ish. The results were
definitely usable, and the resulting procmailrc's were
well-commented and well done.
(darren)
--
What you do instead of your real work *is* your real work.
-- Roger Ebert
