Re: multiple POP accounts?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] muttered: I am a newbie and probably this is a FAQ. Would you excuse me and my poor english. I know Mutt is able to fetch mail from various POP accounts, without fetchmail but I don't know how modify my .muttrc file to do this. I added new lines for every accont with set pop_host *** set pop_pass set pop_user * Kinda ugly, but should work: macro index G 'enter-commandset pop_host=host1 pop_pass=pw1 pop_user1\ enterfetch-mailenter-commandset pop_host=host2 ...' You get the idea. Set the variables for account1 poll server1, setup account2 poll server2... HTH, Michael -- A word to the wise: a credentials dicksize war is usually a bad idea on the net. (David Parsons in c.o.l.development.system, about coding in C.) PGP-Key: http://www-stud.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/~tatgeml/public.key
Re: multiple POP accounts?
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED], who wrote: I am a newbie and probably this is a FAQ. Would you excuse me and my poor english. I know Mutt is able to fetch mail from various POP accounts, without fetchmail but I don't know how modify my .muttrc file to do this. I added new lines for every accont with set pop_host *** set pop_port 110 set pop_pass set pop_user * but Mutt reads mails only from last POP in the file. Can you help me? Thanks. Giuseppe. With recent mutts, I don't know exactly from what version, you can use the change mailbox command c, then give a URL, pop:[EMAIL PROTECTED], you will be prompted for the password. This doesn't actually download, you're reading the mailbox with pop, but then you can tag all T*, and save them all to your spool, or something ;s. Cheers, Sam -- Sam Roberts [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: multiple POP accounts?
On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 10:46:36PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am a newbie and probably this is a FAQ. Would you excuse me and my poor english. I know Mutt is able to fetch mail from various POP accounts, without fetchmail but I don't know how modify my .muttrc file to do this. I added new lines for every accont with set pop_host *** set pop_port 110 set pop_pass set pop_user * but Mutt reads mails only from last POP in the file. Can you help me? Thanks. Giuseppe. What you need to do is create a macro for each POP account you wish to access. Something like: bind index f1 :set pop_user=foo pop_pass=xxx\nG bind index f2 :set pop_user=bar pop_pass=xxx\nG should do the trick. me
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 04:26:51PM -0600, Jeremy Blosser wrote: Chris Green [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: The one thing that I would like (and I think some other people would like) is a means to interactively decide what to do with mail in a POP3 mailbox. Fetchmail can't do this, the interactive requirement puts the facility squarely into the MUA I'm afraid. Chris, have you tried out Poppy? http://home.sprynet.com/~cbagwell/projects.html No, thanks for the pointer, it sounds quite useful but it's not the ideal solution for a couple of reasons:- 1 - I'd have to run two programs rather than one to handle my mail. Both programs would being showing me some of the same information (mail headers) and the two programs are entirely independent, there's no way of running one from the other or passing information between them. 2 - Poppy still doesn't give the interaction I want, OK for some mail messages I can deduce whether I want to download/delete/keep from the Subject: and the size but this is not the case for most mail messages. I need to see the content of the message before I can decide its fate, thus means an MUA. This sort of interaction *is* quite possible, as I've said other MUAs (mostly Unix ones it must be said) do already provide this sort of approach to handling POP3 mailboxes. It's not perfect by any means due to the limitations (and variations) in POP3 servers but for me (because of reading mail from many places) it's far better than any other approach I've seen. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 04:26:51PM -0600, Jeremy Blosser wrote: Chris Green [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: The one thing that I would like (and I think some other people would like) is a means to interactively decide what to do with mail in a POP3 mailbox. Fetchmail can't do this, the interactive requirement puts the facility squarely into the MUA I'm afraid. Chris, have you tried out Poppy? http://home.sprynet.com/~cbagwell/projects.html No, thanks for the pointer, it sounds quite useful but it's not the ideal solution for a couple of reasons:- 2 - Poppy still doesn't give the interaction I want, OK for some mail messages I can deduce whether I want to download/delete/keep from the Subject: and the size but this is not the case for most mail messages. I need to see the content of the message before I can decide its fate, thus means an MUA. You *can* read your messages with poppy... Adam
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 12:17:01PM +, Adam Huffman wrote: 2 - Poppy still doesn't give the interaction I want, OK for some mail messages I can deduce whether I want to download/delete/keep from the Subject: and the size but this is not the case for most mail messages. I need to see the content of the message before I can decide its fate, thus means an MUA. You *can* read your messages with poppy... But is it as good as mutt? :-) OK, it's a bit farther in the direction I want but I still end up with two programs (both MUAs?) to read my mail instead of one. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Mon, Dec 13, 1999 at 02:10:13PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: Anyone else wanting additional features should use IMAP. But there lies the rub - 99% of users of MUAs DON'T HAVE THAT CHOICE!!! We can't just "use IMAP", the choice isn't there! Then MAKE it happen! You are here, trying to push Mutt into conforming to an ill-fitting standard, simply because that's all your ISP offers you. Why aren't you, instead, putting this same pressure on your ISP, telling them that IMAP is what you need? Why does Mutt have to bend over backward for you? You presumably pay money to your ISP; you should get some decent service from them. 1 - Most UK users *don't* pay money to their ISP, not directly at least. The users have very little say in what software is provided. The ISP service is paid for indirectly via telephone revenue and/or advertising. It's a very different world from the USA I believe. 2 - I have asked a couple of business oriented services I use if they might add IMAP4 services, both said "maybe, some time in the future" and both said that they're not keen to provide IMAP4 service because of security worries (real or imagined?). 3 - If you search the list of UK ISPs (and there are hundreds) there are virtually none that offer IMAP4. It's just not going to happen I'm afraid, at least not for quite a while, in the meantime we are stuck with POP3 and have to make the best of a less than ideal compromise. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
In a gloomy night of Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 10:26:42AM -, these thoughts were sent throught the matrix... - Then MAKE it happen! You are here, trying to push Mutt into conforming - to an ill-fitting standard, simply because that's all your ISP offers - you. Why aren't you, instead, putting this same pressure on your ISP, - telling them that IMAP is what you need? Why does Mutt have to bend - over backward for you? You presumably pay money to your ISP; you should - get some decent service from them. By the way you can get an IMAP account at http://www.myrealbox.com It works fine...and it's free :) In certain cases i think that could be better than your provider. Bye! -- -[ Proud member of SofTPj Team - http://www.s0ftpj.org ]- -[ Linux - PGP Key: see headers ]- -[ Fingerprint = A0 46 BB 0A 96 54 2C 42 F5 A7 41 68 DF C7 8D ]-
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 01:47:34PM +, Blinking wrote: In a gloomy night of Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 10:26:42AM -, these thoughts were sent throught the matrix... - Then MAKE it happen! You are here, trying to push Mutt into conforming - to an ill-fitting standard, simply because that's all your ISP offers - you. Why aren't you, instead, putting this same pressure on your ISP, - telling them that IMAP is what you need? Why does Mutt have to bend - over backward for you? You presumably pay money to your ISP; you should - get some decent service from them. By the way you can get an IMAP account at http://www.myrealbox.com It works fine...and it's free :) In certain cases i think that could be better than your provider. Bye! I have already done something similar, I have an IMAP4 account at mailandnews.com, however there are times when having your mail kept at the place where you have a proper subscribed-to ISP is better. I have been using (and reporting back on) mutt's IMAP4 facilities as well as advocating the maintenance of POP3 supoort in mutt you know. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 08:48:17AM +, Chris Green wrote: : :3 - If you search the list of UK ISPs (and there are hundreds) there :are virtually none that offer IMAP4. It's just not going to :happen I'm afraid, at least not for quite a while, in the meantime :we are stuck with POP3 and have to make the best of a less than :ideal compromise. If you need IMAP-like features in a POP3 environment, the best solution is Fetchmail. Hacking IMAP-like features with POP3 is a pain. Doing so within Mutt is insane. POP3 sucks. -- Eugene Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 07:56:33AM -0800, Eugene Lee wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 08:48:17AM +, Chris Green wrote: : :3 - If you search the list of UK ISPs (and there are hundreds) there :are virtually none that offer IMAP4. It's just not going to :happen I'm afraid, at least not for quite a while, in the meantime :we are stuck with POP3 and have to make the best of a less than :ideal compromise. If you need IMAP-like features in a POP3 environment, the best solution is Fetchmail. Hacking IMAP-like features with POP3 is a pain. Doing so within Mutt is insane. POP3 sucks. This is where we came in! :-) I agree that POP3 is not the ideal protocol to work with but it's the one that 99% of users are stuck with for much of their mail. Fetchmail is a good solution *until* you want to do things interactively with your POP3 mail box. The one thing that I would like (and I think some other people would like) is a means to interactively decide what to do with mail in a POP3 mailbox. Fetchmail can't do this, the interactive requirement puts the facility squarely into the MUA I'm afraid. As I said previously, I'm already using mutt on IMAP4 mailboxes and like it (and report back to the developers) but I still have POP3 mailboxes to deal with as well. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Chris Green [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: The one thing that I would like (and I think some other people would like) is a means to interactively decide what to do with mail in a POP3 mailbox. Fetchmail can't do this, the interactive requirement puts the facility squarely into the MUA I'm afraid. Chris, have you tried out Poppy? http://home.sprynet.com/~cbagwell/projects.html -- Jeremy Blosser | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://jblosser.firinn.org/ -+-+-- "If Microsoft can change and compete on quality, I've won." -- L. Torvalds PGP signature
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Fri, Dec 10, 1999 at 12:54:16PM -0800, Eugene Lee wrote: else is pushing POP3 beyond its intended design. Anyone else wanting additional features should use IMAP. Anyone wanting IMAP-like features But there lies the rub - 99% of users of MUAs DON'T HAVE THAT CHOICE!!! We can't just "use IMAP", the choice isn't there! -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Chris Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyone else wanting additional features should use IMAP. But there lies the rub - 99% of users of MUAs DON'T HAVE THAT CHOICE!!! We can't just "use IMAP", the choice isn't there! Then MAKE it happen! You are here, trying to push Mutt into conforming to an ill-fitting standard, simply because that's all your ISP offers you. Why aren't you, instead, putting this same pressure on your ISP, telling them that IMAP is what you need? Why does Mutt have to bend over backward for you? You presumably pay money to your ISP; you should get some decent service from them. -- David DeSimone | "The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | that there is no man really clever who has not Hewlett-Packard | found that he is stupid." -- Gilbert K. Chesterson UX WTEC Engineer |PGP: 5B 47 34 9F 3B 9A B0 0D AB A6 15 F1 BB BE 8C 44
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 04:17:25PM -0500, Brendan Cully wrote: In short, as David says, the bulk of fetchmail's code is dealing with weird, quirky POP servers reliably. I for one don't want to try to recreate fetchmail's years of experience in mutt. On the other hand, the IMAP code is almost entirely just support of the base protocol. If weird servers become a problem, I would actually prefer to see the caching IMAP server I was talking about in between mutt and the actual server over adding workarounds to mutt. Of course the caching IMAP server has to exist first... I'm quite happy with an external POP3 program as long as the goal of making my MUA use it interactively isn't forgotten. The user (mutt is an mUa yes?) shouldn't really need to know what protocol is used to get the mail, the user requirements are the same however it's retrieved. OK, this is a bit idealistic as there are some things that some protocols simply can't do, but within that limitation surely mutt should be trying to provide the user with what s/he needs to manipulate mail. Philosophical discussions about MUAs, MDAs and MTAs don't make it easier for me to read my mail. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 10:47:36PM +, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: : :I'd have it try both. If TOP fails, I'd have it give up in disgust, :because you might as well download everything in that case, which :means you might as well use fetchmail. If UIDL fails, I'd have it :apply work-arounds, ideally, but I agree it would be a bore to :program. Both TOP and UIDL are optional POP3 commands that are not required to be implemented by any POP3 server... -- Eugene Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 03:42:09PM -0500, Tim Pierce wrote: : :For the record, I find "there are too many buggy POP3 servers to support :effectively inside Mutt" a far more persuasive argument than "POP3 sucks :and I'd rather see that it remains outside of Mutt." If Mutt were to start supporting POP3, it only needs to understand a subset of the commands: USER, PASS, STAT, RETR, DELE, QUIT. STAT to find out the number of messages in the maildrop, RETR to download *all* the messages without choice, and DELE to remove said messages. Anything else is pushing POP3 beyond its intended design. Anyone else wanting additional features should use IMAP. Anyone wanting IMAP-like features by hacking POP3, tough. That's not Mutt's job. And if there are enough buggy POP3 servers that can't even handle this limited command subset, then Mutt should never even consider POP3 support. :It appears that "bloat" is just a short way of saying "features I don't :want." Maybe we could focus on the technical merits or shortcomings of :suggestions rather than appealing to a vague sense of "bloat." bloat == the result of creeping featurism BTW, some people think ActiveX and Internet Explorer should be part of the OS. Others consider it as bloat. But back to the point at hand, there are actually two issues to debate: - should Mutt have POP3 support? - what kind of support, and how hard would it be to implement it? To the former, my response is "NO". But to the latter, I've offered some suggestions to its support. Tim, I noticed that you did not respond to my comment about a completely separate code base that implements POP3 (e.g. an imaginary libfetchmail.so) that other apps (including Mutt) could use. That's the solution that I think would benefit everyone. Tim, what is your solution? And please be specific about the implementation, its completeness, and its robustness. I find your lack of content disturbing. And Patrician. -- Eugene Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 1999-12-09 00:54:26 -0700, Kim DeVaughn wrote: You are free to write such a program, and you are also free to design a generic interface between mutt and external mailbox backends. Note, however, that just downloading messages into some local folder and using the usual mbox/maildir code is not an option. Why not ...? That is exactly what folks using POP3 are being told to do with fetchmail. Why the "double standard" for IMAP support? It's not really a "double standard". All you can reasonably do with POP3 is fetching messages to your local spool. With IMAP, you can, for instance, store messages in server-side folders, you have support for (and problems with) concurrent folder updates on the server, etc. POP3 is some kind of kluge to get around the "last mile" when the end user's system doesn't have a full-fledged mail transport system. With IMAP, no mail folders on a local system are necessary. I don't want/use/need IMAP, which is why I am tired of seeing mutt get bloated with support for it (in contrast to the stated reason for not improving POP3 support, and indeed efforts to remove it ... to reduce "bloat"). The point about POP3 support is that fetchmail can do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives. However, you won't be able to put reasonable IMAP support into an external program, unless maybe you design it as a filesystem kernel module which presents maildir-style folders to the user. ;-) (And no, I don't like IMAP or the amount of complexity introduced by it myself. But then again, IMAP seems to be the general way to go for on-the-server mail spools...) I'm also tired of seeing useful things (such as the recently eliminated M-flag) being removed from mutt "because they don't work with IMAP" mailboxes. Etc. Sorry, the M-flag wasn't removed from mutt "because it doesn't work with IMAP". -- http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 10:53:17AM +0100, Thomas Roessler wrote: On 1999-12-09 00:54:26 -0700, Kim DeVaughn wrote: You are free to write such a program, and you are also free to design a generic interface between mutt and external mailbox backends. Note, however, that just downloading messages into some local folder and using the usual mbox/maildir code is not an option. Why not ...? That is exactly what folks using POP3 are being told to do with fetchmail. Why the "double standard" for IMAP support? It's not really a "double standard". All you can reasonably do with POP3 is fetching messages to your local spool. With IMAP, you can, for instance, store messages in server-side folders, you have support for (and problems with) concurrent folder updates on the server, etc. That isn't "All you can reasonably do with POP3", it's perfectly reasonable to treat a POP3 server as a single mailbox much the same as a local mailbox file. You can see a list of the E-Mail messages in a POP3 mailbox, you can selectively view messages in a POP3 mailbox and you can selectively delete messages in a POP3 mailbox. IMAP4 just adds the ability to have multiple mailboxes (possibly a hierarchy too) and probably makes the MUA's job a bit easier. POP3 is some kind of kluge to get around the "last mile" when the end user's system doesn't have a full-fledged mail transport system. With IMAP, no mail folders on a local system are necessary. Neither are any local mail folders _necessary_ with a POP3 mailbox if you're happy with a single folder to store mail. POP3 can store mail, IMAP4 just adds the ability to have multiple, differently named folders. Both are quite similar from a user's point of view, you can get a list of mail headers, you can download individual messages to the local system. It's only when IMAP4 is provided _locally_ that it really allows the MUA to use it for storing much mail. When it's not local the delays (in my experience) make it not really usable for storing and retrieving lots of mail. IMAP4 over a slow link is *very* similar to POP3. The major difference is more to do with the environment where IMAP4 is commonly found compared with the typical POP3 environment:- IMAP4 - typically corporate or university 'intranet' with fast, reliable links to your IMAP mailboxes. Thus it makes sense to use IMAP4 maiboxes for everything. POP3 - typically used by individual (sometimes family) dial-up internet users. Slow, intermittent, unreliable link to mailbox. It doesn't make sense to store any mail in the POP3 mailbox. If you reverse the above scenarios, i.e. if you have a reliable, permanent connection to one (or more) POP3 mailboxes it makes perfect sense to use it in the same way as one would an IMPA4 mailbox. Similarly if you have a dial-up link to an IMAP4 system it makes little sense to leave any mail on the IMAP4 system, you download it all to your local system just as you would with a POP3 mailbox. The point about POP3 support is that fetchmail can do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives. However, you won't be able to put reasonable IMAP support into an external program, unless maybe you design it as a filesystem kernel module which presents maildir-style folders to the user. ;-) I (and a lot of other people) keep saying that fetchmail _can't_ "do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives", or it can't do what mutt's POP3 support _could_ do. In particular fetchmail doesn't allow the user to selectively download and delete messages from a POP3 mailbox having been shown the headers. I really think that mutt should either support both POP3 and IMAP4 or neither. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 1999-12-09 10:45:23 +, Chris Green wrote: That isn't "All you can reasonably do with POP3", it's perfectly reasonable to treat a POP3 server as a single mailbox much the same as a local mailbox file. You can see a list of the E-Mail messages in a POP3 mailbox, you can selectively view messages in a POP3 mailbox and you can selectively delete messages in a POP3 mailbox. You may wish to notice that even the TOP command is _optional_ with POP3, as is UIDL. POP is an e-mail download protocol, and you should not try to overload it with other functionalities. Neither are any local mail folders _necessary_ with a POP3 mailbox if you're happy with a single folder to store mail. POP3 can store mail, IMAP4 just adds the ability to have multiple, differently named folders. Both are quite similar from a user's point of view, you can get a list of mail headers, you can download individual messages to the local system. Have you ever stored a message in a POP3 folder without going through the mail transport agent, i.e., without resending the message? There is no standard way to do this. I (and a lot of other people) keep saying that fetchmail _can't_ "do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives", or it can't do what mutt's POP3 support _could_ do. In particular fetchmail doesn't allow the user to selectively download and delete messages from a POP3 mailbox having been shown the headers. See above: TOP isn't mandatory with POP3. I really think that mutt should either support both POP3 and IMAP4 or neither. As I said before, you are free to design an interface with an external mail folder manipulation program, and to develop such a program. Show us working code, or stop complaining, please. -- http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 12:50:42PM +0100, Thomas Roessler wrote: Show us working code, or stop complaining, please. See tkrat, mahogany and several other Unix MUAs. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 1999-12-09 12:17:23 +, Chris Green wrote: Show us working code, or stop complaining, please. See tkrat, mahogany and several other Unix MUAs. Do these have working IMAP support in _external_ programs? -- http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
That isn't "All you can reasonably do with POP3", it's perfectly reasonable to treat a POP3 server as a single mailbox much the same as a local mailbox file. You can see a list of the E-Mail messages in a POP3 mailbox, you can selectively view messages in a POP3 mailbox and you can selectively delete messages in a POP3 mailbox. You may wish to notice that even the TOP command is _optional_ with POP3, as is UIDL. POP is an e-mail download protocol, and you should not try to overload it with other functionalities. I haven't yet encountered an ISP POP3 server that doesn't do TOP. I've only found one that didn't do UIDL. Note that fetchmail quite happily uses "TOP n 99" instead of "RETR n" to retrieve e-mail. According to the comments in fetchmail's pop3.c, this method very rarely fails. (I saw a case recently where it did fail, but this was because the server had a buggy implementation of TOP, not because it didn't implement TOP.) Neither are any local mail folders _necessary_ with a POP3 mailbox if you're happy with a single folder to store mail. POP3 can store mail, IMAP4 just adds the ability to have multiple, differently named folders. Both are quite similar from a user's point of view, you can get a list of mail headers, you can download individual messages to the local system. Have you ever stored a message in a POP3 folder without going through the mail transport agent, i.e., without resending the message? There is no standard way to do this. I'm not even aware of a non-standard way of doing it. And the other thing you can't do to a POP3 mailbox is adjust the flags at will. So a POP3 mailbox is like a semi-read-only mailbox: delete is the only state-changing operation you can do. This is the main problem, isn't it? It would take some reorganisation of Mutt to cope with a mailbox being almost but not quite read-only. This reorganisation might be of benefit anyway, to get a cleaner internal API. If I had time I would probably try to implement an IMAP-style POP3 facility in Mutt ... Edmund
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 01:34:06PM +0100, Thomas Roessler wrote: On 1999-12-09 12:17:23 +, Chris Green wrote: Show us working code, or stop complaining, please. See tkrat, mahogany and several other Unix MUAs. Do these have working IMAP support in _external_ programs? No they have internal POP3 and IMAP4 support which, to the user, works in a very similar way. IMAP4 and POP3 mailboxes work just like local ones. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 01:40:17PM +, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: Have you ever stored a message in a POP3 folder without going through the mail transport agent, i.e., without resending the message? There is no standard way to do this. I'm not even aware of a non-standard way of doing it. And the other thing you can't do to a POP3 mailbox is adjust the flags at will. So a POP3 mailbox is like a semi-read-only mailbox: delete is the only state-changing operation you can do. Yes, I'll agree you can't save to a POP3 mailbox, but it's very rarely that one saves mail back to the current maibox isn't it. A POP3 mailbox can be presented to the user in much the same way as a local one, it's just that one isn't allowed to save to it. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I haven't yet encountered an ISP POP3 server that doesn't do TOP. I've only found one that didn't do UIDL. So would you have mutt use, or not use, the TOP command, and the UIDL command? Note that fetchmail quite happily uses "TOP n 99" instead of "RETR n" to retrieve e-mail. According to the comments in fetchmail's pop3.c, this method very rarely fails. (I saw a case recently where it did fail, but this was because the server had a buggy implementation of TOP, not because it didn't implement TOP.) See, now we get to the case of why users are pointed to fetchmail: Because fetchmail has been bloated, er, I mean, specifically written to understand these buggy servers and try its best to deal with them. Trying to add this POP3 support to Mutt, you're going to run into the same problems, and probably get buried under user complaints about how things don't work just the way they want them to. I think the Mutt developers are shying away from POP3 support on two grounds: First, on a somewhat technical ground, since POP3 is not a very good protocol, and the only reason everyone wants to use it is that it's so ubiquitous. If users could only put pressure on their ISP's to get IMAP servers installed (which is not a very difficult job for an administrator to do!), then they wouldn't need to be demanding POP3 support from Mutt! Second, on a political ground, once Mutt claims that it will support POP3 mailboxes in this form, users will start to whine and complain because of all the buggy implementations of POP3 out there. The Mutt developers don't really enjoy listening to complaints. I wonder just how many the tkrat, balsa, and other MUA's get... -- David DeSimone | "The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | that there is no man really clever who has not Hewlett-Packard | found that he is stupid." -- Gilbert K. Chesterson UX WTEC Engineer |PGP: 5B 47 34 9F 3B 9A B0 0D AB A6 15 F1 BB BE 8C 44
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 01:40:18PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: : :See, now we get to the case of why users are pointed to fetchmail: :Because fetchmail has been bloated, er, I mean, specifically written to :understand these buggy servers and try its best to deal with them. :Trying to add this POP3 support to Mutt, you're going to run into the :same problems, and probably get buried under user complaints about how :things don't work just the way they want them to. Here's my two cents on the matter. I like the fact that Mutt is just a MUA, and an excellent MUA at that. POP3 sucks. And I'd rather see that it remains outside of Mutt. Keep the bloat down. And why can't the Fetchmail folks have a distributable libpop3.so that other apps can link in and use? Reusability... wasn't one of the goals of good programming? -- Eugene Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
I've been lurking on this list for a while and monitoring this thread on and off. Now it is time to uncloak. A key point in the Unix philosophy is to keep it simple, stupid (KISS). The Unix way is lots of very stupid little programs, which you can then glue together in new ways to produce new and varied programs to do new and varied things. Unix is Legos for applications. This has also worked incredibly well for Forth, but that's another flame war. :-) One of Microsft's major problems is that they have not followed this philosphy. Case in point, they have programs like Outlook and Exchange, which are: bloated, buggy, horridly insecure, and utterly dependant on NTisms, and so hard to port. I would hate to see mutt go down the same road. Unix, wisely, separates mail functions into Mail Transport Agents (MTAs) and Mail User Agents (MUAs), or mail readers. They are very different functions. So, consistent with the Unix philosophy, let's keep them as different programs. If someone wants to write an MTA that handles IMAPisms and prepares a mail file for Mutt's convenience, great. Similarly for POP. But, please, get the MTA functions out of MUTT and leave it as just an MUA. On Thu, Dec 09, 1999 at 01:40:18PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: - Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - - I haven't yet encountered an ISP POP3 server that doesn't do TOP. - I've only found one that didn't do UIDL. - - So would you have mutt use, or not use, the TOP command, and the UIDL - command? - - Note that fetchmail quite happily uses "TOP n 99" instead of "RETR - n" to retrieve e-mail. According to the comments in fetchmail's - pop3.c, this method very rarely fails. (I saw a case recently where - it did fail, but this was because the server had a buggy - implementation of TOP, not because it didn't implement TOP.) - -- -- C^2 No windows were crashed in the making of this email. Looking for fine software and/or web pages? http://w3.trib.com/~ccurley
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Thursday, 09 December 1999 at 10:45, Chris Green wrote: IMAP4 - typically corporate or university 'intranet' with fast, reliable links to your IMAP mailboxes. Thus it makes sense to use IMAP4 maiboxes for everything. POP3 - typically used by individual (sometimes family) dial-up internet users. Slow, intermittent, unreliable link to mailbox. It doesn't make sense to store any mail in the POP3 mailbox. If you reverse the above scenarios, i.e. if you have a reliable, permanent connection to one (or more) POP3 mailboxes it makes perfect sense to use it in the same way as one would an IMPA4 mailbox. Similarly if you have a dial-up link to an IMAP4 system it makes little sense to leave any mail on the IMAP4 system, you download it all to your local system just as you would with a POP3 mailbox. I'd just like to say that I have my IMAP account on a server that I access over a modem. I still use IMAP as the server access protocol it's supposed to be. When I downloaded my mail, I used POP. Of course, that's why I like to do speed optimisations - when I get my DSL line, things may change :) The point about POP3 support is that fetchmail can do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives. However, you won't be able to put reasonable IMAP support into an external program, unless maybe you design it as a filesystem kernel module which presents maildir-style folders to the user. ;-) I (and a lot of other people) keep saying that fetchmail _can't_ "do really everything mutt's own POP3 support gives", or it can't do what mutt's POP3 support _could_ do. In particular fetchmail doesn't allow the user to selectively download and delete messages from a POP3 mailbox having been shown the headers. yes, but this should be trivial to add to fetchmail. I hope to get it done. Note that if we could put full IMAP functionality in an external program and have a simple interface to it from mutt, I'd be more than happy to do things that way. But IMAP is much more complex, so that scenario isn't realistic. I really think that mutt should either support both POP3 and IMAP4 or neither. they aren't equivalent. POP is an MDA protocol, IMAP is an MUA protocol. Ideally, fetchmail wouldn't support IMAP (not that I object in practice - in fact I enhanced some of fetchmail's IMAP support), and mutt wouldn't support POP. But since that would make things less convenient, I like the fetchmail-enhancement proposal... In short, as David says, the bulk of fetchmail's code is dealing with weird, quirky POP servers reliably. I for one don't want to try to recreate fetchmail's years of experience in mutt. On the other hand, the IMAP code is almost entirely just support of the base protocol. If weird servers become a problem, I would actually prefer to see the caching IMAP server I was talking about in between mutt and the actual server over adding workarounds to mutt. Of course the caching IMAP server has to exist first... -Brendan
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
I haven't yet encountered an ISP POP3 server that doesn't do TOP. I've only found one that didn't do UIDL. So would you have mutt use, or not use, the TOP command, and the UIDL command? I'd have it try both. If TOP fails, I'd have it give up in disgust, because you might as well download everything in that case, which means you might as well use fetchmail. If UIDL fails, I'd have it apply work-arounds, ideally, but I agree it would be a bore to program. Edmund
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999, Brendan Cully ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: | | Fetchmail I believe handles IMAP4 mailboxes quite well, why not | advocate that fetching IMAP4 mail isn't mutt's job either? | | fetchmail doesn't handle IMAP4 mailboxes well. It can download mail | from your INBOX to your spool. That's it. Is that what you want? If you want more than that, then it seems to me all the IMAP stuff that's been added to mutt, should have more properly been directed to fixing/enhancing fetchmail itself, rather than bloating up mutt with it. Or, if that isn't feasible for some reason, then developing a stand- alone "fetchimap" program would be the way to go. I do know that I'm getting awfully tired of seeing seemingly endless IMAP specific code being added to (and thus bloating) mutt. /kim
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Wed, Dec 08, 1999 at 01:54:57AM -0700, Kim DeVaughn wrote: On Tue, Dec 07, 1999, Brendan Cully ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: | | Fetchmail I believe handles IMAP4 mailboxes quite well, why not | advocate that fetching IMAP4 mail isn't mutt's job either? | | fetchmail doesn't handle IMAP4 mailboxes well. It can download mail | from your INBOX to your spool. That's it. Is that what you want? If you want more than that, then it seems to me all the IMAP stuff that's been added to mutt, should have more properly been directed to fixing/enhancing fetchmail itself, rather than bloating up mutt with it. Or, if that isn't feasible for some reason, then developing a stand- alone "fetchimap" program would be the way to go. I do know that I'm getting awfully tired of seeing seemingly endless IMAP specific code being added to (and thus bloating) mutt. But in the long term I suspect that IMAP (or something like it) may well end up being the normal/only way to store and retrieve E-mail. An MUA that doesn't work work with IMAP4 will thus have no future. Quite a few large sites (universities in particular) now deliver all their mail using IMAP, it makes a great deal of sense in the sort of situation where the user may run their MUA on any one of hundreds of client machines. mutt would be useless in this sort of situation without IMAP support and a fetchmail type of solution wouldn't help either. I suppose you could have a separate appliication, a sort of interactive fetchmail for IMAP, to deal with the complexities of the IMAP4 interface. However this would still require some sort of interface to the MUA which would, of necessity, itself be relatively complex. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 1999-12-08 01:54:57 -0700, Kim DeVaughn wrote: Or, if that isn't feasible for some reason, then developing a stand- alone "fetchimap" program would be the way to go. You are free to write such a program, and you are also free to design a generic interface between mutt and external mailbox backends. Note, however, that just downloading messages into some local folder and using the usual mbox/maildir code is not an option. When designing such a generic interface, you may however happen to redesign large parts of what IMAP does. -- http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Or, if that isn't feasible for some reason, then developing a stand- alone "fetchimap" program would be the way to go. You are free to write such a program, and you are also free to design a generic interface between mutt and external mailbox backends. Note, however, that just downloading messages into some local folder and using the usual mbox/maildir code is not an option. When designing such a generic interface, you may however happen to redesign large parts of what IMAP does. I know this phenomenon: you think you can make life easier for yourself by putting an extra module between your program and the external interface, but when you try to work out the details you find that the interface to your extra module is just as bad as the original interface ... Brendan Cully and I were wondering whether there might be some sort of role for a program that sits between the MUA and the mail server, though. Such a program might, for example: - convert POP3 to IMAP - protect the MUA from broken network connections - use a cache for the benefit of MUAs that don't have their own cache - use a cache so that several MUAs can share the same cache (e.g. browsing while composing with mutt - you need two of them) - protect a buggy server from a buggy MUA and vice versa I haven't thought about it very much yet, so it might be totally pointless. However, it might also be quite easy to implement using c-client, particularly since similar things have been done before. It's the conversion from POP3 to IMAP that is most relevant here. You can imagine what sort of thing the separate program could do. For example, the connection goes down, it reconnects, the server doesn't have UIDs, so it asks for the length of each message, finds a message with the same length as the one the MUA is asking for, grabs the headers, does a check-sum to make sure it really is the right message, then downloads the message, and all the time the MUA things it's dealing with a reliable IMAP connection. Could be cool. Edmund
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Wed, Dec 08, 1999, Thomas Roessler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: | | On 1999-12-08 01:54:57 -0700, Kim DeVaughn wrote: | | Or, if that isn't feasible for some reason, then developing a | stand- alone "fetchimap" program would be the way to go. | | You are free to write such a program, and you are also free to | design a generic interface between mutt and external mailbox | backends. Note, however, that just downloading messages into some | local folder and using the usual mbox/maildir code is not an option. Why not ...? That is exactly what folks using POP3 are being told to do with fetchmail. Why the "double standard" for IMAP support? | When designing such a generic interface, you may however happen to | redesign large parts of what IMAP does. I don't want/use/need IMAP, which is why I am tired of seeing mutt get bloated with support for it (in contrast to the stated reason for not improving POP3 support, and indeed efforts to remove it ... to reduce "bloat"). What's good for the goose ... I'm also tired of seeing useful things (such as the recently eliminated M-flag) being removed from mutt "because they don't work with IMAP" mailboxes. Etc. Yet *useful*, *often asked for* features like compressed-folder-support go wanting, and continue to require "third party" patches for support. There's more, but I'll probably get flamed enough for the above heretical comments ... :-) ... /kim
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:46:27PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: Ronny Haryanto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some people doesn't have permanent internet connection, and it even costs them by the minute. Therefore selective downloading could make sense. Certainly. I have to dial up to the Internet myself. Fetchmail is configured to only poll POP servers when I am actively connected, and while I don't have it configured that way, it can be told to skip messages that are beyond a certain size. Thus, the desired behavior can be easily automated with fetchmail. Not quite. Fetchmail cannot download only headers of oversized messages, nor can it delete them. I do not know a way to achieve this in Linux short of telnetting to port 110. (Or, for that matter, going to work and using a Windows based mailer... Offtopic: hasn't anyone succeeded compiling a recent version of Mutt under CygWin?) That's really the main reason that Mutt's POP3 support is so lame: Because fetchmail does it better, so there's no point in doing all the work to improve Mutt's support. Fetchmail is not interactive. Mutt could use this advantage over fetchmail. If it doesn't, I do not see reasons for POP3 client in Mutt at all. Perhaps this job would be perfect for a different standalone tool, however Mutt already does something like this with IMAP folders. (I do understand that IMAP would be better, but not every mail provider supports it. Most of them don't even support APOP...) Best Regards, Marius Gedminas -- First rule of public speaking. First, tell 'em what you're goin' to tell 'em; then tell 'em; then tell 'em what you've tole 'em.
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 10:30:38AM +0200, Marius Gedminas wrote: That's really the main reason that Mutt's POP3 support is so lame: Because fetchmail does it better, so there's no point in doing all the work to improve Mutt's support. Fetchmail is not interactive. Mutt could use this advantage over fetchmail. If it doesn't, I do not see reasons for POP3 client in Mutt at all. Yes, this is exactly my original point, there are situations where one wants to _interactively_ decide whether to download and/or delete mail from a POP3 server. No combination of fetchmail/procmail can do this. There are now a few Unix MUAs which handle POP3 mail quite nicely giving the user an interface which makes the POP3 mailbox appear as much as possible like an IMAP4 or local one. Headers are displayed and one can then delete, view, etc. as required. This *can't* be done using fetchmail/procmail. (e.g. tkrat, mahogany and others) Fetchmail I believe handles IMAP4 mailboxes quite well, why not advocate that fetching IMAP4 mail isn't mutt's job either? Perhaps this job would be perfect for a different standalone tool, however Mutt already does something like this with IMAP folders. (I do understand that IMAP would be better, but not every mail provider supports it. Most of them don't even support APOP...) Exactly! POP3 isn't as nice as IMAP4 but is ubiquitous. By all means campaign for ISPs to provide us with IMAP4 servers but meanwhile we need the tools to work with the mail service we have. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, 07 Dec 1999, Marius Gedminas wrote: On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:46:27PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: Ronny Haryanto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some people doesn't have permanent internet connection, and it even costs them by the minute. Therefore selective downloading could make sense. Certainly. I have to dial up to the Internet myself. Fetchmail is configured to only poll POP servers when I am actively connected, and while I don't have it configured that way, it can be told to skip messages that are beyond a certain size. Thus, the desired behavior can be easily automated with fetchmail. Not quite. Fetchmail cannot download only headers of oversized messages, nor can it delete them. I do not know a way to achieve this in Linux short of telnetting to port 110. (Or, for that matter, going to work and using a Windows based mailer... Offtopic: hasn't anyone succeeded compiling a recent version of Mutt under CygWin?) There is a perl utility called Poppy which I've been using for this purpose for a long time. It's available in the /system/mail/pop directory of your local mirror of sunsite.unc.edu Adam
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tuesday, 07 December 1999 at 09:10, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 10:30:38AM +0200, Marius Gedminas wrote: That's really the main reason that Mutt's POP3 support is so lame: Because fetchmail does it better, so there's no point in doing all the work to improve Mutt's support. Fetchmail is not interactive. Mutt could use this advantage over fetchmail. If it doesn't, I do not see reasons for POP3 client in Mutt at all. Yes, this is exactly my original point, there are situations where one wants to _interactively_ decide whether to download and/or delete mail from a POP3 server. No combination of fetchmail/procmail can do this. yes, but fetchmail is now a rather large and complex program, implying that incorporating even fetchmail's features into mutt makes a big bloated mess. Another alternative is to add some small features to fetchmail where you could pass a flag requesting particular messages be recalled or deleted by number, or requesting just headers on a given run. I actually discussed this with Eric Raymond (fetchmail's author) specifically in the context of making a more powerful POP backend for MUAs, and he seemed to really like the idea. This was about a month ago - but I haven't been working on it since I've been working on mutt and school instead. If fetchmail had these features, then we could chuck mutt's native POP support in favour of a nice fetchmail interface and everyone would be happy :) There are now a few Unix MUAs which handle POP3 mail quite nicely giving the user an interface which makes the POP3 mailbox appear as much as possible like an IMAP4 or local one. Headers are displayed and one can then delete, view, etc. as required. This *can't* be done using fetchmail/procmail. (e.g. tkrat, mahogany and others) yes, but it might be better to add some code to fetchmail (which all mailers could use), than to add it to mutt. Fetchmail I believe handles IMAP4 mailboxes quite well, why not advocate that fetching IMAP4 mail isn't mutt's job either? fetchmail doesn't handle IMAP4 mailboxes well. It can download mail from your INBOX to your spool. That's it. Is that what you want? -- Brendan Cully [EMAIL PROTECTED] | OLD SKOOL ROOLZ "I'll level with you: | .-_|\ Please let me on your show, I'd | / \ Like a day off school"| Perth -*.--._/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 11:08:43AM -0500, Brendan Cully wrote: yes, but fetchmail is now a rather large and complex program, implying that incorporating even fetchmail's features into mutt makes a big bloated mess. Would the POP3 features be more complex than the current IMAP4 features? Another alternative is to add some small features to fetchmail where you could pass a flag requesting particular messages be recalled or deleted by number, or requesting just headers on a given run. I actually discussed this with Eric Raymond (fetchmail's author) specifically in the context of making a more powerful POP backend for MUAs, and he seemed to really like the idea. This was about a month ago - but I haven't been working on it since I've been working on mutt and school instead. If fetchmail had these features, then we could chuck mutt's native POP support in favour of a nice fetchmail interface and everyone would be happy :) This sounds quite a good idea. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Adam Huffman [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: On Tue, 07 Dec 1999, Marius Gedminas wrote: Not quite. Fetchmail cannot download only headers of oversized messages, nor can it delete them. I do not know a way to achieve this in Linux short of telnetting to port 110. (Or, for that matter, going to work and using a Windows based mailer... Offtopic: hasn't anyone succeeded compiling a recent version of Mutt under CygWin?) There is a perl utility called Poppy which I've been using for this purpose for a long time. It's available in the /system/mail/pop directory of your local mirror of sunsite.unc.edu Freshmeat has it too: http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1998/03/27/891013287.html "Poppy is a small Perl script that will individually retrieve only the headers of mail messages from a POP3 server and then allow you to view, save, or delete each. This is especially good for systems with limited resources, whether thats limited disk space, slow internet connect, or no GUI's. It is also good for managing your POP3 mailbox when your normal mail reader is setup not to delete mail off the POP3 server or is having problems downloading large emails." -- Jeremy Blosser | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://jblosser.firinn.org/ -+-+-- "If Microsoft can change and compete on quality, I've won." -- L. Torvalds PGP signature
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 11:19:53AM +1100, Andrew Clark wrote: I have been told that mutt will do what I want, so far how ever I have not figured it out. I want to be able to do the following: 1. Check multiple pop accounts (say [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED]) 2. When I reply to a message addressed to user1, I should reply with a from header [EMAIL PROTECTED], and when I reply to a message to user2, I should have a from header [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can someone please tell me if what I want is possible and if so, which comfiguration options do I need to set to get it all to work? If mutt can't do it does anyone know a mail client that can? It's probably possible using mutt's hooks and/or macros, however:- 1 - You can't (I don't think) get mutt to collect mail from a number of POP3 accounts automatically. You will have to request the mail collection with a 'G' having set up the POP3 parameters in the .muttrc file. 2 - It would be fairly easy to set up a couple of macros that would set the POP3 paramters *and* your From: address for the two POP3 accounts. You would then have a single macro you could execute to collect mail from each of the accounts and it would set the From: header as well. 3 - The chorus from most mutt users will be use fetchmail to collect POP3 mail and procmail to move it into mailboxes as required. This may well be the most sensible solution in your case but that depends on your situation. I personally think it's a pity that mutt doesn't accomodate POP3 users a bit more. The fetchmail/procmail approach has one _major_ missing feature, it's not interactive and so can't allow the user to decide which mails to download from the POP3 server and, independently, which mails to delete from the server. This can only be provided by an MUA interactively and are very useful to anyone who reads mail on a POP3 server from different machines. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Chris Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I personally think it's a pity that mutt doesn't accomodate POP3 users a bit more. The fetchmail/procmail approach has one _major_ missing feature, it's not interactive and so can't allow the user to decide which mails to download from the POP3 server and, independently, which mails to delete from the server. As long as I've been using mail on the Internet, I've grown accustomed to mail just "showing up" in my account, without needing to worry about how it got there. Fetchmail's background fetching of POP mail fits very well into this model, whereby mail simply appears magically in my mailbox. I'm not sure what it is that teaches people to think otherwise. This can only be provided by an MUA interactively and are very useful to anyone who reads mail on a POP3 server from different machines. What you really want is IMAP, not POP3. In fact, Mutt supports IMAP quite well in the development versions (1.1+), and it gives exactly the sort of interactivity that you seek. That is, in fact, what the IMAP protocol was designed for. The POP3 protocol was never designed to be an interactive protocol at all. -- David DeSimone | "The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | that there is no man really clever who has not Hewlett-Packard | found that he is stupid." -- Gilbert K. Chesterson UX WTEC Engineer |PGP: 5B 47 34 9F 3B 9A B0 0D AB A6 15 F1 BB BE 8C 44
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 06-Dec-1999, David DeSimone wrote: As long as I've been using mail on the Internet, I've grown accustomed to mail just "showing up" in my account, without needing to worry about how it got there. Fetchmail's background fetching of POP mail fits very well into this model, whereby mail simply appears magically in my mailbox. I'm not sure what it is that teaches people to think otherwise. Some people doesn't have permanent internet connection, and it even costs them by the minute. Therefore selective downloading could make sense. -- Ronny Haryanto
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
Ronny Haryanto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some people doesn't have permanent internet connection, and it even costs them by the minute. Therefore selective downloading could make sense. Certainly. I have to dial up to the Internet myself. Fetchmail is configured to only poll POP servers when I am actively connected, and while I don't have it configured that way, it can be told to skip messages that are beyond a certain size. Thus, the desired behavior can be easily automated with fetchmail. That's really the main reason that Mutt's POP3 support is so lame: Because fetchmail does it better, so there's no point in doing all the work to improve Mutt's support. -- David DeSimone | "The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | that there is no man really clever who has not Hewlett-Packard | found that he is stupid." -- Gilbert K. Chesterson UX WTEC Engineer |PGP: 5B 47 34 9F 3B 9A B0 0D AB A6 15 F1 BB BE 8C 44
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...
On 06-Dec-1999, David DeSimone wrote: Ronny Haryanto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some people doesn't have permanent internet connection, and it even costs them by the minute. Therefore selective downloading could make sense. Certainly. I have to dial up to the Internet myself. Fetchmail is configured to only poll POP servers when I am actively connected, and while I don't have it configured that way, it can be told to skip messages that are beyond a certain size. Thus, the desired behavior can be easily automated with fetchmail. Maybe selective downloading he wanted is not only by size, but by subject, sender or whatever. That's really the main reason that Mutt's POP3 support is so lame: Because fetchmail does it better, so there's no point in doing all the work to improve Mutt's support. I agree with you 100%, I just want to point out some possible reasons, that's all :) -- Ronny Haryanto
Re: Multiple POP accounts and personalities...#
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:07:46PM -0600, David DeSimone wrote: What you really want is IMAP, not POP3. In fact, Mutt supports IMAP quite well in the development versions (1.1+), and it gives exactly the sort of interactivity that you seek. That is, in fact, what the IMAP protocol was designed for. The POP3 protocol was never designed to be an interactive protocol at all. I quite agree, but unfortunately the number of ISPs that support IMAP is negligable, so until that time we're stuck with POP3 and the MUA needs to cope with it. -- Chris Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/
