amail

README

amail

Introduction

The amail program is a replacement of classic Acme's Mail program.

amail uses upas/nfs to parse the mailboxes.

Using

Mailboxes

By default it shows a list of IMAP mailboxes with a number of unread messages and a total number of messages. Mailboxes can be opened by clicking by the right button on a name of a mailbox.

Also mailboxes can be specified like command line arguments, in this case the main window with other mailboxes won't be shown.

Messages

By default only new messages are shown in the mailbox's window. All messages can be viewed by clicking of the middle button on ShowAll command in the tag of the mailbox's window. All messages are shown in a threaded mode (default) which can be switched off/on by clicking of the middle button on ShowPlain/ShowThreads.

Initial view modes can be specified locally for the current mailbox or globally for all mailboxes in the main window or via the command line.

Viewing of messages is processing like in Mail: by clicking of the right button on a number of message. If few messages are selected, all will be opened.

New messages are marked by (*), a thread levels of a message are marked by +. Both marks can be redefined via command line.

Mailbox's commands

A mailbox's tag can contain next commands:

• Mail opens a window to compose a new mail.
• Delmesg marks messages for removing, messages have to be selected explicitely.
• UnDelmesg cleans removing marks, messages have to be selected explicitely.
• Put removes marked messages from a server. Open messages won't be deleted.
• Thread shows a thread contains a specified message.
• ShowAll shows all messages.
• ShowNew shows new messages only.
• ShowPlain switches to plain mode.
• ShowThreads switches to threaded mode.
• Seen marks messages as read, messages have to be selected explicitely.
• Search finds messages with specified text.

Message's commands

A message's window tag can contain next commands:

• Q Reply all makes a reply, with quoted source message, if Q and to all recipients if Replyall or Reply all.
• Delmesg marks the message for removing and closes the window.
• UnDelmesg clears the mark for removing.
• Html shows html version of the message if any.
• Text shows a text version of the message if any.
• Browser saves html version of the message and its files on a disk and plumbs a path to the message on the disk to web browser.
• Up opens a parent message.
• Down opens a first child message.
• Prev opens a previous message on the same level of the thread.
• Next opens a next message on the same level of the thread.
• Save stores the message to a specified mailbox.

Composing a message

Like in Mail, when composing a mail message or replying to a message, the first line of the text is a list of recipients of the message, separated by comma.

To:, and CC:, and BCC: lines are interpreted as usual.

Include: file places a copy of file in the message as an inline MIME attachment.

Attach: file places a copy of file in the message as a regular MIME attachment.

When replying to a message without quoting of the message amail will always Include: the original message; delete that line if you don't want to include it.

A signature for new messages can be composed. Amail is looking for mailbox-specific signatures in $HOME/mail/<mailbox>.signature files and for a common signature in $HOME/mail/signature file.

Problems

There are some known problems, for the moment most of them are addressed to mailfs, some to Acme:

1. Quite big random access time to messages (according to the sources mailfs always find a message by sequental comporation) (fixed)
2. Mailboxes other that mbox are not refreshing (it seems mailfs doesn't make subscription on mailboxes other, that INBOX).
3. Browser command shows international messages in wrong encoding (mailfs translates the body of the message to utf-8, but doesn't change charset of the message to utf-8). (fixed)
4. There is a big response time after printing of a lot of text. There is no way to limit events, text insertion events take a lot of CPU on old computers. (fixed)
5. Sometimes Acme exits with an error: acme: endofframe: No such file or directory. It happens when an output is producing in a hidden Acme's window (tag?)
6. When addr files are written in few windows simultaneously, sometimes Acme returns an error address out range. So messages cannot be refreshed or erased in two windows. (fixed)