Re: another silly question
On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 11:20:43PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2005-04-27 19:47:42 +0100, Paul Walker wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 12:22:16PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > > > set mbox_type=maildir
> > > BTW, why isn't it the default mailbox format, at least for $postpone
> > > and $record?
> > Because people don't want it to be?
> Even when most people recommend maildir instead of mbox?
How did you arrive at that conclusion? Just because there's a loud
minority that likes Maildir doesn't mean it's anywhere near as common.
I'm pretty sure that standard UNIX mbox format is far and away the most
common (and default) mailbox format on most systems on which mutt can be
installed. And it's pretty easy for users or site administrators to
modify $sysconfdir/Muttrc or ~/.muttrc to use mbox specific stuff in
other cases.
I personally have used both and don't have a strong preference (and the
fact that mutt defaults to mbox has never bugged me even when I'm using
Maildir). Mutt recognizes Maildirs (including fcc / postponed folders)
without the need for special configuration, as long as they already
exist in Maildir format.
I've found that for my application, mbox is usually a little snappier,
and it's been years since I've had weird problems with mboxes getting
corrupted. Generally, as long as your OS is configured to do file
locking properly, there's no problem. With NFS, using Maildir is a
little safer, since if there are problems with file locking, there is
much less liklihood of problems.
w