On Thursday, November 18 at 01:31 AM, quoth Bennett Todd: > Mutt has some imap support, enough to help folks limp along using it > as a direct imap client. I build that into my own mutt builds as an > emergency tool. > > But mutt capitalizes on the Unix tool-using approach. > > To make it really completely full-function as a direct imap client, > it'd not only need to have whatever warts remain in its imap support > all fixed up, it'd also have to absorb the functionality of a > filtering LDA like maildrop or procmail, complete with the external > component integration capabilities that they offer. The resulting > monolith would be ... well, monstrous. When you abandon the Unix > tool-using approach, you also would want to incorporate a flexible, > configurable, spooling SMTP client as well. At some point it'd make > since to add another few percent, bung in a kernel, and call it a > distro:-). Bah, I'd settle for removing the IMAP warts. > Unix folks, or at least the ones mutt is targetted at, take > advantage of the exponential power of concatenated tools. Fetchmail > is a very pleasing basis for interacting with imap servers. The reason for using an IMAP server is generally specifically because you DON'T want to fetch all your mail and store it locally. If that was all I wanted, I'd use POP3 or some such. But IMAP provides the functionality of on-server storage, organization, and even searching, and it does so because we want something more than POP3 from our email server. I want to be able to access my entire mail archive hierarchy from a couple dozen disconnected machines, and IMAP allows me to do that. That's what it was *designed* for. Now, you can argue that no real UNIX man would use IMAP because obviously it's a complicated MESS that's totally unnecessary because a real man would simply fetch all his mail to a local disk and futz with it there. That's also a facetious argument, of course, as demonstrated by the existence of IMAP---it exists because it is a good solution to an existing problem (multiple, disconnected, low-trust access points). Redefining the problem as "well, mutt isn't *for* you non-UNIX weirdos anyway" is NOT a solution. I'm a Unix guy. I run X for two reasons: to run xterm, firefox, and gkrellm. I want a GOOD terminal-based email client to check my mail from multiple, disconnected, low-trust access points. With the exception of this single bit of odd behavior in it's IMAP library, mutt+msmtp is a stellar solution. Fetchmail+mutt is simply not. I'm glad it works for you, but that doesn't make your way the One True Use Of Mutt (tm). Smug "well, that's not way mutt is used by intelligent Unix people" comments can be deposited in /dev/null. ~Kyle -- In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -- Oscar Wilde
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