[BL] mutt add-ons for BasicLinux

sindi keesan keesan at sdf.lonestar.org
Thu Oct 7 15:46:53 EDT 2004


I downloaded and tested (briefly) mutt for BL3.
I read README when it did not work on the first try, and suitable modified 
the configuration files.  README said to type mu to start the program, 
which explains why typing mutt just led to error messages instead of 
sending mail.

For a beginner like me, it is a slight problem that no help menu appears 
at the top of the screen when I type mu instead of mutt.  Perhaps you can 
change the default to show this menu?

I successfully sent myself mail with text attachments.

Then I sent a jpg as attachment but it looks like it was sent as
[text/plain, quoted, us-ascii:iso-8859-2:u

This looks perfect for someone who sends and receives Czech attachments 
(written in upper ASCII in that 8859-2 font), but is there some way it 
could be set to binary as the default?  I will read the instructions to 
figure out how to set it myself to send binary (base64 encoded 
attachments).


Christof mentioned something about not finding any Czech fonts in Abiword 
and Steven said there seemed to be lots of fonts with diacritics in them, 
but I assume they are all the same 8859-1 in which the upper ASCII 
characters are those needed in W. European languages.  I hope that 
Christof can get this working with 8859-2 at which point maybe Steven 
would consider fewer styles of the same character sets to make space for 
one E. European set.  Czech has, for example, a 'hachek' or small v on top 
of s z and c, and a small o over the u.  8859-2 would work for other E. 
European languages.  8859-5 for Cyrillic (Russian).  We have users from 
many parts of the world.  Why supply five or ten ways to print French but 
none for Hungarian?  People in E. Europe are more likely to be using older 
computers for economic reasons.  Some of the best recent linux and DOS 
software comes from the Czechs and and Slovaks (links, Arachne, 
pictview, a Slovak DOS spreadsheet and database program).

How much extra space would NLS support require for Abiword?

Back to mutt:

A few minor spelling errors (directally for directly, suppurt for support) 
but I am otherwise astonished at the nearly perfect English, not to speak 
of the fact that this worked on only the second try (after I read the 
README).  First I tried man mutt, then I used Steven's suggestion of d to 
look inside the mutt-bl3.tgz file to find what was included and discoverd 
a doc directory with README and many other help files.

README mentioned that this package even includes catdoc (to read WORD 
files) and xls2cvs (Excel files) and html2text, for reading emails or 
attachments in strange formats.


On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 cce.zizkov at volny.cz wrote:

> Please, feel free to download mutt add-on for Basiclinux at:
>
>    http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov/download/mutt-bl2.tgz
>
> or
>
>    http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov/download/mutt-bl3.tgz
>
> Regards,
> Christof Lange
>
> * * *
>
>
> Mutt for BasicLinux
> -------------------
>
> Mutt is a highly customizable e-mail client that works well with
> older hardware. It can be run in Linux console as well as in an
> Xterm window. Besides ordinary reading and composing capabilities
> the latest version of mutt is also able to access the mailbox on a
> pop3 server online in the same way as one of its own mail folders.
> This is a very comfortable way to delete spam and download only
> those messages which you are interested in.
>
> The add-on packets contain mutt 1.4.2.1 for BasicLinux 2 (mutt-
> bl2.tgz) and 1.2.5.1i for BasicLinux 3 (mutt-bl3.tgz). The older
> version unfortunately does not suppurt direct access to pop3 server.
>
> I bundled Mutt with three small utilities catdoc, xls2csv and
> html2text which quite reliably display the most frequent attachments
> (html, rtf, doc, xcl). Mutt also supports different national
> character sets. A few fonts and key maps for for West-European,
> East-European and Russian languages are included in the package.
>
> 1. Installation:
>
> BL2: Untar mail-bl2.tgz to the root directory, if you want to
> install mutt to the RAM version, you have to use the /tmp directory
> and create symbolic links manually. BL3: Run 'pkg mail-bl3.tgz'  this
> installs mutt into the BasicLinux file system.
>
> 2. Configuration:
>
> Run 'musetup' to configure your internet settings and to select a
> (non=English) character set you want to use.
>
> All mail folders and configuration files are stored in the directory
> /root/Mail.
>
> 3. Running the program
>
> Start the program with the command 'mu'. You can send or receive
> messages only while being online. When you are not connected to the
> internet outgoing messages will be stored in the outbox file. You
> can dial, hang up and call mail transport routines from within the
> program or independently with pp-on, pp-off and pmail. The easiest
> way is to use Fkeys in mutt (for information on function keys type
> '?').
>
> 4. Customizing mutt
>
> After some time playing with mutt you may want to edit
> ~/root/Mail/.muttrc and ~/root/Mail/.macro to customize some
> functions and change keyboard bindings.
>
> 5. Change fonts and character sets
>
> The directory /usr/lib/kbd contains only a few fonts and keyboard
> mappings for West European, Central European and Russian languages.
> To change to a Czech-German or to a Russian phonetical keyboard use
> the commands 'cz' or 'ru'. The easiest way to switch between
> different fonts, keyboards and encodings is to use Fkeys (for
> information on function keys type '?'). If you need support for
> other languages use the commands sefont and loadkeys. Many other
> fonts and keyboard mappings can be found in the Slackware
> distribution (kbd.tgz).
>
> 6. Spam filters
>
> There are two ways of implementing a spam filter: You can add filter
> routines to ~/.pmailrc or to ~/Mail/.muttrc - for more information
> read the man pages and sample configuration files.
>
> 7. Documentation
>
> You find very detailed documentation and some sample files for
> customization in /usr/doc/mutt and /usr/man. The mutt manual can
> also be opened from the program with the F1 key.
>
> * * *
>
> Just a few words on the MIME plug-ins :
> ---------------------------------------
>
> The packets I prepared are rather big (600 and 800 kB), mainly
> because of the plug-ins and required libraries. You will use those
> programs not only with mutt.
>
> As long as you have links on your system you actually will not need
> a utility like 'htmltotext'. On the other hand it is nice to read
> the html attachment automatically as a part of the message (lynx can
> do this job, links cannot). If you use links to open html attachments
> you will be able to follow URLs in messages (while being online).
>
> If you use mc to view .rtf, .doc, .html, .pdf etc. files with
> different plug-ins, you need not write all of them them again into
> mutt's mailcap file, just specify 'mc -v' as a document viewer there.
>
> If you specify catdoc and xls2csv top open .doc and .rtf
> attachments, you should pay attention to the command line options
> (catdoc' default code page is koi8-r).
>
> Known problems:
> ---------------
>
> With my last compiles I cannot get colours in the xterm window. I do
> not know why. May be this has something to do with the compile-time
> alternative libncurses or libslang?
>
> So far no pop3-server folders for BL3. Waiting for somebody who is
> able to compile Mutt-1.4 for BL3 environment.
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
>
> Ceskobratrska cirkev evangelicka - Betlemska kaple na Zizkove
> Prokopova 4/216, 130 00 Praha  3, Czech Republic
> Tel. (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02 / 603 18 87 53
> http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

keesan at sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org



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