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These days I have played with console e-mail client Mutt.
This is a very interesting piece of software.

Its basic advantages are
- It is console and keyboard oriented
- It is highly customizable
- It manages huge amount of mail traffic
- It is quite small (500 Kb binary)
- It is supported by an excellent documentation
  and mailing lists

As a mail reader and editor Mutt is the best thing
I have ever seen. The mail traffic can be done from
within the program or separately - just as you like.
Also according file format Mutt is very flexible.
With the help of a few scripts it should even be possible
to exchange files between Mutt and Pegasus Mail for DOS.

The latest version has an online feature: you can view your
mailbox on your pop3 account online in the same way as
any other mail folder. You can download the messages which you
are interested in and delete spam. SSL is supported.

IMHO Mutt is one of the rare Linux console applications (same
as Links) that can be used to do 'real work'. You will always
return to it, even when you have found a graphic application for
the same tasks.

I do not know Sylpheed well and did not use Netscape very
often. But I think, that Mutt's overwhelming functionality and
its high performance on older systems make it a very good candidate
for some kind of e-mail add-on for BL1/3 and BL2. It is not so
easy to set up, so it should be adapted to BL file system with
ready configurations files.

I am going to work on this, but would be glad to know your
opinions on what exactly to include in these packages. There are
several alternatives about the mail transport, and I do not
know the advantages or disadvantages of the programs in BL1,
BL2 and BL3.


1. Compile mutt 1.4.2
---------------------

Fortunately I am able to compile the source of the latest version
as well in Slackware 3.5 and in Slackware 7.1. There are no
binaries available in Slackware distributions. I would probably be
able to do these things:

- adapt the location of the files on the directory tree
(eg. configuration files and mailboxes to /root/ directory).

- include pop3 (ssl) support - would this make sense also for the
BL1/BL3 version or only for BL2?

- include some non-default parts necessary for working with
East European languages and reduce the number of localization files

- reduce the documentation from the source packet and add some more
configuration samples from other sources


2. Mail transport and file formats
----------------------------------

There are two main alternatives regarding the file format. The MH
format saves mail in a single file each message. I like this method
that is also supported by Pegasus Mail (DOS), as in our office we
exchange mail between our computers on floppies. In Linux the
single-file approach is called MH format and was practised by the
minimalist mail clients in BL1 and BL2. Single files are handled by
fetchmail and emailSMTP, whereas pmail coming with BL3 is used to the
mbox format (one big file for incoming and outgoing mail). Mutt is
able to split a one-file inbox into single messages and continue with
single files in real directories. But it can also be set up to work
with folders containing multiple messages.

Another point to discuss is anti-spam software. Mutt is able to
delete spam online and through internal filters. Will it be necessary
to bundle it with still another external program (eg. mailfilter)?

So, at this moment, I see two possibilities:


A. single mail files (MH format)
----------------------------------------
1. compile mutt with pop3 support
2. pop3: online (delete spam before downloading)
   or externally by fetchmail
3. smtp: emailSmtp etc., can be called from
   Mutt while being online
4. (almost) compatibility with DOS mail reader


B. standard mbox mail folder format
------------------------------------------
1. compile mutt without pop3 and SSL (saves space)
2. smtp: pmail, outgoing mail has to wait
3. pop3: pmail
4. mailfilter running separately to delete spam
   (binary only availably for BL, yet)
5. script to split folder into single files (for DOS)

Solution B. would be a bit smaller than A. So it might be
affordable to include mailfilter into the add-on for BL2.

Any comments?

Regards
Christof Lange

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