Re: libfetchmail

[Rahul P Sinha <rsinha Glue umd edu>]

yes this is to be a GUI app, but

a) we _are_ a community that could reasonably be considered "power users";
this does not mean Balsa's aim is not to be userfriendly, but thje ability
to do MORE than MS Outlook is critical...

b) just because our app _can_ use procmailrcs does not mean it will; use
the code of the fetchmail and procmail backends to do the work and provide
a good-looking easy way to add rules, pop servers, or whatever...

the point is the re-use of that code, and the use of these small tools
that do limited functions in a superbe fashion.  We can write a frontend
to the procmailrc file.. that is not the problem...
(In fact I am working on something like that myself)

here is the other thing to consider... while we may want our GUI to be
able to control the rules for distribution, I do not think it should do
the actual distribution....

this app should be interoperable with other email clients; pine should not
have conniptions if I want to use it to look at my mail from an airport
terminal....

so have code that checks if send-mail is using procmail as the default
MTA... if not then set up the .forward file to pipe mail into procmail
and then edit the .procmailrc...

but allow fetchmail to run independantly (this is less of a concern than
procmail, little function difference results from using a lib to do it or
simply executing the command...)

and DEFINITELY keep the rules-code in balsa to a front-end only...

<leaving soapbox>
	-RS

On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Sarel Botha wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 16, 1999 at 07:15:08AM -0500, Thomas R. Shannon wrote:
> > I've been following the discussion about using fetchmail as a back end
> > with some interest.  I've never understood why people don't use
> > procmail as a back end for filtering.  Have you considered this?  It
> > might be as easy as creating/appending an rcfile based upon info
> > provided in a dialog box.
> 
> The idea behind this project is to build a _GUI_ mailer, procmail is console
> and people'll have to play w/ regex's etc.
> 
> Personally I love my fetchmail + procmail setup, but that's not the point
> right now :)
> 
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                            Rahul Sinha
    rsinha@glue.umd.edu    ICQ# 9738191      AOL IM: vox deus
             Freshman                 Vice President, UMd Debate Team
   Computer Science / Government      Treasurer, UM Linux Users' Group
University Of Maryland College Park   E Documentation Project