Re: Balsa 1.0 Pre1

[Pawel Salek <pawsa TheoChem kth se>]

On 2000-10-03 16:25:01 Dave Yearke wrote:
> I'm not sure if you're the right person to send these comments, but I
> hope you will pass them on.

balsa-list is the best way of commenting and asking questions.

> I just downloaded and installed balsa 1.0.pre1 on my Solaris 2.6 system.
> It works wonderfully, and is rapidly approaching maturity.  Here are a
> few observations I've made, which I hope will help make it even better:
> 
> - If pspell was compiled with dynamic modules, the library -lltdl also
> needs to be specified on the link line.
> 
> - I had to use g++ to link the final executable, due to the fact that
> pspell is a C++ library.
> 
> - There are many startup warnings that are printed even if it's the first
>   time balsa has been run:
> 
>   ** WARNING **: Balsa cannot open your "Inbox" mailbox.
> 
>   ** WARNING **: Balsa cannot open your "Outbox" mailbox.
> 
>   ** WARNING **: Balsa cannot open your "Sentbox" mailbox.
> 
>   ** WARNING **: Balsa cannot open your "Draftbox" mailbox.
> 
>   ** WARNING **: Balsa cannot open your "Trash" mailbox.
> 
>   ** WARNING **: *** Could not load basic mailboxes!

I am not sure what to do about it, do you think they are too many?

> 
> - This message pops up when I set my IMAP host, and don't fill in the
>   password field:
> 
>   config_mailbox_get_free_pkey

Removed, it was an old debug bessage.

> - The function of the "Mail Servers" tab is not obvious to me.  I can
>   open IMAP mailboxes by right-clicking in the explorer window, so why
>   do I need to use that?

You can set up POP mail servers there.


> - I am uncomfortable with my password being saved in a file, even in an
>   encrypted form.  Is there a way to not have a password saved, and have
>   balsa ask me for it whenever I start a new session and open an IMAP or
>   POP mailbox that has a password?

Yes. Just don't type your password in mailbox configuration (I noticed that
this part of code was not fully functional in balsa-1.0.pre1, fixed it in
CVS). You will be asked on opening the mailbox.

> - I would like to set some global options for new users, such as
> defaulting
>   to our IMAP server instead of using "/var/mail/username"; is there a
>   capability to have a global config file

IIRC, go first to http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/libgnome/gnome-gnome-config.html
Then create system wide file $(sysconfdir)/gnome/config/balsa containing:

[mailbox-Inbox]
Path=INBOX
Server=myserver
Port=143
Type=LibBalsaMailboxImap
Name=Inbox

or something similar (hasn't really tested it with 1.0.pre1, CVS seems to
be alright).


/Pawel

> 
> Thanks for all your hard work in making this a quality mail utility!  I
> use a lot of GNOME tools at work, but still use Solaris' dtmail because
> there haven't been many practical alternatives.  This release of balsa
> may change that.
> 
> -- 
>                       Dave Yearke, yearke@eng.buffalo.edu
> 
> 

-- 
Pawel Salek (pawsa@theochem.kth.se) http://www.theochem.kth.se/~pawsa/
Theoretical Chemistry Division, KTH voice: +46 8 790-8202