Re: [Evolution] How do I send email to a newsgroup

[Brett Johnson <brett hp com>]

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 08:22 +0000, Matej Cepl wrote:
> You could (make a new account with type of server "Usenet"), but Evolution
> is really not a good newsreader. I would very strongly suggest using
> specific newsreader for that. Gnome standard is Pan (which I use myself
> right now) and it is a really good newsreader.

FWIW, I think Evolution makes a reasonably capable newsreader, and I've
actually stopped using Pan in favor of Evolution.  Yes, Evo has warts as
a newsreader (and as an email client, and a calendar client, and as a
todo list, and as a contact list), but overall, the good things far
outweigh the warts IMO.

Evo Newsreader Warts:
      * The lack of reasonably sane (or at least reasonably
        customizable) keybindings is the biggest wart Evo has overall
        IMO.  For example, not being able to use the keyboard to easily
        navigate between mail folders when reading messages is a PITA,
        but it's even worse when reading news.  And the whole concept of
        having 4 different places the current focus can be, with a
        different set of keybindings for each focus, is completely
        insane.
      * No easy way to say "refresh this folder", or even "refresh this
        server".  If I want to check what new news is available, I have
        to do a complete refresh of all my smtp activity, check all my
        IMAP folders, and finally do a nntp udpate.
      * No way to select "hide unread messages" once, and then only see
        new, unread messages in that folder from then on (with Evo,
        "hide unread messages" means to hide the individual messages
        you've already read, not to make "hidden" the default attribute
        for read messages, which is what most newsreaders do).

Evo Newsreader Good Stuff:
      * The Evo/gtkhtml composing editor is the best email/news posting
        editor out there.  Pan doesn't even come close.
      * Familiar interface:  I already use Evo for email, and I read
        most email like I read news -- it gets pre-sorted into mailing
        list folders on the server via procmail rules, and I read the
        folders at my leisure.  It's nice to not have to switch back &
        forth between interfaces and GUI paradigms and keybindings (yes,
        the default evo keybindings suck, but at least they're the same
        for both email and news :-).
      * On a similar theme -- I can check news whenever I read email,
        instead of remembering to fire up a separate app for news.

-- 
Brett Johnson <brett hp com>