Re: [orca-list] thunderbird getting bad to worst, is evolution a good choice?

[Mallory van Achterberg <stommepoes stommepoes nl>]

I can answer some of these, though how computer mail itself works is
a mystery to me. Someone set my mutt up and a lot of it is default
configs.
I added answers within the original message.

On Mon, Apr 09, 2012 at 09:01:48PM +0530, krishnakant Mane wrote:
> Hi Dave,
> Thanks a million for that file.
> I am bothering you a little bit, because I  never did this before.
> I just have a few questions and if you wish, you can send me the
> response off the list.
> Firstly, give me some commands if you can for browsing the list of
> emails by subject (I guess it will be up and down arros with enter to
> open the email?).  Also is it possible for doing simple search by
> subject, date or both?
Mutt uses emacsy keystrokes for navigation, though luckily those are
mostly the same as vi since I don't do emacs.
The usual j for down and k for up, when you're in the index.
Mutt's folders have an index which lists the mails by date. Hitting
enter while on a mail goes into the mail. From there you can reply,
forward, etc. Forward a page is spacebar (if you're on last page,
spacebar moves you to the next message body), back is the minus.

I've actually never tried searching or reordering my mails. There
is a keystroke that takes you to all of the mutt commands inside
mutt: usually a single quick key and a longer description of the key,
then what it does. There are a lot so I only look up what I need
and write it in my cheat sheet.

There is a mutt manual I used to learn the navigation, and then I made
cheat sheets until I knew the commands. I still have a cheat sheet
for things I don't do often.

> secondly, what commands I use to compose an email, how to attach a
> file?  I guess I won't get a dialog to enter the file name, but
> perhaps some auto complete like on the shell?

This is also in the mutt manual. http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/
New mails start with m from the index page (like mail, or message).
But to reply to a list like Orca a capital L does List-reply. To
reply to everyone listed in the the repicients, a small g (group)
replies to those. I used to think g was the way to reply to mailing
lists, as I didn't know about L.

You can send attachments. You'll want to choose a favourite text editor
to start up whenever you are making new mail, this is set in the .muttrc
file. You can have multiple .muttrc's too, and start your mutt using
another .muttrc if you want. This is handy for me because I don't
understand mail protocols and this is my clumsy way of changing my
email address (online how-to's don't show what I have now so I'm afraid
to touch what I have now in my main .muttrc).
When you've saved and quit your message, mutt always has a list of a
few handy commands at the top, like how to abort your message, send it,
attach a file, or whatever.
I believe the sequence of prompts mutt offers you when you start a new
mail can also be set in your .muttrc, but the default is to:, subject.
After composing and saving and quitting the editor other options come
up like cc, bcc etc but I believe these can be set up in .muttrc.

When attaching a file, mutt does things from /Maildir's perspective,
but you can navigate to whatever directory your file is in and select
it from a list (again, j/k keys and enter, etc).
When saving it'll either want to save to some default dir, which I
never use, or you type in the dir you want. I type from root, so
/home/myUserName/wherever/filename does it. Mutt is not on my
machine, so actually saving or sending files for me means using
scp to move files between machines, so the directories can probably
be easier for you, you can best set up a default in your .muttrc.

Mutt has in the Maildir folders like Sent, Draft, Inbox. You can
probably make more, but I haven't tried.

> Also how to download attachments from an existing email?
> third and most important, do I get auto complete when I type in to: or
> cc: like I get in thunderbird?

Probably, but I memorise email addresses (badly). There is an address
book you can use with mutt called abook, but I've not used it yet. I
should but I'm just being stupid.

cheers,
Mallory

> lastly, I went through the configuration file you sent.  but not sure
> as to what name should it be saved with and where?
> i guess it is alpinerc in my home folder?
> Also which should be the best location for saving my inbox, sent, etc
> folders or files?
> I recall that mutt has some spool file, do we have some thing similar in alpine?
> Can you give me the ideal path which you use for the inbox etc?
> I know it might be sounding long and boring, but I wish to really use
> this and leave thunderbird till we have a workable version.
> Happy hacking.
> Krishnakant.