On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 19:26:50 +0100 Xavier Nodet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

XN> > 1. Provided you are familiar with Eudora, how would you contrast the
XN> > feature set between M and Eudora?  (I realize one could probably write
XN> > a thesis on this, I'm just curious about the "big picture")
XN> 
XN> I never used Eudora, so....

 Me neither but I think that Eudora should provide more bells and whistles.
OTOH Eudora is historically a POP client while M is an IMAP one and hence
should have better support of multiple servers and folders.

XN> > 2. I prefer using PGP/MIME, however, does M also grok S/MIME (and
XN> > X.509)?
XN> 
XN> Crypto support in M is currently in its infant state: so far we can only
XN> decode and/or verify the signatures. Messages can be in ASCII Armor
XN> format or PGP/MIME. Unless I missed something, S/MIME is not
XN> implemented.

 No it isn't and unless I hit a winning lottery ticket (unlikely as I never
buy them) and can entirely concentrate on working on M it probably won't be
done very soon.

XN> > 3. I realize that one can filter using the GUI interface, as well as
XN> > Python.
XN> 
XN> I'm affraid nobody uses the Python stuff at this time. So I'm really not
XN> sure of its state.

 But the GUI filters work. As for Python, I do want to revive it but simply
don't have enough time for it now. In its current stage it is useful for
playing with it only, not for doing anything "serious".

XN> > 6. Do identities, switch "stationary", signatures, and the sets of
XN> > server accounts (which are folders in M?) to retrieve mail from?
XN> 
XN> I don't know, because I do not use identities
...
XN> Could someone elaborate on its use of identities?

 You can indeed achieve almost everything you can do with identities by
using folders. However some people feel uncomfortably with organizing their
folders hierarchically like this and prefer the concept of the identities.

 Identities and folders are really orthogonal so by uding both of them you
can achieve maximal flexibility -- and maximal confusion, of course ;-)

XN> > 7. Supposing a user has 2 different network connections (or dial-up
XN> > accounts), and since SMTP servers are generally no longer "open
XN> > relays", will M automatically switch to whatever SMTP server is
XN> > appropriate for the current subnet/domain?
XN> 
XN> I did not use the dial-up feature of M since a long time, so I'm not
XN> sure about the answer. I'm affraid the answer is no, and it was one reason
XN> for me to use a personal SMTP server to handle this problem.

 M dial up support doesn't deal with that but you can configure different
SMTP servers for different folder (and/or, alternatively, identities).

XN> > 9. Can M break apart mailing list digests if requested?  
XN> 
XN> No, but I guess this could be an interesting feature.

 Yes, I even think there is a bug tracker entry for it.

XN> > Or, is this a function which could be added by a plug-in?
XN> 
XN> I do not know.

 Probably not.

XN> > 10. Often, when one replies to an email, the text flow and ">" quoting
XN> > becomes hopelessly mangled.  Does M offer a framework where
XN> > a button/function could be added from the GUI to activate a "message
XN> > formatting" function or plug-in?
XN> 
XN> No. Composing messages is actually one (the?) worst part of Mahogany.

 Probably because I never use it (and Karsten who wrote the composer code
quit M development a very long time ago).

XN> M offers the possibility to use an external editor instead of the
XN> internal one. I always use Vim (which offers the functionality you ask),
XN> and I guess many other M users also use an external editor.

 I sincerely hope all of them do. M internal editor is unusable :-(

XN> > 13. Can an incoming email filter change fields in the incoming email
XN> > header?
XN> 
XN> No. Filters in M don't change the content of the message itself.

 But procmail can do this.

XN> > So, could SpamAssassin pre-process the email add it's X-SPAM
XN> > headers, for example? 
XN> 
XN> Yes. This is done before M downloads the mail. And M can detect the
XN> added header and react accordingly (e.g. moving the message to a 'Spam'
XN> folder).

 In fact it has a standard filter to test for messages marked as spam by
SpamAssassin.

XN> > 14. In the message index for a particular folder, can M highlight
XN> > various entries in various colors (a feature a rather like in Eudora
XN> > :-).  When this is done, *where* is this information maintained -- in
XN> > the message itself as a "header", or in a special "table-of-contents
XN> > file"?
XN> 
XN> You can flag some messages as 'important', and then they have another
XN> color. This is currently the only possibility, I guess. I do not remember
XN> where this flag is stored.

 The new/recent/unread/flagged/deleted messages have their own colour. This
is stored in the folder itself (as a message flag). A feature to set
(custom) colour for individual messages is planned but doesn't work
currently.

XN> > What happens to the attachments?
XN> 
XN> Nothing.

 I.e. they're stored in the mailbox file with the message itself.

XN> > 16. When an outgoing message is PGP/GPG encrypted and a copy of the
XN> > outgoing email is saved, is the pre-encrypted plaintext saved, or the
XN> > actual outgoing email saved?
XN> 
XN> Encryption is not yet implemented.

 But when it will be, only the encrypted message will be saved (meaning
that it will actually be quite useless unless you encrypted it with your
own public key as well...).

XN> > 19. Supposing some of the incoming (stored) emails are encoded (UU,
XN> > base64, etc) -- how is a "Find" accomplished?  Is every email in the
XN> > database decoded prior to being examined for the search criteria?  

 If you do a text search in the body (and not search by the header values
only) yes, it is.
 
XN> > How much does the speed of such a search degrade as the size of the
XN> > email database grows?

 This depends on the folder format. For the best one (MBX) the speed should
be linear as long as the number of messages doesn't become greater than
some critical mass, say a few dozen thousands. I haven't used M with larger
mailboxes.

 Regards,
VZ



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.NET email is sponsored by:
SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See!
http://www.vasoftware.com
_______________________________________________
Mahogany-Users mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mahogany-users

Reply via email to