Be warned; I'm likely going to contradict myself at least once here.
I'm fairly ambivalent about this issue...
Jeremy Blosser ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> I'm curious what benefit you think there is in a menu system over just a
> well-annotated .muttrc?
It's less intimidating for the more recalcitrant unix user, and I'd much
prefer the users on my system to be using tools *I* use; that makes it
easier for me when they've got problems. I can't help them debug problems
with their non-unix mail clients, and they frequently tell me they want a
mailer that does <foo>, where foo is something that mutt does, but that the
other unix-based mail clients they've tried don't do -- and they find
mutt's configuration so daunting that they'd rather do without the
feature than try to figure out the configuration.
I've got a skewed vision of the world, though -- since I provide
technical support as a hobby, not as a job, I can pick and choose who I
help, and the people I end up interacting with are rather mid-range in
skill; they're growing out of the systems they're accustomed to, but
aren't quite what I'd call a 'power user' yet. Nothing brings me quite
as much joy as introducing people like that to tools I adore. :)
> looking for you can do it just as well in a text file as with menus, IMHO.
> But maybe I'm missing something.
You're comfortable in that kind of environment; unfortunately, some of
us have to support people who aren't. I'd be delighted if we could make
mutt's configuration more friendly for the easily-intimidated.
The manual specifically describes mutt as "well suited to the mail
power user" -- with that userbase in mind, a menu system may be
redundant. I certainly wouldn't use it for myself. However, those
mid-range users might benefit; power users are made, not born, after
all...
> Anyway, some people in this thread have mentioned it being helpful to see
> good sample .muttrcs, so I'll plug the web site:
> http://www.mutt.org/links.html#config has links to ~10 different .muttrcs.
Yeah. I found those *quite* helpful -- the little config files that
come with (?) the Mutt distribution customized for users of other
mailers were a nice start, but I rapidly outgrew the one I started with.
I usually point people to Sven's .muttrc; the references to the manual
are a particular plus for me. I always like getting people interested
in actually reading the documentation. :)
All that said (if you're still reading!), I'd rather see people putting
development effort into more core functionality; we *do* have some damn
good documentation that makes menu-based configuration seem less
important...
sev
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] can also be found at http://www.byz.org/~sev
"My pid is Inigo Montoya. You kill -9 my parent process. Prepare to vi."
