[Novalug] Email update: Switched to Evolution from pine.

greg pryzby greg@pryzby.org
Tue Apr 8 09:00:12 EDT 2008


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Welcome to 1999 :D

Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> I asked a couple weeks ago about what I should use for email if I was
> finally ready to ditch pine, a classic Unix/Linux text-only email
> client.  People were looking at me using pine and asking if I was
> connected to a mainframe or saying that the last time they used an email
> program like 'that' was 'when they were in college'.  Somehow the odd
> expression on their faces suggested this time to be between 1985 and
> 1993.
> 
> I tried Thunderbird for about 20 minutes but gave up after snooping
> around and observing that it appears to be a pretty simple, fast and
> light email client.  Don't know if that's true, but it doesn't give the
> impression it's chock full of features.

User error. Thunderbird does all that Evolution does from a mail client.
Or at least that is my experience, and it isn't bloated like Evolution.

Then again I moved from elm to mutt to thunderbird (Zimbra desktop isn't
cutting it because it doesn't seem to sync well and it is java so it is
a pig, but I digress).

> So I made another attempt to transition to Evolution.  This time I was
> determined and things worked out.
> 
> I've now got Evolution pulling mail down from about 6 different email
> accounts.  Filters are setup to push novalug, dclug, etc., mail into
> specific inboxes.  I've been able to setup a three-tiered display
> showing inboxes on the left, subjects listed in a vertical 'browse' with
> threads (similar yet superior to pine) and, the best feature of all,
> HTML mail displayed on the rightmost third panel.
> 
> The next time someone figures out something like HTML within email
> messages, could someone please tell me to stop living with cavemen and
> catch up to modern technology?  I can't believe how good emails trying
> to sell me things can look when I let them show me more than text!

So I will argue that HTML mail is rude, bloated and allows phishing
because I say one thing and actually send you to a different place when
you click.

Sure, seeing mail in html is nice, but beware. And mutt allowed me to
see html mail in a browser if I wanted :P

> Anyway, the purpose of this message is twofold: First, to help convince
> others using way-old email programs to consider trying something more
> contemporary out.  For all my love and trust of pine, it simply isn't
> good enough for today's world and today's expectations on how people
> should work with computers.  The second point of this message is to ask
> for some help with my Evolution transition...
> 
> 1) How can I close the Evolution window, leaving a little dock
> application showing it's still running?  I want it to keep automatically
> getting email, but I don't want to waste screen space with it on a
> workspace all the time?

I would click on the _ in the upper right corner (or whatever your WM
uses to minimize). Or actually join us in the 90s with multiple desktops
and have 1 desktop for terminals, 1 for mail, 1 for browser and 1 for
'scratch'.

:D

I love you Maxwell!


> 2) Can I setup a message filter that says 'copy any incoming message to
> a carboncopy folder' so that everything is ultimately archived somewhere

Sure, I don't have evolution installed but I would expect a filter that
allows copying to exist.

> 3) I've really fallen in love with gmail's archive-everything approach.
> Going back in time simply by searching for something you remember about
> it is very appealing.  Can I do that in evolution?  You know.. delete
> this message, but actually don't delete it, just archive for later but
> get rid of it for now? :)

Sure, forward everything to gmail, use labels in GMAIL and use imap to
read the GMAIL account(s).

That is what I would do (or do).

> Thanks for reading and answering if you have suggestions!
> 
> 
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- --
greg pryzby                              greg at pryzby dot org
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