Re: tlug: recommendable email software]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Jon" == Jon Babcock <jon@example.com> writes:

>>>>> "Ken" == Ken Harada <kenhrd@example.com> writes:
    Ken> I vote for 'mnews'.  It handles both e-mails and news
    Ken> articles by the same user interface.  It can refer to MH
    Ken> files.  Japanese handling for JIS, SJIS and EUC.

    Jon> Could mnews be made to also handle big5 and gb for Chinese? I
    Jon> would be interested in any answers, even theoretical?

Sure, but it wouldn't be easy to get it completely right as far as I
know.  I got really pissed off a couple of years ago by the
non-compliant crap coming out of mnews on our site, and looked at the
code to see if I could fix it.  As far as I can remember, character
handling is spread throughout the code.

I _do_ know Lisp, and decided it would be easier to fix it at this
end.  Before I got halfway through though, the problem went away
because all the users switched to Eudora or (what's the other popular
localized free/shareware emailer for Windose?)

    Jon> (I've been using Gnus for a couple years and I've finally
    Jon> acknowledged the fact that I am too stupid and
    Jon> Lisp-illiterate to really control it. I need i18n capability,

Under XEmacs and recent Gnus, Customize is making it a lot easier.

    Jon> at least to the extent of handling CJK and English with one
    Jon> mail/news client. I'm hoping that this kind of i18n
    Jon> capability, as opposed to mere localization, will eventually
    Jon> become part of Mozilla, and will help in that effort if I
    Jon> can, but in the meantime...)

Puleaze, no!  FIRST make Mozilla produce stuff that most of the
mailers out there can handle easily by default.  Then add more
features.

I18Nizing Mozilla is not going to be that easy; Motif is not that good
at it.  Also, despite the freeing of the Mozilla code source, the bugs
and incompleteness of Lesstif are going to hold back Linux/FreeBSD
interest in I18N to a great extent IMO.  (Lesstif does not implement
XIM well at all.  If you're satisfied with a read-only mailer....)

Tokoro de, I know a lot of Mozilla users who give up in disgust once
traffic hits a certain level.  It gives almost no help in
"folderizing" your mail, which means you have to do up front with say
procmail.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Next TLUG Meeting: 11 April Sat, Tokyo Station Yaesu gate 12:30
Featuring Tague Griffith of Netscape i18n talking on source code
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