Re: tlug: Mew on (X)Emacs the way to go?

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

John De Hoog <washi@example.com> wrote,

> An unofficial survey of the headers of posters to this ML indicates that
> quite a few of you use Mew on Emacs or especially XEmacs
> for your email.

I only recently switched to Mew (but use Emacs to prcosses
my e-mail for years).

> As a Linux wannabe still mainly using NT, I find Becky! Internet Mail
> meets my needs pretty well:
> -- polling multiple POP servers automatically

The answer is twofold:

(1) Mew comes with a package called IM = Internet Messaging
    that does all the MTA level work and more for Mew.  IM
    understands POP and many other protocols
(2) Why do you use POP?  On a Unix machine, the normal thing 
    is to get the e-mail delivered to the sendmail daemon
    (or qmail or whatever) running on your box.  Then, you
    don't need POP.  The only exception is of course when
    you are on a dialup connection, but then there is
    `fetchmail', which feeds the mails (using POP) to your
    local sendmail.

> -- filtering and all that

Usually done by the MTA (eg, sendmail).

> -- displaying html posts

Hmm, I don't think it automatically does, but I seldom get
html posts, so I am not sure.  However, there is a html
renderer included in Emacs and I don't see any fundamental
problem in using it to diaplay e-mails.

> -- multiple, visible signatures

What's that exactly?

> -- template support

I don't know what kind of support you expect, but one of the 
nice things about using Emacs for e-mail is that all the
goodies of the editor are available when writing e-mails
(spell checker, abbreviations, filladapt, etc).

> -- threaded views

Not supported in Mew, I think, but probably in other
Emacs-based mailers (maybe in VM?)

> -- simple configuration

Mew itself is easy to configure and use, at least when you
are familiar with Emacs.  But then, learning Emacs is always
worhwhile :-)

Depending on you fluency in Japanese, you may find it
inconvenient that the full Mew FAQ is only available in
Japanese (they are looking for translators, I think).

Manuel
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