Claws Mail

[Grogan]

I've been using Sylpheed for decades (since it was a GTK+ 1.x application), but it's been unmaintained for years. Even Arch dropped it about 4 years ago (I didn't notice because I build that my own way anyway).

Claws-mail used to be "Sylpheed-Claws" which was an enhanced fork of it with more features but it diverged from Sylpheed a long time ago. I looked at the program and it looked nothing like the original, so it put me off. However, thinking of the future, I decided to get started seeing if I can work with it to replace Sylpheed.

I was only half-hearted about it, thinking I wasn't actually going to switch from Sylpheed at this time (I don't have to, it supports everything I need like SSL/TLS etc.) but this program just made it too easy. I compiled it and on first run...

claws-configmigrate.jpg

It imported everything about the program configuration, except the filters, as it warned. It configured exactly like Sylpheed, not more like Thunderbird as recent screenshots show. Unfortunately the perl script to import the filters needs an old perl module XML::SimpleObject that doesn't work right anymore. Arch doesn't have it (only admonishing FAQs for it lol). I installed it through CPAN and it looked like it worked, but it just installed empty directories. So no filter import for me. Most of that doesn't matter anymore, I'm not having to separate form submisions from customer emails from family emails etc. so creating a few rules to separate family gmail addresses and such into a local folder is all I'll need to do.

claws-mailimport.jpg

Does it ever look nice, respecting my GTK3 styling and stuff. I think that this is my new mail program starting right now. I'm going to compile it on Crux later tonight.

It got all the mail folders, even old disconnected ones from decades ago (as I'm showing one... because it doesn't have any confidential shit like other people's email addresses to reveal etc.) and it got all my account settings correct (protocols, port numbers manually configured etc.)

Edit: Oh, actually no, it didn't "import" those mail folders, it's USING them in place. (same MH format)

Now, the program is simple to compile. It's good old fashioned GNU autoconf, ./configure, make, make install. It even still has make install-strip. I looked at Arch's PKGBUILD for it and said "meh". It would almost be a crime to build a package for this, with its simplicity. A single binary in /usr/local/bin/claws-mail, plugins in /usr/local/lib/claws-mail, headers for compiling plugins in /usr/local/include/claws-mail and /usr/local/share/doc/claws-mail.

I cut down on the bollocks:

Code: Select all

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=alderlake" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=alderlake" ./configure  --prefix=/usr/local --disable-valgrind --disable-tests --disable-spamassassin-plugin --disable-clamd-plugin --disable-bogofilter-plugin --disable-bsfilter-plugin --disable-spam_report-plugin --disable-libravatar-plugin --disable-networkmanager --disable-startup-notification --disable-notification-plugin --disable-dillo-plugin

(most of those plugins don't actually do anything unless you have the back ends for them, they aren't all hard dependencies, but I know I never want that shit. For example I don't do spam filtering locally, that's server side)

That gives me:

Code: Select all

claws-mail 4.3.1

Using Address Book : Original stable interface
JPilot             : no
LDAP               : yes
gnuTLS             : yes
OAuth2             : yes
iconv              : yes
compface           : no
IPv6               : yes
enchant            : yes
IMAP4              : yes
NNTP               : yes
Crash dialog       : no
LibSM              : yes
DBUS               : no
NetworkManager     : no
Manual             : no
Generic UMPC code  : no
SVG support        : yes
Config dir         : .claws-mail
Password crypto    : gnutls
Unit tests         : no
Plugins
   Built:
            - acpi_notifier
            - address_keeper
            - archive
            - att_remover
            - attachwarner
            - fancy
            - fetchinfo
            - keyword_warner
            - mailmbox
            - managesieve
            - newmail
            - pdf_viewer
            - perl
            - python
            - pgpcore
            - pgpmime
            - pgpinline
            - rssyl
            - smime
   Disabled:
            - bogofilter
            - bsfilter
            - clamd
            - demo
            - dillo
            - libravatar
            - notification
            - spamassassin
            - spam_report
   Disabled due to missing dependencies:
            - litehtml_viewer
            - tnef_parse
            - vcalendar

The binary will be installed in /usr/local/bin

It compiled in 22 seconds

[Zema Bus]

Looks great!