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Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

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Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#141

Post by simonask »

Ringz wrote: post #39
tills13 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok but GMail for example has keyboard shortcuts.

Yeah, but I don’t have to learn new shortcuts since I can configure Aerc exactly like I want (and how my mental VIM shortcut model works).

This has to be a pretty backwards argument, to be honest.

You may not have to learn "new shortcuts" (they're pretty standard), but you're perfectly willing to learn an entire text-based configuration scheme?

VIM has its merits for _editing_ code, but that's not what you're doing with e-mails. You're usually just writing them and sending them off. It doesn't matter if you can save a few keystrokes to, say, change a word a few paragraphs back, and you're not producing structured text in any meaningful way.

It's perfectly fine to like the terminal, but you _have_ to admit it is a preference that has nothing to do with "efficiency".

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#142

Post by simonask »

layer8 wrote: post #35
Swarming wrote: post #10

I might be missing something but why would you want to use a terminal interface when a GUI is so much easier?

Operation via single-character keyboard commands is really fast in TUI emails clients. In principle a GUI client could offer the same, but I haven’t seen one that does to the same degree. A GUI might be “easier”, but is less efficient for the power user. Another reason that is more idiosyncratic: If you operate your own email server, you can SSH in from everywhere and use a TUI client locally on the server. This save…

Gmail is actually really good with this. Yeah, not every possible action has a keyboard shortcut, but all the important ones do (the ones you will realistically use in day to day email handling).

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#143

Post by skowalak »

samuell wrote: post #137

I'm kind of locked in to Thunderbird as it manages decades of my mail. I wonder if one could develop a decent TUI for Thunderbird / its database...

I feel the same. I have "only" about 15 years worth of mail in Thunderbird but I am getting increasingly tired of working with the GUI, at least for reading and searching historical mail.

One of these days I will convert my mbox mail to Maildir and try out notmuch.

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#144

Post by fossdd »

djha-skin wrote: post #109

I have plumbed the depths of mutt, and I have discovered that, alas, graphical email clients fit my needs better. - Mutt/aerc doesn't support windows, an OS many use by preference or requirement (though I have explored this with mutt[2], it's hard getting anything to work in mailcap on windows) - Doesn't support viewing HTML email, a ubiquitous phenomenon - Doesn't support sending HTML email, which is fine until your…

Maybe dodo[1] is something for you. It is basically a graphical email client but with lots of vim-bindings.

Basically the best of both worlds, terminal and graphical. Like the qutebrowser[2] for emails.

However I think its kinda in a unmaintained state and only supports notmuch backend.

1: https://github.com/akissinger/dodo 2: https://qutebrowser.org/

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#145

Post by anthk »

purplezooey wrote: post #20

Looks good but wish it was written in C.

Go it's ideal to replace old C/C++ based utilitarian software such as mail clients, music players and so on. For gaming and high performance needing tools such as the ffmpeg codecs and qemu, C/C++ have more sense there.

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#146

Post by kuon »

I love aerc but I use it with my own mail server that is on the same LAN, which makes it very fast.

For HTML, if the mail is too complicated for the text renderer, you can pipe it to your browser with a single key.

With this setup, it is quite ideal for me.

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#147

Post by The-Compiler »

fossdd wrote: post #144
djha-skin wrote: post #109

I have plumbed the depths of mutt, and I have discovered that, alas, graphical email clients fit my needs better. - Mutt/aerc doesn't support windows, an OS many use by preference or requirement (though I have explored this with mutt[2], it's hard getting anything to work in mailcap on windows) - Doesn't support viewing HTML email, a ubiquitous phenomenon - Doesn't support sending HTML email, which is fine until your…

Maybe dodo[1] is something for you. It is basically a graphical email client but with lots of vim-bindings. Basically the best of both worlds, terminal and graphical. Like the qutebrowser[2] for emails. However I think its kinda in a unmaintained state and only supports notmuch backend. 1: https://github.com/akissinger/dodo 2: https://qutebrowser.org/

qutebrowser author here, use Dodo and can confirm it's basically the qutebrowser of mail clients :)

Development is slow but not unmaintained. The author comes back every month or so to merge PRs. Reminds me I have a bunch of local changes I should upstream...

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#148

Post by AeZ1E »

nice to hear that aerc is finally getting the recognition it deserves after being in the shadows for so long. I like how simple and intuitive the account configuration is - definitely stands out compared to other clients. the folder management feature is a game-changer - goodbye messy inbox, hello organized emails!

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#149

Post by kyorochan »

necrotic_comp wrote: post #117
djha-skin wrote: post #109

I have plumbed the depths of mutt, and I have discovered that, alas, graphical email clients fit my needs better. - Mutt/aerc doesn't support windows, an OS many use by preference or requirement (though I have explored this with mutt[2], it's hard getting anything to work in mailcap on windows) - Doesn't support viewing HTML email, a ubiquitous phenomenon - Doesn't support sending HTML email, which is fine until your…

despite the questionable politics of the author, I use mutt-wizard, and using its configs, a simple "v" instead of "o" will open the mail in the open web-browser. I've found this more than acceptable for reading html mail. I don't use it for work, only personal use, though, so ymmv.

Do you feel like you shouldn't use it because of the author's politics? It's not like he gains anything from you using it. Even if he gained money from it I don't think there's any reason to believe he'd use that money to further those political opinions.

Re: Aerc: A well-crafted TUI for email

#150

Post by slightwinder »

jackthetab wrote: post #82
Ringz wrote: post #66

Aerc has been my daily driver for a long, long time. I use it with IMAP (GMail and other reasons) but its completely usable with local mail directories. - I have redefined the Aerc key mapping with a set of Vim-like keybindings, since I am too old to learn new keybindings. And I bet now I as fast as possible slashing through countless mails… - I configured Aerc to work properly with Gmail and Imapfilter. - I created…

I'm interested in the Gmail integration. Tried it with mutt and decided I didn't want to spend an afternoon figuring it out. 'Sides, I hear that Gmail is phasing out IMAP. :-?

> 'Sides, I hear that Gmail is phasing out IMAP. :-?

No, just unsecure access:

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2023/09/winding-down...

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