Live data from Hacker News

A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

danielchoi.com

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#71
post #56

> To save you keystrokes, Vmail provides alternative key mappings for ,* , ,#, and ,! Unfortunately, vmail doesn't seem to consider internationalization important at all. US users save a single press of the shift key when starring messages (,8 instead of ,*), but on a german keyboard, where the star is shift-3 instead of shift-8, the shift-less version of starring trashes the message instead. Not a typo I'm eager to…

One, just as another user pointed out, remapping is easy. Two, I personally think that most international keyboards I have used have been any good at all for the tasks we face as programmers/hackers/developers. They put an emphasis on producing text, not code, and if you spend most of your day typing code and English anyway I can't see why we should "waste" precious keyboard real-estate. I ditched my Swedish layout d…

I did that, too. But I constantly switch back and forth when I'm writing German code (think LaTeX). Pure coding is fine, and so is pure prose, but whenever the two mix, its a pain.

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#72

When will we get a "programer's web browser"? I mean a full blown browser of current generation abilities, but with the option of completely keyboard driven interaction. Concise input of small commands (navigation, data extraction, exploring and massaging of extracted data, data uploading etc.) that can be composed to form more complex interactions. It should have full interoperability with the CLI, don't go re-inven…

One possible way is to use an extension called 'Vimium' with Google Chrome.

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the guy who wrote it uses gmail. There's no ulterior motive there. Just a person who uses gmail who wanted to use it in vim

Oh certainly no ulterior motive, but these things never have ulterior motives, just good people not doing what they should. I was just curious why it wouldn't be just as easy to make it use imap rather than being gmail specific. The idea of making an email client that only worked with email addresses from a single domain would not even have occurred to me.

Sometime more specialized/specific is better.

For instance, Gmail does support IMAP but also has non-IMAP features. Being too abstract would mean avoiding providing these features.

Another point is the easiness of installation/configuration/usability. For instance, with Emacs, you can use GNUs to read gmail. However, it is so generic (you can read usenet news and any kind of e-mail), that it's really a pain to get started. There are terminology confusions (i.e. you need several hacks to have a gmail-like inbox) and overall, it just doesn't feel like g-mail..

Also, by starting very specific for our own problem, it's easier to create a meaningful product that solves a real need. (Like startup!) I think it's easier to start specialized and then grow larger, than start too brood.

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#74
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, consider GP's assessment as envy of those who use Gmail and therefore can benefit from this nice piece of software.

Yes, that's what I was told when I made similar comments about IE only websites years ago as well. How short of a memory does this community have if they don't understand what comes after "embrace" and "extend"?

I also assume this community understands what the word "FUD" means and how it relates to this post.

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#75
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victory shall not be yours until your precious Vim has both Tetris and Towers of Hanoi. Emacs shall prevail.

Then victory was ours circa 2004 ;) Tetris in Vim: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=172 Towers of Hanoi: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=900

Hmm . . . the battle may be closer than I thought. Vim still must be inferior somehow, right? :)

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#76
post #70
post #7

Thanks to google killing free Google Apps accounts, I won't get a chance to use this. It's really sad because this is exactly what I was looking for.

How is this better than mutt with EDITOR=vim ? Not a smartass question.

I honestly haven't used mutt in a while, but I used to have a lot of issues with it. I should give it another go.

Re: A vim interface for gmail: Vmail

#79
post #76
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this better than mutt with EDITOR=vim ? Not a smartass question.

I honestly haven't used mutt in a while, but I used to have a lot of issues with it. I should give it another go.

If you're on OSX, my fork of homebrew has some patches to make threading et al work.

https://github.com/richo/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formul...

Post reply on HN