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Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

aerc-mail.org

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Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#171

Post by atoav »

tssva wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80-char lines are too short for desktop displays Nothing makes them "too short for desktop displays". Text is not supposed to fill all/most of the available display width: “Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line(counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal.” -- Th…

"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length.…

I got typographic education, and the reason we limit line with on paper (think about the biggest newspaper you know), isn’t because the lack of space. I know newspapers that are bigger than any typical display you’d find at a work place.

Shorter lines are easier and faster to read and you don’t have to turn your head back and forth every line. This is what German Typographers would call a Bleiwüste, which means “lead desert” and translates to wall of text. And they call it that for a reason. Typographers use a wall of text when they want to disencourage users from reading it (legal text etc).

Column based layouts (like in newspapers) don’t work well with scolling pages, but limited line width certainly does. Scrolling doesn’t really cost the user much and on top of that smartphones limit the line width anyway, so users get a more consistent design.

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#172

Post by suprfnk »

Tharkun wrote: post #116

Off-topic, but damn, Drew, how do you manage to be so productive? Sway alone is an impressive beast (and the only thing that got me off my awesomewm addiction). Now you're throwing in an impressive mutt alternative? Thanks for all the hard work!

[–]drewdevault[S] 26 points 17 hours ago

I work on free software full-time now thanks to the support of the many people who donate to my work :)

https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/15/Im-doing-FOSS-full-time.h...

Lots of people help with these projects, too. aerc 0.1.0 includes contributions from a total of 16 authors.

From: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bwao4d/aerc_an_email...

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#173

Post by coldtea »

tssva wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80-char lines are too short for desktop displays Nothing makes them "too short for desktop displays". Text is not supposed to fill all/most of the available display width: “Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line(counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal.” -- Th…

"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length.…

>"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length.

The advice given wasn't based on the technology of the era, but on the optimal line length for reading in general.

That's invariant to how more wide a screen one has (or to whether the "text" looks not wide enough compared to the screen), and based on how far the eyes should go to read something, and whether the reader loses their place (line they are in etc) by the time the roll back and forth at the end of a line to start the new one.

>Instead of being fixed width the text should be reflowed to properly fill the viewing window.

That's the worst possible situation, and not found to be good by any reading research (on paper or screen).

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#174

Post by wazoox »

rlue wrote: post #89

I haven't dug too deep into the features or how this works yet, but it's very exciting to see any kind of movement in this space at all. I've spent a lot of time configuring mutt just the way I like it, but I'd throw it all away in a heartbeat for a good, modern alternative. My wishlist: * A daemon that pulls new mail from my IMAP servers to my local maildir as soon as it arrives. (I know mutt has an IMAP mode, and i…

> A daemon that pulls new mail from my IMAP servers to my local maildir as soon as it arrives.

fetchmail + procmail do just that. Use the Unix way :)

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#175

Post by brokenkebab »

mbreese wrote: post #103
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy, you can change what folder it treats as sent. It doesn't have a trash bin (and it won't) or draft support (and it will) yet.

Out of curiosity, why won’t there be a Trash bin? What about an Archive folder?

Trash bin (for messages, or files) is a poor man's replacement for making backup copies.

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#178

Post by Yetanfou »

augustk wrote: post #176

What I miss is a low-resource email client with a GUI, something I (in principle) can run on a 20 year old computer.

Try claws or sylpheed (from which claws is derived), these work just fine on older hardware. Startup time (with cold cache) on my 14yo T42p is under a second, RSS is 48MB with 4 active multi-gigabyte IMAP accounts. There is a bunch of extensions to add PGP integration etc. On Debian the package is called 'claws-mail', this name might be different elsewhere.

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#179

Post by smhenderson »

augustk wrote: post #176

What I miss is a low-resource email client with a GUI, something I (in principle) can run on a 20 year old computer.

Have you ever tried Claws[1]? I haven't used it for a while but when I did I was able to use it on quite older hardware running trimmed down versions of various Linux and BSD boxes.

Besides being light weight it's got some good features for an older client, it's GPL and can use plug-ins for extra functionality.

Nothing to do with he project, just a previously happy user.

[1] https://www.claws-mail.org/

Re: Aerc – An email client that runs in the terminal

#180

Post by hvsdjksj »

augustk wrote: post #176

What I miss is a low-resource email client with a GUI, something I (in principle) can run on a 20 year old computer.

I'm still using the last version (12.16) of the original Opera browser for its integrated email client. It has everything you may need (POP3, IMAP, HTML editor, threaded view, labels, multiple accounts, etc., etc.), it works wonderfully on Linux, and on old, low memory machines too.
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