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Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

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Re: Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

#33

Post by drwu »

jedisct1 wrote: post #8

I still use mutt on a daily basis. Being able to select emails using regular expressions is super useful. IMAPFilter is also simple and powerful to quickly sort email.

Yes! I use mutt for searching, tagging, thread operations (splitting,appending etc.), bouncing, attaching other mails, deleting attachments, openpgp (personal), smime (at work), and it works with IMAP out of the box.

I am also able to integrate (a locally hosted) LanguageTool to check the grammar in the editor.

The only issue is to write emails with embedded images. But personally I don't like such emails for occupying the space of the mailbox.

Re: Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

#34

Post by djha-skin »

Himalaya makes it pretty easy to write cli tools and automate email workflows. It pairs well with August, another rust project that can render html to text on the terminal. I wrote a git email patch automation tool around Himalaya so that people can receive email patches easily[1].

1: https://github.com/djha-skin/git-receive-mail

Re: Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

#36

Post by bigstrat2003 »

smartmic wrote: post #18
zerop wrote: post #11

Honest question - Why use interfaces like this, but not regular HTML client?

There are many choices for email client interfaces. HTML for email does not have a good reputation among hackers. After all, email can be considered an ancient technology and is historically based on plain text - HTML breaks not only the philosophy but also many of the tools developed around email. I have found a sweet spot for an email client between a pure CLI and a full-featured (HTML) GUI client - I use Emacs Gnu…

I disagree that email should be plain text, but honestly I don't think that's really relevant to the question. I read the question as "why CLI instead of GUI", which I think is totally fair. Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit.

Re: Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

#38

Post by BeetleB »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #36
smartmic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many choices for email client interfaces. HTML for email does not have a good reputation among hackers. After all, email can be considered an ancient technology and is historically based on plain text - HTML breaks not only the philosophy but also many of the tools developed around email. I have found a sweet spot for an email client between a pure CLI and a full-featured (HTML) GUI client - I use Emacs Gnu…

I disagree that email should be plain text, but honestly I don't think that's really relevant to the question. I read the question as "why CLI instead of GUI", which I think is totally fair. Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit.

> Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit.

Eh? I used to use mutt and now use notmuch. Much simpler to use than, say, Outlook. Not sure what you're talking about being "harder".

Re: Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails

#39

Post by berkes »

dmd wrote: post #23
smartmic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many choices for email client interfaces. HTML for email does not have a good reputation among hackers. After all, email can be considered an ancient technology and is historically based on plain text - HTML breaks not only the philosophy but also many of the tools developed around email. I have found a sweet spot for an email client between a pure CLI and a full-featured (HTML) GUI client - I use Emacs Gnu…

> HTML breaks not only the philosophy but also many of the tools developed around email I was one of these die-hard-text-only people, back in the mid to late 90s. It was true. People were sending HTML/rich text emails, and it broke everything, and it was awful to read with. Not to mention the kilobytes of bandwidth wasted! But it's 2024 now. There are vastly more tools that can deal with HTML email than those that ca…

> But it's 2024 now. There are vastly more tools that can deal with HTML email than those that can't. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if it's 4 orders of magnitude.

Is it? Whatsapp, Signal, Slack, Notion, ChatGTP, are amongst the apps I use daily - and used by many non-hacker daily, that's pretty much "text only". all support some (subset of) markdown, which is close to "plain text" than to "HTML" in editing and displaying.

What I am trying to say is not that email should use markdown, or that HTML-email is bad or good. What I am trying to say is that there's clear and obvious proof that, in 2024, there's a need and use for "plain text". Even in tools that overlap with what email does.

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