[svlug] Does MacGyver use mutt? was : My escape from Kmail is featured in the 2/2012 issue of Linux Productivity Magazine

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:57:16 -0800
Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Ivan Sergio Borgonovo (mail at webthatworks.it):
> 
> > GUI tools have higher screen to brain bandwidth.

> mutt in an xterm has _awesome_ screen to brain bandwidth.  

It could be higher.

> > A finer organization of screen real estate, fonts, colours...
> > helps your brain to grasp information more efficiently.

> A deliberate absence of sender-specified fonts and colours in
> e-mail is not only helpful but absolutely crucial to good
> aesthetics, legibility, and in some cases basic sanity.  (I mean,
> have you _seen_ what people do to mail, given the ability to
> specify formatting, not to mention inline Javascript and other

If just all people had an art and a communication degree maybe we
could get something out of formatted body of emails but then it
would have to degrade well on eg. mutt and we all would have to live
in another universe for so many other reasons. But anyway I wasn't
talking just about the body.
In this universe formatting of the body that goes further than ascii
art should be prosecuted.
Still eg. choosing a larger font for folders that contains unread
emails or smaller one for the column containing the size of the
message may be useful.

I do enjoy to see the folder tree and the list of messages in the
selected folder and the content of the selected message at the same
time.

Sometimes I need to have more than one message open.
These things could be done with some scripting in mutt as well but
having control at the pixel level and managing everything in the same
program can help organize everything better.

As said I'm happy mutt exists since not all environment are suited
to use a graphic client but while not perfect a graphic client
serves me most of the times better than mutt.

Of course if you're a mutt black belt and you've already spent time
writing scripts and customizing it, you're not missing that much.

> garbage?  No thanks.)  mutt in an xterm permits _me_ to specify
> the font, colours, etc.

> > I haven't had the time to switch my habits from per-divided mail
> > to post-divided mail and my prejudices don't give me enough
> > reasons to try.

> When I said 'read directly from a local mail spool [on my MTA
> host]' that _of course_ includs procmail sorting and re-filing my
> mail into multiple places that suit my needs.  It all just happens

I would definitively miss a tree view of my folders. I would think
about some emacs plugin but I'm a vi user and emacs isn't
lightweight so I wouldn't see any reason not to continue to use a
graphic email client.

> to stay on my MTA host -- which is where my substantive computing
> occurs, by preference.

That's true. That's why I wrote I'd be happy to see sieve better
supported.

> That way, it really doesn't matter what machine I'm typing and
> screen-viewing on, as for mail purposes the local console is just
> an ssh-enabling device permitting me to reach across the Internet

That's choosing the lowest common denominator.
That's OK if you're MacGyver working from the jungle connected to the
internet through RFC 1149 and you've spent the past 20 years fixing
servers with mutt and a clipboard.
Something you can definitively be proud of but that's becoming more
and more exceptional and one of the reason I'm lowering my paranoia
level at least on this matter. I still consider some mastery in
(console) vi an indispensable skill.

That said some (most?) GUI tools are a PITA because they were
designed with monkeys pressing buttons in mind.

> to where I do my real work.  Doesn't fit everyone's working
> styles, but it Works for Me[tm].

Woking style is more a matter of experience rather than personal
taste (hopefully).

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it