[lug] Mutt versus Pine

[Dhruva B. Reddy]

Comments inline...

On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 02:29:17PM -0600, quoth J. Wayde Allen:
> 
> I've been toying with the idea of trying to switch from Pine to Mutt.  No
> particularly good reason other than a lot of people I respect seem to like
> Mutt.  I've been tinkering a bit this afternoon, and it looks to me like
> Mutt works fine, but ...
> 
>    - Does Mutt have an address book, if so how do you use it?

Not as such.  You can create an alias file which contains an alias for each
e-mail address.  If you have a friend named Bob Roberts, with an e-mail address
bob at hownow.cow, you put an entry in the file as follows:
 
alias bob bob at hownow.cow (Bob Roberts)

You can then type in the alias as you compose the message, or hit tab and the
alias will pop up so you can scroll down and choose it.

I would think you could write some sort of script that calls an LDAP server
and creates an alias for you.  I've been thinking about doing this with my
Palm Pilot.  I would add a field to the address book in the PDA, "Alias".  The
script would go through each record, and if the record had a value for that
field, grab the "E-mail", "First Name" and "Last Name" and create the alias.

> 
>    - How do you setup the default behavior?  I'm guessing there is a
>      config file so will go see if I can find it.
> 

There is a file called ".muttrc".  "man muttrc" is your friend.

>    - Can one have what in Pine is called a "Role"?  That sets ones "From:"
>      header depending on a set of address rules.
> 

Don't know.  I guess I didn't use pine long enough to discover that concept.

> One question is, do people prefer Mutt over Pine, and if so why? I guess
> maybe I need a bit of a push.
> 

I do.  I first tried pine when I was using elm (which, I believe inspired
mutt--they have similar interfaces).  I didn't like pine's interface--it seemed 
to focus on user-friendliness at the expense of efficiency (if I remember
correctly, pine seemed to require more keystrokes).

When I was in college I started out using mail, went to elm and later, Netscape.
After graduating, I tried Outbreak and hated it.  I tried Netscape on Linux and
hated that too, at which point I was introduced to mutt, which I have found much
more stable and efficient (both in resource usage and user input) than any GUI-
based mail client.  I also love the flexibility that mutt offers.

Attached is my .muttrc file, if you decide to press forward.

Dhruva
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# Set the main folder
set folder = "~/Mail"

set abort_nosubject=no

# Get list of aliases...
set alias_file=~/.mutt/aliases
source ~/.mutt/aliases

# Include copy of the message I am replying to.
set include=yes

# Don't jump to next message at end of message.
set pager_stop

# Use this command for printing...
set print_command="~/bin/code-print mail"

# String that precedes reply...
set attribution="On %d, quoth %n:"

set record="~/Mail/sent"