[gentoo-user] [OT] Using mutt instead of kmail

[gentoo-user] [OT] Using mutt instead of kmail

[Mick]

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Hi All,

There are a few mutt users here so I thought of asking here first.

I've tried setting up mutt to use as a mail client instead of kmail.

Having spent some time now I am not sure it will do what I expect of a mail 
client, at least not with the ease that I hoped.

The basic requirements for my typical use cases are to be able to handle 
gpg/pgp and s/mime signed and occasionally encrypted messages and to auto-
complete addresses.

I have several different s/mime certificates and gpg keys for two different mail 
accounts.  Of course only one certificate for each account is valid at any time 
(the others are expired or revoked) and only one gpg public/private key pair.

However, the old keys are still necessary and available in my system to be 
able to decrypt old emails that I have received over the years.

With kmail I do not have to specify gpg keys, or certificate IDs, to be able to 
decrypt messages.  The mail client itself reads the key/certificate and calls 
gpgsm/kgpg which asks for my passphrase.

Also, when I want to send an encrypted message it knows from the Crypto 
settings of the recipient in the Address Book which public key/certificate to 
use to encrypt a message.  if the recipient has both gpg and s/mime 
certificates available in the Address Book it asks me which to use on each 
occasion.

Finally, kmail has an auto-completion feature for the recipient address and it 
suggests as I type the person to send to.  Down arrow and enter is all that I 
need to press.


Unlike kmail, with mutt I can't even start using certificates because I am 
getting errors importing SSL certs like these:

3075245704:error:0D0680A8:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_CHECK_TLEN:wrong 
tag:tasn_dec.c:1319:
3075245704:error:0D07803A:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_ITEM_EX_D2I:nested asn1 
error:tasn_dec.c:381:Type=PKCS12

Mutt asks for s/mime ID Nos, on each message, which with the number of 
certificates that I have amassed over the years I do not happen to have at hand 
and it is a pain to type manually each time.

Mutt also does not seem to auto-complete any addresses.  It uses aliases, but 
that implies that I must set up such aliases and use these every time I want 
to enter a particular address.  This creates the problem of having to remember 
each and every alias, rather than typing "fre" and getting a list of Freds, 
Freddies,  Frederics, etc. or part of the Surname, or part of the email 
address itself.

The other difficulty is the key shortcuts in mutt do not behave as I would like 
them to, but this is that something I could recode so less of a problem.

Is there anything that I could do to automate the digital signing and 
encryption to a level similar to kmail and the auto-completion of email 
addresses?
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Using mutt instead of kmail

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Jan 08, 2012 at 06:32:07PM +0000, Mick wrote

> Is there anything that I could do to automate the digital signing
> and encryption to a level similar to kmail and the auto-completion
> of email addresses?

  I'm not familiar with the encryption.  There is a sort of
auto-completion.  Type the first 2 or 3 characters(or enough to be
unique) and then hit the {TAB} key.  It should finish the address.

  For encryption or gpg signing, see
https://kb.wisc.edu/middleware/page.php?id=4091  Mutt has "crypt" and
"smime" USE flags, which may be required for your needs.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Using mutt instead of kmail

[Frank Steinmetzger]

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On Sun, Jan 08, 2012 at 06:32:07PM +0000, Mick wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> There are a few mutt users here so I thought of asking here first.
> I've tried setting up mutt to use as a mail client instead of kmail.

I actually did the change from KMail to Mutt after my KDEPIM kicked the bucket
with 4.7.3.

> […] GPG questions […]

Though I myself have set up a simple GPG key, ther is currently only one person
in my list of contacts who does, too. So I don’t have any relevant experience
concerning mutt+gpg besides signing my own messages, except for when I’m in
certain folders, which can be achieved with:

folder-hook .             set pgp_autosign
folder-hook +some_folder  unset pgp_autosign

> Finally, kmail has an auto-completion feature for the recipient address and it 
> suggests as I type the person to send to.  Down arrow and enter is all that I 
> need to press.
> […]
> Mutt also does not seem to auto-complete any addresses.  It uses aliases, but 
> that implies that I must set up such aliases and use these every time I want 
> to enter a particular address.  This creates the problem of having to remember 
> each and every alias, rather than typing "fre" and getting a list of Freds, 
> Freddies,  Frederics, etc. or part of the Surname, or part of the email 
> address itself.

Mutt has a completion feature; when you enter an address, you can press ^t to
trigger autocompletion. Now the trick is to get mutt to use your contacts. For
that you need to install lbdb, which is a contacts management thingy, featuring
a number of storage backends (almost like what akonadi was originally intended
to do, lol). I simply set lbdb up to use KAddressBook’s std.vcf file and then I
can query it using lbdbq.

Like so:
--------- file: ~/.lbdbrc -----------
METHODS="m_inmail m_vcf m_abook m_muttalias"
MUTT_DIRECTORY="$HOME/.mutt"
MUTTALIAS_FILES="aliases"
VCF_FILES="$HOME/.kde4/share/apps/kabc/std.vcf"

Now, using lbdbq, I can query the VCF file, my mutt aliases and some other
stuff (inmail is an lbdb-internal database to which you can feed addresses from
incoming mail, IIRC, and abook is a textbased address book I tried).

In order to use lbdbq for autocompletion in mutt, add the following to muttrc:
set query_command="lbdbq '%s'"

> The other difficulty is the key shortcuts in mutt do not behave as I would like 
> them to, but this is that something I could recode so less of a problem.

Keyboard shortcuts are always a question of personal preference and of what
tutorials/howtos/introductions to mutt you found, read and consider useful. For
example, since I converted to vi last year, I added some shortcuts to use m and
, (which are below j and k, respectively, to move the pager content up and
down, whereas j and k switch messages).

-- 
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla'
I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services.

The duration of a minute is relative.
It depends on the side of the toilet door you are standing on.

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