[gentoo-user] mutt configuration advice

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

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I would be grateful if some kind soul guided my hand on configuring mutt to 
behave like ... errm ... kmail!  O_o

Before you have a go, please let me explain myself.  I love kmail, or better 
said, I *used to* love kmail as it was back then when no semantic desktop, no 
mysql database, no akonadi, no redland and what not, was imposed upon us.  I 
have no need for anything else than what kmail used to do back in the latter 
part of KDE3.  A simple flat file address book (OK, use sqlite if you really 
must) and the simple search for messages it used to offer, was all that I ever 
needed.  In particular I found its integration with kgpg and kleopatra 
extremely useful, and this is what has stopped me moving to other GUI mail 
clients.  I tried many of them was surprised to see how much better kmail was 
for my needs.

Anyway, this was back then.  Now kmail 1 is heading towards extinction and it 
is a matter of time before devs pull the plug and push us all to the kmail 2 
abomination.  Since the full KDEPIM semantic bloatware is not to my liking and 
I do not wish to allow kmail 2 to irreversibly lose my thousands of mail 
messages, I thought of giving mutt a closer look.  I had used mutt on and off 
in a simple IMAP set up.  Now however I would like to use it on my laptop, 
with the need for offline access to read and draft/edit my messages, multiple 
accounts and quirky settings.  There are a number of things that feel awkward 
with mutt and I am not sure if this is because mutt is just not for me, or 
because it takes much more effort to configure functions, which on a modern 
GUI client are just a click away.

So, let me start with the basics.  I am using Gmail, for which I have 
configured kmail to POP and download my messages in a local maildir without 
deleting these from the server.  The Gmail settings on the server show:

  POP enabled
  Leave POPped messages on server
  IMAP enabled

With the above settings (not sure if they veer from the original Gmail 
defaults) I am able to POP the Gmail server inbox and rather importantly I'm 
also able to 'sync' with any sent messages on the server.  I will not pretend 
to understand how the latter is performed - haven't sniffed the packets to see 
what happens - but this is what I get:

 - When I send a message from kmail it will be saved in my local maildir sent 
gmail subfolder and will also show up in the Sent folder of the Gmail webmail.

 - When I send a message from the Gmail webmail the message will show up as 
new (and downloaded if I click on it) when I launch my kmail.

 - This sync'ing happens once only.  If I thereafter delete a message on the 
server the local copy is not affected and vice versa.  This is useful for me 
because I can delete locally any messages which are not particularly 
important, but might want to refer to them in the distant future.  Delete 
messages on the server that I only want to keep locally.  Delete both when I 
don't want to keep them whatsoever.

However, I am at a loss as to how I should configure my .muttrc to achieve 
this functionality.  Ideally I would also like to replicate my current kmail 
maildir folder structure in mutt, so that I can access the Gmail server with 
either client; e.g.

~/Mail/
 |_inbox (all unfiltered messages drop in here)
   |_.inbox.directory
     |_.Gentoo.directory
     |_Gentoo
       |_cur
       |_new
       |_tmp


Can you please point me in the right direction for this set up?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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