[gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Peter Humphrey]

Hello list,

When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash of my e-
mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and created a new user. 
Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old version omitted large numbers 
of e-mails, including a lot of complete folders. I also noticed that kmail had 
not created a trash folder.

So I did it again: created another new user. This time I got more messages 
imported but still not the whole lot (about 25,000). Still no trash. So I 
imported specific folders to complete the import. I tried creating a Wastebin 
folder manually (that's what the trash can is called in the UK) but of course 
that had no effect.

Now I find that several filters work sometimes but not others, thus dropping 
e.g. this list partly into its own folder and partly into the general inbox. 
If I move the offending messages myself, next time I look they've been moved 
back again.

If I delete a message, there being no trash folder, it's re-presented as a new 
message together with the original, and if I delete those I get four. Now in 
one folder I have 120 "new" messages.

Is there a sane way out of this? I don't know if I can face creating yet 
another new user with all the drudgery that entails.

-- 
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> Hello list,
> 
> When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
> of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
> created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
> version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of complete
> folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a trash folder.

So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.

tldr; longish post. Short version: Use something else. It's mail, not
software magic.

I ran into something much the same long ago with kamil2
around the 4.3 or 4.5 era. Imports wouldn't work, akonadi was displaying
essentially random mails in random folders in no special order, and I
was losing mail.

Eventually, after much physical and spiritual pain, I figured that what
was really happening was probably akonadi importing the mail to
$SOMEWHERE and $AT_SOME_RANDOM_TIME would index it properly; it would
do this on the basis off $WHEN_IT_FELT_RIGHT_TO_DO_IT.

This trick works awesomely well for caching thumbnails of my video
collection for xbmc. It works less well for my mail. It's disastrous
when the whole process is not documented, when the user has no
visibility into it and no defined way of seeing what's going on, not
even a progress meter. The traditional way of handling such
asynchronous indexing problems is to provide an option where the user
can force a re-index and the system will just chug along doing it
displaying progress. If the mail app suspends itself while doing this,
well that's fine, at least it ends in a reasonable time. But, kdepim at
that stage had no such option.

One other thing I discovered back then: if I killed akonadi & kdepim
and rebooted out of sheer frustration, it would *throw* *away* all it's
temporary files form $SOMEWHERE as above and corrupt it's own database.
Leading to lost mail. If you just leave the damn thing alone for ages
and ages it eventually sorts itself out, but you can't see how far
along it is.

Such shoddy alpha-quality software shipped and billed as enterprise
production-ready was more than I could bear, so I just switched mail
client to claws-mail.

On 4.9.3 you are still experiencing something similar. Hmmm. Indicates
to me a high probability of a systemic problem with the projects
approach, something that is unlikely to ever get really fixed. In my
opinion kdepim2 is vastly over-engineered and an attempt to solve a
problem that does not actually exist. I recommend you use a different
mail app.

As I mentioned in the tldr, it's a mail app. There are many mail apps
and none are super-special. 




> 
> So I did it again: created another new user. This time I got more
> messages imported but still not the whole lot (about 25,000). Still
> no trash. So I imported specific folders to complete the import. I
> tried creating a Wastebin folder manually (that's what the trash can
> is called in the UK) but of course that had no effect.
> 
> Now I find that several filters work sometimes but not others, thus
> dropping e.g. this list partly into its own folder and partly into
> the general inbox. If I move the offending messages myself, next time
> I look they've been moved back again.
> 
> If I delete a message, there being no trash folder, it's re-presented
> as a new message together with the original, and if I delete those I
> get four. Now in one folder I have 120 "new" messages.
> 
> Is there a sane way out of this? I don't know if I can face creating
> yet another new user with all the drudgery that entails.
> 



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Mick]

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On Thursday 03 Jan 2013 10:33:52 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
> 
> Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> > Hello list,
> > 
> > When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
> > of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
> > created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
> > version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of complete
> > folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a trash folder.
> 
> So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.
> 
> tldr; longish post. Short version: Use something else. It's mail, not
> software magic.
> 
> I ran into something much the same long ago with kamil2
> around the 4.3 or 4.5 era. Imports wouldn't work, akonadi was displaying
> essentially random mails in random folders in no special order, and I
> was losing mail.
> 
> Eventually, after much physical and spiritual pain, I figured that what
> was really happening was probably akonadi importing the mail to
> $SOMEWHERE and $AT_SOME_RANDOM_TIME would index it properly; it would
> do this on the basis off $WHEN_IT_FELT_RIGHT_TO_DO_IT.
> 
> This trick works awesomely well for caching thumbnails of my video
> collection for xbmc. It works less well for my mail. It's disastrous
> when the whole process is not documented, when the user has no
> visibility into it and no defined way of seeing what's going on, not
> even a progress meter. The traditional way of handling such
> asynchronous indexing problems is to provide an option where the user
> can force a re-index and the system will just chug along doing it
> displaying progress. If the mail app suspends itself while doing this,
> well that's fine, at least it ends in a reasonable time. But, kdepim at
> that stage had no such option.
> 
> One other thing I discovered back then: if I killed akonadi & kdepim
> and rebooted out of sheer frustration, it would *throw* *away* all it's
> temporary files form $SOMEWHERE as above and corrupt it's own database.
> Leading to lost mail. If you just leave the damn thing alone for ages
> and ages it eventually sorts itself out, but you can't see how far
> along it is.
> 
> Such shoddy alpha-quality software shipped and billed as enterprise
> production-ready was more than I could bear, so I just switched mail
> client to claws-mail.
> 
> On 4.9.3 you are still experiencing something similar. Hmmm. Indicates
> to me a high probability of a systemic problem with the projects
> approach, something that is unlikely to ever get really fixed. In my
> opinion kdepim2 is vastly over-engineered and an attempt to solve a
> problem that does not actually exist. I recommend you use a different
> mail app.
> 
> As I mentioned in the tldr, it's a mail app. There are many mail apps
> and none are super-special.

Thankfully, I'm still on kmail-1.13.7 and I am dreading the time that it will 
no longer be available.  I've used kmail for so many years now that everything 
else I tried has been a great disappointment for me.

Last time I tried to upgrade to kmail 2 some time early last year (for the 4th 
time) it made exactly the mess experienced by others, like:

- duplicate/multiple messages when I tried to delete them
- missing/disappearing messages
- inability to show anything other than the Inbox folder on IMAP4 accounts

I could swear that I waited for it to sync/resync, but I didn't leave the box 
running overnight to see if that would fix this problem.

In all but one box I am not running a full KDE enchilada, so I don't know if 
this has something to do with it.  I just hope that new devs will eventually 
take over this KDEPIM farce and something sane will surface for those of us 
who still want/need to use a mail client.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?, Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Peter Humphrey]

On 3/1/2013, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
>Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
>> When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
>> of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
>> created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
>> version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of complete
>> folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a trash folder.
>
>So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.

--->8

Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I didn't like Claws much last time I
tried it, but then that was some time ago.

Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?

Meanwhile I'm having to use my ISP;s webmail service.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Donnerstag, 3. Januar 2013, 18:09:27 schrieb Peter Humphrey:

> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
> mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
> seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?

it is like replacing cholera with ebola.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Kevin Chadwick]

On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:09:27 +0100
"Peter Humphrey" <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I didn't like Claws much last time I
> tried it, but then that was some time ago.
> 
> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on
> the mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard.
> I've seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?
> 
> Meanwhile I'm having to use my ISP;s webmail service.

I love claws but perhaps you should ask on the claws mailing list I
thought it was too mouse heavy too but when I actually look it's very
few tabs, arrows, enter and ctrl-R to reply etc. and the
configurability of claws may help too, though I can't see if you can
assign shortcuts to custom commands/actions.

The manual says this but I can't find out how to change those shortcuts
'on the fly' myself after a quick try. I shall certainly be using the
mouse less now anyway ;-)

_____________________________________________________________________

B. Default keyboard shortcuts
B.1. Motivations and general conventions

Although Claws Mail is a graphical application and can mainly be
commanded with your mouse, it also requires the frequent use of the
keyboard. Composing a mail is the most common of the tasks that require
the use of the keyboard. For people who write a lot of mails, having to
move hands from keyboard to mouse greatly reduces productivity, so
Claws Mail provides keyboard shortcuts to allow faster operation.

This not only benefits power users by providing keyboard alternatives
and keyboard navigation, it also enables people with disabilities, (who
may not be able to properly control a pointing device), to use Claws
Mail.

The most general convention is the Escape key. Focused dialogues or
windows can be closed by hitting the Esc key.

There are other key combinations which are assigned by default to menu
items. We won't list these here, as they are already shown on the
righthand side of the menus themselves, so you can easily learn them
with usage. Furthermore, if you don't like them, these shortcuts can be
changed on the fly by focusing on the menu item and pressing the
desired key combination.

In addition to these shortcuts there are others which vary from window
to window, which are summarised in the following sections. 
_____________________________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Kevin Chadwick]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2013 18:24:13 +0000
I wrote:

> it's very
> few tabs

If tabs are the irritation to scroll open mail, try three column view to
reduce the likelihood or small screen view which only needs arrows enter
and escape.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 3 Jan 2013 18:24:13 +0000, Kevin Chadwick wrote:

> I love claws but perhaps you should ask on the claws mailing list I
> thought it was too mouse heavy too but when I actually look it's very
> few tabs, arrows, enter and ctrl-R to reply etc. and the
> configurability of claws may help too, though I can't see if you can
> assign shortcuts to custom commands/actions.

You assign shortcuts to actions in the same way as any other menu entry,
highlight the menu option and then press the shortcut you want to use.
You have to enable customisable keyboard shortcuts in the misc section of
preferences.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:


WHAT?! No tagline?!!!!


J.A.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 11:33:18 +0000, Jorge Almeida wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> WHAT?! No tagline?!!!!
> 

I was experimenting with Enlightenment... clearly it isn't :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Unsupported service (adj): Broken (see Demon)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 22:23:29 +0000
Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 11:33:18 +0000, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > WHAT?! No tagline?!!!!
> > 
> 
> I was experimenting with Enlightenment... clearly it isn't :)
> 
> 

Raster is screwing with your head. He does that :-)

E17 is all about choice. Like these:

You get to chose if you want to chase through 17 dialogs to find the
one that sets the thing you want to change. Then you get to choose to
change it or not.

You choose to notice your tagline going missing and you still can chose
if you want to fix it or not. Then go to the first example.

You even get to chose to become enlightened or remain un-enlightened
(for varying definitions of enlightened) and you get to chose your next
next. 

All with the obligatory search through 17 different config dialogs at
each step of them process.

See? E17 is all about choice. All the choices all the time. Even the
ones you have absolutely no idea at all what they are.

:-)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 01:32:29 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > I was experimenting with Enlightenment... clearly it isn't :)

> Raster is screwing with your head. He does that :-)
> 
> E17 is all about choice. Like these:

[snippage]

> See? E17 is all about choice. All the choices all the time. Even the
> ones you have absolutely no idea at all what they are.

For the time being, I chose to go back to KDE :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Suborbital Ballistic-Propulsion Engineer
Not Exactly A Rocket Scientist

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Randy Barlow]

On 01/03/2013 12:09 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
> mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
> seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?

Thunderbird is my favorite mail client. You can do a lot with the KB.
For example, go to next read mail is just 'n' for next. CTRL-R for
reply. It's not bad to learn the shortcuts. Plus it has a lot of great
features and extensions.

For CLI clients, I sometimes use Mutt. It's a little bit of a pain to
configure for IMAP, but once you get it going it's pretty cool.

-- 
R

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Mick]

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On Friday 04 Jan 2013 04:13:21 Randy Barlow wrote:
> On 01/03/2013 12:09 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
> > mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
> > seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?
> 
> Thunderbird is my favorite mail client. You can do a lot with the KB.
> For example, go to next read mail is just 'n' for next. CTRL-R for
> reply. It's not bad to learn the shortcuts. Plus it has a lot of great
> features and extensions.
> 
> For CLI clients, I sometimes use Mutt. It's a little bit of a pain to
> configure for IMAP, but once you get it going it's pretty cool.

Can mutt be made to use autocompletion for email addresses and to 
automatically select encryption keys (gpg and/or s/mime)?

Last time I tried it briefly this became a sticking point for me ...
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Peter Humphrey]

On 04/01/13 17:09, Mick wrote:
> On Friday 04 Jan 2013 04:13:21 Randy Barlow wrote:
>> On 01/03/2013 12:09 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
>>> mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
>>> seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?
>> Thunderbird is my favorite mail client. You can do a lot with the KB.
>> For example, go to next read mail is just 'n' for next. CTRL-R for
>> reply. It's not bad to learn the shortcuts. Plus it has a lot of great
>> features and extensions.
>>
>> For CLI clients, I sometimes use Mutt. It's a little bit of a pain to
>> configure for IMAP, but once you get it going it's pretty cool.
> Can mutt be made to use autocompletion for email addresses and to 
> automatically select encryption keys (gpg and/or s/mime)?
>
> Last time I tried it briefly this became a sticking point for me ...
Apologies for breaking the proper threading, if indeed I have.

I've got Thunderbird to connect to my ISP and fetch new messages, but I
now have another, large problem. It won't import my 25,000 or so
messages from kmail, nor even its filters. I do not wish to lose all
that history, so can anyone suggest another e-mail client that can
reliably import messages and filters from kmail?

Alternatively, since kmail version 1 has disappeared from the current
mirrors, does it live in an overlay somewhere so that I can get the old,
solid behaviour back? I assume that if I do regress to the old version
I'll lose everything that's come in since the "upgrade" (it's a POP3
server).

-- 
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Randy Barlow]

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Hash: SHA1

On 01/06/2013 09:10 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> I've got Thunderbird to connect to my ISP and fetch new messages,
> but I now have another, large problem. It won't import my 25,000 or
> so messages from kmail, nor even its filters. I do not wish to lose
> all that history, so can anyone suggest another e-mail client that
> can reliably import messages and filters from kmail?

That seems like it will likely be tricky. I don't know a lot about
kmail, but I've got two ideas that might work:

1) Depending on what kmail can do, you might be able to set up a
maildir or mbox folder with kmail, and have kmail transfer all that
mail into it. I believe Thunderbird can ready both mbox and maildir,
so that might be a nice solution if kmail can do that.

2) Another idea I thought of that might be heavy handed, but might
also work would be to set up an IMAP server of your own. Then you can
connect kmail to that IMAP server, transfer all your mail to the
server, then connect Thunderbird to it and import it. It's certainly
not a simple idea, but it should work. Cyrus is the IMAP server that I
use, but there are others, and perhaps some that are simpler to configure.

Hope this helps!
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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:43:51 -0500
Randy Barlow <randy@electronsweatshop.com> wrote:

> That seems like it will likely be tricky. I don't know a lot about
> kmail, but I've got two ideas that might work:
> 
> 1) Depending on what kmail can do, you might be able to set up a
> maildir or mbox folder with kmail, and have kmail transfer all that
> mail into it. I believe Thunderbird can ready both mbox and maildir,
> so that might be a nice solution if kmail can do that.
> 
> 2) Another idea I thought of that might be heavy handed, but might
> also work would be to set up an IMAP server of your own. Then you can
> connect kmail to that IMAP server, transfer all your mail to the
> server, then connect Thunderbird to it and import it. It's certainly
> not a simple idea, but it should work. Cyrus is the IMAP server that I
> use, but there are others, and perhaps some that are simpler to
> configure.

I use option 2) as well, to great effect. I run dovecot locally and
back in the KDE3 days had transferred all my mail into it. kmail's
INBOX was the default kmail folder, and filters moved every incoming
mail to an IMAP folder.

It runs slower than local mail folders (IMAP will never be as fast as
simply looking on the disk) but it comes with the benefit of a sane
maildir folder that dovecot reads without any of the peculiarities that
all mail clients seem to have about their own local storage. And
switching mail clients (or using two at the same time) is a simple
matter of configuring a new mail source on the client.

The best solution of all would be to have some process fetch your mail
from everywhere and have procmail filter it. I never bothered going to
that extent though, I just relied on filters in my primary mail client.
It has the benefit that a mail client only reads and sends, and is not
involved with changing the master mail store in any way (aka kmail2's
ability to disastrously fuck up your mail life completely is severely
limited)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?, Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Peter Humphrey]

On 4/1/2013, "Randy Barlow" <randy@electronsweatshop.com> wrote:

>On 01/03/2013 12:09 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
>> mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
>> seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?
>
>Thunderbird is my favorite mail client. You can do a lot with the KB.
>For example, go to next read mail is just 'n' for next. CTRL-R for
>reply. It's not bad to learn the shortcuts. Plus it has a lot of great
>features and extensions.

I'm trying to set Thunderbird up, but I'm not telling it the right
values to connect to my ISP's POP server. I suppose I should have a
rest and try again tomorrow. Thanks for the recommendation.

>For CLI clients, I sometimes use Mutt. It's a little bit of a pain to
>configure for IMAP, but once you get it going it's pretty cool.

I may even have to resort to Mutt if I can't get anything else running.
What a state to be in in 2013! (I don't imply that Mutt's not good,
just that Kmail should never have been released in its present state.
Doesn't anyone ever learn?)

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:09:27 +0100
"Peter Humphrey" <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> 
> On 3/1/2013, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
> >Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> >> When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
> >> of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
> >> created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
> >> version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of
> >> complete folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a
> >> trash folder.
> >
> >So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.
> 
> --->8
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I didn't like Claws much last time I
> tried it, but then that was some time ago.

Claws does take some getting used to. Most routine functions can be
keyboard-driven (read and fetch mail, go to next folder etc). I do find
the dialogs to set up filters are "verbose" and not what I'm used to
with gui apps - they work, there's is no oddities to what the filters
will do, but the way to get there has never felt exactly right.


> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on
> the mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard.
> I've seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?

Mutt, pine and friends? Great for reading mailing lists, especially
those that frown on html mail.

And there's always gmail if you are happy for Google to read what you
read.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[William Kenworthy]

On 04/01/13 01:09, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> 
> On 3/1/2013, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
>> Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
>>> When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
>>> of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
>>> created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
>>> version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of complete
>>> folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a trash folder.
>>
>> So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.
> 
> --->8
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I didn't like Claws much last time I
> tried it, but then that was some time ago.
> 
> Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
> mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
> seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?
> 
> Meanwhile I'm having to use my ISP;s webmail service.
> 

I used evolution for years (since something like 0.4!) until about a
month ago when I gave up and moved to thunderbird.  I have a mixture of
local (courier imap), exchange and other imap accounts.

Evolution has some weird bugs and in general doesn't work when accessing
some imap backends alongside other clients to the same account (emails
may be deleted on my desktop, but get undeleted on next access from the
laptop is one), as well as issues with its calendaring.  Its
frustrating, and been getting worse.  As well, I am now in active gnome
squashing mode since Ive decided to not buy into the whole
udev/systemd/gnome3 mess in the future so it became an easy choice that
evolution had to go :)

Thunderbird in comparison has been much nicer.  Two problems I have
though are it seems to fragment memory (on a 32bit system) causing
suspend to fail on one system, and while its quite happily remembering
my email passwords, it refuses to do so for the calendar passwords when
connecting to a radicale backend (well it remembers them, but pops up a
cancel/ok dialog for confirmation on every calendar on first starting
thunderbird - maybe due to a prematurely squashed gnome whose function
needs restoring?

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?, Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Peter Humphrey]

On 3/1/2013, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:43 +0000
>Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
>> When kmail was upgraded to 4.9.3 last month it made a complete hash
>> of my e- mail system. In the end I moved my user out of the way and
>> created a new user. Importing the e-mails from a backup of the old
>> version omitted large numbers of e-mails, including a lot of complete
>> folders. I also noticed that kmail had not created a trash folder.
>
>So the kdepim devs STILL haven't fixed that one? Oh dear.

--->8

Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I didn't like Claws much last time I
tried it, but then that was some time ago.

Does anyone recommend a mail client that doesn't rely too heavily on the
mouse? I much prefer to navigate, reply etc with the keyboard. I've
seen Evolution recommended; is that OK?

Meanwhile I'm having to use my ISP;s webmail service.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Francesco Talamona]

> On 4.9.3 you are still experiencing something similar. Hmmm. Indicates
> to me a high probability of a systemic problem with the projects
> approach, something that is unlikely to ever get really fixed. In my
> opinion kdepim2 is vastly over-engineered and an attempt to solve a
> problem that does not actually exist. I recommend you use a different
> mail app.

After an indescribable amount of pain and time wasted I was able to regain 
control over my mail.

I recently migrated a kmail used nearly for ten years to the latest kmail2. 
Migration took around a month of struggle.

It's mandatory to have nepomuk+akonadi running (I configured file indexing to 
run only on a folder containing a few files), it has to be checked for mail 
too.

In the migration you'll lose your filters, your profiles, and the flag of the 
mail will be randomly changed (thousands of read mail will come up unread, 
"important" flag will be lost... And so on).

If you try to reimport (after deleting the akonadi database as somewhere 
advised) the mail from ~/Mail you'll discover the the import tool is unable to 
handle maildir (or mailbox, I don't remember) format. If, like me, you used 
kmail for several years, then not all mail folders have the same format, given 
the fact that the default was changed during time.

Beware also that full text indexing is on per default for every mail folder 
created. So, as soon as I imported a mail folder, I deselected this option by 
hand (under folder properties -> maintenance).

So, this is the step-by-step guide to migrate to kmail2:

* backup your ~ folder, especially ~/Mail, ~/.config and ~/.kde4

* make sure akonadi, nepomuk & co are running (with the command "akonadictl 
status" for example).

* look carefully in ~/.xsession-errors if some errors appear related to 
akonadi, nepomuk, mysql, soprano, virtuoso... Do not migrate if you see any 
errors, fix them first. 

for example the following error is guaranteed to slowly and painfully drain 
all of your setup and mail to a black hole:

Soprano: "Could not connect to server at /tmp/ksocket-sko/nepomuk-socket (No 
such file or directory)"

* Delete everything no more necessary (mail messages, old accounts...).

* Archive every folder you want to migrate and delete them from the old client

* Take note of your filters, especially if some of them makes elaborate 
operations, mail account settings, profile preferences...

* backup again, just to be sure

* upgrade kmail, and start kmail2, let it run for the time needed (one night 
or more is normal) until the I/O and CPU load are back to a reasonable level

* reimport archived folder (and disable for each one full text indexing before 
is started)

* reconfigure filters, accounts, profiles...

* backup for the last time

Hoping to save someone else the waste of time I went through.

F. Talamona

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Mick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 4397 bytes --]

On Sunday 06 Jan 2013 15:11:35 Francesco Talamona wrote:
> > On 4.9.3 you are still experiencing something similar. Hmmm. Indicates
> > to me a high probability of a systemic problem with the projects
> > approach, something that is unlikely to ever get really fixed. In my
> > opinion kdepim2 is vastly over-engineered and an attempt to solve a
> > problem that does not actually exist. I recommend you use a different
> > mail app.
> 
> After an indescribable amount of pain and time wasted I was able to regain
> control over my mail.
> 
> I recently migrated a kmail used nearly for ten years to the latest kmail2.
> Migration took around a month of struggle.
> 
> It's mandatory to have nepomuk+akonadi running (I configured file indexing
> to run only on a folder containing a few files), it has to be checked for
> mail too.
> 
> In the migration you'll lose your filters, your profiles, and the flag of
> the mail will be randomly changed (thousands of read mail will come up
> unread, "important" flag will be lost... And so on).
> 
> If you try to reimport (after deleting the akonadi database as somewhere
> advised) the mail from ~/Mail you'll discover the the import tool is unable
> to handle maildir (or mailbox, I don't remember) format. If, like me, you
> used kmail for several years, then not all mail folders have the same
> format, given the fact that the default was changed during time.
> 
> Beware also that full text indexing is on per default for every mail folder
> created. So, as soon as I imported a mail folder, I deselected this option
> by hand (under folder properties -> maintenance).
> 
> So, this is the step-by-step guide to migrate to kmail2:
> 
> * backup your ~ folder, especially ~/Mail, ~/.config and ~/.kde4
> 
> * make sure akonadi, nepomuk & co are running (with the command "akonadictl
> status" for example).
> 
> * look carefully in ~/.xsession-errors if some errors appear related to
> akonadi, nepomuk, mysql, soprano, virtuoso... Do not migrate if you see any
> errors, fix them first.
> 
> for example the following error is guaranteed to slowly and painfully drain
> all of your setup and mail to a black hole:
> 
> Soprano: "Could not connect to server at /tmp/ksocket-sko/nepomuk-socket
> (No such file or directory)"
> 
> * Delete everything no more necessary (mail messages, old accounts...).
> 
> * Archive every folder you want to migrate and delete them from the old
> client
> 
> * Take note of your filters, especially if some of them makes elaborate
> operations, mail account settings, profile preferences...
> 
> * backup again, just to be sure
> 
> * upgrade kmail, and start kmail2, let it run for the time needed (one
> night or more is normal) until the I/O and CPU load are back to a
> reasonable level
> 
> * reimport archived folder (and disable for each one full text indexing
> before is started)
> 
> * reconfigure filters, accounts, profiles...
> 
> * backup for the last time
> 
> Hoping to save someone else the waste of time I went through.
> 
> F. Talamona

WOW!  The fact that *any* KDEPIM devs consider this migration torture even 
remotely acceptable must be a clear sign of advanced insanity!  O_O

Thank you very much for your detailed instructions.  It seems that kmail2 
requires the full KDE desktop running or it won't play well.  Perhaps that's 
why my attempts to date were futile.  

With kmail-1.13.7 I am getting this error:

Nepomuk Query Server not available
kmail(3842)/kdecore (KConfigSkeleton) KCoreConfigSkeleton::writeConfig:
search paths:  ("/usr/bin", "/usr/local/bin", "/usr/bin", "/bin", "/opt/bin", 
"/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.5.4", "/opt/Citrix/ICAClient") 
"/usr/bin/akonadi_nepomuk_contact_feeder(3872)" Soprano: "Could not connect to 
server at /tmp/ksocket-michael/nepomuk-socket (No such file or directory)"
[snip ...]

Connecting to deprecated signal 
QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
akonadi_maildispatcher_agent(3871)/libakonadi 
Akonadi::SpecialCollectionsRequestJob::slotResult: Failed 
SpecialCollectionsRequestJob::slotResult "Failed to fetch the resource 
collection." 


It seems that it is a matter of time before I am forced to use T'bird - or 
make the time to configure and learn how to use mutt.  :-(
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Francesco Talamona]

On Sunday 06 January 2013 19:22:16 Mick wrote:
> WOW!  The fact that any KDEPIM devs consider this migration torture even 
> remotely acceptable must be a clear sign of advanced insanity!  O_O
> 
> Thank you very much for your detailed instructions.  It seems that kmail2 
> requires the full KDE desktop running or it won't play well.  Perhaps
> that's  why my attempts to date were futile.
> 
> With kmail-1.13.7 I am getting this error:
> 
> Nepomuk Query Server not available
> kmail(3842)/kdecore (KConfigSkeleton) KCoreConfigSkeleton::writeConfig:
> search paths:  ("/usr/bin", "/usr/local/bin", "/usr/bin", "/bin",
> "/opt/bin",  "/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.5.4",
> "/opt/Citrix/ICAClient") "/usr/bin/akonadi_nepomuk_contact_feeder(3872)"
> Soprano: "Could not connect to server at
> /tmp/ksocket-michael/nepomuk-socket (No such file or directory)" [snip ...]
> 
> Connecting to deprecated signal 
> QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
> akonadi_maildispatcher_agent(3871)/libakonadi 
> Akonadi::SpecialCollectionsRequestJob::slotResult: Failed 
> SpecialCollectionsRequestJob::slotResult "Failed to fetch the resource 
> collection." 
> 
> 
> It seems that it is a matter of time before I am forced to use T'bird - or 
> make the time to configure and learn how to use mutt.  :-(

The error is simply telling you that indexing is not active, try in

System Settings -> Desktop Search -> Nepomuk/Strigi Server Configuration -> 
check "Enable  Nepomuk Semantic Desktop" and "Enable Email Indexer"

The crazy thing is that the migration won't work without this enabled, yet the 
process isn't aborted if this mandatory part of it is absent/not running...

Cheers
 F. Talamona

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

first of all:

filtering is completely and utterly broken. You have to delete all filters 
whenever you add a new 'ressource' and even then they don't work most of the 
time. They might work if you select all mails and click 'apply filters' - or 
not. Bugs on b.k.o are open.

Second, to import your old mails you have to add the right 'ressources'. And 
then pray.

Oh and never delete any akonadi databases - I did it because someone wrote it 
would solve some problems - and lost 150 000 emails. So much joy.

And now a little rant:

I do not know who shat into the brains of the kdepim devs that they fucked up 
kmail in this unbelievable broken way. Most people do not need akonadi - or 
nepomuk. Everything worked GREAT. Now most shit only works half way, a lot of 
crap doesn't work at all - and once in a while (in my experience every 4h of 
runtime) Nepomuk, that utter waste of electrons starts to eat cpu-cores. But 
you need it! Because without it you can't search your emails!

GRRRRRR 

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone succeeded with kmail2?

[Francesco Talamona]

On Thursday 03 January 2013 18:22:08 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> I do not know who shat into the brains of the kdepim devs that they fucked
> up  kmail in this unbelievable broken way. Most people do not need akonadi
> - or nepomuk. Everything worked GREAT. Now most shit only works half way, a
> lot of crap doesn't work at all - and once in a while (in my experience
> every 4h of runtime) Nepomuk, that utter waste of electrons starts to eat
> cpu-cores.

+1

Try to find all config files and folder under ~/.kde4somewhat related to kmail2 
ad you'll end adding more colorful remarks...

F. Talamona