darren chamberlain wrote:
>
> This was my thought, either attach ourselves to the mutt-newbie
> project or start a new project on sourceforge.
yeah that might be the best idea.
a few comments... the script looks like a good starting place. eek i
probably should have put line numbers on it somehow.... sorry.
i'm glad to see someone putting their money where their mouth is and
making some code :> if some other people contribute, i'm sure we'll
have a very helpful tool (that's _hopefully_ easy to use) in no time.
does it create a backup if ~/.muttrc exists? doesn't look that way -
that might be a good idea.
> # folder
> # Where to put read mail by default (set folder=~/Mail)
i was envisioning checking to see if ~/Mail, ~/mail or both exist (or
don't exist) - then if only one exists that would be suggested as the
default; if both exist or don't exist, ~/Mail would be suggested.
> # Where to put read mail (set mbox=~/mbox)
this might be a good place to also deal with move (yes or no) - ie
check first if they WANT to move mail after reading.
another common gotcha is that a lot of people don't like 'mark_old' - so
we might want to explain this variable and let people unset it.
> "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -oi");
not sure about this one - most people will want the default, but then
the real newbies might not want to use sendmail at all - i'm thinking
that giving people a chance to mess up the default flags to sendmail
might be bad though - perhaps better to offer to setup one of the really
lightweight sendmail replacements for them? does the one that's written
in perl actually work?
ie "do you have an MTA like sendmail, postfix, or qmail configured on
your system? if not, choose 'n', and we'll explain your options".
however this might be a little outside of the scope of the project.
thoughts?
> $env->{"username"} = $pw[0];
> $env->{"realname"} = $gecos[0];
> $env->{"hostname"} = hostname();
> $env->{"mailspool"} = $ENV{"MAIL"};
> $env->{"editor"} = $ENV{"VISUAL"} || $ENV{"EDITOR"} || "builtin";
excellent. also, the script might want to suggest 'nano -t' or 'pico
-t' for newbies or people who are used to pine (even if $EDITOR is set
to something else).
> Is user a pine or elm user? Offer contrib/{Pine,Tin}.rc keybindings
yes! i think that the suggestion to take the keybindings itself should
be modular somehow. also i think there is a more comprehensive set of
pine keybindings somewhere (maybe on sven's page) - the one in contrib/
only covers really basic stuff. for instance the main pine keybinding
that i'm attached to is ',' - i have this binding, which isn't quite
right, but close:
bind pager , exit
macro index , "<change-folder>?<tab>"
probably best to check for ~/.pinerc ~/.tin/ ~/.elm/ ~/.elm/ etc... if
more than one exists, ask for each.
is there any other data that we need in the template, or could it just
be as simple as copying contrib/blah.rc over?
> 3. POP, IMAP, PGP, SSL, etc
i think that IMAP might need to be integraded with spoolfile and folder
collection (ie if you're usng POP3 or IMAP should be one of the first
questions, and should influence the rest of the process).
some more advanced features we _might_ want to ask about..... these are
my settings (which mostly differ from the default... i'm sure everyone
has a favorite feature and this list might start to get too long, but i
think we should ask about some / most of these)
* lists? i found the 'lists' feature confusing at first, but it's also one
of the best things about mutt. maybe at least offer a simple explanation
and stick some examples (commented) in the file?
* set delete=yes
* unset confirmappend
* unset mark_old (above)
* smart_wrap / unset markers, etc (wrap settings)
* MAYBE configuring a simple .mailcap for them to view html (if they
don't already have a .mailcap)
* weed settings (which headers to show.... perhaps offer a sensible
default for this, explaining how to change it???)
* maybe test for programs like enscript, etc on the system, and offer them
as suggestsions if they exist?
--
Will Yardley
william @ newdream . net
