Emacs

[Paul Lussier]

klussier at comcast.net writes:

> All,
>
> I am looking for an IMAP mail client for emacs for one of my users. I
> have looked at gnus and mew so far. However, I can't get either of
> them to connect to the imap server. He also wants to be able to
> install the Win32 version of emacs on his Windows laptop and use emacs
> for mail there, as well, so that he can get rid of Outlook. Any
> thoughts?

Gnus is a p.i.t.a. to get connected to an IMAP server.  Even more
painful of SSL is involved, or the IMAP server is not, er, shall we
say, completely "compliant".  In these cases, I've still found
fetchmail+procmail+MUA-of choice to be the best option.

If you/he/they insist upon emacs and IMAP, you might want to look at
Wanderlust, it's the only emacs-based IMAP client written originally
and specifically for IMAP, whereas all the others have had IMAP
grafted on.

If Gnus is desired, I know it *can* be done, but I also know it's
painful.  There are at least 2 or 3 people I work with[2] doing it, but
it's also not uncommon for me to hear screams of agony as Gnus does
something not entirely appropriate with the folder collections[1] :)

I highly recommend you check out:

    http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki?search=IMAP

Another *extremely* helpful place is the #emacs IRC channel, but be
prepared to recieve rtfm-redirects if you haven't before asking your
questions there :)

-- 
Seeya,
Paul

Footnotes:
----------

[1] I've heard of current state being reset on all messages, flags
    spontaneously removed, assigned, re-arranged, etc. as well as
    folders wiped out.

[2] I work with geeks.  I know this because my VP recently sent out an
    IM to us:

     "Hehee.  My INBOX has exactly 32768 messages."

    Which, reportedly, resulted in him recieving a bunch of e-mails
    with subject lines like:   Subject: INBOX++