| The Mail Suite with an Editable User Interface |
People who know VIM (especially those who have discovered explorer.vim) are aware of the speed, the customized form and, once learned, the ease of issuing commands and processing the results of the commands while in VIM. This plugin, The Mail Suite (tms), exploits that power of VIM in the domain of electronic mail: for the tasks of sending, receiving and organizing mail.
Since The Mail Suite builds on VIM's command set, there are only a handful of new commands (or tasks):
Here's a contrast that makes an aspect of the power of VIM as a user interface clear: other email clients need lots more commands than the mail-specific commands listed above since they need to provide a user interface; and their interface is restrictive (compared to that of VIM) in regard to the means for navigating and manipulating the stuff on the screen and in not allowing keystroke customization.
TMS has been tested on Windows 98 and Linux. It requires VIM with perl support. The perl module libnet is required (and one easy way to provide this is to have external perl too).
Essentially, extract the .tar.gz file into the vimfiles directory (on Windows) or into the ~/.vim directory (on unix) while preserving folder names; then regenerate the help-tags (using the command :helptags).
Extracting deploys the following files below the vimfiles or .vim directory:
File | Contents
-------------------------+---------------------------------------------
ftdetect/index.vim | one line to detect .idx files
ftplugin/index.vim | sources mail/tms.vim
syntax/index.vim | simple color scheme to distinguish new, old etc.
plugin/tms.vim | everything is here
mail/_tmsrc.example | configuration of accounts, directories etc.
mail/tms.vim | mappings for user-commands -- that's all
after/ftplugin/mail.vim | folding code; and sources mail/tms.vim
doc/tms.txt | documentation
The help-tags can be regenerated, for example, by executing '':helptags $vim\vimfiles\doc'' from within vim.
TMS needs configuration information such as mail servers, user names etc. Such information is provided in the tmsrc file. The default location for the tmsrc file is $VIM/vimfiles/mail/_tmsrc (on windows) or $HOME/.tmsrc (on unix). A non-default location can be used by specifying it in g:tmsrc.
The file mail/_tmsrc.example has comments explaining the entries in a tmsrc file.
The index.idx file lists the .eml files in its directory.
The index.idx file can have the following seven columns:
Column | Contents
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark | [nrah] or any user string
From | The 'From' header of the mail
To | The 'To' header of the mail
Subject | The 'Subject' header of the mail
date-sEnt | The 'Sent' header of the mail
Nick | The mail server the mail was sent or received from
fiLename | The name of the mail (*.eml) file
Note that the name of each column has exactly one capitalized letter. If a column is to be present, at least its capitalized letter must be specified. The lower-case letters in a column heading are actually ignored.
Besides the capitalized letter, other special characters in the name of a column are '*', digits and sign ('-'). As explained below, the '*' is used in determining the width of the column; and the digit and sign are is used in determining the order of sorting the columns.
The columns are separated by '|'.
The fiLename column must always be present and it must be the last column. There must be at least one other column.
Each column is at least as wide as the distance between the column-separators ('|') it is nested inside. If an entry in the column is longer than the width of the column then it is truncated. If the name of the column has a '*' then it will be ensured that longest entry in the column is fully visible.
Names of columns can have digits specifying the order in which they are to be sorted. If sort-order is specified then digits must be used consecutively starting from 1. When a column has a digit specifying its sort-order, it can also have a negative sign to specify that the entries in the column are sorted in the reverse order.
In general, sending email involves specifying header items such as the recipient, the subject etc. Also, one must specify the SMTP server to use to actually send the mail. In the tmsrc file, one can specify a default SMTP server to be used for sending email. So the one item that must be specified for sending each particular email is the recipient(s).
One prepares the stuff to be sent as shown below.
to: [Optional Display Name ]<valid@email.addr>
[cc: <value>]
[bcc: <value>]
[subject: <value>]
[receipt: <0 or 1>]
[nick: <nick name of SMTP server>]
[any other custom stuff for the header]
<white space>
<the stuff one wants to email, possibly multi-para stuff>
Note: - Strictly speaking, what is required is not the 'to:' field as
such but at least one recipient; this recipient can be
specified in either the 'to:', the 'cc:' or the 'bcc:' field.
- The header section starts at line 1 and has no line of
white-space.
- The order of the headers (above the line of white-space) is
immaterial.
- Besides the sending nick, other tmsrc defaults (such as From:)
can be over-ridden in the send header.
The [vimfiles or ~/.vim]/mail/tms.vim file defines mappings to enable a quick start toward using The Mail Suite (tms). Some of the mappings are local to mail buffers, other local to the index file and other global. All but two of the mappings are defined with local or global map-leaders. To simplify writing this quick-start guide, it is written assuming that both the local and global map-leader are '/'.
\g Get mail from specified POP servers
Will prompt for the nicks of the POP servers [default: all servers]
\i Index the specified folder (i.e., generate the index.idx file)
Will prompt for the folder (no default)
\G Get mail from all the POP servers
Index the inbox
Display the index file of the inbox
The index file can be very wide. There are two (buffer-local, non-leadered) mappings that help horizontally scroll the index file.
<c-l> horizontally scroll left
<c-h> horizontally scroll right
The following mappings can be invoked from either a buffer for *.eml file or from a buffer of an index file. The ''mail file'' referred to below is either the file of the current .eml buffer or the .eml file of the current line in the index file.
\d delete the mail file
\m move the mail file (will prompt for the destination folder)
\c copy the mail file (will prompt for the destination folder)
The next three mappings are buffer-local to the index file. They accept a range (range can be specified implicitly by visually selecting lines in the index file). They act on all the .eml files of the lines specified in the range.
\D delete the mail files
\M move the mail files
\C copy the mail files
Keep in mind that the interface is editable: so if the lines of interest are not contiguous then one can cut and paste them to be contiguous before applying the above maps!
Opening or viewing the mails:
\o open the mail file of the current line in the index file
in a new window.
\v Only on MS-Windows machines: view the mail file of the
current line in the index file using the viewer specified
for handling .eml files.
\n Replace the current .eml buffer with the mail file of the line
below the current line in the index file (the ''next'' line)
\p Replace the current .eml buffer with the mail file of the line
above the current line in the index file (the ''previous'' line)
There are four mappings local to the index buffer for replying, replying-to-all, forwarding and acknowledging receipt of the email corresponding to the current line. Executing these mappings creates a new buffer appropriately prepared for sending.
\r reply
\R reply to all
\f forward
\A acknowledge receipt
Lastly, the following global map is for sending email:
\s Send the specified buffer or file that has
been prepared for sending.
Will prompt for the file name [default: current buffer]
In using the tms, it is important to keep in mind that the full power of VIM is always available. This customization can range from eliminating leaders in the mappings, to having the defaults of the mappings be other than what they currently are, to adding new mappings such one that gets and filters etc. This is just one aspect of the usefulness of providing an application with an Editable User Interface, and with one that is as powerful as VI-Improved.
This is ALMOST trivial: First create a tree of folders that parallels the tree in Microsoft's email client. Then, ''drag and drop'' to create .eml files in the folders. Here's the CATCH: the copy fails when a folder contains more than one email with the same subject.
Suresh Govindachar (email: <initial><last name><at><yahoo>)
I came up with the following on my own.
Should you have occasion to discuss or use any of the above, please be sure to give me due credit. I thank you.
Copyright (C) 2004 Suresh Govindachar
The material provided here: The Mail Suite (tms) related code, executable and information are provided as-is without any warranty -- without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions or for any sort of damages resulting from the use of or reliance on the provided material.
| The Mail Suite with an Editable User Interface |