I am perpetually on the search for a good email client that does every
critical thing that I want it to. The task is hopeless. Today,
though, I found a client that seems to do the most important things,
and I thought you might be interested. The application is called
TkRat.
I'd seen this client a few months ago, but at the time it was not as
robust and more difficult to install.
Good points:
- PGP support, and it seems well done
- IMAP support, adequate
- UI is nice
- Can use a variety of mailbox formats, from MH to flatfile UNIX
- The editor is not shabby
- It wasn't hard to install on Javalab, which gets TCL/Tk from the
CC; luckily, they have the most recent versions installed.
- The application has several nice features that I keep coming across.
This is one of those "Hey, that's cool... I didn't know it could
do that!" programs
Bad points:
- Not trivial to install. Requires configure and cc (gcc). I'd
be happier if it were more portable, like, entirely written in
TCL/Tk.
- If the mail server goes away (like the file lock is stolen) it
doesn't exit nicely. If you happen to be writing an email at
the time, tough luck.
- No rich-text/HTML support, although it does notice URLS
- Uses application/pgp for PGP signatures, rather than PGP
separators. This is a controversial issue, and the way TkRat
does it is the most "correct," as far as good paradigms go.
However, I tend to side with the PGP separator group for the simple
reason that application/pgp confuses a lot of mail readers.
- I'd like to see filters, rather than groups. Filters would allow
a person to bring up a window with only those messages matching
the filter, rather than just marking the messages. I shouldn't
complain much about that; Groups are adequate for most purposes.
Overall, this is the best mail client I've come across. My criteria have
been, in order:
- Maintains UNIX flatfile mail folders. MH just gets too messy.
- Supports PGP
- Supports IMAP
- Has a graphical interface
I'd say I've run through just about all of the freely available clients
out there, and I'd rate them in the following order:
- TkRat
- elm / roam (Sunsoft). Roam doesn't do PGP, but it does do IMAP and
it has a GUI
- pine. Pine might beat out elm, except that it doesn't deal with
some multipart email messages correctly.
- ML. ML has a decent interface, but PGP support is a hack, at best,
and unusable at worst.
All of the rest fall off the scale, for one reason or other. If you aren't
that concerned with maintaining your UNIX mail folders, look into exmh.
It has a great interface, is wonderfully configurable, and has good PGP
support. It also explodes your mail messages into a million little
difficult to maintain parts, because it relies on mh for its mail
handling. Still, TkRat isn't much behind exmh, if at all; considering
it is dependant on fewer external packages, it is a mite easier to
install, although it lacks as many features as exmh.