
Meli email client, pre-alpha release - UkiahSmith
https://meli.delivery/posts/2019-06-15-pre-alpha.html
======
Ahmed90
With all respect for the hard work done on this client, but is it just me or
is the TUI getting too much attention recently??

I think the GUI stacks are too bloated or too hideous (electron, cpp/qt,c# and
it's limitations, etc...) to work with these days so much that the cool kids
(hardcore techy people) just gave up and started doing TUIs to solve their own
problems directly?

~~~
rightos
I'm still using Thunderbird, which is barely maintained for a decent
standalone IMAP client - it's beginning to feel pretty ridiculous. I was
having some search issues the other day and I looked at alternatives - the
options were basically Outlook, Claws Mail which is ugly as sin, eM Client
which is Windows only and Mailspring which actually looked pretty good...
right up until it asked me to make an account for use with my own IMAP servers
- no thanks.

I didn't think this was a big ask but I guess now that most people just use a
single Gmail account the market for such things is dwindling. Here I sit with
7 accounts in Thunderbird. Maybe I'm just going to be stuck with eM Client or
Outlook and using RDP to check my email. I'm willing to pay, someone please
give me a decent cross platform alternative with a GUI, ideally a proper, non-
electron one.

The TUI clients I've looked at all seem to suffer from some mix of:

\- Poor mail notifications

\- Poor multi-account support

\- Single maintainer that could disappear at any time

\- Archaic keybindings, or perhaps I'm just too lazy to learn them

\- HTML mail is used widely now as most people use webmail and just doesn't
map well to console applications

Overall when I want my mail client to "just work" I've found them to be piss
poor compared to Thunderbird. Which is beginning to seem rather silly, but
it's still my experience.

I don't know what to do. Maybe I should fork Mailspring, strip out the account
garbage and just tolerate Electron, but that'd create a whole bunch of
maintenance work I just can't take on right now.

~~~
paulcarroty
Thunderbird has a big problem - UI still looks like written in 90's. I'm
switched to Geary, good Apple Mail clone.

~~~
wjoe
For email, designed like it's the 90s is a good thing, in my opinion.
Thunderbird could do with a bit of polish, sure, but it has every option under
the sun. I tried Geary once, it looked shiny, but the interface was far too
basic.

------
tambourine_man
We seem to be experiencing a renaissance of TUI software, particularly email
clients[1] and I couldn’t be happier.

Email and TUI are such a natural fit. Make it work with your favorite editor
and most nerds will switch.

[1] [https://aerc-mail.org/](https://aerc-mail.org/)

~~~
euske
I, for one, want a pure command line based email client, not just a TUI
client, that is well integrated with bash/zsh in an everyday use, e.g.

    
    
        $ inbox
        (shows the first 10 emails in the inbox)
        $ search from:john
        (shows emails from john with numbers)
        $ reply 4
        (opens up vi to edit a reply to the email #4)
        ...
    

I've been dreaming a client like this for decades, and actually started
developing it, but the development is stagnating for now (due to the spec
changes and other priorities).

~~~
em-bee
did you look at nmh?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH_Message_Handling_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH_Message_Handling_System)

~~~
euske
Actually, I was a big fan of MH. But it's quite old and full of gotchas. It
doesn't have decent search functions either. Also I'd like to have something
written in a modern scripting language (Python, JS, etc), as I don't want to
worry about buffer overflow.

------
apatters
> one row per thread

Woohoo! Hope this project gets a lot of love and support, because this has
always been my preferred way to view threads.

Can anyone recommend a more complete Linux mail client (TUI or GUI) that works
this way, akin to Gmail's conversation view? Thunderbird theoretically can
with some extensions but I've never quite managed to get it to work right.

My other issue with switching to a TUI mail client would be that piping html
mail to w3m and replying to it in plaintext (or writing html by hand in
response) just never seemed robust enough to deal with a wide cross section of
office worker humanity and their image/formatting/table-laden mails... Ah
well, a man can dream.

~~~
yakubin
_> My other issue with switching to a TUI mail client would be that piping
html mail to w3m and replying to it in plaintext (or writing html by hand in
response) just never seemed robust enough to deal with a wide cross section of
office worker humanity and their image/formatting/table-laden mails... Ah
well, a man can dream._

In my experience, lynx is superior for this task. You can use this line in
your _~ /.mailcap_:

    
    
      text/html; lynx -stdin -dump -force_html -width 70; copiousoutput; description=HTML Text; test=type lynx >/dev/null

------
mxuribe
Maybe its my age but I actually like TUI-style for something like email,
because its less taxing on the eyes. Its funny, nowadays, either the UI of
some apps/clients is way too busy/dsitracting, and colorful, and
annoying...Or, its bare and tough to figure out (what does that icon do
again?)...but not intuitive. Again, it could be my age...but i like the
simplicity of TUI types of interfaces...at least for things like checking
email.

~~~
drinfinity
No, I'm young-ish (33) and I agree.

TUI's are just a very restricted type of GUI's. These restrictions make the
devs focus on what is important, because there is literally no room for
bullshit. These UI's pack more punch per pixel and thus make for a more
productive experience - if you're so inclined.

While I like true CLI TUIs, I can also live with TUI-like interface in the
browser. I just like the style of them, the compactness, the cleanness. They
will never go out of style. They are too productive.

~~~
mxuribe
Yeah, i think you said it best! Cheers!

------
zevv
No one mentioning Alot?

[https://github.com/pazz/alot](https://github.com/pazz/alot)
[https://alot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://alot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

Alot is a terminal-based mail user agent for the notmuch mail system. It
features a modular and command prompt driven interface to provide a full MUA
experience as an alternative to the Emacs mode shipped with notmuch.

------
sthottingal
A big disadvantage with TUI based email clients is it can only work with
English or latin script based languages. Complex
scripts([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_text_layout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_text_layout))
does not render properly in terminals.

~~~
_delirium
This depends on the terminal. Konsole, mlterm, and Apple's Terminal.app can do
complex text layout.

Recent versions of Emacs support a modern text-shaping engine, Harfbuzz, when
run in GUI mode, which is another option for emacs-based mail clients. I guess
it's maybe not technically a TUI in this case, but emacs mail clients are
still very TUI-like, even when run in non-terminal emacs.

------
skarlso
Is everyone forgetting about mutt
([http://www.mutt.org/](http://www.mutt.org/)) being a thing?

~~~
Legogris
I'm pretty sure anyone trying an experimental terminal-based e-mail client has
already tried mutt. Personally, the flow never suited me. I'll probably give
aerc a try soon.

------
joyjoyjoy
This was on HN last year but nothing has come out of it:
[http://www.ivelope.com/invite/RunItUpTheFlagpoleHackerSeaCha...](http://www.ivelope.com/invite/RunItUpTheFlagpoleHackerSeaChange)

------
joyjoyjoy
I don't see a feature list. Does it support several different IMAP/POP emails?

------
mxuribe
Also, there is mention of a mastodon account to follow for further
announcements...but wasn't clickable/didn't work...Anyone know what the
account is?

(By the way, cheers for participating on the fediverse, and not legacy
silos!!)

~~~
_delirium
Looks like it's this one: @epilys@chaos.social

~~~
mxuribe
Ah, great, thanks!

------
jabbernotty
FYI: The images don't show up on Firefox 60.7.2esr (which is the version that
Debian carries).

------
ktpsns
Firefox refuses to connect to this HTTPS URL: _SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG_

~~~
Fnoord
_My_ Firefox works on this HTTPS URL

------
GrumpyNl
Get a weird ssl error when trying to load the site.
SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

------
aorth
I'm getting a Secure Connection Failed error in Firefox (11:54:34 UTC):

> An error occurred during a connection to meli.delivery. SSL received a
> record that exceeded the maximum permissible length. Error code:
> SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

------
rolltiide
Do I like the delivery TLD?

4 syllables, doesn't roll off the tongue

Ehhhh

------
owen11
How to compile it on Ubuntu? I am getting 'make: __* No targets specified and
no makefile found. Stop. ' when I run 'make' and there is no configure file.

Also, I can't figure out a way to sign up to
[https://git.meli.delivery](https://git.meli.delivery) so I can create an
'issue.

~~~
pauldino
The cargo.toml file gives it away as a Rust project, so install Rust then

> cargo build

to just compile, or

> cargo run

to compile & run

~~~
littlestymaar
> cargo build --release

Otherwise you'd be compiling it in debug mode (which is really slow for most
projects).

