Comments on: gmail vs pine http://snarfed.org Ryan Barrett's blog Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:47:43 +0000 hourly 1 By: paulproteus http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-489 paulproteus Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-489 <p>If you add labels support to PINE, that would rock. Similarly, what is the best/fastest way you have found to view conversations/threads in PINE?</p> <ul class="minus"> <ul class="minus"> <li>Asheesh.</li> </ul></ul> If you add labels support to PINE, that would rock. Similarly, what is the best/fastest way you have found to view conversations/threads in PINE?

  • Asheesh.
]]> By: ryan http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-490 ryan Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-490 <p>hmm. i never really found a need to apply multiple labels to emails, so folders work just as well for me. i don't have any plans to add label support to pine.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>you're right about threads, though. pine doesn't handle them nearly as well as gmail. gmail's big win there is the way it treats threads as a single entity, specifically in conversation view (which kicks ass), and applying user actions to whole threads by default.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>pine has sort by thread - $ H in an index page - but it's rudimentary, and dog slow. eduardo chappa's <span class="nobr"><a href="http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/info/fancy.html" rel="nofollow">fancy thread patch</a></span> is better, and can apply user actions to whole threads, but there's no "conversation view" patch. to be truly competitive, threading support would need to be built in from the ground up.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>still, <span class="nobr"><a href="http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine" rel="nofollow">nancy mcgough</a></span> or <span class="nobr"><a href="http://www.zrox.net/Mail/Pine/" rel="nofollow">gopi sundaram</a></span> might have something i missed. let me know if you find anything!</p> hmm. i never really found a need to apply multiple labels to emails, so folders work just as well for me. i don’t have any plans to add label support to pine.

you’re right about threads, though. pine doesn’t handle them nearly as well as gmail. gmail’s big win there is the way it treats threads as a single entity, specifically in conversation view (which kicks ass), and applying user actions to whole threads by default.

pine has sort by thread – $ H in an index page – but it’s rudimentary, and dog slow. eduardo chappa’s fancy thread patch is better, and can apply user actions to whole threads, but there’s no “conversation view” patch. to be truly competitive, threading support would need to be built in from the ground up.

still, nancy mcgough or gopi sundaram might have something i missed. let me know if you find anything!

]]> By: ryan http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-491 ryan Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-491 <p>check out Pine's keywords. they work pretty much the same as tags or Gmail's labels. (M)ain, (S)etup, (C)onfiguration, and add them to the keywords option. then you can set them on messages individually with (*) Flag, in aggregate, and with filters.</p> check out Pine’s keywords. they work pretty much the same as tags or Gmail’s labels. (M)ain, (S)etup, (C)onfiguration, and add them to the keywords option. then you can set them on messages individually with (*) Flag, in aggregate, and with filters.

]]> By: Guest http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-492 Guest Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-492 <p>Great post. I'm a fellow PINE junkie who is similarly pestered to "get with the program" and use a "real" mail client.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>I do want to ask you a technical question. Do you know why PINE doesn't quote replies to gmail messages correctly and how to fix this? It seems it may have to do with the fact that Gmail base64 encodes their messages. For example, here is a simple message from a gmailer, as it's displayed in PINE (the following is NOT a real mailing address):</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <hr class="line"/> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 19:01:10 -0800</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>From: A Friend <xxxxxxxx@gmail.com></p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>To: Michael <msa@xxxxx.com></p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Subject: Address</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>101 N. Kingsley Dr.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Los Angeles, CA 90000</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>A Friend</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <hr class="line"/> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>and here is how PINE quotes it in a reply</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <hr class="line"/> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, A Friend wrote:</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>> 101 N. Kingsley Dr.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Los Angeles, CA 90000</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>A Friend</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <hr class="line"/> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Only the first line is indented with a '>'. The rest are not.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>This is a very annoying "feature" of PINE. Any thoughts?</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p><i class="italic">- Michael</i></p> Great post. I’m a fellow PINE junkie who is similarly pestered to “get with the program” and use a “real” mail client.

I do want to ask you a technical question. Do you know why PINE doesn’t quote replies to gmail messages correctly and how to fix this? It seems it may have to do with the fact that Gmail base64 encodes their messages. For example, here is a simple message from a gmailer, as it’s displayed in PINE (the following is NOT a real mailing address):

Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 19:01:10 -0800

From: A Friend <xxxxxxxx@gmail.com>

To: Michael <msa@xxxxx.com>

Subject: Address

101 N. Kingsley Dr.

Los Angeles, CA 90000

A Friend

and here is how PINE quotes it in a reply

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, A Friend wrote:

> 101 N. Kingsley Dr.

Los Angeles, CA 90000

A Friend

Only the first line is indented with a ‘>’. The rest are not.

This is a very annoying “feature” of PINE. Any thoughts?

- Michael

]]> By: ryan http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-493 ryan Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-493 <p>hi michael! i agree, i hate this too. it's not at all clear whether it's pine's fault or gmail's, though.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>my first guess would be that gmail isn't formatting line endings as specified in <span class="nobr"><a href="www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt" rel="nofollow">RFC 2822</a></span>. maybe they're leaving line feeds or carriage returns out. either way, i'd bet someone on the <span class="nobr"><a href="http://www.washington.edu/pine/pine-info/" rel="nofollow">pine-info list</a></span> would know!</p> hi michael! i agree, i hate this too. it’s not at all clear whether it’s pine’s fault or gmail’s, though.

my first guess would be that gmail isn’t formatting line endings as specified in RFC 2822. maybe they’re leaving line feeds or carriage returns out. either way, i’d bet someone on the pine-info list would know!

]]> By: Guest http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-494 Guest Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-494 <p>News Flash!</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>Eduardo Chappa of pine-info fame has made progress on the "replying to GMail" issue. We don't have a definitive solution yet, but as a workaround if you put a "." in your display-filters variable the problem should go away. Try it!</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p><i class="italic">- Michael</i></p> News Flash!

Eduardo Chappa of pine-info fame has made progress on the “replying to GMail” issue. We don’t have a definitive solution yet, but as a workaround if you put a “.” in your display-filters variable the problem should go away. Try it!

- Michael

]]> By: Guest http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-495 Guest Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-495 <p>Eduardo Chappa has posted a patch to Pine which fixes the "replying to GMail" issue. Check it out:</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p><span class="nobr"><a href="http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/info/prefixbug.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/info/prefixbug.html</a></span></p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p><i class="italic">- Michael</i></p> Eduardo Chappa has posted a patch to Pine which fixes the “replying to GMail” issue. Check it out:

http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/info/prefixbug.html

- Michael

]]> By: ryan http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-496 ryan Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-496 <p>cool! that's really really nice. i haven't tried the patch yet, but the display-filters workaround works.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>out of curiosity, i've never seen "." in display-filters before. is it an undocumented feature?</p> cool! that’s really really nice. i haven’t tried the patch yet, but the display-filters workaround works.

out of curiosity, i’ve never seen “.” in display-filters before. is it an undocumented feature?

]]> By: Guest http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-497 Guest Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-497 <p>Ryan,</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <pre><code>Have you tried using pine WITH gmail? I'm using it now and it works wonderfully. Pine accesses my GMail box through pop3, copies the messages down to local storage, and aside from entering a password when I launch pine, it's almost as fast as if it were reading /var/mail/christine instead :)<p class="paragraph"/> <i class="italic">- Christine</i> </code></pre> Ryan,

Have you tried using pine WITH gmail?  I'm using it now and it works wonderfully.  Pine accesses my GMail box through pop3, copies the messages down to local storage, and aside from entering a password when I launch pine, it's almost as fast as if it were reading /var/mail/christine instead :)<p class="paragraph"/> <i class="italic">- Christine</i>
]]> By: ryan http://snarfed.org/gmail_vs_pine#comment-498 ryan Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://snarfed.org/wordpress/gmail_vs_pine#comment-498 <p>hi christine! good point. i have tried using pine as my MUA (ie email client) and gmail as my backend email provider, through POP. i actually found it slow, especially searching. IMAP supports most kinds of searching natively, which makes it much faster, assuming the server is halfway decent.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>still, that was a while ago. i should try it again.</p> <p class="paragraph"/> <p>also, many people have noted that pine is just a MUA, while gmail is both a MUA and a mail provider backend. this article was meant to compare just the MUA part of gmail.</p> hi christine! good point. i have tried using pine as my MUA (ie email client) and gmail as my backend email provider, through POP. i actually found it slow, especially searching. IMAP supports most kinds of searching natively, which makes it much faster, assuming the server is halfway decent.

still, that was a while ago. i should try it again.

also, many people have noted that pine is just a MUA, while gmail is both a MUA and a mail provider backend. this article was meant to compare just the MUA part of gmail.

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