Advanced featuresActions
Actions allow you to use all the power of the Unix command-line with
your emails. You can define various commands, taking parameters such
as the current email file, a list of emails, the currently selected
text, and so on. In this way, you'll be able to perform various tasks
such as editing a raw mail in your text editor,
hide what you mean using ROT-13, apply patches
contained in emails directly, and so on. The only limit is your
imagination. You can configure Actions via the Tools
menu.
Simple <quote>Open With...</quote>
Menu name: Open with/kate
Command Line: kate %p
Opens the file of the selected decoded MIME part
(%p) with the kate text
editor.
Spam management using <ulink
url="http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/">Bogofilter</ulink>
Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Ham
Command Line: bogofilter -n -v -B "%f"
Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as
not spam using Bogofilter.
Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Spam
Command Line: bogofilter -s -v -B "%f"
Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as
spam using Bogofilter.
Search Google using an external script
Menu name: Search/Google
Command Line: |/path/to/google_search.pl
Searches Google for the currently selected text
(|) using the external script google_search.pl.
Templates
Templates are used in composition windows, and act as a model for
emails. Templates can be filled with static text and dynamic parts,
such as the original sender's name (Dear %N, ...),
the date, etc. When applying a template, the dynamic fields will be
replaced with the relevant values. You can configure templates via
the Tools menu.
When applying a template, you will be asked to Insert
or Replace, the difference between replacing and
inserting is only concerned with the message body.
Replace will replace the current composition window
message body with the body defined in the template, clearing it if
the template body is empty. Insert will insert
the template's body, if set, at the current cursor position.
Whether you choose to Insert or Replace, any To, Cc or Bcc field
that is defined in the template will be appended to the compose
window's recipients list. If it is defined, the template's Subject
will always replace the compose window's Subject.
Symbols can be used in all parts of the templates and will be
substituted with their respective dynamic value if possible, otherwise
no value will be used. This often makes more sense if you apply a
template when replying or forwarding, otherwise most of the symbols
value will be undefined. There is no restriction on which symbols can
be used in template parts, even if inserting the body (%M or %Q) may
make no sense in common situations.
When applying a template, the body is processed first, then the To, Cc,
Bcc and Subject fields follow.
Further information and examples of usage can be found in the
user-contributed FAQ on the Sylpheed-Claws website http://www.sylpheed-claws.net/faq/.
Processing
Processing rules are the same as Filtering rules, except that they are
applied when entering a folder and apply only to this folder. You can
use them to automatically move old mails into an archive folder, or for
further dispatching of emails, and more. You can set each folder's
Processing rules by right-clicking on it.
Processing rules are accompanied by Pre-processing and Post-processing
rules. Like Processing rules, they apply only when opening a folder,
but like Filtering rules, they are shared accross all folders. You can
configure them from the Tools menu. Pre-processing rules
are executed before the folder's specific Processing rules, while
Post-processing rules are executed afterwards.
Colour Labels
Colour labels can be used to denote a message as having a particular
significance. To set a colour label simply right-click a message in the
Message List and use the Color label submenu.
Colour labels are user-configurable. Both the colour and the label can
be set by the user. Preferences can be found on the
Configuration/Preferences/Display/Colors page.
Mailing-List support
Sylpheed-Claws offers mailing-list support from the
Message/Mailing-List/ submenu. When you have a
mailing-list message selected, the submenu allows you to quickly
initiate subscribing, unsubscribing, posting, getting help, contacting
the list owner, and viewing the list archive; either by opening a new
Compose window with the appropriate address pre-filled, or by opening
the URL in your web browser.
Plugins
Plugins are the mechanism for extending Sylpheed-Claws' capabilities.
For example, imagine that you want to store your mails in a remote
SQL database. In most mailers out there this is
simply impossible without reworking the internals of the mailer. With
Sylpheed-Claws you can simply write a plugin to achieve the task.
This is just an example of the possibilities. A good number of plugins
developed for Sylpheed-Claws already exist, and more are to come. The
Extending Sylpheed-Claws section
gives details of them.
Deploying Sylpheed-Claws
The initial configuration wizard tries to guess various fields using
information gathered from the system, such as username, hostname, and
more. As it is oriented towards general use, the default values often
have to be fixed. However, this wizard is customisable, in a manner
designed to allow system administrators to deploy Sylpheed-Claws easily
over various users of one machine, or even over multiple machines
installed via some replication tool.
The first part consists of creating a wizard configuration template
and setting the various default parameters of a new Sylpheed-Claws
installation.
Start with a user who does not have a ~/.sylpheed-claws directory, ideally a new user.
Start Sylpheed-Claws and go through the wizard. The values you fill in
will be of no use for the future deployment, so you can click
next-next-next.
Once the wizard is finished and you have Sylpheed-Claws' main window
opened, configure the various defaults you want to have in the master.
You can load plugins, add people or LDAP servers in the addressbook,
create filtering rules, and so on.
If needed, and if the deployed Sylpheed-Claws will use MH folders, you
can create subdirectories in the mailbox.
Next, quit Sylpheed-Claws.
Now, edit the newly created wizard template file,
~/.sylpheed-claws/accountrc.tmpl. In this file,
you will see different variables, corresponding to the wizard's fields.
You can leave some commented, in which case the usual default will be
used, or specify values or variables. Not all fields can contain
variables; for example, smtpauth,
smtpssl and recvssl are booleans,
either 0 or 1, and recvtype is an integer value. The
other fields, like name, email,
or recvuser, are parsed by the wizard and the
variables they contain are replaced by values. This allows you to
specify everything as needed for your site, even if you have strange
server names or server logins.
Save this file, and delete both
~/.sylpheed-claws/accountrc, (which contains your
dummy account) and
~/.sylpheed-claws/folderlist.xml, (so that the
folder tree will be correctly parsed for new users). Recursively copy
.sylpheed-claws to
/etc/skel/; if the deployed
Sylpheed-Claws will use MH folders, also copy the created
Mail directory. chown all of
/etc/skel/.sylpheed-claws
and /etc/skel/Mail to
root:root for security reasons.
Test! Create a new user, login as that user, run Sylpheed-Claws. If you
filled everything as you wanted, this user will just have to fill in
his passwords.
Now, if you're creating a master for a site-wide deployment, you can
continue with this process. If you were just doing it for one machine,
you're done!
Here are the different variables of the accountrc.tmpl
file:
domain
Your domain name (example.com). If not set, it'll be extracted from the
hostname.
name
The user's name. If not set, it'll be extracted from Unix login
information, which is usually ok.
email
The user's email. If not set, it'll be extracted from
$name and $domain.
organization
Your organization. If not set, it'll be empty.
smtpserver
The SMTP server to use. If not set, it'll be
smtp.$domain.
smtpauth
0 or 1. Whether to authenticate on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll
be 0.
smtpuser
The login on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (same login as
for reception will be used).
smtppass
The password on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (if
smtppass is empty but smtpuser is
not, the user will be asked for the password).
recvtype
The type of server to receive from. 0 for POP3, 3 for IMAP4, 5 for a
local MBOX file. If not set, it'll be 0 (POP3).
recvserver
The reception server. If not set, it'll be
(pop|imap).$domain, depending on
$recvtype.
recvuser
The login on the reception server. If not set, it'll be extracted from
the Unix login information.
recvpass
The password on the reception server. If not set, it'll be empty (the
user will be asked for it once per session).
imapdir
The IMAP subdirectory. If not set, it'll be empty, which is often
sufficient.
mboxfile
The MBOX file to receive from if $recvtype is 5.
If not set, /var/mail/$LOGIN.
mailbox
The MH mailbox to store mail in (for $recvtype 0 or
5). If not set, it'll be Mail.
smtpssl
0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for sending mail. If not set, it'll be 0.
recvssl
0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for receiving mail. If not set, it'll be 0.
Here are the different variables you can use in the
domain, name,
email, organization,
smtpserver, smtpuser,
smtppass, recvserver,
recvuser, recvpass,
imapdir, mboxfile and
mailbox fields:
$DEFAULTDOMAIN
The domain name as extracted from Unix hostname information.
Often wrong.
$DOMAIN
The domain name as set in the domain variable, the first of the
template file.
$USERNAMEThe user's real name.$LOGINThe user's Unix login.$NAME_MAIL
The user's real name as set in the name variable of the template field,
in lowercase and with spaces replaced by dots.
Colin Leroy becomes colin.leroy.
$EMAIL
The email address as set in the email variable of the template field.
Be sure not to use a variable before defining it.
Hidden preferences
There are a number of hidden preferences in Sylpheed-Claws, preferences
that some users who we wanted to please couldn't live without, but
which did not have a place in the GUI in our opinion. You can find the
following, and change them while Sylpheed-Claws is not running, in
~/.sylpheed-claws/sylpheedrc.
bold_unread
Show unread messages in the Message List using a bold font.
cache_max_mem_usage
The maximum amount of memory to use to cache messages, in kB.
cache_min_keep_time
The minimum time in minutes to keep a cache in memory. Caches more
recent than this time will not be freed, even if the memory usage is
too high.
compose_no_markup
Don't use bold and italic text in Compose dialogue's account selector.
enable_dotted_lines
Use the old dotted line look for the Folder List and
Message List instead of the modern lineless look.
enable_hscrollbar
Enable the horizontal scrollbar in the Message List.
use_stripes_everywhere
Enable alternately coloured lines in GtkTreeView components.
use_stripes_in_summaries
Enable alternately coloured lines in main window's GtkTreeView components
(folder list and messages list). The only useful way to use this option is
to set it to 0 when use_stripes_everywhere is set to 1.
enable_swap_from
Display the sender's email address in the To column of the
Sent folder instead of the recipient's.
folderview_vscrollbar_policy
Specify the policy of vertical scrollbar of Folder List.
'0' is always shown, '1' is automatic, '2' is always hidden.
hover_timeout
Time in milliseconds that will cause a folder tree to expand
when the mouse cursor is held over it during drag 'n' drop.
live_dangerously
Don't ask for confirmation before definitive deletion of emails.
log_error_colorlog_in_colorlog_msg_colorlog_out_colorlog_warn_color
The colours used in the log window.
mark_as_read_delay
Number of seconds to wait before marking an opened mail as read.
skip_ssl_cert_check
Disables the verification of SSL certificates.
statusbar_update_step
Update stepping in progress bars.
textview_cursor_visible
Display the cursor in the message view.
thread_by_subject_max_age
Number of days to include a message in a thread when using
Thread using subject in addition to standard headers.
toolbar_detachable
Show handles in the toolbars.
utf8_instead_of_locale_for_broken_mail
Use UTF-8 encoding for broken mails instead of current locale.
warn_dnd
Display a confirmation dialogue on drag 'n' drop of folders.