Re: GNUMail sources

[Steven R. Baker]

On Thu, May 19, 2016, at 08:08 PM, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Hi Steven
> 
> Steven R. Baker wrote:
> >
> >> If you have isseus, let's discuss them, but there are some which I do
> >> not know how to fix.
> >> Which other apps are you  missing?
> > Great question, and thank you for asking! There is a rather long and
> > complicated answer here.
> 
> I actually intended to ask "what other apps of collaboration world" are 
> you missing.
> The fact that we miss a lot of stuff in GNUstep is a fact! Also, as your 
> list shows, everybody has its personal preferences.

Whoops!
 
> 
> >
> > About a year ago I gave up my Macs to return to ThinkPads running
> > Debian. At the time of leaving the Mac, I was using the built-in stuff,
> > plus Things, DEVONthink, and VoodooPad. So I'm looking for replacements
> > of all of that. I've been struggling a lot with where to land, and
> > contribute my efforts. I've spend some time on GNOME, KDE, and have even
> > dabbled in Enlightenment land, to see what can provide everything I'm
> > looking for *and* be an enjoyable place to contribute. So far I have
> > found pros and cons, but I think I'm going to be happiest in GNUstep
> > land.
> 
> One of my goals with GNUstep has always been to have a ThinkPad (and the 
> old Vista and ThinkCentres) running it and make a workstation or laptop 
> as NeXT would have done it. That is Mac, without all the gizmo :)
> Especially since nowadays Macs are little more than PCs and Mac (and 
> Windows) went down the route of being tabletized/phoneized more and more.
> 
> >
> > I really miss the quantity and quality of what I'll broadly refer to as
> > "Productivity Apps" on the Mac, and my life is considerably less chaotic
> > and crazy when I'm a Mac user with a great suite of productivity
> > applications. But I hate myself for supporting the closed, proprietary,
> > unsustainable technology category. And, I find it hard to get "real
> > work" done on a Mac.
> >
> > My first order of business is to get good replacements for AddressBook,
> > Calendar, and Mail from OS X. I am currently working on some UI
> > improvements to SimpleAgenda, and after that I'll focus on
> > CardDav/CalDav support. The only thing I'm missing from GNUmail is IMAP
> > IDLE support, which I'll have to figure out how to add to Pantomime, I
> > guess. And some form of Sieve filter management.
> 
> I have no clue what IMAP IDLE is, but IMAP support in GNUmail works, but 
> is not totally stable. When there are faults, the application crashes 
> instead of recovering. Before adding new features to GNUMail, I'd like 
> to stabilize it and clean up its code. It is a slow in-progress process.

I completely agree. Do you have an issue tracker with known bugs? I'd
like to exercise these and help where I can.

IMAP IDLE is basically "push" support; leaves a socket open, and lets
the client know when changes happen.

> You should use Addresses from GAP, which had a bit of fixes.

Will look. Thanks!

> >
> > I've also started (slowly) working on an app I'm calling "Tickler" which
> > will be a GTD app (using TaskWarrior as a backend). Once that's usable,
> > I'll probably be hooked for life. I have a few small projects I want to
> > explore: an MTP browser for talking to my Android phone, NewsBlur
> > support for Grr, a few dock apps for laptop-related things. And figuring
> > out why Terminal.app flips its pancakes over Swedish characters in
> > filenames.
> 
> No clue what you are mentioning there... however it is ironic what you 
> say about Terminal, since the original Author is swedish. Sadly he 
> doesn't contribute to it anymore.
> I hope you are using Terminal from GAP.

I'll test against the GAP one. It might be a font issue.

> > As I'm sure you'll understand, this takes time and patience, and while I
> > have both in spades right now, it may not last. The quick responses on
> > the GNUstep mailing lists is certainly encouraging. Of course, I intend
> > to share my knowledge and work as I go.
> 
> It has been 13 years I am working on more and more apps, getting them to 
> work and keeping them up to date.
> Nice that you have enthusiasm, is it needed, because the task is immense
> :)
> You will also understand when you check out the "vastity" of apps there 
> that stabilizing them is an humongous task. I would rpefer several of 
> them to have solid foundations before adding stuff...

Couldn't agree more. My specific expertise is in automated testing, so
I'm going to certainly focus on some of that.

> So Check out what's around. If you are using Debian packages, remember 
> several of them are very old and unstable. Eric Heintzmann is perhaps 
> updating them and that would be very welcome!
> 
> Generally my compromise would be to have "less" but "something that 
> works". My feeling of many Mac apps is that they are full of bells and 
> whistles.
> I do lack a bit the integrated Mac experience when i am on my 
> GNUstep-ized environments.

Agree, this is one bit I'd like to focus on.

-Steven

> Riccardo