6 1. What is Sylpheed Claws?
7 2. Switching between Sylpheed Claws and Sylpheed
8 * From Sylpheed to Sylpheed Claws
9 * From Sylpheed Claws to Sylpheed
10 3. Things Claws does different
11 * auto address replacement in summary view
12 * manual selection of MIME types for attachments
13 * sharing mail folders
14 * default to address for folders
15 * threading mode per folder
16 * simplify subject string
18 * user definable actions
19 * spell checking (with installation instructions)
21 5. How to request features
22 6. Installing Claws from CVS
27 1. What is Sylpheed Claws?
28 --------------------------
30 Sylpheed Claws is a bleeding edge branch of Sylpheed, a light weight mail
31 user agent for UNIX. Features in this branch may (or may not) end up in
34 Hiroyuki's ChangeLog is also included in the claws-branch distribution,
35 so it should be easy to spot which features were merged with Sylpheed
36 (and which features were not).
38 For brevity Sylpheed Claws is referred to as Claws, and Sylpheed as either
43 2. Switching between Sylpheed Claws and Sylpheed
44 ------------------------------------------------
46 From Sylpheed to Sylpheed Claws
47 -------------------------------
49 From the user perspective Claws is just a fancy Sylpheed, so it uses the
50 same sylpheed setting files located in ~/.sylpheed.
52 It's always a good idea to back up all files in ~/.sylpheed in case
53 you want to switch back to Sylpheed. (You don't have to backup the
56 There are some things that frequently come up when switching to Claws:
59 * Why does the advanced filtering system not work?
61 Claws uses the new filtering system as soon as you define a new rule for it.
62 Your old sylpheed filter rules will not be used. In subdirectory tools/ of
63 the distribution there is a Perl script called filter_conv.pl which converts
64 old filter rules to the claws filtering system.
67 * What happened to the compose email and compose news buttons?
69 There's a composite button for both composing mail and news. You can toggle
70 between composing mail and news by clicking on the button with the triangle.
73 * And to the Preferences and Execute buttons?
75 Sorry, they're not there.
78 From Sylpheed Claws to Sylpheed
79 -------------------------------
81 Moving from Claws to Sylpheed is also simple. Sylpheed should neglect the things
82 Claws put in the settings files. This also means that the old rules will work
85 If you want to switch back to Claws at a later time, make sure you back up at least
86 ~/.sylpheed/filteringrc (the Claws filtering rules), and ~/.sylpheed/sylpheedrc
87 (which may have some claws specific settings).
89 When switching back to Sylpheed you will not lose messages or message flags (color
90 labels, read / unread status of messages).
94 3. Things Claws does different
95 ------------------------------
97 Claws does a lot of things different. Here a quick run-down of things that
98 are hardly noticeable, but deserve mentioning:
100 * auto address replacement in summary view
101 -----------------------------------
102 This matches a plain email address with a person in the address book. This
103 feature is enabled in Common Preferences | Tab Display | SummaryView Group |
104 Display sender using addressbook
106 * manual selection of MIME types for attachments
107 -----------------------------------
108 You can change the MIME type of an attachment by right-clicking in the
109 attachment list, selecting Property in the menu. The MIME type list
110 is a combo box with the known MIME types.
112 * sharing mail folders
113 -----------------------------------
114 You can also share or use shared mail folders. Right-click a folder and
115 select Property. Change the Folder chmod setting.
117 * default to address for folders
118 -----------------------------------
119 Most people filter mailing list mails to separate folders. Claws allows
120 you to associate a folder with a mailing list or a person. Right-click a
121 folder, select Property and change the Default To setting. When you
122 compose a new mail, when this folder is selected the recipient address
123 will be set to this address.
125 (NOTE: this is also a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-setting! If you want
126 to send a private mail, don't have a folder selected with this setting
130 -----------------------------------
131 To use different icon sets you need to create a directory:
132 mkdir ~/.sylpheed/themes
133 Icon sets should be placed in this directory in their own sub-directory.
134 They are then selectable from Pixmap Theme on the Interface tab of Commmon
137 * user definable actions
138 -----------------------------------
139 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
140 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
141 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
142 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
143 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
144 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Sylpheed.
145 For example, Sylpheed does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
146 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support natively armored
147 encryption or clear signing. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
148 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
149 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
154 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
155 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
156 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
157 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
159 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Sylpheed
160 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
161 following syntax for the command:
163 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
164 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
165 the appropriate file name
166 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
167 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
168 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
169 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
170 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
171 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
172 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
173 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
174 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
175 message, it denotes the message body.
176 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
177 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
178 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
179 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
180 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
182 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
183 That means "fire and forget". Sylpheed won't wait for the command
184 to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error messages.
185 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
186 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
187 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
188 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
189 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
190 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
191 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
192 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
194 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
197 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Sylpheed will
198 be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
199 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
200 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
201 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
202 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
203 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
204 from the outputs of the others.
209 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
210 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
211 ~/.sylpheed/actionsrc file (exit Sylpheed before). The syntax is very
212 simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name and the
213 command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
215 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
216 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
217 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
218 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
220 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
221 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
222 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
223 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
225 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
226 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
227 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec script can be found in
228 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
230 Purpose: Alter messages
231 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
232 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
233 unneeded message parts, etc.
235 Purpose: Pretty format
236 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
237 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
238 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
239 text. Used when composing a message
242 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
243 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
246 Definition: GnuPG/Clear Sign: |gpg-sign|
247 Details: Clear sign a message. The gpg-sign script is responsible for
248 asking the passphrase and for running gnupg.
250 Purpose: Verify Clear Signed
251 Definition: GnuPG/Verify: |gpg --no-tty --verify %f&
252 Details: Verify clear signed messages. The result is displayed in the
253 actions output dialog.
255 Purpose: Decrypt ASCII Armored
256 Definition: GnuPG/Decrypt: *gpg --no-tty --command-fd 0 --passphrase-fd 0 --decrypt %f|
257 Details: Decrypt ASCII armored messages. The passphrase is entered
258 into the opened action's input dialog.
260 The gpg-sign script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
261 distribution package. It needs the ssh-askpass utility found in OpenSSH.
262 It can be replaced by any X11 tool that asks some (hidden) text which is
263 then sent to standard output.
265 The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
266 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
267 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
268 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
269 instead of standard input.
272 * Spell checker for Sylpheed-Claws
273 -----------------------------------
275 b. Configuration and installation
282 The spell checker in sylpheed requires the Portable Spell Checker
283 Interface Library pspell (http://pspell.sourceforge.net), version
286 You will need also the actual spell checker. There are two alternatives:
288 i) ispell (http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/fmg-members/geoff/ispell.html),
289 which is found on quasi every distribution. You have then to
290 install the pspell-ispell module found at the pspell site.
292 ii) aspell (http://aspell.sourceforge.net). This spell checker
293 must be installed after installing pspell. The version tested
294 is .33.7 alpha. It has three different suggestion modes (fast
295 -default- , normal, bad spellers), has the ability to learn
296 from mistakes (default).
298 And, last but not least, do not forget to install the dictionaries. Check
299 the corresponding spell checker home page for more information on this.
301 b. Configuring Sylpheed
302 -----------------------
304 Spell checking is enabled if you configure sylpheed appropriately. Add
305 the option '--enable-pspell' when configuring. E.g.:
307 ./configure --enable-pspell
309 The configure script needs 'pspell-config' in your path. If it is
310 in weird places, use '--with-pspell-prefix' to tell the path to
311 pspell-config. E.g., if pspell-config is really
312 /foo/bar/pspell-config, then use:
314 ./configure --enable-pspell --with-pspell-prefix=/foo/bar
316 If you have problems with not found includes or libraries, check
317 first where these are located, and add either options:
319 --with-pspell-includes=/foo/bar/include
323 --with-pspell-libs=/foo/bar/lib
327 Configure script summarizes the options compiled in. Check that
328 configure lists 'Pspell = yes'.
330 Then proceed as usual, with 'make' and 'make install'.
335 NOTE: if you upgraded from 0.7.0claws, please reselect your default
336 dictionary in the preferences.
338 After successful compiling, you need to tell sylpheed where your
339 dictionaries reside. First run 'pspell-config pkgdatadir' on the
340 shell to get their path.
342 Then run sylpheed and go to Configuration -> Common preferences ->
343 Spell Checker. Check the box 'Enable spell checker (EXPERIMENTAL)' and
344 use the file selector ('...' button) to select the path where the
345 dictionaries reside. Within the file selector, go to that directory
346 and select *any* file in the file lists. Click ok. You should then
347 be able to select your default dictionary.
349 When composing, misspelled words are highlighted. Click on any
350 highlighted word with the right mouse button to get a list of
351 suggestions. The first entry of the menu just displays the unknown
352 word. Selecting "Accept in this session" (or hitting MOD1-Space,
353 where MOD1 is usually the ALT key), will ignore this word and accept
354 it in this message. Selecting the next entry "Add to dictionary", which
355 is bound to MOD1-Enter combination will add the unknown word to the
356 dictionary to learn it. The next entries are the suggested words.
357 The first 15 suggestions can be accessed typing one of the first letters
358 of Latin alphabet (if this does not suit your language, please send
359 a mail to melvin.hadasht@free.fr). If you are using an aspell
360 dictionary, you can use its 'learn from mistake' feature, by pressing
361 the MOD1 key and selecting the suggestion (with the keyboard or with
362 the mouse). See pspell manual ยง4.7.1 for an explanation of this
365 If you click with the right mouse button everywhere else, or if you
366 shift-right-click even on a misspelled word, you get the
367 configuration menu. 'Check all' highlights all misspelled words.
368 With this menu, you can also change the dictionary while editing.
369 Finally, you can change the suggestion mode, and the learn from
370 misktakes feature (only when using an aspell dictionary).
372 Spell checking can also be done using keyboard shortcuts. In the
373 "Edit" menu of the compose window, there are two menus "Check backwards
374 misspelled word" and "Forward to next misspelled word". Add to them
375 appropriate keyboard shortcuts. "Check backwards misspelled word"
376 checks backwards from cursor position for the first misspelled word.
377 If it finds one, it displays the suggestions lists which can be handled
378 with the keyboard as described before. When the suggestion menu is
379 closed, the cursor returns to its original position to be able to
380 continue editing. The "Forward to next misspelled word" do the same
381 thing in the other direction but moves the cursor at the end of the
382 misspelled word. This way, you can spell check easily a whole message
383 starting from its beginning and using the "Forward to next misspelled
384 word" keyboard short cut.
392 The only real known problems until now are configuration and
393 compilation problems due to libtool interaction with pspell.
395 If you do not compile pspell/aspell/pspell-ispell yourself, you
396 need to install them with their devel packages.
398 Pspell work with dynamic linking of libraries and thus uses the
399 libltdl library of libtool. If you have weird problems when
400 configuring showing 'libtool', chances are the libtool used when
401 compiling the pspell package is not compatible with what you have
402 on your system. The best solution, is to install the latest
403 libtool AND compile yourself pspell package. I can't help more
404 than that in this issue.
406 After successfully compiled and used sylpheed with spell checking,
407 the same problem can appear if you upgrade your libtool to a
408 version which libltdl is incompatible to your older one. The
409 symptoms are a crash when starting to compose. Disabling spell
410 checking avoids the problem. The solution should be to recompile pspell.
412 ii) New installed ispell dictionary are not detected
414 Installing a new ispell dictionary needs an additional step. Go
415 to the 'pkgdatadir' and run 'make-ispell-pwli'. You may need to
418 * simplify subject string
419 It is possible to remove parts of string from the subject line.
420 Example: [Sylpheed-claws-users] This is a test
421 becomes: This is a test
422 This is a per folder property. Right click on a folder and select
423 property, enable Simplify Subject RegExp check box. Example
424 regexp for the above is: \[Sylpheed-claws-(devel|users)\]
425 Another example for the Sylpheed mailing list (not claws!) is:
426 \[sylpheed:[0-9]{5}\]
428 There are a lot more options. If you find one, don't hesitate to
438 submit it to the Sylpheed ML, Hiroyuki, or Paul Mangan
439 (for incorporation on the Sylpheed Patches page,
440 <http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/sylpheed/>)
444 It is highly recommended to use the sourceforge project page
446 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=384600&group_id=25528&func=browse
448 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan or consider
449 posting to the sylpheed claws users mailing list.
451 Bugs can be reported in the same way; the recommended web page:
452 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=25528&atid=384598
454 Of course you can also post to the sylpheed claws users
457 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
458 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
459 a long time to stabilize, send a mail to Paul Mangan. We can probably
460 arrange access to the Claws branch.
464 5. How to request features
465 --------------------------
467 Ask around in both Sylpheed ML and Sylpheed Claws Users ML. Note
468 that some developers may already thought about your feature, may
469 perhaps be implementing it - or the feature was already discussed
470 and rejected for whatever reason. You might want to go ahead and
471 hack a patch for it. (That would be very cool!) Another
472 possibility is to use the Feature Request Tracker at the
473 sourceforge project page.
477 6. Installing Claws from CVS
478 ----------------------------
483 To download the latest cvs cd to the directory where you wish to download
484 to and type the following information:
486 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sylpheed-claws.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sylpheed-claws login
488 When prompted for a password press the RETURN key.
489 After anonymously logging in:
491 cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sylpheed-claws.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sylpheed-claws co sylpheed-claws
497 To compile and install use the following commands:
499 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
501 make install [as root]
503 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run