kmail

kmail

While I use pine for private email, I have used kmail at work for nearly
5 years. I understand and acknowledge the Grumpy Editor's complaints,
but I also have a lengthy list of reasons why I love using Kmail for
email as much as I love using Emacs for programming and vim for
low-bandwidth administrative editing. I'll share my reasons, in case
they might help a new kmail user make better use of it's features. I'm
not sure if all these features are turned on by default.

1. As mentioned, the shortcuts are reasonably powerful. I rarely use the
mouse, except in the few dialogs that I encounter during normal use. I
do use the mouse wheel for scrolling, but that takes little complex
navigation (no aiming for buttons or click and move). There is a
shortcut for nearly every action.

2. Threading: Where my coworkers spend their time writhing through their
inboxes to connect replies that make up a long discussion, kmail presents
a perfect tree of email in newsgroup style. While this saves me a great
deal of time, it can also be a inconvenient when someone responds to a
very old message, as there is no quick way to say "show me the new
messages, regardless of the parent message's date".

3. Great searching: the search dialog, while a little clumsy looking,
enables fairly complex searches. Also, your last search is automatically
saved, in the event you need to revisit what you found after the search
dialog was closed. The search results may also be saved under a new
name, so that the next search doesn't overwrite the results. Someday
there may be the ability to update the saved search results dynamically
as new email arrives, forming a long-term catalog of related email for
quick reference.

4. Attachment warnings: When my message contains terms that insinuate
I've attached a file, but I haven't actually attached any, kmail warns
me. This saves me from having to respond to my own emails, "Sorry,
forgot the attachment!", and looking like an ass.

5. Kontact: I've grown used to Kontact, an Outlook look-alike that wraps
up kmail with the other kdepim apps. Having a todo list, calender, and
contact list all in the same windows saves me screen real estate.
Frankly, I've never used the other applications until they were made
easily accessible.

6. The address autocomplete does a great job of remembering the most
commonly seen email addresses and presents them in a very inconspicuous
way. I go weeks without referencing my address book or completely typing
an email address. Usually the first couple letters of the email or name
is enough to give me the address. This saves me time and better yet,
prevents me from mistyping the address.

Along with the "Hot", there is also the "Not" (or maybe the "Should Be")

* something occasionally slows down the compose window to a frustrating
pace as new characters are entered. I think that it is the spell
checking.

* The antique reply problem, mentioned previously.

* text wrap, especially with urls in the read window. Any yahoo news url
requires cut-n-paste. Yikes. This may be due to the senders email
client, but it would be nice if kmail would detect this and patch up the
URL for a quick click.