[aklug] Re: Switched to Alpine

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, Christopher Howard wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Nov 2008, Arthur Corliss wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 6 Nov 2008, Christopher Howard wrote:
>>
>>> I just made the switch from Thunderbird to Alpine. Guess that brings me a
>>> little closer to living out of a 80x24 terminal.
>>>
>>> Did any of you say you used Alpine or pine? If so, I might have a
>>> guestion from time to time.
>>>
>>> Overall, Alpine seems pretty cool. The only downside is, someone told me
>>> that it didn't handle PGP encryption. That isn't an issue for me now
>>> since I don't use it, but I guess it could be in the future.
>>
>> I've been a Pine user for over twelve years, and have found anything
>> better. Given that Pine's a dead project, though, I'll be interested in
>> hearing of your experience with Alpine.
>>
>> --Arthur Corliss
>> Live Free or Die
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>>
>
> So far, my experience with Alpine has been good. I've sucessfully set up
> IMAP accounts, and I seem to have access to all my folders.
> Sending/Receiving works well. I like the interface and functionality
> better than thunderbird (err, Iceowl) already.
>
> I still have something I need to fiqure out though -- how to properly
> handle multiple IMAP accounts. I now how to create the collections just
> fine, but I don't know how to handle custom sig files, headers, et cetera
> for each account. I think it has something to do with setting up roles.
> If there is anything similiar in Pine, let me know how that works for you.
>
> This e-mail was sent with Alpine, so feel free to look over the headers
> and let me know if I screwed anything up.
>
> --
> Christopher Howard
> choward@indicium.us
> http://www.indicium.us
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>

Following the advice of another Alpine user, I decided to use multiple
.pinerc files instead of roles. Once I setup some convenient bash
aliases, it is really easy to switch back and forth between accounts (or
better, keep two instances open in separate virtual consoles).

I'm finding that Alpine provides a very fast interface, and I feel a lot
more efficient responding to mail and moving it around, than when I was
using a GUI client. Alpine integrates with Pico, which feels somewhat
similiar to Emacs, my preferred editor.

The only real issue I've had so far: for some reason, Alpine has trouble
with IMAP authenication on one of my accounts. Sometimes it works just
fine, but other times the SSL authentication fails, and it has to switch
to plain authentication. (Which makes me a little nervous.)

I thought it was pretty cool when I found out Alpine can easily pipe your
commands to an external program.

Alpine seems to have about 300 hundred configuration options, which
(thankfully) can all be set within the program interface. I'm looking
forward to exploring some of those, as well as setting up my own filters.

I also really like the 'headers switch' command that allows you to
instantly switch back and forth between full and brief headers.

--
Christopher Howard
choward@indicium.us
http://www.indicium.us
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