[xubuntu-users] What's a better gnome mail client than Thunderbird?

[Petter Adsen]

On Tue, 4 Aug 2015 14:44:55 +0200
Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 4 Aug 2015 14:22:31 +0200
> Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at rocketmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Tue, 4 Aug 2015 14:12:03 +0200, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> > >On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 20:55:13 -0400
> > >JMZ <florentior at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Hi,
> > >> 
> > >> Okay I've been using Thunderbird for years (and before that pine).
> > >> pine worked better (more reliable) but I need a gui mail client now.
> > >
> > >How is Thunderbird not a "GUI mail client"?
> > 
> > The second sentence from the OP is
> > 
> > >> pine worked better (more reliable) but I need a gui mail client now.
> > 
> > Since pine is text based,
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_%28email_client%29 , and Thunderbird
> > worked less reliable for the OP, the OP now asks for an alternative MUA
> > that is more reliable than the clumsy Thunderbird, not to mention
> > that many people for good reasons dislike the Mozilla policy. The OP
> > didn't claim that Thunderbird is a text based MUA without a GUI.
> 
> I see. I fail to see how Thunderbird is unreliable (I don't seem to
> have any problems with it, unlike Evolution which crashed a lot here -
> and I had a couple of crashes with Claws too), but everyone can have
> their own experience with it.

We are getting into very subjective territory here, but I can't
remember Claws ever crashing on me. I can't comment on Thunderbird,
since I've never really liked it, and thus haven't used it enough to
say.

> Of course since people are using subjective terms to describe their
> experience ("better", "clumsy"...), it's difficult to assert what is
> *objectively* asked for ;-)  For me Thunderbird is less clumy for
> e-mail than Claws, for example (I still use Claws for newsgroups,
> though), so I'd have a hard time recommending Claws over Thunderbird.

This is where it gets subjective, yes :) I just don't agree with you :)
Still, the OP has eliminated Thunderbird himself, and AFAIK that pretty
much leaves him with Claws, Sylpheed and Balsa to choose from.

> I'd add that both Thunderbird and Claws have plugins (although
> Thunderbird may have more third-party plugins than Claws, or at least
> they are more easily discovered and installed), which allow to add
> functionality and tweak the UI to some extent.

With Claws, the plugins are included in the distribution, including a
"demo" plugin for those who would like to write their own. There is
also a list of scripts and similar things on the website, to either be
used directly or used as examples when writing your own. I haven't
looked elsewhere. Some scripts are also posted to the mailing list from
time to time.

> While there used to be concerns about Thunderbird's ongoing
> development, I'm not sure that Claws' development is much more active...

Claws 3.12.0 was released just a couple of weeks ago, and commits to
git are frequent.

The OP asked for lightweight GTK mail clients, the truth is that there
is a finite number to choose from. I just happen to like Claws better
than the others. He might not like it at all, but it does fit what he
was asking for.

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 213 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/xubuntu-users/attachments/20150804/e89745ff/attachment.sig>