New Mozilla-based Mail Client: Minotaur

Ant writes "Minotaur is a redesign of the Mozilla mail component. Our goal is to produce a cross platform stand alone mail application using the XUL user interface language. We are modeling ourselves after the Phoenix rewrite of the Mozilla browser. Our intended customer is someone who uses Phoenix (or another non mozilla.exe browser) as their primary browser and wants a mail client based on mozilla that "plays nice" with their browser. Currently, mozilla -mail is not a good option for these users because link clicks and attachments end up going to mozilla browser windows instead of the preferred browser. In addition, by focusing solely on stand alone mail, we believe we can make some dents in the overall footprint and performance of the mail client by removing components and chrome we don't need."

Comments

Feature request

[nut]

I want to be able to put my mail on a shared FAT32 drive, and have access to my email seamlessly whether I boot up in Windows or Linux

Re:Feature request

[larien]

I started using IMAP for this; I have a PC at home which does my ADSL dialup & acts as router/firewall box using NAT for my other computers. I copied all my mail to the server's IMAP folders and now I can access mail from Windows or linux equally well. Added to this, IMP means I can use mail anywhere with an SSL web browser!

As for shared FAT32 drive, can't you mount the FAT32 in linux and symlink the mail folders directory in linux to the location on the windows drive? Never tried it, but it should be possible...

Re:Feature request

[borgdows]

Minotaur has nothing to do with that... even current Mozilla Mail can do that... you only have to specify the email client a directory where to save mail (whatever this directory is : fat32, nfs, floppy, ...)

I forgotten the command to specify directory, is there a Mozilla guru reading?

Re:Feature request

[Pembers]

As for shared FAT32 drive, can't you mount the FAT32 in linux and symlink the mail folders directory in linux to the location on the windows drive?

I had something like this working for a while with Netscape 4, when I was dual-booting between Red Hat 6 and Windows 98. As long as the mail program doesn't want to do any operations that aren't supported on FAT32 (I doubt it would), everything should be fine.

One thing that may trip you up is that the mail program creates index files for each of your mail folders to speed up access to them. In Netscape, at least, the naming convention was different in the two operating systems. That means that if you boot one OS, download some mail, and boot the other OS, (some of) your mail folders are newer than their indexes in that OS. This makes it think that you've hacked the folder manually, so it rebuilds the indexes to reflect your changes. Worse than that, neither version of the mail program recognises the other's index files, so it lists them as folders - but then claims they're not in the expected format.

My solution to this was rather than symlinking the directory that contained the mail folders, I created symlinks for each folder and its index file. This worked for me because the structure of my folders doesn't change very much. If you regularly create and rearrange folders, you might find it useful to run the Linux program with a wrapper script that recreates the symlinks.

Having said all of that, the Mozilla developers are probably aware of this problem. I wouldn't swear to it, but I think Mozilla uses the same naming convention for indexes on all platforms, so just symlink the directory and forget about it.

Re:Feature request

[OsCarJ]

I've been doing exactly that for about a year now with Mozilla's current mail.

Just move the mail folders (sometimes takes a little digging to find them) over to the shared drive and change the Account settings to point to the new location. (Hint: if you can't find this setting it's at the bottom of the server settings screen) It works pretty well except for occasionally being a little slow to index folders.

Now I just wish I could figure out how to do the same thing with prefs and bookmarks.

Re:Feature request

[Moloch666]

May I ask what mail server software you are using for IMAP? I've been wanting to run an email server but one of the biggest hurdles is figuring out what software to use. This will be my first time setting up a mail server in linux.

Re:Feature request

[Phroggy]

I want to be able to put my mail on a shared FAT32 drive, and have access to my email seamlessly whether I boot up in Windows or Linux

Related Mozilla bugs include 58647 and 66259. Get a Bugzilla account and vote for these bugs, or contribute if you can.

Re:Feature request

[kousik]

> I forgotten the command to specify directory, is there a Mozilla guru
> reading?

I'm not a guru, but it is straightforward:

Edit -> Mail & News Account Settings -> account_name -> Server Settings -> Local directory.

I have put in a shared FAT32. Works fantastic. Once in a while I defragment the drive.

Pisses me off

[evilviper]

You know what pisses me off... Netscape/Mozilla has been around all this time now, and you STILL can't tell it to lauch an app other than Netscape Mail when you click on an e-mail link! Not just e-mail, but page editing, and the address book as well. That has been my main gripe with Netscape (besides the ever present performance and stability problems) for years.

Re:Pisses me off

[byolinux]

I use Outlook in the Office with Mozilla and at home use Mozilla and Safari both with Mail.app -- when you install Mozilla, just do a browser only installation, then it will use your existing mail client.

HTH

Re:Pisses me off

[GiMP]

Phoenix is much faster for me, although it is most obvious on my older machines on which Mozilla is too big.

I've heard this complaint before and almost always it is because someone didn't read the FAQ. You must nuke your old Mozilla preferences (~/.mozilla in unix) before starting Phoenix; alternatively, you can create a new profile for Phoenix (-ProfileWizard or -ProfileManager). Phoenix will be very slow if you use a profile created by 'regular' Mozilla.

IMAP proxy?

[jm91509]

Feature request I suppose.

Allow for an IMAP/POP3 proxy to allow access to webmail accounts from inside a firewall without using ssh tunneling stuff.

excellent!!

[garglblaster]

Actually this is what I've been waiting for some time now!

In fact I think it's a great idea to get away from the "kitchen sink" type of software packages and move on to more specialized programs that focus on one task and do it right!

Re:excellent!!

[TheRaven64]

One of the key features of the *NIX philosophy is that programs should have a few (or ideally one) features which they do really well. Vim / emacs (Please delete as appropriate) is a good text editor, but that's all. gcc is a good C compiler. grep is a good search function. If you want something complicated, then you join multiple simple programs together. If you need to spellcheck a document, then your editor should pipe it through ispell (or equivalent) and parse the results. This amount of modularity meant that you could build very complicated programs out of shell scripts, and only have the parts you were using in memory at any given time. This seems to be being lost in the Open Source community, where everyone wants to implement their own version of everything (with one or two exceptions like gcc, although that forked for a while).

Re:excellent!!

[Richy_T]

You mean you haven't tried

gcc -O2 -Wall -Read_Email foo.cpp

yet?

Rich

Re:excellent!!

[ianezz]

Vim / emacs (Please delete as appropriate) is a good text editor, but that's all.

Emacs? You know, if people used to say "Emacs is a nice OS, but I prefer UNIX", there is a reason. :-)

GNU Emacs / XEmacs is to text editors what Mozilla is to web browsers (well, to "mere HTML renderers with some buttons attached" would be more appropriate). I'd go further and say that Mozilla is definitively the 21st century Emacs (a proof? Komodo).

It's made for the users, isn't it?

[termos]

we believe we can make some dents in the overall footprint and performance of the mail client by removing components and chrome we don't need
We don't need? Is it the developer who decide what the end-users needs are?

Re:It's made for the users, isn't it?

[arvindn]

You're trolling right? You've gotten modded up, so I'll reply anyway.

This isn't about removing features. They are talking about removing those parts of the mozilla code from minotaur that it doesn't make use of at all. End users won't notice anything (except the smaller size of course). Minotaur is just a mail client. So obviously it won't need the navigator/irc etc. parts of mozilla. Besides there would be some libraries that are not used by the mailnews component. So those can go too. Get it? BTW, You can learn more about how mozilla is organized here.

Re:is mozilla dying for phoenix/minotaur?

[JanneM]

No. This is what Mozilla is supposed to achieve. Mozilla really is a platform for doing browser-related stuff; the browser itself is more of a technology demonstration than an end-user app, which is why it conatins so much stuff. Projects like Phoenix/minotaur/Galeon is intended to grow out of Mozilla just like it has.

Another wheel to re-invent?

[varjag]

Currently, mozilla -mail is not a good option for these users because link clicks and attachments end up going to mozilla browser windows instead of the preferred browser.

And that's it?

Wouldn't it be easier to add an option to specify preferred browser into Mozilla Mail preferences? I am not ranting - everyone is free to do whatever they want - but right now, when Mozilla Mail is finally stable and packed with some really good features, and at the same time many FS/OSS projects starve from lack of developers, what is the point of writing yet another MUA?

All we need now is some sort of news client.

[Gannoc]

We'll call it "Hydra" or something because of some obscure reference to heads/threads.

Then, after several thousand man-hours of work, we'll finally have the feature set of mozilla available to us.... BUT IN THREE SEPARATE BINARIES.

Sweet!!!

Re:All we need now is some sort of news client.

[Telex4]

You miss the point. Mozilla isn't meant to be an end-user browser, at least not in the long term. It's a platform from which people can develop their own Internet applications (web primarily, also email, IRC, web design). Mozilla provides a really nice HTML renderer (Gecko), a really nice GUI standard (XUL), and lots of other code, to let people go out and make their own applications.

If you try out Phoenix/Galeon/etc. you'll notice they all have many features that Mozilla doesn't, and have all chosen to specialise in oe particular area. GNOME users will love Galeon, users of slow machines will love Phoenix, and so on.

That there is now a fork in the mail project is a testament to the great success of Mozilla. It will have really suceeded when we have several different mail clients, web browsers, chat clients and web designers all branched from Mozilla, all filling a different niche, all compatable with one another, and all sharing excellent new features and ideas.

Re:Chrome

[kasperd]

As long as I have a decent GUI rather then an obtuse CLI

In fact what I would like to see is a mailer split into a CLI backend and a GUI frontend. The CLI backend should do the actual sending and retrieval of messages as well as managing folders. The GUI should be just that, it shouldn't store any data on its own, and all communication it should ever do would be with the backend and the Xserver. Configuration should to as large an extent as possible be stored by the backend, but a few options need to be stored by the GUI most notably the command to invoke the backend. It would be interesting that this command could possibly include a call of ssh to run backend and frontend on different computers (with display possibly being on a third computer). The communicaiton between frontend and backend should be kept as simple as possible. If I execute the backend directly from my commandline, I want a usable interface (at least for the average geek), but I don't want no fancy features like commandline editing or message editing. I want to use the exact same interface being provided as would have been to the frontend, and this should be as easy to use as telnet to an SMTP server would.

Stability

[Malc]

I can't believe they didn't mention the feature that I find most important: separation of the mail and browser in to separate processes. This improves stability and reliability. I don't want some misbehaving browser plugin causing a browser crash that also brings down the email client and message I've been editing for the last 30 minutes. I see process separation is on the Mozilla team's TODO list, but I suspect this will achieve that goal *long* before they do.

I don't know

[lewp]

A mail client is one thing I never find myself wanting for on any platform. Even if you don't like Mozilla's bundled client (I don't), Windows users have The Bat!, Eudora, and Mulberry. I even heard Microsoft makes a mail client or two. Mac users have Eudora and Mulberry plus Mail.app and another Microsoft client. UNIX/Linux users get the always-fabulous mutt as well as Evolution and KMail. Oh, and Mulberry :D. It seems somewhere in that mess you could find one or two that meet your needs. I know I did, one for each platform. And I'm really picky about my e-mail...

That said, I did just switch to Phoenix from Mozilla because I like its interface slightly better. It may load a little faster too, but with my main client machines all being 1.1ghz or better and the same browser instance being open most of the day I don't really notice.

I don't use Mozilla's mail client, so I suppose there could be features missing or a stand-aloneness that some people want. In that case, go for it.

I just hope this doesn't take someone's time who would be working on GNOME, KDE, OO.org, or a decent replacement for Macromedia Freehand/Adobe Illustrator :).

Re:I don't know

[bogie]

All your points make sense but this one

"I just hope this doesn't take someone's time who would be working on GNOME, KDE, OO.org, or a decent replacement for Macromedia Freehand/Adobe Illustrator :)."

Remember that's not the way open source works and is actually a huge stereotype. People work on what interests them and just because they work on project doesn't mean they'd be interested in working on another project even if it were similar. Open Source developers are not just one big pool of resources that can be pushed around where popular opinion thinks they should go.

Why? Oh Why? WHY?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Why can't these developers just work on the fucking project and improve it and make it better without having to rewrite into yet another application?

I had the exact same feeling when I saw the Phoenix announcement: WHY?!

I used to work for Netscape and I know what I am talking about. Mozilla was designed as a modular app. That's what XPCOM in there is for. So the right thing to do when you start bloating is refactor: take a big component, break it into nice modules and then let the USER decide which modules to install on his machine.

This way, it's like the user composes the app out of modules, so he can install there a Mozilla, a Phoenix or a Minotaur.

I use Mozilla Mail and I know COUNTLESS bugs and problems that need to be fixed and addressed. The only reason they are not is that there are not enough engineers to do that work.

So why is engineering effort spent on these spin-offs instead of spending it on the mail product and providing the needed requirements THERE?

Hey Minotaur Team, why? Hey Scott McGregor, is the ego trip more important than your contribution to Mozilla? Does it feel better to have your own pet-project than to add your (anonymous) contribution to the mail codebase?

That was always the problem at Netscape/Mozilla: EGO. Look at JWZ, RickG, KippH, Adreesen. Big mouths, big plans, but falling short on delivery.

I don't even KNOW who works in the IE dept. at MS and they kicked Netscape's ass all the way to AOL.

Shame on you!

Re:Why? Oh Why? WHY?!

[spinlocked]

I had the exact same feeling when I saw the Phoenix announcement: WHY?!

Not affiliated with this project at all, but I thought I might comment on this. I compiled mozilla 1.3 on a fairly well spec-ed, 2-way SPARC/Solaris box a few weeks ago. Once the source was unpacked and about 4 hours later the source had almost finished building - it ran out of disk space. I was surprised.

At that point 'du' reported ~/mozilla (containing source and object files) as 1.6GB. Now that's bloated.

Personally, I don't like having the mail client integrated with the browser. I don't want HTML mail support (reading or composition). I certainly don't want any scripting support. I don't want a newsreader built in (I use pan/nget for that). I want smarter filtering capabilities, or no filtering capabilities and lastly I don't want any of the offline reading support. I'm not even sure I want the address book.

I'm all for splitting the applications. I seldom use the composer (but it's nice to have there, when I need it). The IRC client is installed but has never been used, it's just wasting space. I usually run the mail client on one machine and the browser on another so that they're on different screens.

Mozilla mail is the certainly the nicest IMAP client that I've come across, but I want the smallest possible RSS (especially on SunRay servers). A fresh start is often a good way of clearing out the cruft in a application. It's now at the point where it's almost unusable on a 5 year old machine.

Apple Plug

[mrpuffypants]

Well, but this is all about what Apple is doing with their iApps:

Wanna make a movie? iMovie
Read your mail? Mail
Chat? iChat

I like this approach a lot better than a bloated program that has 50 features I never use. When I just want to read email and look at my calendar I just open up Mail and iCal. Done simply and effectively.

put this in your user.js file...

[bill_mcgonigle]

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.mailt o", true);

(of course take out the space between 'mailt' and
'o' because Slashdot's lameness filter is designed to prevent information sharing among technical folks) ...and it will use the system-defined mailer. Don't ask me why this isn't the default...

The user.js file in in your Mozilla profile - it there isn't one, just make a new one. user.js doesn't get whacked by upgrades.

2nd rule of software

[tomk]

I thought the first rule of software was: "No software is truly complete until it can read email".

I guess we need a second rule: "Once software reads email, it must be split into pieces."

I'm waiting for a third rule: "Each piece must then evolve until it can read email again."

It's the circle of life.

Thank you

[Ars-Fartsica]

I'll tell you why, because downloading some source and changing a file menu is how these guys want to get notariety. Phoenix and Minotaur are pointless forks designed to get someone free cred points on the back of anothers' work.

Re:Thank you

[supercargo]

Your post and its parent are barely worth commenting on, but I'll give it shot: Mozilla is a whole lot more than I want or will ever use (integrated IRC? Composer?), Phoenix is small and fast, which is a beautiful thing. Have you ever used Lotus Notes? That's another do-it-all app that seeks to replace your operating system with components half as good as those developed for a specific task.

Phoenix and Minotaur are pointless forks designed to get someone free cred points on the back of anothers' work.

What exactly is the problem with standing on the shoulders of giants?

Freedom for the people! Liberate mail from the evil clutches of the Web Browser!

Re:What's the big deal with IMAP

[nolife]

Really?

As others have stated already... IMAP is a much better cross platform solution, and with procmail and fetchmail, it gets even better.

Not to be redundant but I'll give you more advantages.

You can use ANY IMAP capable client on any platform with out having to import, export, or convert any messages. Pine, Evolution, Mahogany, Outlook Express, Pegasus, Opera 7.x, Mozilla, Web based like IMP, SquirrelMail and many others.
The mail, all folders, and all attachments are easy to backup and restore by tar.gz'ing your mail directory.
You can access all of your mail from ANY internet computer (depending on your home network setup) with any IMAP client. This can be secured via SSH or SSL.
Works seemlessly with procmail to direct your mail into specific folders and for spam filtering. These filters are not client specific so there is no need to create rules for every mail client that you plan on using.

Fetchmail to get your mail from other IMAP and POP (and others) servers (can use SSH and SSL also).
Anyone that has a cross platform need, does not want to constantly import and convert mail formats, and only wants to deal with filters one time should be using this trio.

Search Google for any of these for mounds of configuration and installation tips.

Argh... links!

[mivok]

link clicks and attachments end up going to mozilla browser windows instead of the preferred browser.

This has been my major gripe with much of the KDE tools (and pretty much any integrated system which simply assumes you must be running all of their tools because you happen to like one). I run phoenix, and getting knewsticker or kmerlin (msn client) to open links in phoenix is pretty much impossible (yes yes.. I know.. use the source luke and all that, but thats time I dont have at the moment - too busy posting to slashdot :P ).
And the other example in windows, where any link you click automanically (sic) opens everything in iexplore, despite setting the default browser as phoenix.

A cry out to developers.. please please PLEASE if you have highlighted links in your app, let the user configure which browser they want to start it up in. And not through some weird edit /etc/unituitivename/.hidden_weird_config_file and add the line "faj3fs.kfj.browserN = phoenix", but in the normal settings dialogue. (gaim does this, but there are very few others that I have seen that do).

Hopefully non-sucking IMAP support

[cras]

I can't believe how bad the IMAP code is for pretty much all of the IMAP clients. Authors haven't probably even bothered to read the whole RFC and assume way too much how servers behave. I haven't found a single usable IMAP client for X that plays nicely with other IMAP clients modifying the mailbox.

Here's something to read for IMAP client authors: IMAP Client Coding HOWTO.

My Dream Mail Client

[praxis]

What I would love to see (and will start writing myself when I have some extra time in a few months unless someone starts before me) is a cross platform, centralized data, M2-like (M2 is Opera 7's client with heavy use of virtual folders a la Evolution), easy to use mail client that supports flowed text, does not display the HTML version of email if a text part is available, does not download images unless I tell it to (on a per-message basis), syncronizes with Palm devices, has a spell checker and has PGP or GPG integration. And a full featured address book is a must as well, that also syncronizes with Palm devices. Calendar and todo list are secondary, but also welcome additions. I guess I am really looking for the offsping of M2 and Outlook.

If something like that exists, please let me know. The closes I found so far is M2.