Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[David De La Harpe Golden]

On 27/06/11 01:00, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> David De La Harpe Golden<address@hidden>  writes:
>
> > You are talking about changing send-mail-function (see subject line).
> > A function that calls xdg-email to open an email for sending via the
> > user's preferred email client on an x11 desktop is a possible value,
> > with the advantage that said preferred email client is likely already
> > configured to send somewhere useful.
>
> I see.  That certainly sounds like an option.  Is there a way to query
> xdg-email before calling it to find out whether you'll end up in an
> email client that's already configured for outgoing SMTP?

Nope, not that I can see anyway.  It has some return codes, but they're 
gross "no mail client whatsoever" problems.  emacs could try for it, and 
if it fails totally (either missing completely or nonzero return) try 
something else, but there is still a possibility of successfully opening 
the mail in a mail client that isn't properly configured.

There are also users who use emacs _as_ their preferred email client in 
the xdg-email sense e.g. [1] (Come to think of it I could start doing 
so, not supporting people using thunderbird as part of my job anymore). 
 Then there is or was some risk of deadlock if emacsclient is used, and 
even if that is avoided, then it could have the peculiar/annoying result 
of opening in emacs again. Could set an env var when forking off 
xdg-email and test for it.

[1]
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-04/msg00606.html
From:   Manoj Srivastava
Subject:        Re: Default of send-mail-function
Date:   Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:40:57 -0500