Re: [Nmh-workers] Hybrid approach

[Ken Hornstein]

>Now it is dawning upon me that I could use Claws Mail most of the time, 
>for my day-to-day needs, and nmh/mailutils for my special needs.
>It would be a hybrid approach, in which the same messages/folders are 
>used by two different systems: Claws Mail and nmh/mailutils.
>
>Has anyone tried anything like this yet? Could I run into some 
>incompatibilities?

I personally use exmh for a lot of things, and a hybrid approach is
common for many people.  A number of people use Claws Mail.  But I feel
two things should be mentioned when it comes to Claws Mail:

1) Claws Mail, AFAIK, uses none of the MH/nmh commands; it just uses the MH
   folder format.  As others have mentioned, you can use some of the
   nmh tools with Claws Mail, but it's not the intended use.  This is
   in contrast to front-ends like exmh or MH-E, which actually do use
   nmh tools underneath.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each
   approach.

2) Item #1 is not actually true, because while Claws Mail does CLAIM to
   support the MH folder format, that is not technically true.  Specifically,
   it does not lock the sequences file so if you use any other nmh tool
   simultaneously with Claws Mail you're going to get a corrupted sequence
   file.  When Steve Rader brought this up on the Claws Mail mailing list,
   the response he got was ... well, the politest description I can think
   of is "lame".  This was his motivation to write MH-V.

--Ken