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Notes for af v2.4
-----------------
Warning!
--------
This version of af is a development release, not a production release.
It has not gone through any lengthy beta-testing phase, but is relatively
fresh from the developer's machine. Therefore a degree of caution is
certainly a good idea. Please make sure that anyone you give this
version to is aware that it is a development release.
What is af?
------------
Af is an Emacs-like electronic mail user agent which is distributed
under the terms of the GNU general public license (see COPYING for
details). It is NOT an Emacs Lisp package to run under Emacs, it is
a stand alone package which happens to have an Emacs-like interface
by default.
Af has decent facilities for handling folders: you can open multiple
folders at the same time; split the screen in two and display two
different folders in the two "windows"; kill messages from one folder
and then yank them back into another (cut-and-paste if you're not used
to Emacs terminology); and many other things that Emacs users are used
to doing with text.
Af also has facilities for handling groups of messages in one go;
which can be especially handy if you deal with large-volume mailing
lists on a daily basis. Generally, if you need to process large
volumes of mail daily, then you may well benefit from using af.
Af is also very configurable (it can do a halfway decent impersonation
of several other mailers). You can change what keys do, set variables
to change the way things work, and even create your own macros. One
day you'll probably be able to write your own commands too, but that's
still a way off.
Af is as RFC compliant as possible (barring bugs). It supports POP3,
and reading and sending MIME mail. You can use almost anything to
send mail: sendmail, smail, qmail, MMDF, or even direct connections to
an SMTP server.
All this in a package that seems to be smaller than most full-screen
mail-readers around. I don't know why it's smaller, since it doesn't
lack features, but it is.
What af isn't
-------------
Af is NOT another mail package written in elisp to run under GNU Emacs
(sorry to shout, but mention the words "mail" and "Emacs" in one
sentence and everyone seems to jump to that conclusion). It simply
has an interface that is very similar to Emacs, to make learning to
use it simple for Emacs users.
Af is not a package that holds your hand, and leads you through the
process of handling your mail. Like Emacs, there are a lot of
commands (and mysterious key combinations) in af, and learning to use
it well is likely to take some time. That said, Emacs users should be
able to do the basic stuff pretty quickly, and relative newcomers have
managed to use af quite effectively.
Af has several shortcomings (which are basically due to the lack of
time on my part). There is no X interface as yet; the extension
language is almost entirely incomplete, and various other features I'd
like to see one day aren't done yet. I'm releasing it now, partly to
see if anyone actually has a use for it, partly to get some feedback
about what direction to take in the future, but mostly because the
people who use af find it a very good tool as it stands, and I think
that it's quite usable now.
What does af run on?
--------------------
Basically, af should run on any modern (ie post-1982) Un*x. It was
originally developed on a machine with a 68000 processor, 1.5 MB of
RAM and a 40 MB hard drive; so it tends to run quite well on a small
machine (until you start trying to read huge folders, anyway).
It is distinctly possible that you might have small difficulties in
porting af to a new machine, but there shouldn't be any really major
problems.
And Finally
-----------
If you have any bug reports, suggestions for features other than those
above or comments on existing or outstanding features, then mail them
to the af team. Feedback is especially welcome, since only a few people
have had any significant input in developing the interface so far (though
most of them are pretty hard to please), and the more we know about what
users like and dislike the better we can make it.
You can contact us at: af-bug@csv.warwick.ac.uk
There is also a mailing list for af users, intended for announcements of
new features, discussions of af and so on. To subscribe, send mail to
"majordomo@csv.warwick.ac.uk". The body of the message should consist
of the single line:
subscribe af-user
You should receive a message of confirmation soon afterwards.
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