Subject: [john: Re: COMSAT]

From: [email-masked] (John Conover)
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 95 23:44 PST

Attached is a peice of correspondence between [email-masked] (author
of xbuffy.) It is a short description of the way I use procmail/smartlist
as a text based email information retrieveal system. Hit 'd' if you don't
care, use anything find interesting if you do.

	John

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 95 23:41 PST
From: john (John Conover)
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: COMSAT
Reply-to: John Conover <[email-masked]>
Return-Receipt-To: [email-masked]
Read-Receipt-To: [email-masked]
Content-Length: 2127

Eric Hilding writes:

 > Hi, John:  Sorry I can't answer this, but as I am considering
 > procmail, etc., was wondering if you also use formail and the
 > "SmartList" and/or any other auto-reply robot type program
 > with procmail?

Yes, both procmail and smartlist. In point of fact, I use them like
crazy, and couldn't live without them. I get 22 lists (usually more,
but I just "pruned" the list,) and have my client list, 14 of them,
all sat up on Xbuffy, procmail, and smartlist. When something comes
in, if it is from a client, it uses smartlist to build an archive, and
puts the message into my spool directory, in the client's file, and
lights up a button on xbuffy, and rings the bell. If it is from a
list, it undigests it, and puts it in the spool directory, and xbuffy
changes the color of the button without ringing the bell (eg., junk
priority.)

I have two additional buttons, one for mail receipts, which get
filtered and put in a separate spool directory, and an archive
button. If I want to fetch a message, I send a request to the smarlist
alias, and it searches the archive, returning the message, so I can
'r' or 'f' it. Since it comes back as a mail into the spool directory,
it is put in a separate file, which lights up a button on xbuffy.

The smartlist archive "lives" in my own directory, and I wrote a
document search system that is spun off of the smartlist scripts.

the procmail/smartlist/xbuffy combo is kind of neat. I get about 300
emails a day, and starting the sorting/collation/distribution
functions when the mail arrives (including auto-archiving of all
clients, etc.,) is a very powerful management tool. Handle reading,
routing, etc., like a breeze.

I use emacs rmail (vm, sometimes,) as the MUA, and have the BCC: set
to myself, so when I mail anything, a copy is routed back to me. This
is intercepted, and if it to a client, procmail sends it to the
smartlist/archive. I would probably prefere to use elm, but the
locking problem my spool directory scares me.

	John

-- 

John Conover, 631 Lamont Ct., Campbell, CA., 95008, USA.
VOX 408.370.2688, FAX 408.379.9602
[email-masked]

-- 

John Conover, 631 Lamont Ct., Campbell, CA., 95008, USA.
VOX 408.370.2688, FAX 408.379.9602
[email-masked]