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Mailek is a collection of tools, configuration, documentation, and suggestions for dealing with user email on Plan 9 systems. It's a MUA.

The Mailek core tools intend to provide a command programming interface around functionality exposed by select lower-level components of Upas, the venerable Plan 9 email system.

Following is a listing of core tools with short descriptions and pointers to their respective complete documentation:

• mailek/box(1) — manipulates accounts and mailboxes,
• mailek/send(1) — dispatches outbound mail,
• mailek/select(1) — runs queries on mailboxes,
• mailek/exec(1) — runs commands on selected emails,
• mailek/print(1) — formats components of emails for display,
• mailek/filters(1) — automatic, pluggable message transformation.

A suite of user-centric command-line and textual interfaces is provided alongside and backed by the core tools. These are distinguished from the core group by the purpose of providing convenience in day-to-day emailing workflows. This distinction is largely arbitrary; all the tools work with the exact same objects, and — providing we have done a good job — should compose and work together just as well. They are listed here:

• mailek/list(1) — renders a message list interface,
• mailek/open(1) — renders a message interface,
• mailek/write(1) — message compose command-interface.

Textual interfaces are implemented with rio(4) windows holding plumbable text glued with simple but effective plumber(4) rules and contextual rc(1) shells. The simplicity of this interface blends the world of email with user's native environment, letting them accomplish auxiliary tasks such as text editing, formatting, spell checking, and similar, with tools and existing workflows they are familiar with.

All of the above-mentioned programs are supported by a trivial tree-structured per-user information base storing items ranging from mailbox and relay access details, to custom display rules and filters.

The database, together with mailek/box(1) and (transparently) mailek/send(1), may prove useful on its own as an easy way to set up email access, even to those who prefer not to use the whole package.

As hinted in the introduction the Mailek programs hang quite heavily on several key functions provided by Upas, which do all the actually heavy email work. They are listed here for reference:

• upas/fs(4) — mailbox-as-a-fileserver, a 10x program,
• upas/smtp(8) — dispatches mail towards destination,
• upas/marshal(8) — (RFC822) message formatting filter,
• /bin/myupassend — is where the Upas fuse is blown.

Besides these select executables and their select interfaces no other part of Upas is currently being relied upon or is even expected to continue working in any way for the (individual) user who installs Mailek.

This could change so stay tuned if it affects you, or better yet provide suggestions or code to work around it.

Mailek grew out of (author's) frustration of having to deal with a loosely documented email system with lots of moving parts and assumptions, whose main strength of being adaptable to complex needs and environments is very much a burden when all one wants is access remotely hosted mail and reply to it.

mk install

Binding a shorthand path for convenient interactive use is strongly advised:

mkdir /bin/m
bind /bin/mailek /bin/m

NOTE: /bin/mailek/ must exist as installed; this is the path programs use internally to refer to each other.

Add these rules to your plumbing:

type is text
data matches '✉([0-9][0-9]*)/?(.+)?'
plumb start window mailek/open $1 $2

type is text
data matches '[^/][a-zA-Z0-9_+.\-~/]+@[a-zA-Z0-9_+.\-]*'
plumb to sendmail
plumb start window mailek/write $0

Example 1. Find and format ten most recent unread emails:

m/select -10 -unread | m/print id from to subject

Example 2. Delete all messages by youtube.com:

m/select -is from '@youtube.com$' | m/do rm .

Copyright (c) 2020 [email protected]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.