TkMail - a X Window Mail Reader

TkMail v2.0

TkMail v2.0 is an X windows interface to reading mail built using Tcl/Tk and Perl. Reading, sending, and managing mail messages can almost all be done using only the mouse (except for the body of the message, of course).

TkMail supports the standard mailx format for folders. If you use the MH program and store your mail in that format, check out exmh. NOTE: TkMail currenly only works with Tk version 3.6. It is compatible with both Perl4 and Perl5.

Major Features:

listbox interface to messages for easy click and read
dynamic (at startup) menus for quick access to mail folders for reading, copying, and moving messages
button bar for quick composing, replying to, and forwarding of mail messages
built in 'biff' icon for notification of new mail
easy inclusion of files into message compositions with automatic uuencoding and compression, if desired
access alternate editor for compositions to send
spell check compositions using a X windows interface (must have the ispell program version 3.0.09, not 4.0!)
reads aliases from either standard .mailrc or elm aliases.txt
easy piping of message text through unix filters (nice for PGP)
emacs-like key-bindings for text editing
multiple viewers can be opened on different or the same folder
emacs-like autosave (kinda slow though)
sorting of messages on any field and the ability to write out the folder physically in that order
simple MIME reading and compostion tools
user-friendly options editor
more powerful tools for choosing how to archive messages received and sent according to message header content
message views can be detached from the main viewer
can rebuild folder menus inside program

WARNING: Unfortunately, unix mail handling is not standard across all platforms or even versions of operatings systems, so don't trust TkMail without testing! Make a backup copy of your ~/mbox file and some of your folders and then test out the features on those files.

The following pictures show the major elements of the user interface.

The main viewer.
The compose window.
The options editor.

To download a copy of the program (tkmail.tar.gz @ 167K), click here.

TkMail v4.0

TkMail v4.0 is currenly "in the works". This is not only a port to Tk4.0 but also makes the major change of dropping the Perl background server process in favor of a C code extension to Tcl. It isn't that I no longer like Perl, but getting the connection between the Perl and Tcl processes to work reliably on all platforms has proved nearly impossible. I also plan to have support for both BSD and MMDF format folders as well as some support for MH format folders. The first betas are now out and can be found in the BETA directory of the TkMail ftp site.

Mailing Lists

Two mail lists exists for discussions on TkMail. The first list, tkmail-l, is a general purpose list while the send, tkmail-dev, is for detailed development issues. To join either mailing list, send a message to

        listserv@mailbox.slac.stanford.edu

in which the first line of the BODY is

        subscribe tkmail-l [your_address]
or
        subscribe tkmail-dev [your_address]

Obviously, [your_address] should be replaced with your address and is optional (defaults to address in From header).

Archives from both lists are accessible on the web at the following URLs: