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What more you need to signature support? Image for it?

just add end

"-- " and after it all email clients reads it as signature.

HTML email is the work of evil. Stick with plain-text!

RTF maybe...

kmail has support for signatures.
You can insert a signature in kmail itself, let kmail read it from a file or let kmail use the output of a command as signature

Aleksandersen, that's the kind of view that I guess keeps kmail rather ugly and anal retensive with secruity. It's also a view that needs to change if the linux community wants to grow, wants to convince windows users to switch to linux.

I hate the fact that if I get photo's I have to open them up to view, I hate the fact that I cannot write the sort of graphical e-mails I used to write on windows, which is why I dumped kmail and am looking for a replacement. You may think html is the work of evil, but it is what people want. So for the hardcore secruity minded people perhaps such features should be turned off, but from what I have seen such features are what people want.

I look towards apple's next mail release as what kmail should be aiming for. I can't help but wonder if they don't start lookign towards that, those of us who need graphical e-mail clients will dump our linux platform and install apple when they release boxed versions of their os for pc's, which I have been told is coming. But alas, it appears I can install evolution on kde, so I guess I will switch to that e-mail client until a time where kmail is usable for me.

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Originally posted by alienwithin
I hate the fact that if I get photo's I have to open them up to view

That is not neccesary, kmail kan show them inline.

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I will switch to that e-mail client until a time where kmail is usable for me.

The biggest problem of kmail is the lack of developers to implement all the desired features.
I hope that with kmail 4 available on windows and macos, more people will get attracted to the application, see it's potential and help to extend it towards a more modern mailer application with better imap support and composing html messages

personally I think porting kde to windows and mac is a waste of time, I very much doubt many people will use. I would love to be proven wrong, and see people pick it up and start working on kde applications, but looking from the point of view of a windows user who recently switched to linux, I see no reason to use kde on windows. And then looking at apple, and comparing it to kde, I personally think using kde on apple would be like downgrading. When you have such feature rich e-mail programs on both windows and apple, I would see it as pointless for any apple or windows user to use kmail.

I personally feel, that with the release of Vista, the corporate world, and home users are looking around at something else, not wanting to upgrade to Vista, but wanting to have something different and more secure. Linux is at a point, where if kde and gnome can put forward in their next releases something special, a lot more people will jump to linux. With gnome, evolution is a strong point for companies that I know are looking towards linux, but kde really is weak on e-mail, and whether it means taking some people off other projects and asking them to work on kmail to improve it, perhaps that is an option that should be considered. And likewise, with kopete, those involved with that would likewise succed in bringing a lot of gamers permantly to linux if they created a pluggin for xfire. There are little things that if the kde team did, would increase the flow of users to linux, for gamers it is kopete having an xfire pluggin, for businesses it is a decent e-mail client, which is also something that most windows home users would look towards. Whether developers like it the way of apple's next mail release is what people are after with email, html rich, photo's voice clips, videos embedded in emails.

The KDE team need to focus on basic things like e-mail or they will end up lossing out because I feel gnome is going to start pushing ahead in these areas, and that once apple starts selling it's boxed version to pc's linux will miss out on the chance it had to gain a vast amount of windows users.

I'm only new to linux, I wish there was something I could do to help do this, but at this point I know nothing of writing programs

AFAIK because of the platform independency of Qt, it is hardly any effort to port KDE to Windows, and when writing KDE-applications, like kmail, it's even less effort to support windows as well.

The benefit for kde is that the userbase gets expanded: they will have potential users on windows, macos, linux and unix.
That covers about 98% of the computer market.

The benefit for the user that wants to move away from windows is that they can start using linux compliant applications on Windows first and get used to them. This wil make migrating a lot less painfull. At the moment Windows users that switch not only need to get used to the new environment, but also to a lot of new applications..


If we want to stay ahead of gnome like you mentioned, we need to expand our user market.
Keep in mind that key applications of gnome, like evolution, gaim and gimp, all run on Windows as well.
With opensource, the more users you can get, the bigger the chance that you attract new developers that can help expanding the feature set of the core applications.
At the moment, projects like kdepim and koffice are under powered when it comes to developers. If both would stay to a linux only market, i don't think that would change.

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Originally posted by alienwithin
When you have such feature rich e-mail programs on both windows and apple, I would see it as pointless for any apple or windows user to use kmail.

Your definition of "feature rich" and mine obviously differ. I don't use HTML email because I simply abhor the inevitable crap that most people include when using HTML, I don't want that kind of crap in my mailbox thank you very much, and receiving and sending messages is so much faster when using plain text. To me, an email simply does not look right unless it is not only in plain text but a fixed width font. Kmail is the only program, that I know of, that allows me to set different font sizes and styles for the folder and index lists, and the message and composition panes, so when I have to occasionally use windows then I would LOVE to be able to still use Kmail, and Konqueror for that matter, on native windows without resorting to vmware hacks.

The only people I know who use HTML email, in the enterprise or domestic arenas, are folks who are very naive about the internet. In my experience, almost without exception, the folks that have been using email for more than 5 years adopt plain text as the norm and only use HTML occasionally when appropriate.

you can set Kmail to pick HTML if there is a choise between HTML and txt messages, you can even set Kmail to pick up external content for the mail (Warning!).

However, most people that use HTML and/or external content are either SPAM or KIDS or Newsletters. Question is if you want to load their content automatically.... but you can...

I like Kmail mostly in the way it is... I just think there should be a filter that searches ALL folders, not just the current one. I have some folders that are partially overlapping in content and sometimes my mail gets filtered incorrectly (due to keywords) and place in the wrong folder.

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Originally posted by grimweb
However, most people that use HTML and/or external content are either SPAM or KIDS or Newsletters. Question is if you want to load their content automatically.... but you can...

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. As someone who has just recently switched to KMail/Kontact, the lack of proper HTML support is what is causing me the most frustration at this point. I'm not a spammer or kid, but a consultant that needs to deal with HTML based e-mails every day. The reading support in KMail is good (love the no external feature), but the composing support is rather limited.

For example, what is most recently burning me and frustrating my clients is when they use Outlook to send a message with color highlighting (HTML) and I use KMail to reply, if I don't make use of "HTML" KMail automatically replies with plain text only. In most cases it doesn't preserve any of the HTML formatting of the original message in either replies or forwards unless you forward the message as an attachment.

The client I am referring to is a Fortune 500 company - some of their execs may act like kids or even big babies sometimes, but HTML definitely has business purposes.

I've simply never come across this situation... I just noticed that it is not possible to send HTML mails by default... first time I ever checked it...

Going that kids also use Kmail maybe the feature would be handy...

Still HTML-mail is wrong, but I guess sometimes you have to go with the flow...

btw: why are they so worried about a message they wrote themselves? shouldn't they be more worried about your awnser to it?

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Originally posted by AVonGauss
The client I am referring to is a Fortune 500 company - some of their execs may act like kids or even big babies sometimes, but HTML definitely has business purposes.

Presumably you are using IMAP, as a business user, so then consider using Thunderbird for this class of client. Or, do them a favour and deliberately use plan text replies to demonstrate how silly their gawdy HTML emails are.

I would rather the limited developer time spent on Kmail go towards making the software more robust than having them try to debug extra bloat just to cater to this business exec class of user that are too naive to know how to use email properly.

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Originally posted by markc
Presumably you are using IMAP, as a business user, so then consider using Thunderbird for this class of client. Or, do them a favour and deliberately use plan text replies to demonstrate how silly their gawdy HTML emails are.

I would rather the limited developer time spent on Kmail go towards making the software more robust than having them try to debug extra bloat just to cater to this business exec class of user that are too naive to know how to use email properly.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately Thunderbird would only handle my needs as far as regular e-mail, but not contacts or scheduling. Not that it really matters, but I'm actually using a good old fashion POP server to receive e-mail.

I can somewhat understand your view of HTML mail, but I think you should remember that it came about for a reason - it's not going to go away. It's been a while, but if I remember correctly its been growing in use since the 1999 era.

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Originally posted by grimweb
I've simply never come across this situation... I just noticed that it is not possible to send HTML mails by default... first time I ever checked it...

Going that kids also use Kmail maybe the feature would be handy...

Still HTML-mail is wrong, but I guess sometimes you have to go with the flow...

btw: why are they so worried about a message they wrote themselves? shouldn't they be more worried about your awnser to it?

It's not so much that they are worried about the previous messages containing the formatting, its that when KMail decides to reply in plain text mode their e-mail client automatically defaults to replying in plain text as well.

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Originally posted by AVonGauss
Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately Thunderbird would only handle my needs as far as regular e-mail, but not contacts or scheduling. Not that it really matters, but I'm actually using a good old fashion POP server to receive e-mail.

Well you could probably solve most of your problem if you organised yourself an IMAP email account and used Kmail for most of your needs, move those F500 HTML emails into a custom folder, then fire up Thunderbird just to respond to those emails only.

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Originally posted by AVonGauss
I can somewhat understand your view of HTML mail, but I think you should remember that it came about for a reason - it's not going to go away. It's been a while, but if I remember correctly its been growing in use since the 1999 era.

Of course, it's the default in TB and some others, so the number of new internet users that start using email in HTML format has steadily risen but it has not overwhelmingly become the majority case, even after 8 years. As I mentioned previously, most people I am aware of, move towards using plain text the longer they use email in general. Mostly because the longer someone uses email the more they will get yelled at to stop using HTML email and eventually they will get a clue and only use HTML email when absolutely necessary. Dare I say the "proper and mature" way to use HTML in email messages is to put any amount of HTML presentation on a website, perhaps via blogging software, and simply point to it an email.

Hi Marc! Thank you for your suggestion regarding IMAP, that would help me be able to use multiple programs to accomplish the same tasks, but thats not really what I am looking to do. Admittedly the first couple of attempts ended in frustration, but I am impressed that I am able to use Kontact 1.2.4 for almost everything that I used to use Outlook for...

I think it's safe to say we are going to fundamentally disagree on the topic of HTML in mail message...

Concerning this:

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Originally posted by markc

Quoted

Originally posted by AVonGauss
The client I am referring to is a Fortune 500 company - some of their execs may act like kids or even big babies sometimes, but HTML definitely has business purposes.

Presumably you are using IMAP, as a business user, so then consider using Thunderbird for this class of client. Or, do them a favour and deliberately use plan text replies to demonstrate how silly their gawdy HTML emails are.

I would rather the limited developer time spent on Kmail go towards making the software more robust than having them try to debug extra bloat just to cater to this business exec class of user that are too naive to know how to use email properly.

IOW, kmail is not intended for use in the business world. It would save everyone a lot of time if this were plainly stated up front.

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Originally posted by IBM029user
IOW, kmail is not intended for use in the business world. It would save everyone a lot of time if this were plainly stated up front.

I'm not sure where that came from, I sure wasn't trying to imply that. The discussion was revolving around HTML in mail and whether it is just for hobbyists and/or business purposes.

As a long time Outlook user, for better or worse, in my opinion right now Kontact is the only viable Linux alternative.