I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?

On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
<bilofsky2@gmail.com> wrote:

>I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?

Thunderbird:

<https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/>

On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:

> I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?

I second Thunderbird.

To copy emails from Agent to Thunderbird,
see this message:

<https://groups.google.com/g/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/c/6yW3XAY0ltY/m/eA1k5tbkAgAJ>
<https://alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.narkive.com/JbX2UXI1.18>

To transfer your address book from Agent to Thunderbird,
see this thread:

<https://groups.google.com/g/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/c/2F3XDCls-qI/m/uOe2C4xfBgAJ>
<https://alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.narkive.com/VapwBdwx/agent-address-book-to-thunderbird>

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox

⛈🐦

On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 19:12:18 +1200, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
wrote:

>On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?
>
>
>I second Thunderbird.

As do I. That's what I use--Agent for Usenet and Thunderbird for
e-mail.

Speaking of Thunderbird, as anyone found a way to get version 102 to
work with newsgroups? That version broke it and support said almost a
year ago that it may be fixed with version 104, but yet version 102 is
still the most current. I find Thunderbird is easier to use than
Agent for text newsgroups, but Agent is the one to use for binary
newsgroups.

On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 07:05:57 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 19:12:18 +1200, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:
>>
>>> I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?
>>
>>
>>I second Thunderbird.
>
>As do I. That's what I use--Agent for Usenet and Thunderbird for
>e-mail.

On Sat, 01 Jul 2023 09:42:51 -0500, Puffer Belly wrote:

> Speaking of Thunderbird, as anyone found a way to get version 102 to
> work with newsgroups? That version broke it and support said almost a
> year ago that it may be fixed with version 104, but yet version 102 is
> still the most current. I find Thunderbird is easier to use than
> Agent for text newsgroups, but Agent is the one to use for binary
> newsgroups.

A. If you had a problem with newsgroups in Thunderbird version 102.0,
you could have tried this:
1. See the release notes for Thunderbird 102.0.
Go to <https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/>
and click on the link for 102.0 .
2. Under "Changes", scroll down to the part saying
"New Javascript NNTP implementation enabled by default".
3. Follow the suggestion to disable.
Be aware the next major version will not have the option to disable.

B. Questions like this belong in the Thunderbird newsgroup,
alt.comp.software.thunderbird

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 19:12:18 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:

> I second Thunderbird

+3

--
s|b

On Sunday, July 2, 2023 at 9:25:43 AM UTC-7, s|b wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 19:12:18 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:
>
> > I second Thunderbird
>
> +3
>
> --
> s|b
Thanks for the suggestions. I am climbing the learning curve of Thunderbird and trying to figure out how to set it up to do as much as possible of what Agent does for email.

Is there a better thread than this one to look for answers and post questions?

Examples:
1. Most of my messages export OK from Agent to Thunderbird but some are missing. (I did Ralph's >From hack.)
2. Can anything useful be imported from the Agent address book other than names and email addresses? For example, if some email addresses are associated with folders in Agent, is there a way to automatically create filters to do that in Thunderbird?

Thanks, but this is the same stuff Thunderbird support had me do a
year ago and it still doesn't fix the problem.

I'll look at the newsgroups for Thunderbird software and support.

On Sun, 02 Jul 2023 07:19:15 +1200, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
wrote:

>On Sat, 01 Jul 2023 09:42:51 -0500, Puffer Belly wrote:
>
>> Speaking of Thunderbird, as anyone found a way to get version 102 to
>> work with newsgroups? That version broke it and support said almost a
>> year ago that it may be fixed with version 104, but yet version 102 is
>> still the most current. I find Thunderbird is easier to use than
>> Agent for text newsgroups, but Agent is the one to use for binary
>> newsgroups.
>
>
> A. If you had a problem with newsgroups in Thunderbird version 102.0,
> you could have tried this:
> 1. See the release notes for Thunderbird 102.0.
> Go to <https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/>
> and click on the link for 102.0 .
> 2. Under "Changes", scroll down to the part saying
> "New Javascript NNTP implementation enabled by default".
> 3. Follow the suggestion to disable.
> Be aware the next major version will not have the option to disable.
>
> B. Questions like this belong in the Thunderbird newsgroup,
> alt.comp.software.thunderbird

On 2023-07-02 02:42, Puffer Belly wrote:

> Speaking of Thunderbird, as anyone found a way to get version 102 to
> work with newsgroups? That version broke it and support said almost a
> year ago that it may be fixed with version 104, but yet version 102 is
> still the most current. I find Thunderbird is easier to use than
> Agent for text newsgroups, but Agent is the one to use for binary
> newsgroups.

If you see this, Thunderbird 102.12.0 can work with newsgroups.

I am posting this with Thunderbird 102.12.0. Using a clean new profile.
Only one setting is changed: mail.server.default.abbreviate is set to
false to not abbreviate newsgroup names.

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

I, too, am using version 102.12.0 and I got it to work yesterday by
deleting all passwords related to Usenet from its password manager.
Then when Thunderbird restarted, it asked me for a new set of username
and password. Now it all works again.

On 7/3/2023 2:55 AM, Ralph Fox wrote:
> On 2023-07-02 02:42, Puffer Belly wrote:
>
>> Speaking of Thunderbird, as anyone found a way to get version 102 to
>> work with newsgroups?  That version broke it and support said almost a
>> year ago that it may be fixed with version 104, but yet version 102 is
>> still the most current.  I find Thunderbird is easier to use than
>> Agent for text newsgroups, but Agent is the one to use for binary
>> newsgroups.
>
>
> If you see this, Thunderbird 102.12.0 can work with newsgroups.
>
> I am posting this with Thunderbird 102.12.0.  Using a clean new profile.
> Only one setting is changed: mail.server.default.abbreviate is set to
> false to not abbreviate newsgroup names.
>
>

Ralph,

Thanks for your advice and instructions.

But I've run into a strange problem bringing emails over.

I have an email account with some 2700 emails.
Following your instructions, I brought the emails into a Thunderbird local folder. They look fine.
I created an IMAP account in Thunderbird for that email account, and copied the emails from the local folder to the Inbox for the account.

The emails all got into the Inbox, but in a scrambled order, and the date/times for some of the messages were bogus (6:33 PM today).
The messages all synced via IMAP to the online account, where they had the correct date/times and order.

Since they were correct online, I thought to download them again from there.. So I deleted the account in Thunderbird and created it again.
The messages all synced from the online account, but with the same scrambled order and some bogus date/times.

Do you have any idea what's going on here?

Best regards,

Walt

On Friday, June 30, 2023 at 12:12:24 AM UTC-7, Ralph Fox wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:
>
> > I'm looking for a Windows email program that works as much like Agent as possible, but supports IMAP. Any suggestions?
> I second Thunderbird.
>
> To copy emails from Agent to Thunderbird,
> see this message:
>
> <https://groups.google.com/g/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/c/6yW3XAY0ltY/m/eA1k5tbkAgAJ>
> <https://alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.narkive.com/JbX2UXI1.18>
>
> To transfer your address book from Agent to Thunderbird,
> see this thread:
>
> <https://groups.google.com/g/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/c/2F3XDCls-qI/m/uOe2C4xfBgAJ>
> <https://alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.narkive.com/VapwBdwx/agent-address-book-to-thunderbird>
>
>
>
> --
> Kind regards
> Ralph Fox
>
> ⛈🐦

On Mon, 3 Jul 2023 18:57:18 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:

> Ralph,
>
> Thanks for your advice and instructions.
>
> But I've run into a strange problem bringing emails over.
>
> I have an email account with some 2700 emails.
> Following your instructions, I brought the emails into a Thunderbird local folder. They look fine.
> I created an IMAP account in Thunderbird for that email account, and copied the emails from the local folder to the Inbox for the account.
>
> The emails all got into the Inbox, but in a scrambled order, and the date/times for some of the messages were bogus (6:33 PM today).
> The messages all synced via IMAP to the online account, where they had the correct date/times and order.
>
> Since they were correct online, I thought to download them again from there. So I deleted the account in Thunderbird and created it again.
> The messages all synced from the online account, but with the same scrambled order and some bogus date/times.
>
> Do you have any idea what's going on here?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Walt

Those emails which had a bogus date/time. I am reasonably certain
they will be 'outbound' email messages which you have sent, and which
are marked in Agent with one of the three icons under the sub-heading
"Outbound Message" at:
Help >> Index >> Icons >> Icons Used in Agent >> Outbound Message

When in Agent you save an 'outbound' message to a Unix message file,
the message in the file is missing the message's 'Date:' header. The
message in the file will have a date in the "From " line immediately
above/before the message.

The "From " line is not part of the message itself. The "From " line'
is metadata about the message, and also a separator before/between
messages in a Unix message file (a.k.a. MBOX file).

When the "Date:" header is missing, some parts of the system (such as
Local Folders in Thunderbird) can use the date in the "From " header.
Other parts will not (like IMAP folders in Thunderbird). It seems
Thunderbird must be sending this metadata to the IMAP server as the
dates are correct in webmail. But the IMAP folder in Thunderbird
itself does not have this metadata.

If you could re-insert the missing Date: headers in the Unix message
file before importing it into Agent, that would fix the problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FWIW there is a gawk script "message file converter" at
<https://web.archive.org/web/20181129161736/http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/site53/Agent/Tools.html
which at one time used to be able to process a Unix message file and
re-insert missing "Date:" headers calculated from the "From " line.
It is not working today, at least not in Cygwin gawk, possibly because
Cygwin no longer handles CRLF line endings the same as LF line endings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--
Kind regards
Ralph

Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή
Vita brevis, ars longa
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne

On Sun, 2 Jul 2023 13:05:23 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:

> Is there a better thread than this one to look for answers and post questions?

Try alt.comp.software.thunderbird.

--
s|b

Ralph and all:

Thunderbird is the unanimous recommendation, and I used it. But I'm finding a few drawbacks. It doesn't seem to care a lot about providing UI feedback when I type or click commands, so there have been times I thought nothing happened but eventually found out that something did - sometimes unwanted and irrevocable.

And if I'm going to try to duplicate Agent's distribution of incoming emails among multiple accounts, it looks like I'll have to either type in a bunch of filters or generate them from an export of the address book. And that will just associate an email address with one folder; routing by analysis isn't available.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there are account settings that default to intrusive and unexpected actions than a noob like me wouldn't expect - particularly defaulting to junk filtering on before it's had any experience.

These may well be unfair criticisms - I'm on a steep learning curve - so please set me straight. There are surely tips and workarounds I'm not aware of. And is there anything else I should watch out for?

- Walt

On Tuesday, July 4, 2023 at 2:40:08 AM UTC-7, Ralph Fox wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Jul 2023 18:57:18 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:
>
> > The emails all got into the Inbox, but in a scrambled order, and the date/times for some of the messages were bogus (6:33 PM today).
> > The messages all synced via IMAP to the online account, where they had the correct date/times and order.
> >
>
> If you could re-insert the missing Date: headers in the Unix message
> file before importing it into Agent, that would fix the problem.
>
Thanks, Ralph. That did fix the problem. (I take it you meant importing into Thunderbird, not Agent.)

As part of the massaging in Notepad++, I did a find and replace all:

^From ([^ ]*) (.*)$ => From $1 $2\rDate: $2

This inserts a Date: line immediately after the From separator, using the same date/time stamp as in the From line. It puts it into every message in the file, most of which already have a Date: line, but that's OK. As far as I can tell any existing Date: always has the same date/time as the From line, so it doesn't matter which of the three gets used. I found that gmail.com and Thunderbird both use the first Date: line. Dreamhost.com does it differently.

BTW in using Notepad++ to fix bogus separator lines matching "^(From [^:]*?)$", I replaced them with " $1" instead of ">$1" - same functionality but less obtrusive. I also checked "Match case" since lines starting with "from " are not separators.

I found one HTML line in my first exported file that started with "From" and contained colons, so I also looked for "^(From [^@]*?)$". But I never found another one. Still might be worth adding that test.

Another trick: I exported from a lot of folders in Agent. To massage them in Notepad++ I opened them all and used Replace All in All Opened Documents. It was a lot faster than doing them one at a time. Maybe that's obvious, but it's my first use of Notepad++ and I was impressed.

Thanks for all the info you've posted here and elsewhere. I never could have gotten this done without your help.

- Walt

On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 11:38:55 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:

> As part of the massaging in Notepad++, I did a find and replace all:
>
> ^From ([^ ]*) (.*)$ => From $1 $2\rDate: $2
>
> This inserts a Date: line immediately after the From separator, using the same date/time stamp as in the From line. It puts it into every message in the file, most of which already have a Date: line, but that's OK.

I am a little surprised that this works. The date in Agent's "From " line
is not set out in the way the spec requires for the "Date:" header.

"From " date: Dow Mon dd hh:mm:ss yyyy
"Date:" date: [Dow,] dd Mon yyyy hh:mm:ss zzzz

> As far as I can tell any existing Date: always has the same date/time as the From line, so it doesn't matter which of the three gets used. I found that gmail.com and Thunderbird both use the first Date: line. Dreamhost.com does it differently.

Agent will always puts the same date/time in both (but set out differently).

--
Kind regards
Ralph
🦊

On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 11:38:55 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
<bilofsky2@gmail.com> wrote:

>Ralph and all:
>
>Thunderbird is the unanimous recommendation, and I used it. But I'm finding a few drawbacks. It doesn't seem to care a lot about providing UI feedback when I type or click commands, so there have been times I thought nothing happened but eventually found out that something did - sometimes unwanted and irrevocable.

As *s|b* suggests, ask questions at <alt.comp.software.thunderbird>...
and be specific in detail.

What commands, etc.?

On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 11:38:55 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker wrote:

> And if I'm going to try to duplicate Agent's distribution of incoming emails among multiple accounts, it looks like I'll have to either type in a bunch of filters or generate them from an export of the address book. And that will just associate an email address with one folder; routing by analysis isn't available.

I do not know of another email client which has the same routing feature as
Agent. FWIW Forté has a US patent on RBI, which may or may not be relevant.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there are account settings that default to intrusive and unexpected actions than a noob like me wouldn't expect - particularly defaulting to junk filtering on before it's had any experience.

FWIW Agent also defaulted to junk filtering on.

--
Kind regards
Ralph

“Betere is appel y-yȝeue þen y-ete,” quoþ Hendyng.

On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 2:21:47 AM UTC-7, s|b wrote:

> Try alt.comp.software.thunderbird.
>
> --
> s|b

Is there browser access to alt.comp.software.thunderbird, or do I need a Usenet account?

On Mon, 10 Jul 2023 14:33:54 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
<bilofsky2@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 2:21:47?AM UTC-7, s|b wrote:
>
>> Try alt.comp.software.thunderbird.
>>
>> --
>> s|b
>
>Is there browser access to alt.comp.software.thunderbird, or do I need a Usenet account?

AFAICS a.c.s.t'bird has never made it into Google Groups... but as
you're using Forte Agent, why not just sign up through for Usenet
access with the likes of <news.eternal-september.org>?

On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 4:10:40 PM UTC-7, Nobody wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 11:38:55 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
> <bilo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Ralph and all:
> >
> >Thunderbird is the unanimous recommendation, and I used it. But I'm finding a few drawbacks. It doesn't seem to care a lot about providing UI feedback when I type or click commands, so there have been times I thought nothing happened but eventually found out that something did - sometimes unwanted and irrevocable.
> As *s|b* suggests, ask questions at <alt.comp.software.thunderbird>...
> and be specific in detail.
>
> What commands, etc.?

For example: In Message Filters, I'm trying to run a filter on a local folder with 28k messages.
Problem 1: When I click the Run Now button, the change in its shading to hover and then to clicked is almost undetectable.
Problem 2: When it's clicked, nothing visible happens, so I think nothing's going on. Then, after a minute - if I haven't given up - it starts showing "Copying" messages as the filter runs.
Problem 3: When the filter finishes, the "Copying" message stays at the bottom of the folder. It doesn't say that it's finished.

Often, Thunderbird shows the hourglass and "not responding" with no indication why. For example, when it starts up, after some initialization it shows "[name] is up to date" at the bottom, churns for a while and is unresponsive.

There are tens of thousands of messages in a couple of email accounts. Does that take a long time to synchronize on startup?

All three accounts are set to "Synchronize the most recent 1 years." but sometimes I see "Downloading message" when trying to view a recent message. Shouldn't they be downloaded already?

On Monday, July 10, 2023 at 3:24:53 PM UTC-7, Nobody wrote:
> >
> >Is there browser access to alt.comp.software.thunderbird, or do I need a Usenet account?
> AFAICS a.c.s.t'bird has never made it into Google Groups... but as
> you're using Forte Agent, why not just sign up through for Usenet
> access with the likes of <news.eternal-september.org>?

Thanks for the pointer. Its registration isn't working right now; I'll try again later.

On Fri, 21 Jul 2023 09:24:35 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
<bilofsky@toolworks.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 4:10:40?PM UTC-7, Nobody wrote:
>> On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 11:38:55 -0700 (PDT), Toolworker
>> <bilo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Ralph and all:
>> >
>> >Thunderbird is the unanimous recommendation, and I used it. But I'm finding a few drawbacks. It doesn't seem to care a lot about providing UI feedback when I type or click commands, so there have been times I thought nothing happened but eventually found out that something did - sometimes unwanted and irrevocable.
>> As *s|b* suggests, ask questions at <alt.comp.software.thunderbird>...
>> and be specific in detail.
>>
>> What commands, etc.?
>
>For example: In Message Filters, I'm trying to run a filter on a local folder with 28k messages.

As two of us have suggested, ask at <a.c.s.thunderbird>.

Registration for *eternal-september* in my experience came within
hours.