advice on mu4e-org-mode and org-mime-htmlize
Victor A. Stoichita
I’m revisiting the old problem of sending html emails using mu4e.
I’ve been trying to keep up with the tips and tricks shared on
this list for a few years, but now I’m a bit lost between the
modern/current way to do things and the deprecated ones.
Until recently I was using org-mu4e-compose-org-mode to compose
the text using org syntax, and then org-mime-htmlize to convert
the buffer to html before sending.
I realized that org-mu4e-compose-org-mode is now deprecated.
I then tried mu4-org-mode. It seems to merely turn the buffer into
an org-mode buffer. I was not able to discover any mu4e shortcuts
in it, and it also disables address completion. So I have to
return to plain mu4e-compose-mode to add an address and send the
email. Should I then just compose the message in plain old
mu4e-compose-mode, maybe with orgstruct-mode and orgstruct++-mode?
For the next step, which is converting the message to html,
org-mime-htmlize still works fine. But IIRC it formerly produced
two multipart message parts: one retained the plain text, the
other was the html version. Currently (Emacs 26.1, org-mode
9.1.9), the whole message becomes an html part (no more plain text
version). Attachments are also lost if I insert them before
htmlization as their code (<part> etc. </part>) is converted to
html symbols by org-mime-htmlize.
All this boils down to a question: what is the current/recommended
way to send html emails from mu4e?
In case it matters: I need html mainly because colleagues and
students expect italics in bibliographical references (when I cite
book titles for instance), and because html structured lists (like
"you have three choices: 1. … 2.… 3. …") are much clearer to read
in html. I suspect that it’s a pretty trivial use case?
Regards to all,
Victor
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema
On Thursday Apr 25 2019, Victor A. Stoichita wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I’m revisiting the old problem of sending html emails using mu4e. I’ve been
> trying to keep up with the tips and tricks shared on this list for a few years,
> but now I’m a bit lost between the modern/current way to do things and the
> deprecated ones.
>
> Until recently I was using org-mu4e-compose-org-mode to compose the text using
> org syntax, and then org-mime-htmlize to convert the buffer to html before
> sending.
>
> I realized that org-mu4e-compose-org-mode is now deprecated.
more seamless; but there are a lot of seam, more than my time-budget
allowed.
> I then tried mu4-org-mode. It seems to merely turn the buffer into an
> org-mode buffer. I was not able to discover any mu4e shortcuts in it,
> and it also disables address completion. So I have to return to plain
> mu4e-compose-mode to add an address and send the email. Should I then
> just compose the message in plain old mu4e-compose-mode, maybe with
> orgstruct-mode and orgstruct++-mode?
displaying some information, such as [N]ews and [A]bout mu4e in the main
screen. It's not useful for composing mail.
> For the next step, which is converting the message to html, org-mime-htmlize
> still works fine. But IIRC it formerly produced two multipart message parts: one
> retained the plain text, the other was the html version. Currently (Emacs 26.1,
> org-mode 9.1.9), the whole message becomes an html part (no more plain text
> version). Attachments are also lost if I insert them before htmlization as their
> code (<part> etc. </part>) is converted to html symbols by org-mime-htmlize.
>
> All this boils down to a question: what is the current/recommended way to send
> html emails from mu4e?
that, those are probably best addressed to the org-mime maintainers.
Kind regards,
Dirk.
--
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema Helsinki, Finland
e:dj...@djcbsoftware.nl w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
gpg: 6987 9CED 1745 9375 0F14 DA98 11DD FEA9 DCC4 A036
Victor A. Stoichita
Thanks for clarifying this. I’ll work with org-mime then.
In case anyone else wonders why there is no plain text body
anymore in the org-mime export, decision was taken to drop it:
https://github.com/org-mime/org-mime/issues/32
The caveat is that now if you org-mime just a region of the
buffer, that region won’t appear any longer to a plain text
reader. As I understand it, org-mime should now be applied to the
whole buffer or not at all. Indeed a discussion for the
org-mode list.
Cheers, and thanks for the ongoing work on mu!
Victor
Le 25 Apr 2019, Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <dj...@djcbsoftware.nl>
a écrit :
Phil
Hi,
On this subject - in case people where unaware of the below links on the topics, thought I'd share them.
Also it would be great to collect all these ideas into a single
repo, something I keep failing to do myself!
If anyone else has hints or tips regarding this - I'm really keen to hear them.
I use mu4e as my daily email program, and write rich-text-like emails using org mode.
It works well for code snippets, tables, bullets, etc, but it
took a fair bit of tweaking to get it practically usable and
secure as my day-to-day emailer.
I started following the advice:
https://matt.hackinghistory.ca/2016/11/18/sending-html-mail-with-mu4e/
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2016/10/29/Sending-html-emails-from-org-mode-with-org-mime/
I keep a (fairly) up-to-date forked version mu with tweaks to make org/html messaging easier taken from here:
https://github.com/titaniumbones/mu/tree/org-mu4e-compose-stabilization
Merged into latest-ish code here:
https://github.com/falloutphil/mu
I also have some other utils to help:
https://github.com/falloutphil/emacs-email
A few other useful techniques I don't have in github yet - I have
lots more, which I write as and when something doesn't work quite
right:
;; this is stolen from John but it didn't work for me until
I
;; made those changes to
mu4e-compose.el
(defun htmlize-and-send
()
"When in an org-mu4e-compose-org-mode message, htmlize
and send
it."
(interactive)
(when (member 'org~mu4e-mime-switch-headers-or-body
post-command-hook)
(org-mime-htmlize)
(org-mu4e-compose-org-mode)
(mu4e-compose-mode)
(message-send-and-exit)))
;; This overloads the amazing C-c C-c commands in org-mode
with one more
function
;; namely the htmlize-and-send,
above.
(add-hook 'org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c-hook 'htmlize-and-send
t)
;; Originally, I set the `mu4e-compose-mode-hook' here,
but
;; this new hook works much, much better for
me.
(add-hook
'mu4e-compose-post-hook
(defun do-compose-stuff
()
"My settings for message
composition."
(org-mu4e-compose-org-mode)))
;; Instead of prefixing we just format the whole quoted
message
;; as verbatim text. This means no characters can be
misinterpreted
;; as org
mark-up.
(defun
message-cite-original-without-signature-wrapped-example
()
"Modified version of
message-cite-original-without-signature.
This function wraps the reply in #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE and
#+END_EXAMPLE.
This prevents anything in the original message being
misconstrued as
mark-up."
(message-cite-original-1
t)
(goto-char
(point))
(insert
"#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE\n")
(goto-char (mark
t))
(insert
"#+END_EXAMPLE"))
(setq mu4e-compose-cite-function
'message-cite-original-without-signature-wrapped-example)
;; Signature in Org - it contains a wrapped HTML
Signature
;; It also includes includes for other org macros, as order
is
not
;; important we can include at the end of the email
message.
(setq mu4e-compose-signature-auto-include
t
mu4e-compose-signature "#+INCLUDE:
\"/home/me/path/to/my/message-settings.org\"")
My message-settings.org looks like this:
# Toggle TeX-like syntax for sub- and
superscripts.
# If you write "^:{}", ‘a_{b}’ will be interpreted, but the
simple ‘a_b’ will be left as it is
(org-export-with-sub-superscripts).
#+OPTIONS:
^:{}
#+OPTIONS: d:MACROS
d:SIGNATURE
:MACROS:
#+INCLUDE:
/home/me/path/to/org-macros/org-macros.setup
:END:
:SIGNATURE:
# @@word: blah@@ means only export the blah when word is
the export
type
# So here when exporting to html (i.e. always when writing
an email), include the following raw
text
@@html:
<html>ADD YOUR STANDARD HTML SIGNATURE
HERE</html>
@@
:END:
Matt Price
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mu-discuss" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mu-discuss+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mu-discuss/6b9fd6ab-dab9-7df3-9d26-8f4c3529d58d%40beadling.co.uk.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Matt Price
Phil
I keep meaning to come back to this thread!
I'm interested and agree - having a single repo (or collection of repos) which implement/configure an org-based usable email system would be really useful.
I can compose messages from an org mode buffer and they look like pretty good when rendered as HTML to the recipient. It's good enough that most the time colleagues who use Outlook cannot tell that I'm not using Outlook.
To reply to any message I always wrap the original message in
BEGIN/END_EXAMPLE tags. This is a cop-out, but it means whatever
format it is in, it renders OK underneath my response in a
readable way. Without this occasionally my emails would render
badly, and it was unusable as a serious system.
I'd too would like a system where when responding I respect the HTML/formatting of the original message.
I'm also interested in tighter integration with Outlook Calendar
too - here I can read my calendar into my org agenda fine (using
excorporate package), but I have no way of booking meetings from
org agenda.
I've also got Skype for Business integrated well into Emacs too -
but that's an even longer story.
All of my lisp code and config is in a haphazard bunch of files,
and mixed up with more mundane emacs config. I need some
motivation to make it all generic and usable by anyone and not
specific to my setup. Over the course of several months I
migrated off Microsoft and onto Emacs so everything was written
bit-by-bit when I had a spare hour or so. So it's a mess.
Phil.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mu-discuss/CAN_Dec_Kw%3DQfJLGrQQ2PU0J_tjDTcnK%2BiyXNUWR5ro2dPdsvLg%40mail.gmail.com.
Matt Price
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mu-discuss/e2dce6a7-d851-9d06-903c-169ca931aecb%40beadling.co.uk.