TkRat, beta-release of a new MUA (Mail User Agent)
Martin Forssen
Some years ago I got tired of waiting for a Mail User Agent which
understood MIME. I wanted nothing fancy just something which could
hide this ugly quoted-printable thing for me. Since nothing seemed to
happen and I had some many other ideas of what I wanted to have in an MUA I
started to write one myself. The result was TkRat (short for TkRatatosk).
Now some years later, after having rewritten TkRat from scratch at least
twice, it is ready for its first public release. TkRat has been used by
myself and others for over a year now while I have been busy adding new
features. It is still far from complete but I feel it has the basic
features needed by an MUA today.
Therefore I am now happily announcing the first public beta-release of
TkRat. The source is available at ftp.md.chalmers.se in /pub/tkrat. There
is also a www-page at http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk
Here follows an excerpt of the README-file:
PORTABILITY
This software has been tested on the following systems:
SunOS 4.1.4
SunOS 5.X
Linux (kernel 2.13 elf gcc 2.7.2)
If you port it to another system please let me know.
BUILDING THE SOFTWARE
TkRat depends on tcl7.5 and tk4.1 so these must be installed.
run './configure'
This will configure the makefiles etc. See INSTALL for options
to configure.
Configure depends on you having tclsh7.5 and wish4.1 in your path. If
configure fails to locate the tcl/tk include-files or libraries you
must modify lib/Makefile. At the top of that file are the definitions
needed.
If configure fails to find tclConfig.sh or tkConfig.sh you can use
the TCL_CONFIG_FILE and/or TK_CONFIG_FILE to point at their locations.
do a 'make'
This should build all the software.
You might want to test the software before installing it. This is done
with the following program: 'lib/tkrat tkrat/.' (Run the tkrat program
and give the directory where the tcl-files are as argument).
do a 'make install'
This will install the program in /usr/local/bin. The destination can
be overridden with the --prefix argument to configure in the first step.
TCL_CRUNCHER SUPPORT
The configure script tests if you have tcl_cruncher installed. If you have
it then it will be used. Tcl_cruncher will "compile" the installed tcl-
files by removing all unnecessary white-space. It can be fetched via ftp
from hplyot.obspm.fr:/tcl/tcl_cruncher*
DELIVERY STATUS NOTIFICATIONS (DSN)
TkRat supports DSN as defined in rfc1891-4. This requires that messages are
sent via ESMTP and that the MTA (mail transfer agent) also supports DSN.
Actually all MTA's the message will pass through must talk DSN for it to
work fully (otherwise you will just get DSN's with the action field set to
forwarded). Currently the only MTA I know of that handles DSN is sendmail
8.7 and later. Unfortunately there are bugs in this implementation, I have
a patch which works for 8.7.4 and later, this patch can be found in the
misc/sendmail.patch file. Eric says that this will be fixed in 8.8.
CURRENT INFORMATION
This software has a web-page at http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk
This page should always contain up to date information abut tkrat.
There is also a mailing-list on which announcements of new versions are
posted. To subscribe send a mail to ratatosk...@dtek.chalmers.se.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank all those people who has helped me test TkRat. But special
thanks goes to Erik Stenvall the poor alfa-level tester who often was the
first one to get bitten by those nasty bugs.
BUGS (aka UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES)
Please report any found bugs to m...@dtek.chalmers.se
AUTHORS ADDRESS
The author (thats me) can be reached at m...@dtek.chalmers.se
I live in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden.
/MaF
Bhyrava M. Prasad
In a previous article, m...@math.chalmers.se (Martin Forssen) says:
>
>This software has been tested on the following systems:
>
> SunOS 4.1.4
> SunOS 5.X
> Linux (kernel 2.13 elf gcc 2.7.2)
>
Please check your Linux info. Kernel 2.xx is still under test. Maybe you
mean Slackware 2.13 (or is it kernel 1.2.13)?
- Bhyrava
--
Bhyrava M. Prasad
11013 Becontree Lake Drive , #206
Reston , Va 22090
703-437-0417