pa0r

It is done. The next release of the PSKmail client will offer the possibility to use Evolution (or PINE, or Mutt, Mailx etc.) as a mail integrator. PSkmail has a menu item 'send mail to mbox',  and when you click on 'get mail' in Evolution the emails you just downloaded with PSkmail are integrated in the mail client. You can do this off-line, PSKmail does not have to run to do this.

The mail send facility works even easier. You write your email in Evolution (reply, forward, address book, all the bells and whistles) and push the send button, as if you are connected to the internet. Evolution will hand the mail over to Postfix, which is the send mail client in most Linux distro's. As your machine is not connected to the net, Postfix will put the mail into the 'deferred' queue.

A cron job (running as root) which runs every 5 minutes picks up the stuff in the outgoing mail queue, reformats (simplifies) it for pskmail and delivers it to the pskmail send queue... All but the necessary (To:, Subject:) headers are stripped, to adapt the format to the 70wpm pskmail data stream. The headers are added back by the pskmail server, which has the necessary data in its user database.

Now you just connect to the pskmail server, push the send button, and off you go... After receiving the "Message sent" from the server the email is deleted from the queue (after adding a copy to the 'Sent' file).

This adds quite a bit of comfort. Of course "There Is More Than One Way To Do It" in pskmail. There is still the 'NEW' routine to write a fast email message without starting Evolution, or you could simply send a single line APRS email message ("We have a new cat")  from the command line....

The next release is due when I get back from our sunny spot in Spain, until then I will be the only one to enjoy this :)

EA/PA0R/P