Sylpheed FAQ - General Information
Are there FAQ's in other languages?
Yes. Here are links to several translations:
Sylpheed FAQ in French, translated by Olivier Delhomme.
Sylpheed FAQ in German, translated by Nicolas Kaiser.
Sylpheed FAQ in Spanish, translated by Ricardo Mones Lastra.
Sylpheed FAQ in Traditional Chinese, courtesy of Franklin.
You can always download this FAQ from http://sylpheeddoc.sf.net.
Did not found your language in the list? Would you like to contribute with a new translation to the Sylpheed Documentation Project? Then please contact the Project members at their website. Thank you.
What is Sylpheed?
Sylpheed is an e-mail client (and news reader) based on GTK+,
running on the X Window System, and aiming for:
Quick response
Graceful, and sophisticated interface
Easy configuration, intuitive operation
Abundant features
Where can I get Sylpheed?
You can download it from
http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/
There are links to download
the tarball sources, and also links to sites where you can
download RPM's (for Redhat and Mandrake), DEB packages for
Debian, and installations for Solaris and FreeBSD.
Who writes Sylpheed?
Hiroyuki Yamamoto hiro-y@kcn.ne.jp.
What does the name Sylpheed mean?
It means 'light weight', like air. This comes from the
name of the wind spirits, the Sylphs.
How does Sylpheed store mails?
Mails are stored in the MH mailfile format as used by MH
and EMH. Maildir, mbox, and eml formats are not (yet)
supported, although it is possible to import an mbox
file or an eml file into a Sylpheed mailbox.
Why does the auto collection of mail not work?
Autocollection works since version 0.5.1. If you need it
or want it, you should upgrade.
Does Sylpheed have mail filtering?
Yes. You can find it in Configuration -> Filter settings...
Please note that filtering is not yet implemented for IMAP accounts.
Can Sylpheed handle IMAP mail?
Yes. As of version 0.4.99 IMAP is supported.
Can Sylpheed handle local unix mailboxes?
Yes.
Can Sylpheed handle IPv6?
Yes, IPv6 is fully supported in Sylpheed.
Does Sylpheed support encryption like GPG?
Yes. GPG is implemented and works fine. For activating it in Sylpheed,
see the appropriate question in the Installation section.
How does Sylpheed check for MIME types?
Sylpheed uses the Mutt type of mime checking.
Does Sylpheed allow me to write HTML styled messages?
No. A discussion has gone around over this topic, and
the outcome was that HTML mail is not wanted. If you
really need to send HTML, you can of course attach a
webpage to an e-mail.
Does Sylpheed have name completion in the address fields?
Yes. When you search for a name that starts with "don",
type "don" (without the quotes) and press the Tab key.
This will show you the correct name (when only one "don"
exists in your addressbook. Otherwise a dropdown list
appears, which allows you to select the name you want.
E.g. Donald Duck, Don Johnson. But also e-mail addresses
starting with "don" will appear in the list (like
"don.giovanni@maffia.org").
Fine, but when I hit the Tab key I get an error message.
When you want to use name completion, make sure that
there are names in your address book. If there are no
names, even Sylpheed has a hard time completing
something.
Why is Sylpheed so fast?
That's what it is designed for!
Where can I get the current patches for Sylpheed?
In most cases, current patches are being posted by Sylpheed users and contributors to the Sylpheed mailing list sylpheed@sraoss.jp.
(Also, see the Installation section on how to install a patch.)
How can I send in patches, report bugs, talk about Sylpheed with others?
To talk to others, you should join the Sylpheed mailing
list at
http://www.sraoss.jp/mailman/listinfo/sylpheed
. Note that there is
a Japanese and an English list, so pick the right one!
If you have made a patch that you want the world to know
of, please post it either to the mailing list, or contact the Sylpheed author, Hiroyuki Yamamoto hiro-y@kcn.ne.jp.
If ISO-8859-1 characters (>= 0x80) are not used in the
message body, Sylpheed will automatically set the
charset value in the Content-Type header as US-ASCII.
Why does it look like word wrap is not working?
Word wrapping is a bit peculiar perhaps. You can type
lines as long as you like. By the time you send or queue
a mail with long lines, Sylpheed will first wrap the
lines to the line length you set up, and then the mail
is queued. This is more convenient than you think. Once
a line is wrapped (hard line breaks are inserted in the
text) and you add something in a line there, the next
line will move to a separate new line, leaving one or
two words from the previous line "hanging there" alone.
E.g.
This is a long line that
is wrapped.
Now you add one word in the first line:
This is a very long line
that
is wrapped
This would cause you a lot of manual reformatting to get
a presentable mail again.
Note: As of Sylpheed 0.8.0., active wordwrap has been
implemented. You can turn it on in Common
Preferences->Compose->wrap on input.
Can I import a mbox into Sylpheed's MH mailfolders?
Yes, just create/select the folder you want your
mails in, and select "Import mbox file..." in the File
menu.
Can I use procmail to sort my mails with the MH mail handling?
Yes. Just make sure that you add /. to the end of a rule so
procmail knows you are filtering into an MH mail folder. Example:
0:
* ^Subject:.*sylpheed
sylpheedmail/.
Check man procmail for details.
When I upgrade Sylpheed, are there things I should be aware of?
Yes!
Upgrade to 0.4.50: you should reconfigure your newsgroup settings
Upgrade to 0.4.63: you should set the URL string colors from the Configuration menu
Upgrade to 0.4.65: some menu items have been moved
Upgrade to 0.7.3: many keybindings have changed
How can I quickly update the views in Sylpheed?
Just press Alt-U or select Update summary from the View menu.
Why can't I use gvim as external editor?
If one wishes to use gvim as an external editor it's
necessary to start it with the no-fork option -f, i.e.
in the configuration dialog box you need to enter
gvim -f %s. If not the editor forks and open up a
separate file and when one quits the editor the changes
are lost and don't show up in the composer window.
(Thanks, Ed Collins!)
Can I quote just parts of the original message when replying?
Yes, select the part in the textview and choose Reply.
Can I reply without quoting at all?
You need to disable quoting by editing the reply format under Configuration -> Common preferences -> Compose tab -> Format tab
(also works with
forward format which is available below the reply format).
How does selective download work?
There are two ways using it.
Manually: Open Tools -> Selective download and
choose "Fetch" to retrieve the mail headers. Afterwards,
select the mails to delete and pres the remove button.
Automatic: Create a -global- filtering rule to
delete mails on server. If you then choose "Selective
download", all mails that conform to this rule are marked
for deletion.
Note: By default, selective download only retrieves new (unread) messages.
If you want to process the read mails also, you need to set "retrieve
all messages".
Where can I find the latest FAQ on Sylpheed?
Go to http://sylpheeddoc.sf.net and check out
the FAQ and manual from the sylpheeddoc project. Both
documents are available in multiple languages there and
usually contain the latest updates. Also see the question about available language versions at the top of this section.
I have found an error and/or outdated information in this document!
Please report any errors, misleading and/or outdated information to the Sylpheed Documentation Project. You can see the list of Project members in the following question, so you can also contact them directly.
Who are the members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project?
The current members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project are:
Francois Barriere fbarriere@users.sourceforge.net
Petr Kovar pknbe@users.sourceforge.net
Below is the list of former members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project. Big thank you goes to all of them!
Martin Bretschneider furbour@users.sourceforge.net
Olivier Delhomme dup@users.sourceforge.net
Doruk Fisek dobidik@users.sourceforge.net
Melvin Hadasht mhadasht@users.sourceforge.net
Nicolas Kaiser nikai@users.sourceforge.net
Paul Kater pkater@users.sourceforge.net
Ricardo Mones Lastra mones@users.sourceforge.net
Jens Oberender jobi@users.sourceforge.net
Marcelo Ramos hackpando@users.sourceforge.net
Guido Rudolphi malatesta@users.sourceforge.net
Frank Weng fweng@users.sourceforge.net