What does it take to compile Sylpheed? Any POSIX compliant UNIX or similar OS, e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris. GTK+ 2.4.0 or later (GTK+ 2.6.0 or later is recommended). A recent ANSI C compiler (gcc 2.7.2.3 should also work). Note: it is reported that Sun C will not compile Sylpheed. Optionally: compface (for X-Face) GPGME (for GnuPG) OpenSSL for SSL support GtkSpell for a spell checking feature JPilot LDAP the equivalent of GTK+-devel and Xfree86-devel you may also require flex (lex) and bison (yacc). Otherwise ./configure will fail. See also the INSTALL file that is being distributed with the Sylpheed tarball. Note that as Sylpheed now supports the Windows platform, you can also compile it using MinGW. How do I set up Sylpheed? When you run Sylpheed for the first time, it will ask you where you want to store your mailboxes. The default is $HOME/Mail. You can change this to anything you like as long as it is a valid directory name. Please note: When Sylpheed is executed for the first time, it automatically creates the configuration files under $HOME/.sylpheed-2.0/, and asks you the location of mailbox. The default is $HOME/Mail. If some files which are non-MH format already exist on the directory, you will have to specify another location. Why did the creation of the mailbox fail? Sylpheed reports such an error if it can't create the default mailboxes (inbox, outbox, etc ...). This can be because <homedir>/Mail already contains files with the same names. This occurs when switching from Kmail to Sylpheed, in this case backup and remove the existing Mail directory or use another name for the Sylpheed mail directory. How do I set up an account? After loading Sylpheed for the first time, you can add an e-mail account by clicking the "Configuration" menu. Select the option "Create new account" and fill in the appropriate fields. How many accounts can I set up in Sylpheed? The number is unlimited. The limit is reached when your computer stops responding. Why does Sylpheed not delete my mails when I press "Delete"? I set a filter, and Sylpheed does not filter. I moved a mail to a different mailbox and it did not move. You have to click the "Execute" button. The other solution: in the configuration settings (Common preferences -> Details tab -> Interface tab) you have to check the "Execute immediately when moving or deleting messages" box. Can I set up special addresses/ports for my mailserver/newsserver? Yes, you can. In the configuration per account you can specify the exact port addresses you want to use. Does Sylpheed have options for threading messages? Yes. You can switch it on and off in the View menu, just select "Thread view" or press Ctrl+T. Can I create multiple levels of subfolders to store mail? Absolutely. This is no problem. Why isn't Sylpheed sending my mail out? You need to create at least one account in order to send. (This is a wonderful gotcha on LAN installs with only a local mailbox feed). How do I apply a patch after downloading it? Copy patch to sylpheed directory. Apply the patch as follows: % patch -p0 < some.patch Or, if it's gzipped: % gzip -dc some.patch.gz | patch -p0 Run ./autogen.sh, remove the generated /config.cache file (unless you want to install in prefix /usr/local). Run ./configure with the appropriate options and then make. (Text as found on the former Sylpheed patches page.) How do I compile in support for compface pictures? You have to have a package called libcompface installed, so this is available for compiling into Sylpheed. Note that the exact name of the package depends on OS or distribution you use. How do I make my own compface image? The faces package contains a program called xbm2ikon script, which converts a 48x48 xbm to the format suitable for compface. Thanks to Jeff Dairiki, you can have a complete online course in this. Visit this page for the details. How can I tell my browser/newsclient/other program to use Sylpheed as e-mail program? In the settings part of the program, write sylpheed --compose Specific options for typical browsers: Opera: sylpheed --compose [mailto:%t][?subject=%s] Galeon: sylpheed --compose "mailto:%t?subject=%s" How do I enable GPG support in Sylpheed? When compiling Sylpheed, make sure you add --enable-gpgme in the ./configure command. When that completes successfully, there is a Privacy section in the Common Preferences. Mutt does not recognize Sylpheed's MH structure For this to work you need to use the touch command in every MH folder. "touch" the file .xmhcache and Mutt should do just fine. Viewing a GIF file within Sylpheed causes a segmentation fault. In case this happens, you can easily fix that by adding the following to /etc/mime.types: image/gif gif How can I make Sylpheed notify me when new mail arrives? Download Gkrellm or a similar program that is able to notify you of new incoming mail. Gkrellm is available at the Gkrellm page. Can I use a spell checker with Sylpheed? Yes. You need to have GtkSpell installed prior to Sylpheed compilation. The support for GtkSpell is enabled by default in configure. (If you want to disable it, make sure you add --disable-gtkspell in the ./configure command.) The GtkSpell option is not supported in Sylpheed for Windows (yet), so you will have no spell checking under this OS. How can I make Sylpheed send my compface image in the mails? In the Configuration menu, Preferences for current account..., Send tab, check Add user-defined header and press Edit button. A dialog appears, add a header named "X-Face" and fill the value field with your face data. Note that if you paste the data from a terminal into the field, some spurious newlines can be added, and these can mangle your face, be careful. I checked out the sources using SVN and can't find any configure script. The SVN versions are meant to be used by developers rather than "normal" users, so the source (or binary) distributions are easier to use. - Yeah, but the latest features from SVN really look sexy... You need to generate the configure script by running autogen.sh. Be sure to have autoconf and automake packages installed for this. Running "autogen.sh" gives error messages that "AM_PATH_GDK_PIXBUF" or "AM_PATH_(whatever)" is not found. There are some *.m4 files in the ac/missing directory. Try to copy them into the ac directory and run autogen.sh again. If there are still some .m4 files not found (e.g. those from GTK+), try to run % locate m4 | less or % locate aclocal | less to find additional directories containing those macros. If you find e.g. a gtk.m4 in /opt/gnome/share/aclocal, change following line in autogen.sh from aclocal -I ac \ to aclocal -I ac -I /opt/gnome/share/aclocal \ and run it again. I don't want to compile in support for ... any longer, but after running "configure", those libraries are still used. Remove the config.cache file and run ./configure again. You should also use "make clean" to avoid undefined references. How can I select different applications to open with specific MIME types? The MIME-type->application associations are kept in /etc/mailcap. How can I change the suggested mimetype for attachments? The extension->MIME-type associations are kept in /etc/mime.types The folderlist is not updated after I manually moved/copied folders. You need to update Sylpheeds cache. Right click on the mailbox and choose "Rebuild folder tree". How can I revert original settings, e.g. for fonts, keybindings, etc.? Sylpheed keeps its configuration files in $HOME/.sylpheed-2.0/sylpheedrc and creates default entries, if none are found. So the easiest way is to quit Sylpheed, temporarily renaming your $HOME/.sylpheed-2.0 e.g. to *.bak and restarting Sylpheed in order to get default entries. What environment variables have effect on Sylpheed? Here are the most common variables: HOME - location of .sylpheed-2.0 (config directory) and default folder for Mailboxes. LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES - locale settings, e.g. language and date format. Special characters (e.g. umlauts) are not displayed correctly. In most cases, this is caused by fonts that use an unsuitable encoding on a not Unicode-based system. (On a Unicode-based system, fonts should support all thinkable characters for the vast majority of languages.) Choose Configuration -> Common preferences -> Display tab -> General tab, and click the button right to Text font. Now, a special dialog appears that allows you to pick a desirable font family, style, and size. You should also make sure that your environment variables regarding locale settings have sensible values. How can I convert my old mailbox/adressbook from (some mailclient). In the source distribution, you can find some scripts in the "tools" subdirectory, maybe your application is supported. You can also try to export your old mailbox to MH, MBOX or EML format. Tip: Take a look at the Add sender to address book... item from the Tools menu, it could be a useful alternative or addition, when importing your old contacts. What config files are there, and what are they used for? Sylpheeds config files can be found in $HOME/.sylpheed-2.0. They are in plain text format and quite easy to understand, so don't fear to take a look into them using a texteditor. sylpheedrc - main configuration: nearly all options from the settings window, e.g. mailbox location, font entries, etc. accountrc - settings for POP/IMAP/NNTP accounts actionsrc - user-defined actions addrbook-*.xml - contents of your addressbook customheaderrc - contains user-defined header lines dispheaderrc - headers to display above the mail body filter.xml - filter settings folderlist.xml - folder specific settings, e.g. hiding read messages, sort order, etc. menurc - Key bindings What to do when printing an e-mail prints off the paper? You can use enscript for this. Use enscript %s to print everything on one page, or enscript -U2 %s for printing two logical pages on one physical page.