Claws Mail

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Midas
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Claws Mail

#1 Post by Midas »

After a recent re-test of multi-platform OSS Claws Mail email desktop client, it saddens me to report that it is unfortunately not natively portable yet -- using yaP v0.6 Beta and previously gathered information on command line profile redirection (see posts linked below), Claws Mail still generates '%APPDATA%\gnupg' and '%APPDATA%\[acount_name]', which completely invalidate portability (Note that those folders could be moved back and forth with yaP, but as message databases quickly expand with regular use, that isn't really a viable solution).

http://www.claws-mail.org/ wrote:Claws Mail is an email client (and news reader), based on GTK+, featuring: quick response; graceful, and sophisticated interface; easy configuration, intuitive operation; abundant features; extensibility; robustness and stability. The appearance and interface are designed to be familiar to new users coming from other popular email clients, as well as experienced users. Almost all commands are accessible with the keyboard.
Image


Latest upstream Claws Mail version is v3.9.3 (released 2013-12-14) and the most recent Windows build [packaged as an (Uni)extractable installer and currently 'claws-mail-3.9.3git31-pkg46.exe'] is available from http://www.claws-mail.org/win32/.

Previous TPFC forum posts regarding Claws-Mail portability:
Last edited by Midas on Sun Jul 03, 2016 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Napiophelios
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Re: Claws Mail

#2 Post by Napiophelios »

I tested Claws Mail with JauntePE and it works like a champ.
I think I can drop KomaMail from my favorites list now :)

ClawsMail doesnt seem to create any reg keys when using
directly from an extracted installer (7zip works fine)
but I havent loaded any plugins so I let JPE redirect the registry as well for now.

www.mediafire.com/download/57mej0sz4i4bi5u/ClawsMail393_[JPE-Launcher].rar

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail

#3 Post by Midas »

Napiophelios wrote:I tested Claws Mail with JauntePE and it works like a champ.

[...]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/57mej0sz4i4bi5u

I tried to test your :?: JPE launcher, but it launched Claws Mail with GTK un-themed, therefore I must be doing something wrong -- it's probably path related.

So one should grab everything extracted from the Claws Mail installer and just dump it into the launcher 'Claws Mail\claws-mail-3.9.3' folder? (Including '$APPDATA', '$PLUGINSDIR', and '$TEMP'? I think the last two are installer related, but contents of the first might be necessary...)

Or are there other file placement requirements that need to be taken care of for this to work? (Windows XP SP 3 here...)

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Napiophelios
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Re: Claws Mail

#4 Post by Napiophelios »

-The 2 folders ($PLUGINSDIR & $TEMP) are for NSIS script content

-you need the program files in the claws-mail-3.9.3 folder (it has a contents list inside)

-you also need the GNU folder from the installer ($APPDATA)
it goes inside the "User/ AppData" folder

-After your first run,your account folders and the gtk appsdata folder are created as well as
a file called ".recently-used.xbel" (but jpe might have these hidden)


also its JauntePE so its not gonna work for 64bit os
I only have windows xp sp3 to test with
so it might not work for everyone.

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail

#5 Post by Midas »

I'm unable to test this ATM, but for future reference I'm left wondering if the portability recipe from Sylpheed's entry (http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1112) won't render Claws Mail properly portable, since one is a fork of the other? :?:

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Napiophelios
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Re: Claws Mail

#6 Post by Napiophelios »

Midas wrote:I'm unable to test this ATM, but for future reference I'm left wondering if the portability recipe from Sylpheed's entry (http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1112) won't render Claws Mail properly portable, since one is a fork of the other? :?:
No that didnt work for me :cry:
(of course I could have done it wrong IDK)



This program creates alot of folders in the user dir
I believe virtualization is the way to go with this one.

The only problem I have had so far is in using Chromium as my default browser,

If I click on a link inside an email,JauntePE flips out trying to sandbox something thats already sandboxed....easy enough to fix in the jpe virtual memory tho;

As far as Claws mail is concerned, Opera is my default browser :)

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail (JPE portable working, mostly)

#7 Post by Midas »

On a prompt from webfork (viewtopic.php?t=21243) and since (unlike before) I'm facing a computer running Windows XP Pro SP3, I retested Napiophelios JauntPE launcher for Claws Mail (currently at v3.10.1, changelog at http://www.claws-mail.org/news.php), and here are my findings...

  • I changed a key ("Path=.\Claws Mail\claws-mail\claws-mail.exe" instead of "Path=.\Claws Mail\claws-mail-3.9.3\claws-mail.exe") in the launcher's 'Claws_Mail_jauntePE.ini' in order to formally make it version independent;
  • I found out the previous unthemed GTK error was probably due to trying to run the portable from my Windows Desktop -- once I moved it to my portables folder in another drive, with a shorter path, everything displayed alright;
  • I'm trying to get Claws Mail to default to English as interface language, since abiding the locale as it does now results in a mishmash of un/translated strings, but the solution seems to involve setting an environment variable, something I presently don't know how to pass to the JPE launcher (see http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php ... anguage.3F);
  • I'm also getting an error every time Claws Mail tries to go online (not while retrieving email, which works fine, but with "Help" menu, "Spelling checker: get more dictionaries...", or "Display: get more themes...") about it not being able to find the Mozilla runtime; relying on the FAQ at http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php ... browser.3F, one should be able to point to it via "Configuration | Preferences | Message View| External Programs" but the relevant option is nowhere to be found (BTW, a legend for the extra buttons on the title bar would come handy, too).

    claws-mail-error.png
    claws-mail-error.png (7.34 KiB) Viewed 84795 times

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail

#8 Post by Midas »

I found also the following two issues, which I'm confident will be easy to amend/sort out:

  • Key "attach_load_directory=" of the "[CommonWin32]" section of 'Claws Mail\User\AppData\Claws-mail\clawsrc' file in the portable's tree is pointing to '%APPDATA%';
  • The same happens with the key "signature_path=" of 'ClawsMail-P\Claws Mail\User\AppData\Claws-mail\acountrc', which still points to an in-existent '%APPDATA%\signature.txt'.

I found little help after researching all the problems posted, apart from a few pointers supporting the case for Claws... 8)



Note: optional tips from PA.com might help pare down the portable: http://portableapps.com/node/27682...
Last edited by Midas on Sun Jul 03, 2016 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Napiophelios
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Re: Claws Mail

#9 Post by Napiophelios »

Midas wrote:On a prompt from webfork (viewtopic.php?t=21243) and since (unlike before) I'm facing a computer running Windows XP Pro SP3, I retested Napiophelios JauntPE launcher for Claws Mail (currently at v3.10.1, changelog at http://www.claws-mail.org/news.php), and here are my findings...
  • I changed a key ("Path=.\Claws Mail\claws-mail\claws-mail.exe" instead of "Path=.\Claws Mail\claws-mail-3.9.3\claws-mail.exe") in the launcher's 'Claws_Mail_jauntePE.ini' in order to formally make it version independent;
Sorry its a bad habit of mine,I always build my personal portables that way (version number attached to program files folder name)

Midas wrote:
  • I found out the previous unthemed GTK error was probably due to trying to run the portable from my Windows Desktop -- once I moved it to my portables folder in another drive, with a shorter path, everything displayed alright;
JauntePE has problems when run from special folders like Desktop, its easy enough to forget to remind folks about JPE's quirks.

But I believe its actually because of a file in the userdata folder for GTK that was replaced by a blank place holder file (my bad) more than likely this file was generated during the install process and cant be configured by the user without mucking things up.

Then trying to fix the problem was just confounded by JauntePE's weirdness when run from the desktop.
I think directory and registry isolation can fail when doing so (not sure) now you got an unsandboxed file the virtual registry is looking for and yup its now botched.

Midas wrote:
  • I'm trying to get Claws Mail to default to English as interface language, since abiding the locale as it does now results in a mishmash of un/translated strings, but the solution seems to involve setting an environment variable, something I presently don't know how to pass to the JPE launcher (see http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php ... anguage.3F);
Do you recognize the examples he gives? I dont think this one belongs to me or JPE... but I could be wrong.
Sounds like an OS issue... I know I dont know enough about code and environment variables to have an opinion but it sounds like he (the author?) is describing what your machine needs to respond.

Midas wrote:
  • I'm also getting an error every time Claws Mail tries to go online (not while retrieving email, which works fine, but with "Help" menu, "Spelling checker: get more dictionaries...", or "Display: get more themes...") about it not being able to find the Mozilla runtime; relying on the FAQ at http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php ... browser.3F, one should be able to point to it via "Configuration | Preferences | Message View| External Programs" but the relevant option is nowhere to be found (BTW, a legend for the extra buttons on the title bar would come handy, too).
JauntePE lets us know what kind of redirection/sandboxing is being implemented by the launcher as specified by the jpe launcher's ini file.

The first on the left tells us it is redirecting all processes initiated by the launcher's target exe, such as all the little sub exe files clawMail has in its program folder not to mention its plugins and firefox or whatever browser is your default .

If Firefox is anything like Chromium nowadays you may be experiencing the same browser conflict I describe in one of earlier posts.

If its already sandboxed jauntePE usually gives an exception message and wont start the app or it crashes entirely and in the really bad cases such as with Chromium, you get so many exception popup messages so fast they start piling ontop of one another till your little computer that could, must be manually unplugged or else its probably gonna explode.

Also if you are using an NSIS launcher as the target exe of your default browser you might get some weirdness or maybe just a partial sandboxing effect thats like trying to portabilize an app thats already portable... just-kinda... ah, nevermind, you get it.

The icon in the middle of the titlebar lets us know that the filesystem is being redirected.

The icon in the far right of the titlebar lets us know that the registry is being redirected.

Midas wrote:I found also the following two issues, which I'm confident will be easy to amend/sort out:
  • Key "attach_load_directory=" of the "[CommonWin32]" section of 'Claws Mail\User\AppData\Claws-mail\clawsrc' file in the portable's tree is pointing to '%APPDATA%';
  • The same happens with the key "signature_path=" of 'ClawsMail-P\Claws Mail\User\AppData\Claws-mail\acountrc', which still points to an in-existent '%APPDATA%\signature.txt'.
I found little help after researching all the problems posted -- apart from a few pointers supporting the case for Claws... 8)...
Midas, I believe I had a more optimal experience with the JauntePE version of clawEmail because
I stripped everything away from it as much as I could when setting up my personal version of the portable.

I also started from scratch with a fresh baby profile that I quickly nourished into a bouncing behemoth folder of neatly categorized evidence against myself.

I accidentally deleted my copy of Claws and never returned for lack of interest in spending that much more time organizing it all again and again.

Which makes me think maybe you tried to port over an existing user profile maybe?

Shouldn't have mattered tho but it could explain some randomness you are experiencing with this.

I think if you change these settings in the jauntepe ini file , things will probably work better for you...

Code: Select all

[Redirection]
RedirMSI=0  ;No Child Processes will be Sandboxed
RedirMisc=0 ;No Child Processes will be Sandboxed
ExcludeAppDir=0
UseIcon=0   ;No Icons in titlebar
ModFrame=0  ;No colorful borders around sanboxed windows
I hope it helps before you loose interest in it like I did :roll: jk.

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail

#10 Post by Midas »

Napiophelios wrote:Sorry its a bad habit of mine,I always build my personal portables that way (version number attached to program files folder name)

Well no harm done, except that Claws is currently v3.10.1 -- that would make a small note for a readme...

Napiophelios wrote:JauntePE has problems when run from special folders like Desktop, its easy enough to forget to remind folks about JPE's quirks...

I see. I'll have to remember that the next time I run a JPE launcher.

Napiophelios wrote:Do you recognize the examples he gives? I don't think this one belongs to me or JPE...but I could be wrong. Sounds like an OS issue... I know I don't know enough about code and environment variables to have an opinion but it sounds like he (the author?) is describing what your machine needs to respond.

I tried setting "LANG=en" and "LANG=en_US" in the general environment but it made no difference -- I think they didn't get really set, maybe I need to use something like the environment Windows dialog or an utility like Rapid Environment Editor (https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1665)...

Napiophelios wrote:JauntePE lets us know what kind of redirection/sandboxing is being implemented by the launcher as specified by the jpe launcher's ini file.

The first on the left tells us it is redirecting all processes initiated by the launcher's target exe,

Such as all the little sub exe files clawMail has in its program folder not to mention its plugins and Firefox or whatever browser is your default. If Firefox is anything like Chromium nowadays you may be experiencing the same browser conflict I describe in one of earlier posts.

Yep, it figures. ATM, I'm using a vanilla updated & installed Firefox (v30.0) as my default browser. But I also still have a parallel Pale Moon installation...

Napiophelios wrote:If its already sandboxed jauntePE usually gives an exception message and wont start the app or it crashes entirely and in the really bad cases such as with Chromium, you get so many exception popup messages so fast they start piling ontop of one another till your little computer that could , must be manually unplugged or else its probably gonna explode.

Also if you are using an NSIS launcher as the target exe of your default browser you might get some weirdness or maybe just a partial sandboxing effectthats like trying to portabilize an app thats already portable... just-kinda... ah nevermind you get it.

I think none of those scenarios apply here. But yeah, I get it... :)

Napiophelios wrote:The icon in the middle of the titlebar lets us know that the filesystem is being redirected.

The icon in the far right of the titlebar lets us know that the registry is being redirected.

Thanks for explaining this, because I thought they we're new Claws Mail features. I see now it's just the (nifty) way JauntPE signals its execution conditions.

Napiophelios wrote:I believe I had a more optimal experidance with the JauntePE version of clawEmail because I stripped everything away from it as much as I could when setting up my personal version of the portable.

If you could share whatever you retained from that process here, it would surely benefit future test runs. :mrgreen:

Napiophelios wrote:I also started from scratch with a fresh baby profile that I quickly nourished into a bouncing behemoth folder of neatly categorized evidence against myself. I accidentally deleted my copy of claw and never returned for lack of interest in spending that much more time organizing it all again and again. Which makes me think maybe you tried to port over an existing user profile maybe?

That's a negative, I started anew.

Napiophelios wrote:I hope it helps before you loose interest in it like I did

I still think Claws Mail is one of the most promising freewares for the desktop mail client category, I just don't think it is ready for the (portable) spotlight just yet.

From what I gathered, one of the main problems is that a lot of the information about it comes from the Linuxverse and is not really applicable to the Windows manifestation. And, as you already found out, setting it up is still too damn complicated. I'll keep watching it, just not really using it.

And thanks for sharing your insights. 8)

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Midas
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Re: Claws Mail

#11 Post by Midas »

Quick post to note that according for the Linux man page (see http://linux.die.net/man/1/claws-mail) a command line parameter might be enough to make Claws-Mail portable since it will make it store its configuration inside the pointed folder... (not tested, so YMMV).

Code: Select all

--alternate-config-dir [dir]

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Re: Claws Mail 3.14.0.1

#12 Post by smaragdus »

Claws Mail for Windows at version 3.14.0.1. However I have not tried the command line parameter suggested by Midas.

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Re: Claws Mail

#13 Post by Midas »

Topic update: Claws Mail v3.17.4 released 2019-07-26 (changelog at https://www.claws-mail.org/news.php).

Note: there is now an experimental 64-bit build of Claws Mail available for download from https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/.

Some relevant portability tidbits...

What environment variables have effect on Claws Mail?

HOME -- location of .claws-mail (config directory) and default folder for Mailboxes.


Thus, a batch file to set the environment variable and then run Claws Mail could look like this (untested!):

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL HOME=%~d0\Data
App\claws-mail.exe [--alternate-config-dir %~d0\Data]
This is a redundant batch, in case setting the HOME environment variable doesn't work, the parameter inside the square brackets should, at least according to the online Claws Mail Linux man-page at https://linux.die.net/man/1/claws-mail.

BTW, Napiophelios 32-bit only JPE-launcher linked above is still available at Mediafire.

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Re: Claws Mail

#14 Post by Midas »

Topic update: Claws Mail v3.17.8 released 2020-10-19 (changelog at https://www.claws-mail.org/NEWS).

Windows 32 and 64-bit installer downloads: https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/.

gregorywest
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Claws Mail and iMap

#15 Post by gregorywest »

I have having two issues.
#1 Using iMap if I read a new message on a different eMail client and then go do Claws Mail. The read eMail is never downloaded. This is sort of a big deal as I have multiple devices I have to use. If I need to do a reply to something, I need to be able to reference the original eMail.

#2 I have been unsucessful in linking Claws Mail to my Google Mail accounts. Is this a known issue or am I doing something wrong?

Greg

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