Re: On Mutt vs Outlook comparison, @h4rmony
>>>>Ability to display formatting or embedded images are two capabilities missing from Mutt compared to Outlook that spring immediately to mind.
>>Mutt got an ability to use external software (w3m, firefox, image viewers) of a user's choice that have this capabilities
For people not familiar with Mutt, here is the interface: screenshot. This is what you're comparing to Outlook.
You claimed that Mutt was "probably" more capable than Outlook. (I assume the 'probably' is because as with our previous discussions you haven't actually used the current version of Outlook in any significant way). I gave two common and popular capabilities that Outlook has and Mutt lacks. Saying that you can open an email from Mutt in Firefox if you want to see does not change that it doesn't have the features. You've now shifted your position to "Mutt plus other software used alongside it can do some of the same things as Outlook more or less". The "more or less" is because I don't think opening an email in a separate program just so you can see the formatting counts as the same. That's quite a goal post shift from "Mutt is probably more capable".
>>1) How many Operating Systems besides MS Windows can it run on?
It's Windows only, as I'm sure you know. I very much doubt many Outlook users care.
>>2) how well does it handle IMAP?
Fine. Exchange is recommended so you can use the calendaring and other features, but here is how to set it up with IMAP. Link. You know, 5 seconds with a search engine and you might have been able to actually check rather than asking questions with an agenda on here.
>>3) can you use pgp/gpg for signatures and mail encryption?
Yes. It's unusual because Outlook is aimed toward Enterprise environments and there are other tools to achieve the same thing as GPG managed centrally by an IT department. Really for something like this you want a company-wide approach with enterprise management solutions. However, you can use GPG with Outlook. Again, five seconds with a search engine would have told you this: Link. The GPG4Win Outlook plugin doesn't work for Office 2013 64-bit version yet (that's still quite new) but does for the 32-bit version and others. There may be another way to do it, I don't know. I have GPG4Win installed here but I use it with Thunderbird and the Enigmail plugin.
>>4) can it be run without GUI (like in the Core Server environment)?
No. Who uses an email client on a headerless server environment? If you're trying to sell Mutt as more capable than Outlook (sorry - "probably" more capable) by holding up its lack of GUI as a feature you're far removed from normal use cases.
>>5) can you use it in a script or out of the command line?
Yes. More so than Mutt, actually as Outlook exposes a full and rich object-orientated API that you can access from another program or Powershell. All exposed elements in Outlook are objects. Here is a really small taste of what you can do just to give you a feel for how simple it is.
$ol = New-Object -comObject Outlook.Application
gm -InputObject $ol
$mail = $ol.Session.OpenSharedItem("C:\Test Email Subject.msg")
$mail.Forward()
$Mail.Recipients.Add("someone@example.com")
$Mail.Subject = "Test Mail"
$Mail.Body = " Here is some text"
$Mail.Send()
>>6) does the search/filtering in Outlook support regular expression (and virtual mailboxes for that matter)?
Wildcards only in the default interface. You could, if you wished, create a short script which used regular expressions and attach it as a filter / search. Bit fiddly.
>>7) can you pipe any email message (any part from a message) onto a command from the shell or an application?
Again, this is far, far removed from normal use case. You could do it with a script if you wished. Or, you know, hit Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V.
>>Can you tag any number of messages using regex option as in search/filtering and do the same, or apply mailbox operation such as moving to a different (remote) box, saving, deleting etc?
Already answered the regex. Yes, you could do this but you'd have to know a small amount about using regex's in scripts.
>>8) can you use external editor of your choice (like vim/Emacs) for message composition?
Obviously. Write in whatever you want and then put it into an email.
>>9) is it as simple, fast and with as low foot print as Mutt (around 28MB of RAM for me currently for 10K email messages on gmail IMAP)?
It is actually simpler given that it is GUI based. It's footprint is not as low but it runs fine on any modern hardware. Once you meet the condition of "running fine", you've met user needs. Besides, that's not really a "capability". More goal post shifting.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
