KMail/FAQs Hints and Tips/it

Il mio problema è già noto?

Sintomo: hai un problema con KDE-PIM e ti piacerebbe sapere se altri lo hanno segnalato e risolto. Ti chiedi come leggere gli archivi della mailing list di kde-pim.

Soluzione: Questa è una buona abitudine da coltivare. Prova gli archivi MARC su http://lists.kde.org/?l=kdepim-users&r=1&w=2

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Configurazione

Memorizzare i messaggi inviati in una cartella speciale

Sintomo: vuoi memorizzare i messaggi in una cartella speciale. Forse stai utilizzando un server IMAP e vuoi memorizzare i tuoi messaggi sul server, non nel client.

Soluzione: in Kontact scegli Impostazioni -> Configura KMail -> Identità -> (scegline una) -> Modifica -> Avanzate -> Cartella posta inviata

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Memorizza i messaggi cestinati in una cartella speciale

Sintomo: vuoi memorizzare i messaggi in una cartella speciale. Forse stai utilizzando un server IMAP e vuoi memorizzare i messaggi cestinati sul server, non nel client.

Soluzione: in Kontact scegli Impostazioni -> Configura KMail -> Account -> scheda Ricezione -> (scegli un account) -> Modifica -> Avanzate -> Cartella cestino

In alcune versioni avrai bisogno di Impostazioni -> Configura KMail -> Account -> scheda Ricezione -> (scegli un account) -> Modifica -> scheda Impostazioni IMAP -> Cartella cestino

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Memorizzare i messaggi cifrati in chiaro

Sintomo: scambi un messaggio cifrato con un amico, ma ti piacerebbe memorizzarlo in chiaro una volta che lo hai aperto.

Soluzione: per memorizzare d'ora in poi i messaggi dopo che sono stati decifrati, aggiungi questo al tuo file di configurazione di kmailrc, nella sezione [Reader]:

store-displayed-messages-unencrypted=true

Questo potrebbe funzionare solo con SMIME, ma l'implementazione per OpenPgP è in lavorazione.

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Filtraggio dello spam su un server IMAP

Sintomo: hai intenzione di passare a leggere la posta da un server IMAP e ti chiedi come funziona il filtraggio e la gestione della spam?

Soluzione: la macchina che ha già la tua posta può diventare il tuo server imap. Avrai bisogno di configurare un'applicazione server. Dovecot è una di queste e le indicazioni sulle pagine web del progetto la rendono facile da configurare. Questo ti lascia ancora con il problema del filtraggio dato che ha senso farlo sul server (quando punti kmail sul server, vedrai le cartelle che hai creato in esso). Di nuovo ci sono più opzioni, ma una delle più note è procmail. Ancora una volta c'è abbondanza di informazioni su internet su come configurarlo. Gli dai un insieme di "ricette", ecco un esempio:

:0
 * (^To|^CC|^List-ID): .*kde-linux
 ${MAILDIR}.INBOX.KDE-Lists.kde-users/

Se hai cartelle maildir, ogni ricetta deve terminare con una "/". Se le tue cartelle sono mbox, basta omettere il "/"

Se hai utilizzato bogofilter' con kmail, avrai già una wordlist. Questa può essere utilizzata anche a livello del server in modo da non dover iniziare l'apprendimento da zero. Il trucco è impostarla prima delle ricette di procmail:

:0fw
 | bogofilter -e -p

:0e
 { EXITCODE=75 HOST }

:0:
 * ^X-Bogosity: Spam, tests=bogofilter
 ${MAILDIR}.INBOX.a-Spam/

:0e
 { EXITCODE=75 HOST }

:0:
 * ^X-Bogosity: Unsure, tests=bogofilter
 ${MAILDIR}.INBOX.a-Unsure/

:0e
 { EXITCODE=75 HOST }

Nota che verrà utilizzata una mailbox per la spam e una per quelle incerte. Aggiungo una 'a-' al nome per assicurare che siano facilmente visibili, in cima alla lista.

Infine, per migliorare le prestazioni, esegui il seguente comando di tanto in tanto sulla spam e le incerte salvate:

/usr/share/bogofilter/contrib/trainbogo.sh -c -H /home/utente/Maildir /.INBOX.bogotrain_ham/cur/ -S /home/utente/Maildir/.INBOX.bogotrain_spam/cur/

(Non dimenticare di controllare il percorso).

Questa non è una guida completa per la configurazione di un server, ma si sofferma su come configurarlo perché funzioni come previsto in KMail.

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Avere più spazio sullo schermo in KMail

Sintomo: stai utilizzando KMail in KDE 4.2 o successive su un netbook e trovi che la nuova vista Aggregazione ti lascia poco spazio sullo schermo.

Soluzione: nella 4.2 hai a disposizione un nuovo gruppo di icone di fianco alla barra di ricerca rapida. Puoi usarle per scegliere un tema differente e una differente aggregazione. Se vuoi cambiare l'aspetto così che un messaggio utilizzi una singola riga invece che due, vai su , il suggerimento dice Seleziona aspetto della vista (tema), e cambia il tema in Classico. Se vuoi disabilitare il raggruppamento per data, modifica l'aggregazione in Mailing list standard. Ora il tuo KMail ha lo stesso aspetto che aveva nelle versioni precedenti.

Nella 4.4 e nella 4.5 queste impostazioni sono state spostate nel menu principale Visualizza -> Elenco messaggi -> Tema e Visualizza -> Elenco messaggi -> Aggregazione

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Avere più spazio sullo schermo in KMail - ridurre la dimensione dei caratteri

Sintomo: ti manca ancora spazio sullo schermo e preferiresti avere più righe visibili a spese della dimensione dei caratteri, ma i tuoi tentativi funzionano solo parzialmente.

Soluzione: in Impostazioni -> Configura KMail -> Aspetto -> Caratteri puoi selezionare Carattere personalizzato e modificare le impostazioni per ogni componente in elenco. Questo può essere utile quando scopri che l'elenco delle cartelle e i corpi dei messaggi hanno i caratteri che vuoi, ma l'elenco dei messaggi ha ancora un carattere troppo grande.

Ora devi cerca nel gruppo di nuove icone in alto a destra, vicino alla casella di ricerca, questa , il suggerimento dice Seleziona aspetto della vista (tema). Scegli Configura, quindi la scheda Aspetto. C'è un elenco di Voci del contenuto e sotto una rappresentazione delle intestazioni delle colonne. Devi fare clic su ognuna di queste intestazioni delle colonne ed impostare il nuovo carattere personalizzato. Alla fine l'elenco dei messaggi sarà visualizzato con lo stesso carattere del resto della tua disposizione.

Nelle versioni successive che non hanno quelle icone, puoi effettuare i cambiamenti facendo clic destro sulle intestazioni dell'elenco dei messaggi e selezionando di nuovo Tema -> Configura -> scheda Aspetto. Devi lavorare con l'intestazione di ogni colonna.

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De-configurare i suggerimenti delle cartelle di KMail

Sintomo: stai utilizzando KMail in KDE 4.2 o successive su un netbook e trovi che i suggerimenti sopra le cartelle nascondano troppi nomi delle cartelle.

Soluzione: fare clic destro sull'intestazione dell'Elenco delle cartelle porta in primo piano diverse opzioni di configurazione in più. Una sezione è intitolata Visualizza suggerimenti e le scelte sono Sempre, Se il testo è tagliato, Mai. Se il testo è tagliato è comodo per le cartelle che hanno nomi lunghi che comportano la visualizzazione di solo una parte del nome. Le cartelle di cui puoi vedere il nome completo non visualizzeranno il suggerimento.

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De-configurare i suggerimenti dell'elenco dei messaggi di KMail

In KMail, Settings -> Configure KMail -> Appearance -> Message List uncheck General -> Display tooltips for messages and group headers

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Remove Alternate Line colourings

In System Settings -> Appearance -> Colors -> Colors, for each color set except Common Colors (which doesn't have it), change the Alternate Background to be the same as the Normal Background.

Mandriva doesn't use the name System Settings. As in KControl, the KDE 3 control centre, they name it "Configure your Desktop" to distinguish it from "Configure your Computer", a.k.a. the Mandriva Control Center (MCC). Other than this name change, the method is as described above.

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Migration

Transfer mail and settings to another computer (or another user account on the same machine)

Solution: The messages are typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/. For very old installations of KMail, the messages can also be in ~/Mail. Note that KMail uses hidden sub-directories inside that directory, so you need to make sure to copy hidden directories as well.

For settings you will need to copy the following files:

• ~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc,
• ~/.kde/share/config/mailtransports, (since KDE 4.0)
• ~/.kde/share/config/emaildefaults and
• ~/.kde/share/config/emailidentities .

Your address book is usually stored in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc/. Calendar data is in ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer

Be aware that some distributions use ~/.kde4 instead of ~/.kde/ for their KDE configuration data.

From version 4.4 you may have some Akonadi-controlled entries that also need to be kept. Add to the above list -

• Everthing under ~/.local/share/
• Everything under ~/.config/akonadi/.
• ~/.kde/share/config/nepomukserverrc
• Everything under ~/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/ (KAddressBook stores contact groups in Nepomuk.)

If you plan to use an USB stick as transport medium for your data, be sure to read section "Cannot copy mail to a USB stick" below.

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Problem: Cannot copy mail to a USB stick

Symptom: You are setting up a new computer and want to transfer all your mail. You decide to copy everything to a usb stick. The job starts, then you start to get failure message,

Unable to copy ............Invalid argument

Solution: Your usb stick is (V)FAT formatted, and thus can't handle maildir folder names (nor can it handle permissions, which can cause many other problems). You have two choices. Either format your usb stick as ext2 (in which case you should be aware it can't be read on Windows OSes without installing additional software there) or create a tar file of all your mail, copy that to the stick and extract it to your new host.

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Troubleshooting

Problem: You are losing mail

Symptom: You are losing mail. One message in your Inbox had an empty subject line and the date 1st January 1970. When you clicked on it, it was empty. When you clicked on the next message that changes to the same state.

Solution: This happens where there is corruption in your index files. First thing then, do notclick on any more messages.

• With the KMail 1.10 shipped with KDE 4.1 or newer, right click on the folder and select Rebuild Index (you can do the same from the Folder menu).
• With earlier KMail versions the process is slightly more complicated. Close KMail. In Dolphin, navigate to where your mail is stored (typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/) and look for index files associated with the affected mailbox. There will be two or three, and be easy to spot. Delete them. They will be recreated when you re-start KMail. You will have lost the mails that had disappeared, but the rest of the mail should be visible again.

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You have empty 'ghost-mails' in your inbox (or other folder)

Symptom: For some reason, certain messages aren't accessible in KMail. They show up in the message list window but selecting them there results in a blank message window. I can't open them or reply to them, etc.

Solution: This problem is most likely due to corrupted index files, see issue "You are losing mail" above. So just follow the advice given there.

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Problem: Wrong address autocompletion

Symptom: You sent an email to a friend and mis-typed his address. Now that address keeps popping up as a suggestion, every time you try to send to the correct address. You can't find it in your addressbook.

Solution: Recent addresses are actually stored in /.kde/share/config/kmailrc, but rather than risk making a mistake in a manual edit, go to KMail's Settings -> Configure KMail -> Composer and you will see a button Edit Recent Addresses

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Problem: Cannot follow a link in a mail

Symptom: You have set Firefox as your default browser, but when you click a URL in KMail it loads a local temporary version of the page with broken relative links.

Solution: You should add "%u" or "%U" to the Firefox executable in the settings. If that is not present KDE assumes that the application is not capable of handling remote urls (http) and hence creates a local copy first.

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Problem: You get an authentication error message

Authentication support is not compiled into kio_smtp. The message will stay in the 'outbox' folder until you either fix the problem (e.g. a broken address) or remove the message from the 'outbox' folder.

Solution: Install the sasl-devel-package and recompile kdepimlibs. E.g. for SUSE the package is named cyrus-sasl-devel and you install it with the command

yast -i cyrus-sasl-devel

When running cmake to compile kdepimlibs, you will see:

-- The following external packages were located on your system.
 -- This installation will have the extra features provided by these packages.
 [...]
 + cyrus-sasl

This usually only affects self-build distros.

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Problem: You can't find your Distribution Lists

Solution: See Special:myLanguage/KAddressBook

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Your correspondents complain about your bottom-posting

Symptom: Your correspondents use mail agents that routinely top-post, and they complain that they have to scroll down to read your replies. You, on the other hand, post to mailing lists, where it is a requirement that you bottom post to maintain the natural order of reading.

Solution: Highlight the portion of your received message to which you want to reply, before hitting the Reply icon or keyboard shortcut. The composer window that opens will quote only the section that you highlighted and your correspondents will be able to see your reply without unnecessary scrolling.

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Error: Could Not Determine Resource Status

Symptom: When fetching mail, you get an error message reading like:

Error while getting folder information.
 Could Not Determine Resource Status
 An attempt to determine information about the status of the resource 
 Unable to get information about folder INBOX.customflags.
 The server replied: Mailbox does not exist, or must be subscribed to.,
 such as the resource name, type, size, etc., was unsuccessful.
 Technical reason: Could Not Stat Resource

Reason: You are using Courier IMAP as your mail server.

Solution: If you are your own mail server administrator, set up a different mail service, for example cyrus. Here is a description how to do it.

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Problem: Kmail is slow

Symptom: Kmail is really slow to get your mails.

Solution: It might be that the spam tool you're using is slowing down Kmail. If you used Kmail tools menu to add a spam tool and added Spam Assassin (for example) then try another one. I noticed that bogofilter is much quicker. You'll need to remove the 1st one and add the 2nd. You'll then need to train the spam tool you just added (bogofilter): KMail Anti-Spam Tools

Symptom: You just copied your mail folders from an earlier version (see "Migration" above) and now Kmail is really slow to respond shortly after it starts up, for at least several seconds with Kontact burning 100% cpu.

Solution: Work through all your saved message folders and Mark all messages as read, from either the Folder menu or right-click on the folder in the tree view side panel.

Symptom: You experience very long delays when sending messages, and KMail is frozen while you wait.

Solution: There was a bug in the various Release Candidates for KDE SC 4.4 which caused KMail to do lengthy searches for matching addresses. Updating to the full 4.4 should cure the problem.

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KMail with other desktops or applications

Problem: KMail does not start up.

Symptom: You want to start KMail from a minimal desktop environment like fvwm2. It does not start.

Reason: You are missing the dbus functionality.

Solution: Start KMail using dbus-launch like this:

dbus-launch kmail

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Tell Firefox to use KMail for mailto: addresses

Solution:

Firefox 2 - In the Firefox address bar, type

about:config

Right-click anywhere in the window and select New -> String in the first dialogue field. Type

network.protocol-handler.app.mailto

and then

kmailservice

Close Firefox

Firefox 3 - In the Firefox menu, select Edit -> Preferences, choose the Applications tab, then type

mailto

in the search box. Choose Use Other... and find /usr/bin/kmailservice

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Set Firefox as your default browser

Symptom: You want to click on a link in KMail and have it opened in Firefox. At the moment, another browser is used. You want to change this.

Solution: This solution will affect all of KDE, not just KMail. Start systemsettings -> Default Applications -> Web Browser -> Open http and https URLs in the following browser -> firefox.

If you are an administrator and want to set this setting automatically for your users, it is

• for SUSE Linux

in your user directory in .kde4/share/config/kdeglobals add the line

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox

under category [General]

• for all other Linux distributions:

in your user directory in .kde/share/config/kdeglobals add the line

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox

under category [General] If General category does't exist you should add it.

You can also use the script in Tutorials/Modify_KDE_defaults

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Control your Roaming profile's connection

Symptom: You set up a Roaming profile to access your home server while you are on the road, but it keeps trying to connect even when you are at home. Auto-connection is disabled in the setup screens.

Solution: Settings -> Configure KMail -> Accounts -> Receiving (tab) -> (select the account to exclude) -> Modify ->General (tab), uncheck Include in manual mail check. This will exclude the profile when you hit the download icon, but the profile will still be available from the drop-down list, making it easy to get your mail while away from home.

Hints and Tips

Add a Tag to aid searching

You must first define your tags, which is done in Settings->Configure KMail->Appearance->Message Tags. Now you will find that the (right-click) context menu, under Mark Message, offers you the choice of your defined tags.

Watch threads

If you want to follow a thread, right click and choose Mark Thread -> Watch Thread.

From this point on all messages on the thread that starts in this message will be marked as Watched.

Watch your own threads:

This is useful in case you are registered to a mailing list such as [email protected] and want to filter out the threads you participate in.

Create a filter to mark all your incoming messages to a mailing list as "Watched"

To create a filter go to: Settings -> Configure Filters

• select Match all of the following
• Add the conditions:
  • From -> Contains -> yourmail@maildomain [1]
  • List-Id -> Contains listID [2]

[1]replace yourmail@maildomain with your outgoing mail address

[2]replace listID with a specific mailing list id e.g (<kdepim-users.kde.org>) or just a '.' to include outgoing mail to all mailing list with '.' in their id (basically all).

• Under Filter Actions choose Mark As -> Watched.

In the Advanced tab

• Uncheck if this filter matches, stop processing here.

so that other filters such as sorting the incoming messages from the mailing list to sub-folders would execute.

• Place that filter before other filters that may stop the filtering process,

or simply put it first. (changing the filters order is done using the two arrows up and down, under the available filters list)

Create a search on mailing list messages

Go to the folder where your mailing list messages are stored e.g (Local Folders/KDE-PIM-USERS) and hit S key or in the menu Edit -> Find Messages.

• Select Match all of the following[3]
• Add the condition: Message Status -> is -> Watched
• Give the search an informative name (Search folder name) like KDE-PIM-USERS-Watched
• Make the search. After it is done you can close the search window.

Now whenever you start a thread or participate in one, it is Watched.

[3] Pay attention to the Include sub-folders.

E-Mail Translation

Symptom: you receive mail messages in different languages and want to translate them without doing lots of copy and paste.

Solution: using an external program to translate our E-Mail and display it.

Step by step implementation

Warning

The provided solution was tested limited number of times and should be used with caution.

• Prerequisites, make sure you have those before starting
  • libtranslate
  • perl
  • perl module Email::MIME
  • kmail
• Setting up a pipe filter
  • In Kmail go to Settings -> Configure filters
    • create a new filter and name it Translate
    • add a Filter Criteria that would be always true (e.g Subject -> Does not equal -> "321546543")
    • add a Filter Action Pipe Through

      ~/bin/mail_translate.pl

    • open the Advanced tab and un-check everything except for Add this filter to the Apply Filter menu, you can also set a shortcut and an icon here.
• Putting the script in place and configuring it
  • save the following script to a file named mail_translate.pl and put it in your ~/bin directory.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Email::MIME;

my $from_language = 'en';
my $to_language = 'he';
my $translation_command = "translate ";
my $languages_pair = "-f $from_language -t $to_language";
my $line;
my $message='';

while ($line=<>)
{
    $message.=$line;
}

my $email = Email::MIME->new($message);
my @parts = $email->parts;
my $separator = `echo "translation" | $translation_command -f en -t "$to_language" -`;
chop $separator;
rec_parts ($email,@parts);

sub rec_parts
{
    my $parent = $_[0];
    my @parts = $_[1];
    for $part(@parts)
    {
	my @sub_parts = $part->parts;
	if (@sub_parts > 1)
	{
	    rec_parts ($part,@sub_parts);
	}
	my $type=$part->content_type;
	if (( $part->content_type =~ m[text/plain]gi )||( $part->content_type eq ''))
	{
	    my $body = $part->body;
	    
	    $body=~s/['"`]*//g;
	    my $translation_body=`echo "$body" | $translation_command $languages_pair -`;
	    $translation_body=~s/['"`]*//g;
	    my $msg=$body."\n\n---"."$separator"."---\n\n".$translation_body;
	    `kdialog --title "$separator" --msgbox "$msg"`;
	}
    }
}
print $email->as_string;

• Make the script executable using

  $chmod a+x ~/bin/mail_translate.pl

• Configuring the script to suit your needs.
  • Currently the script will translate from English (en) to Hebrew (he), you probably need another type of translation. To change that settings look inside the script for the phrase $from_language = 'en' and $to_language = 'he' and replace the 'en' and 'he' parts with the combination you need, if you are not sure, a full list of language codes is available from the ISO 639-2 list.

• • Testing
    • before charging innocent E-Mails and translating them first try that on something you don't mind to lose, look in your trash or spam folder. Right click on any translatable item Apply Filter -> Filter Translate A dialog box should pop-up with the original message followed by it's translation.
  • Troubleshooting
    • If the script is not working you can test it outside of KMail to narrow down the responsible component. Save a mail message as 1.mbox file and run in the terminal

      $~/bin/mail_translate.pl < 1.mbox > 2.mbox

If the output file 2.mbox is not the same as 1.mbox then there is a problem in the script and it shouldn't be used.

Note

this script will only translate the Plain Text parts of an E-Mail message and not the HTML parts.