Re: [GSoC] A late proposal: a modern send-email

From: 惠轶群 <huiyiqun@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 26, 2016, 02:13 UTC
Message-ID: <CAKqreux1S2ioEEjPPCkyz1NJnXJ1RyiWdM5thZD607PkL0HKuQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqzitm2zkj.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

2016-03-26 2:16 GMT+08:00 Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>:

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> 惠轶群 <huiyiqun@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> # Purpose
>> The current implementation of send-email is based on perl and has only
>> a tui, it has two problems:
>> - user must install a ton of dependencies before submit a single patch.
>> - tui and parameter are both not quite friendly to new users.
>
> Is "a ton of dependencies" true?  "apt-cache show git-email"
> suggests otherwise.  Is "a ton of dependencies" truly a problem?
> "apt-get install" would resolve the dependencies for you.

There are three perl packages needed to send patch through gmail:
- perl-mime-tools
- perl-net-smtp-ssl
- perl-authen-sasl

Yes, not too many, but is it better none of them?

What's more, when I try to send mails, I was first disrupted by "no perl-mime-tools" then by "no perl-net-smtp-ssl or perl-authen-sasl". Then I think, why not just a mailto link?

Show 9 quoted lines

>> # Plan
>> So I propose to implement following:
>> - Allow user to send mail via a [`mailto`
>> link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailto). so that users could
>> complete the mail in their favorite email clients such as gmail, mutt,
>> alpine and even gmail for android through
>
> IIRC, GMail on Android is incapable of sending a "text/plain", so
> that part may not fly well.

Really? As much as I known, GMail on Android is capable of sending a "text/plain" while Inbox is not.

Show 8 quoted lines

>> - Build a simple email client (maybe a web components based web app or
>> wxwidgets based GUI client, they are both cross-platform) which is
>> easy to use for sending patch without disrupting the mailbox format.
>
> I suspect it would yield a better result if the plan were to update
> a popular email client and make it possible to tell it to read an
> existing text file (i.e. mbox) without corrupting its contents.
> People do not have to learn a new mail client if done that way.

Maybe a plugin? I'm not sure.

If above `mail-to` is implemented, user could just using any mail
client, but a mail client adaptive for patch would be better:
- Do not allow user to edit the diff part
- always 'plan/text'
- visual

> That may not be a "Git" project, but GSoC is not limited to Git ;-)

Sorry, but I do not really mean to implement a general mail client. In fact, this is a GUI front end for git send-mail and may be placed under contrib/