Before you start making additions to nail, subscribe to the development mailing list at to coordinate your efforts with the maintainer and other people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following features are missing for conformance with the Single Unix Specification, v.3: * LC_TIME environment. This conflicts with the mail RFCs and historical usage. It was optional POSIX.2, but the newer standards mention this in the rationale only. Won't be implemented here. * onehop variable (not demanded by POSIX standards). Seems absolutely obsolete. If anybody has a need for it, he should contribute code. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following IMAP features could be implemented in the future. If you need them and cannot wait, contribute code. - The MIME capabilities of IMAP could be used so that not entire messages are downloaded all the time, but just the parts that are actually needed. - SASL authentication methods could be implemented. - The deletion code (more general, all STORE code) should be able to generate requests for ranges of messages to speed up operation. - Large messages should be transferred in separate parts with IMAP so that the operation can be interrupted in between. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The POP3 client supports USER/PASS and APOP authentications only. If you need other authentication methods and have the ability to test them, please write and contribute code. A variable should be added to specify the default character set for messages without MIME declarations. If you want to edit arbitrary header fields with the 'editheaders' option, you are invited to supply code for it. Be warned that this is a nontrivial task due to MIME. Contact the development mailing list before you start coding. Several people have suggested adding support for arrow keys at the command prompt, autocompletion for attachment filenames, etc. I am personally not going to implement this as X Window Copy-and-Paste satisfies me. But if you desparately need it, you're invited to contribute code. You can't use libreadline, though, because its license is incompatible, and I insist that your implementation is done in a way that a) nail can still be compiled without requiring any further libraries (i. e. your code is optional) and b) your code works for all kinds of terminals, not just VT100/ANSI ones. Nail will not support 'Return-Receipt-To' or 'Disposition-Notification-To' header fields, neither for the sending nor for the receiving part. For the sending part it plainly doesn't work because one wants to know whether the human recipient has read the mail and not if he clicked on some send-a-receipt-button while looking out of the window. For the receiving part, it is simply annoying. If you want a confirmation, ask the recipient to send one in the body of the message. Gunnar Ritter 11/6/04