X-Git-Url: https://git.cworth.org/git?a=blobdiff_plain;f=howto.mdwn;h=b7cb71f002f7ee952b486c47d21692dbb4ea0174;hb=bfe94051ca5ed3d26ef3378d6ec37c1985029a86;hp=30e81348c68c8c35f910953ecfee2f0edc6bdb7b;hpb=c1449672b57e43b29df327ee07d5a2f47f99b7ea;p=notmuch-wiki

diff --git a/howto.mdwn b/howto.mdwn
index 30e8134..b7cb71f 100644
--- a/howto.mdwn
+++ b/howto.mdwn
@@ -1,13 +1,71 @@
 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
 #How to...
 
-##<span id="print_filenames">.. print only filenames of a search</span>
+Some tips about how to do some useful things with notmuch, and the
+various "third party" notmuch utilities.
 
-Given you have the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory), this script will print the filenames of a matching search:
+* <span id="receive_mail">Receiving mail</span>
 
-                                #!/usr/bin/env python
-                                import sys
-                                import notmuch
-                                
-                                q = notmuch.Database().create_query(" ".join(sys.argv[1:]))
-                                for m in q.search_messages(): print m.get_filename()
+  Notmuch requires either [maildir
+  flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) or a "mh"-style
+  maildirectory to operate on.  Basically any setup in which each mail
+  is in a file of it's own will work.  Here are some generally
+  well-regarded mail retrieval tools:
+
+  * [offlineimap](http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/offlineimap) - quite
+    useful and widely tested, it also offers a handy hook that
+    will come in useful a bit later in our setup.  Also supports
+    "presynchook" and "postsynchook" command that will get run
+    whenever you sync.  Point _postsynchook_ to a script that gets run
+    on every sync and that will do the automatic updating and tagging
+    of your notmuch database.
+
+  * [mbsync](http://isync.sourceforge.net/)
+
+  * [getmail](http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/)
+
+  * [fetchmail](http://fetchmail.berlios.de/)
+
+See the [initial tagging page](/initial_taggin) for more info on intial tagging of messages.
+
+* <span id="print_filenames">Print only filenames of a search</span>
+
+  Notmuch includes python bindings to the notmuch shared library,
+  called [cnotmuch](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/cnotmuch).  Extensive
+  API documentation available.
+
+  The bindings are very simple to use.  As an example, given you have
+  the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH
+  environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory),
+  this script will print the filenames of a matching search:
+
+                             #!/usr/bin/env python
+                             import sys
+                             import notmuch
+                             search = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])
+                             q = notmuch.Database().create_query(search)
+                             for m in q.search_messages():
+                                 print m.get_filename()
+
+* <span id="sync_maildir_flags">Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags</span>
+
+  Some IMAP users rely on maildir flags that convey the status "seen",
+  "replied", "trashed", in order to synchronize the status of their
+  mail across mail clients (a [maildir
+  flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) is simply a defined part
+  of their filename).  Notmuch will by default happily ignore those
+  flags and will never modify them either, as there is no built-in
+  support for sunchronizing your notmuch tags with your imap maildir
+  flags (seen, replied, trashed, etc). However there are currently 2
+  ways in which you can achieve synchronization.
+
+  [notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/) is a utility
+  (based on the cnotmuch python bindings) that allows synchronization
+  in either direction, as well as pruning of deleted files.
+
+  The second solution allows for fast maildir flag to notmuch tag
+  synchronization (and only in that direction) requires patching the
+  notmuch source code. The patch has been posted in this mail
+  *id:1267450136-31749-1-git-send-email-Sebastian@SSpaeth.de* and can
+  be viewed as a [source diff in this git
+  repository](http://github.com/spaetz/notmuch-all-feature/commit/df3b087cefb85e9d16fd17540e348bcb854dd7ee).