# Advanced features

## Actions

Actions allow you to use all the power of the Unix command-line with your emails. You can define various commands, taking parameters such as the current email file, a list of emails, the currently selected text, and so on. In this way, you'll be able to perform various tasks such as editing a raw mail in your text editor, hide what you mean using ROT-13, apply patches contained in emails directly, and so on. The only limit is your imagination. You can create and configure Actions via the /Configuration/Actions... menu.

The Tools/Actions/ menu will contain one submenu item for each action that you have created. When you have selected one or more messages in the Message List, or are viewing a message in the Message View, selecting one of these menu items will invoke the action, and, depending on how it was defined, will pass the message(s) to it.

Additionally, it is possible to add toolbar entries for your actions. To do so, open the Configuration/Preferences menu and select Toolbars/Main Window. Select User Action in the Item type dropdown menu, then select the Action in the Event executed on click dropdown menu, and click the Icon button to select the icon that you want to use.

> ### Simple Open With...

> Menu name: Open with/kate Command Line: `kate %p`

>   Opens the file of the selected decoded MIME part (%p) with the kate text editor.

> ### Spam management using Bogofilter

> Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Ham Command Line: `bogofilter -n -v -B "%f"`

>   Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as not spam using Bogofilter.

> Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Spam Command Line: `bogofilter -s -v -B "%f"`

>   Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as spam using Bogofilter.

> ### Search Google using an external script

> Menu name: Search/Google Command Line: `|/path/to/google_search.pl`

>   Searches Google for the currently selected text (|) using the external script google_search.pl.

## Templates

Templates are used in composition windows, and act as a model for emails. Templates can be filled with static text and dynamic parts, such as the original sender's name (Dear %N, ...), the date, etc. When applying a template, the dynamic fields will be replaced with the relevant values. You can configure templates via the Tools menu.

When applying a template, you will be asked to Insert or Replace, the difference between replacing and inserting is only concerned with the message body. Replace will replace the current composition window message body with the body defined in the template, clearing it if the template body is empty. Insert will insert the template's body, if set, at the current cursor position.

Whether you choose to Insert or Replace, any To, Cc or Bcc field that is defined in the template will be appended to the compose window's recipients list. If it is defined, the template's Subject will always replace the compose window's Subject.

Symbols can be used in all parts of the templates and will be substituted with their respective dynamic value if possible, otherwise no value will be used. This often makes more sense if you apply a template when replying or forwarding, otherwise most of the symbols value will be undefined. There is no restriction on which symbols can be used in template parts, even if inserting the body (%M or %Q) may make no sense in common situations.

When applying a template, the body is processed first, then the To, Cc, Bcc and Subject fields follow.

Further information and examples of usage can be found in the user-contributed FAQ on the Claws Mail website http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/.

## Processing

Processing rules are the same as Filtering rules, except that they are applied when entering a folder or when manually applied from a folder's context menu and apply only to this folder. You can use them to automatically move old mails into an archive folder, or for further dispatching of emails, and more. You can set each folder's Processing rules by right-clicking on it.

Processing rules are accompanied by Pre-processing and Post-processing rules. Like Processing rules, they apply when opening a folder or manually applying them from a folder's context menu, but like Filtering rules, they are shared across all folders. You can configure them from the Tools menu. Pre-processing rules are executed before the folder's specific Processing rules, while Post-processing rules are executed afterwards.

## Colour Labels

Colour labels can be used to denote a message as having a particular significance. To set a colour label simply right-click a message in the Message List and use the Color label submenu.

Colour labels are user-configurable. Both the colour and the label can be set by the user. Preferences can be found on the Configuration/Preferences/Display/Colors page.

## Mailing-List support

Claws Mail offers mailing-list support from the Message/Mailing-List/ submenu. When you have a mailing-list message selected, the submenu allows you to quickly initiate subscribing, unsubscribing, posting, getting help, contacting the list owner, and viewing the list archive; either by opening a new Compose window with the appropriate address pre-filled, or by opening the URL in your web browser.

## Plugins

Plugins are the mechanism for extending Claws Mail' capabilities. For example, imagine that you want to store your mails in a remote SQL database. In most mailers out there this is simply impossible without reworking the internals of the mailer. With Claws Mail you can simply write a plugin to achieve the task.

This is just an example of the possibilities. A good number of plugins developed for Claws Mail already exist, and more are to come. The Extending Claws Mail section gives details of them.

## Deploying Claws Mail

The initial configuration wizard tries to guess various fields using information gathered from the system, such as username, hostname, and more. As it is oriented towards general use, the default values often have to be fixed. However, this wizard is customisable, in a manner designed to allow system administrators to deploy Claws Mail easily over various users of one machine, or even over multiple machines installed via some replication tool.

The first part consists of creating a wizard configuration template and setting the various default parameters of a new Claws Mail installation.

- Start with a user who does not have a `~/.claws-mail` directory, ideally a new user.

- Start Claws Mail and go through the wizard. The values you fill in will be of no use for the future deployment, so you can click next-next-next.

- Once the wizard is finished and you have Claws Mail' main window opened, configure the various defaults you want to have in the master. You can load plugins, add people or LDAP servers in the addressbook, create filtering rules, and so on.

- If needed, and if the deployed Claws Mail will use MH folders, you can create subdirectories in the mailbox.

- Next, quit Claws Mail.

- Now, edit the newly created wizard template file, `~/.claws-mail/accountrc.tmpl`. In this file, you will see different variables, corresponding to the wizard's fields. You can leave some commented, in which case the usual default will be used, or specify values or variables. Not all fields can contain variables; for example, `smtpauth`, `smtpssl` and `recvssl` are booleans, either 0 or 1, and `recvtype` is an integer value. The other fields, like `name`, `email`, or `recvuser`, are parsed by the wizard and the variables they contain are replaced by values. This allows you to specify everything as needed for your site, even if you have strange server names or server logins.

- Save this file, and delete both `~/.claws-mail/accountrc`, (which contains your dummy account) and `~/.claws-mail/folderlist.xml`, (so that the folder tree will be correctly parsed for new users). Recursively copy `.claws-mail` to `/etc/skel/`; if the deployed Claws Mail will use MH folders, also copy the created `Mail` directory. chown all of `/etc/skel/.claws-mail` and `/etc/skel/Mail` to `root:root` for security reasons.

- Test! Create a new user, login as that user, run Claws Mail. If you filled everything as you wanted, this user will just have to fill in his passwords.

- Now, if you're creating a master for a site-wide deployment, you can continue with this process. If you were just doing it for one machine, you're done!

Here are the different variables of the `accountrc.tmpl` file:

`domain`

  Your domain name (example.com). If not set, it'll be extracted from the hostname.

`name`

  The user's name. If not set, it'll be extracted from Unix login information, which is usually ok.

`email`

  The user's email. If not set, it'll be extracted from `$name` and `$domain`.

`organization`

  Your organization. If not set, it'll be empty.

`smtpserver`

  The SMTP server to use. If not set, it'll be `smtp.$domain`.

`smtpauth`

  0 or 1. Whether to authenticate on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be 0.

`smtpuser`

  The login on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (same login as for reception will be used).

`smtppass`

  The password on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (if `smtppass` is empty but `smtpuser` is not, the user will be asked for the password).

`recvtype`

  The type of server to receive from. 0 for POP3, 3 for IMAP4, 5 for a local MBOX file. If not set, it'll be 0 (POP3).

`recvserver`

  The reception server. If not set, it'll be `(pop|imap).$domain`, depending on `$recvtype`.

`recvuser`

  The login on the reception server. If not set, it'll be extracted from the Unix login information.

`recvpass`

  The password on the reception server. If not set, it'll be empty (the user will be asked for it once per session).

`imapdir`

  The IMAP subdirectory. If not set, it'll be empty, which is often sufficient.

`mboxfile`

  The MBOX file to receive from if `$recvtype` is 5. If not set, `/var/mail/$LOGIN`.

`mailbox`

  The MH mailbox to store mail in (for `$recvtype` 0 or 5). If not set, it'll be Mail.

`smtpssl`

  0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for sending mail. If not set, it'll be 0.

`recvssl`

  0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for receiving mail. If not set, it'll be 0.

Here are the different variables you can use in the `domain`, `name`, `email`, `organization`, `smtpserver`, `smtpuser`, `smtppass`, `recvserver`, `recvuser`, `recvpass`, `imapdir`, `mboxfile` and `mailbox` fields:

`$DEFAULTDOMAIN`

  The domain name as extracted from Unix hostname information. Often wrong.

`$DOMAIN`

  The domain name as set in the domain variable, the first of the template file.

`$USERNAME`

  The user's real name.

`$LOGIN`

  The user's Unix login.

`$NAME_MAIL`

  The user's real name as set in the name variable of the template field, in lowercase and with spaces replaced by dots. Colin Leroy becomes colin.leroy.

`$EMAIL`

  The email address as set in the email variable of the template field.

Be sure not to use a variable before defining it.

## Hidden preferences

There are a number of hidden preferences in Claws Mail, preferences that some users who we wanted to please couldn't live without, but which did not have a place in the GUI in our opinion. You can find the following, and change them while Claws Mail is not running, in `~/.claws-mail/clawsrc`.

There's a small tool written in Perl-GTK called Clawsker which provides a user-friendly GUI for tweaking these settings instead of direct editing of `clawsrc`. You can read more about it on the Clawsker page.

`addressbook_use_editaddress_dialog`

  Use a separate dialogue to edit a person's details. '0' will use a form embedded in the addressbook's main window.

`bold_unread`

  Show unread messages in the Message List using a bold font.

`cache_max_mem_usage`

  The maximum amount of memory to use to cache messages, in kB.

`cache_min_keep_time`

  The minimum time in minutes to keep a cache in memory. Caches more recent than this time will not be freed, even if the memory usage is too high.

`compose_no_markup`

  Don't use bold and italic text in Compose dialogue's account selector.

`emphasis_color`

  The colour used for the X-Mailer line when its value is Claws Mail.

`enable_dotted_lines`

  Use the old dotted line look in the main window GtkTreeView components, (Folder List and Message List), instead of the modern lineless look.

`enable_hscrollbar`

  Enable the horizontal scrollbar in the Message List.

`enable_swap_from`

  Display the sender's email address in the To column of the Sent folder instead of the recipient's.

`folderview_vscrollbar_policy`

  Specify the policy of vertical scrollbar of Folder List. '0' is always shown, '1' is automatic, '2' is always hidden.

`hover_timeout`

  Time in milliseconds that will cause a folder tree to expand when the mouse cursor is held over it during drag 'n' drop.

`live_dangerously`

  Don't ask for confirmation before definitive deletion of emails.

`log_error_color`
`log_in_color`
`log_msg_color`
`log_out_color`
`log_warn_color`
`log_status_ok_color`
`log_status_nok_color`
`log_status_skip_color`

  The colours used in the log window.

`outgoing_fallback_to_ascii`

  0 or 1. The outgoing encoding of a message will use 7bit US-ASCII whenever it is suitable for the message content, ignoring the Outgoing encoding option unless it is necessary. Turning this option off forces the user-defined encoding to be used, regardless of message content. Default is 1, turned on.

`primary_paste_unselects`

  0 or 1. Causes the primary buffer to be cleared and the insertion point to be repositioned when the middle mouse button is used for pasting text. Default is 0, turned off.

`respect_flowed_format`

  0 or 1. Respect format=flowed on text/plain message parts. This will cause some mails to have long lines, but will fix some URLs that would otherwise be wrapped. Default is 0, turned off.

`save_parts_readwrite`

  Saves temporary files when opening attachment with write bit set.

`skip_ssl_cert_check`

  Disables the verification of SSL certificates.

`statusbar_update_step`

  Update stepping in progress bars.

`stripes_color_offset`

  Specify the value to use when creating alternately coloured lines in GtkTreeView components. The smaller the value, the less visible the difference in the alternating colours of the lines.

`textview_cursor_visible`

  Display the cursor in the message view.

`thread_by_subject_max_age`

  Number of days to include a message in a thread when using Thread using subject in addition to standard headers.

`toolbar_detachable`

  Show handles in the toolbars.

`two_line_vertical`

  Spread message list information over two lines when using the three column layout.

`unsafe_ssl_certs`

  Allows Claws to remember multiple SSL certificates for a given server/port. This is disabled by default.

`use_networkmanager`

  Use NetworkManager to switch offline automatically. This is enabled by default.

`use_stripes_everywhere`

  Enable alternately coloured lines in GtkTreeView components.

`use_stripes_in_summaries`

  Enable alternately coloured lines in the main window GtkTreeView components, (Folder List and Message List). The only useful way to use this option is to set it to 0 when use_stripes_everywhere is set to 1.

`utf8_instead_of_locale_for_broken_mail`

  Use UTF-8 encoding for broken mails instead of current locale.

`warn_dnd`

  Display a confirmation dialogue on drag 'n' drop of folders.

## Autofaces

Claws Mail allows setting the Face and X-Face headers directly from files, either globally for all defined accounts or on a per-account basis. These files must be placed in the `~/.claws-mail/autofaces/` directory.

If they exist, the global Face and/or X-Face headers for all accounts are taken from the `face` and/or `xface` files respectively. In a similar manner, Face and/or X-Face headers for a specific account can be provided by `face.`accountname and/or `xface.`accountname, where accountname is the name of the account you want this header to be associated with.

If the name of the account contains characters which may be unsuitable for the underlying filesystem (including spaces) these are replaced by underscores (_) when searching for the autofaces of that account. For example, if your account is called <My Mail>, the name for the X-Face filename for that account would be `~/.claws-mail/autofaces/xface._My_Mail_`. Be aware that this feature doesn't check the content of the files, or for duplication of headers, (most mailers, including Claws Mail, will ignore duplicates and display the last one only).