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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <section id="ch_plugins">
3 <title>Extending Claws Mail</title>
5 <section id="plugins_default">
6 <title>Plugins</title>
7 <para>
8 Claws Mail's capabilities are extended by plugins, which are
9 listed below.
10 </para><para>
11 Plugins are installed in <filename class="directory"
12 >$PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/</filename> and have a suffix of
13 <quote>.so</quote>. To load a plugin go to
14 <quote>Configuration/Plugins</quote> and click the
15 <quote>Load Plugin</quote> button. Select the plugin that you want and
16 click <quote>Open</quote> button.
17 </para><para>
18 If you don't find the plugin you're looking for, it is possible that
19 your Operating System distribution provides it in a separate package.
20 In this case, search for the plugin in your package manager.
21 </para><para>
22 Some plugins provide the same functionality as others, (for example, the
23 3 anti-Spam plugins). In this case you will have to choose which
24 one to load, as Claws Mail will refuse to load more than one of
25 the same type.
26 </para>
27 <para>
28 There is a list of all plugins available at <ulink
29 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php"
30 >http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php</ulink>.
31 </para>
32 <variablelist>
33 <varlistentry>
34 <term>ACPI Notifier</term>
35 <listitem>
36 <para>
37 Enables new mail notification via the LEDs found on some laptops like
38 Acer, Asus, Fujitsu and IBM laptops.
39 More information: <ulink
40 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=acpinotifier"
41 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=acpinotifier</ulink>
42 </para>
43 </listitem>
44 </varlistentry>
45 <varlistentry>
46 <term>AddressKeeper</term>
47 <listitem>
48 <para>
49 Saves all unknown recipient addresses (<quote>To</quote>,
50 <quote>Cc</quote> and/or <quote>Bcc</quote>) to a designated
51 addressbook folder.
52 </para>
53 </listitem>
54 </varlistentry>
55 <varlistentry>
56 <term>AttachWarner</term>
57 <listitem>
58 <para>
59 Reminds you about possibly forgotten attachments. Checks for common
60 expressions found when attaching a file and warns you if no attachment
61 was added to the mail you're sending.
62 More information: <ulink
63 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=attachwarner"
64 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=attachwarner</ulink>
65 </para>
66 </listitem>
67 </varlistentry>
68 <varlistentry>
69 <term>AttRemover</term>
70 <listitem>
71 <para>
72 Allows you to remove attachments from emails.
73 </para>
74 </listitem>
75 </varlistentry>
76 <varlistentry>
77 <term>Bogofilter</term>
78 <listitem>
79 <para>
80 The Bogofilter plugin comes with two major features:
81 </para><para>
82 The ability to scan incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL
83 account using Bogofilter. It can optionally delete mail identified
84 as spam or save it to a designated folder. Mail scanning can be turned
85 off.
86 </para><para>
87 The ability for users to teach Bogofilter to recognise spam or ham.
88 You can train Bogofilter by marking messages as spam or ham from the
89 Message List contextual menu, or using the relevant toolbar button in
90 the main window or the message window (see
91 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Toolbars</quote>). Messages
92 marked as spam are optionally saved to a designated folder.
93 </para><para>
94 Plugin preferences can be found in
95 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/Bogofilter</quote>.
96 </para><para>
97 Bogofilter's advantage over Spamassassin is its speed.
98 </para><para>
99 Bogofilter must be trained before it can filter messages. To train
100 it you will need to mark some spam as Spam, and some legitimate
101 emails as Ham.
102 </para><para>
103 Bogofilter is available from <ulink
104 url="http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/"
105 >http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/</ulink>.
106 </para>
107 </listitem>
108 </varlistentry>
109 <varlistentry>
110 <term>BSFilter</term>
111 <listitem>
112 <para>
113 BSFilter is a plugin that is very similar to the Bogofilter plugin
114 but uses the bsfilter (<ulink url="http://bsfilter.org/index-e.html"
115 >bsfilter.org/index-e.html</ulink>) bayesian spam filter as a backend.
116 </para><para>
117 Like Bogofilter, you have to train it with spam and ham
118 messages in order for bsfilter to start recognising spam.
119 </para><para>
120 Plugin preferences can be found in
121 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/BSFilter</quote>.
122 </para>
123 </listitem>
124 </varlistentry>
125 <varlistentry>
126 <term>Clamd</term>
127 <listitem>
128 <para>
129 Allows scanning all messages received from IMAP, POP or local accounts
130 using the clam daemon part of the ClamAV (AntiVirus) software (<ulink
131 url="http://www.clamav.net/">http://www.clamav.net/</ulink>).
132 </para>
133 </listitem>
134 </varlistentry>
135 <varlistentry>
136 <term>Fancy</term>
137 <listitem>
138 <para>
139 Enables the rendering of HTML messages using the GTK+ port of the
140 WebKit library. By default, no remote content is loaded.
141 </para><para>
142 Plugin preferences can be found in
143 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/Fancy</quote>.
144 </para>
145 </listitem>
146 </varlistentry>
147 <varlistentry>
148 <term>Fetchinfo</term>
149 <listitem>
150 <para>
151 Inserts headers containing some download information, like UIDL,
152 Claws Mail' account name, POP server, user ID and retrieval time.
153 </para>
154 </listitem>
155 </varlistentry>
156 <varlistentry>
157 <term>GData</term>
158 <listitem>
159 <para>
160 Provides an interface to Google services using the gdata library.
161 Currently, the only implemented functionality is to include Google
162 Contacts in the Tab-address completion.
163 </para>
164 </listitem>
165 </varlistentry>
166 <varlistentry>
167 <term>Libravatar</term>
168 <listitem>
169 <para>
170 Enables the display of avatar images associated with user profiles at
171 libravatar.org or the user's avatar enabled domains.
172 More information: <ulink
173 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=libravatar"
174 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=libravatar</ulink>
175 </para>
176 </listitem>
177 </varlistentry>
178 <varlistentry>
179 <term>Mail Archiver</term>
180 <listitem>
181 <para>
182 Enables folders and subfolders to be archived in several different
183 formats.
184 </para>
185 </listitem>
186 </varlistentry>
187 <varlistentry>
188 <term>mailMBOX</term>
189 <listitem>
190 <para>
191 Handles mailboxes in MBox format.
192 </para>
193 </listitem>
194 </varlistentry>
195 <varlistentry>
196 <term>NewMail</term>
197 <listitem>
198 <para>
199 Writes a message header summary to a log file, (Default:
200 <filename>~/Mail/NewLog</filename>), on arrival of new mail
201 <emphasis>after</emphasis> sorting.
202 </para>
203 </listitem>
204 </varlistentry>
205 <varlistentry>
206 <term>Notification</term>
207 <listitem>
208 <para>
209 Provides various ways to notify the user of new and unread email.
210 More information: <ulink
211 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=notification"
212 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=notification</ulink>
213 </para>
214 </listitem>
215 </varlistentry>
216 <varlistentry>
217 <term>PDF Viewer</term>
218 <listitem>
219 <para>
220 Allows rendering of PDF and PostScript attachments using the Poppler
221 library and GhostScript external program.
222 More information: <ulink
223 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=pdf_viewer"
224 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=pdf_viewer</ulink>
225 </para>
226 </listitem>
227 </varlistentry>
228 <varlistentry>
229 <term>Perl</term>
230 <listitem>
231 <para>
232 Intended to extend the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. It
233 provides a Perl interface to Claws Mail' filtering mechanism,
234 allowing the use of full Perl power in email filters.
235 </para>
236 </listitem>
237 </varlistentry>
238 <varlistentry>
239 <term>PGP/Core, PGP/Inline and PGP/MIME</term>
240 <listitem>
241 <para>
242 Handles PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
243 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME,
244 <ulink url="ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/"
245 >ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/</ulink>.
246 More information: <ulink
247 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=gpg"
248 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=gpg</ulink>
249 </para>
250 </listitem>
251 </varlistentry>
252 <varlistentry>
253 <term>Python</term>
254 <listitem>
255 <para>
256 This plugin provides Python integration features.
257 More information: <ulink
258 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=python"
259 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=python</ulink>
260 </para>
261 </listitem>
262 </varlistentry>
263 <varlistentry>
264 <term>RSSyl</term>
265 <listitem>
266 <para>
267 Allows you to read your favorite newsfeeds in Claws. RSS 1.0, 2.0 and
268 Atom feeds are currently supported.
269 More information: <ulink
270 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=rssyl"
271 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=rssyl</ulink>
272 </para>
273 </listitem>
274 </varlistentry>
275 <varlistentry>
276 <term>S/MIME</term>
277 <listitem>
278 <para>
279 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
280 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME
281 and GpgSM, <ulink url="ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/"
282 >ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/</ulink>.
283 </para>
284 </listitem>
285 </varlistentry>
286 <varlistentry>
287 <term>SpamAssassin</term>
288 <listitem>
289 <para>
290 The SpamAssassin plugin comes with two major features:
291 </para><para>
292 The ability to scan incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL
293 account using SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified
294 as spam or save it to a designated folder. Mail scanning can be turned
295 off, which is useful if your email is scanned on your server.
296 </para><para>
297 The ability for users to teach SpamAssassin to recognise spam or ham.
298 You can train SpamAssassin by marking messages as spam or ham from the
299 Message List contextual menu, or using the relevant toolbar button in
300 the main window or the message window (see
301 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Toolbars</quote>). Messages
302 marked as spam are optionally saved to a designated folder.
303 </para><para>
304 Plugin preferences can be found in
305 <quote>Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/SpamAssassin</quote>.
306 </para><para>
307 SpamAssassin's advantage over Bogofilter is that it's not only a
308 bayesian filter, but it also performs various local and network tests
309 to determine spaminess.
310 </para><para>
311 SpamAssassin is available from <ulink
312 url="http://spamassassin.apache.org/"
313 >http://spamassassin.apache.org/</ulink>. Version 3.1.x or higher is
314 required to use the learning feature in TCP mode.
315 </para>
316 </listitem>
317 </varlistentry>
318 <varlistentry>
319 <term>SpamReport</term>
320 <listitem>
321 <para>
322 This plugin reports spam to various places.
323 Currently the sites <ulink url="http://spam-signal.fr"
324 >spam-signal.fr</ulink> and <ulink url="http://spamcop.net"
325 >spamcop.net</ulink> are supported, and the <ulink
326 url="http://lists.debian.org">Debian lists (lists.debian.org)</ulink>
327 spam nomination system.
328 </para>
329 </listitem>
330 </varlistentry>
331 <varlistentry>
332 <term>TNEF parse</term>
333 <listitem>
334 <para>
335 This plugin enables reading <literal>application/ms-tnef</literal> attachments.
336 More information: <ulink
337 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=tnef_parser"
338 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=tnef_parser</ulink>
339 </para>
340 </listitem>
341 </varlistentry>
342 <varlistentry>
343 <term>vCalendar</term>
344 <listitem>
345 <para>
346 Enables vCalendar message handling like that produced by Evolution or
347 Outlook, and Webcal subscriptions.
348 More information: <ulink
349 url="http://www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=vcalendar"
350 >www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=vcalendar</ulink>
351 </para>
352 </listitem>
353 </varlistentry>
354 </variablelist>
355 <para>
356 If you're a developer, writing a plugin to extend Claws Mail's
357 capabilities is probably the best and easiest solution. We will
358 provide hosting to your code, and will be glad to answer your questions
359 in the mailing-list or on the IRC channel,
360 <literal>#claws</literal> on Freenode.
361 </para>
362 </section>
364 <section id="plugins_network">
365 <title>Network access from the plugins</title>
366 <para>
367 Some of the external plugins, for example RSSyl, vCalendar, Libravatar
368 or Fancy, need Internet access for their operations (retrieving feeds in
369 the case of RSSyl or vCalendar, and fetching images in the case of
370 Libravatar or Fancy). These plugins use the Curl library. Hence, if your
371 Internet access is restricted by a proxy, you will need to tell libCurl
372 to use this proxy. This is done by setting an environment variable,
373 <literal>http_proxy</literal>. For example,
374 <literal>http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080</literal>
375 will tell libCurl to connect to port 8080 of the machine
376 myproxy.example.com, with the user <quote>user</quote> and password
377 <quote>passwd</quote> to connect to the Internet.
378 </para><para>
379 You can either set this variable before starting Claws Mail by
380 using, for example,
381 <command>http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080
382 claws-mail</command>, or you can set it in your
383 <filename>~/.bashrc</filename> file (or your shell equivalent), by
384 adding the following line<footnote><para>Other shells may have
385 diferent syntaxes, check your shell's manual page.</para></footnote>:
386 <command
387 >export http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080</command>
388 (you'll have to reconnect to have it taken into account).
389 </para>
390 </section>
392 <section id="plugin_path_config">
393 <title>Plugin path configuration</title>
394 <para>
395 By default, when loading a plugin, its full path is saved in
396 <filename>~/.claws-mail/clawsrc</filename>.
397 </para><para>
398 As most users have only one copy of Claws Mail installed and always
399 use the same installation method, this is not a problem.
400 </para><para>
401 However, if you have multiple copies of Claws Mail installed
402 and want to share the same configuration among them, this may not
403 work, particularly when using different versions of Claws Mail.
404 </para><para>
405 A second installed copy will try to load the plugins installed by
406 the first and, if the versions differ, the plugins will be rejected.
407 </para><para>
408 In order to avoid this problem you can manually edit the plugins
409 section in the <filename>clawsrc</filename> file, replacing the full
410 path with just the plugin file name of those you want to load
411 relative to the copy of Claws Mail being run.
412 </para><para>
413 In so doing, each copy of Claws Mail will try to load those plugins
414 from its own plugin directory, rather than a fixed location.
415 </para>
416 </section>
418 </section>