Based on the request of a fellow sysop, I've created a new offline QWK mail reader (with the help of Claude AI), which I call SlyMail. Currently I consider it to be a beta version, as it hasn't been tested thoroughly, so there may be some bugs, but currently it's functional as far as being able to read messages from a QWK packet and save new messages, etc.

Also, I've never really used an offline mail reader much myself, so there may be some useful features in other offline readers I haven't seen yet - I plan to check out some other readers and see what features they offer. I've briefly used MultiMail and experimented with GoldEd but never really used those very much. They may have features that could be useful to include in SlyMail.

Some highlights of SlyMail:

- It has a text-based user interface with a look & feel (at least somewhat) similar to my DDMsgReader & SlyEdit mods for Synchronet
- It's multi-platform: It works on Linux and Windows, and should also build for Mac OS, BSD, and other *nix-style OSes
- QWKE (extended QWK) compatibility
- Compatibility with ANSI, as well as color codes of various BBS software
packages (Synchronet, WWIV, PCBoard/Wildcat, Celerity, Renegade)
- It understands Synchronet poll messages and vote replies: Poll messages should display properly in it, and poll response headers shouldn't show up in message lists. It should also allow you to vote on messages (according to Synchronet's voting system), but I'm not sure that is 100% working.
- It should be UTF-8 compatible (not 100% sure if this is fully working properly)
- It should be able to handle file attachments

It's available on GitHub, and there are screenshots: https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail

The latest release (with binaries) is version 0.51, for both Windows and Linux: https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/releases/tag/SlyMail_051

The Linux binaries were built on KUbuntu 25.10. If the Linux binaries don't run for you, I think it should be fairly easy to build binaries from source on Linux.

I haven't made Mac OS binaries, since I don't have a Mac, but I have an automated build job on GitHub that does a build for Ubuntu and Mac OS upon checkin, and it looks like both succeeded, so I *think* it should build for Mac OS fairly easily.

Nightfox

Also, I forgot to mention, SlyMail can connect to remote systems (via FTP or SSH) to download QWK packets from within SlyMail, which should make it easier to download QWK packets.

Nightfox

Some highlights of SlyMail:

Whaaaaaat? ;)

- It has a text-based user interface with a look & feel (at least somewhat) similar to my DDMsgReader & SlyEdit mods for Synchronet

Definitely a huge resemblance. ;)

- It's multi-platform: It works on Linux and Windows, and should also build for Mac OS, BSD, and other *nix-style OSes

Built here just fine.

- Compatibility with ANSI, as well as color codes of various BBS software

Haven't seen a properly displayed ansi yet. Maybe because I'm using a UTF-8 enabled putty terminal, though.

Here are some things I've noticed so far:

Setting " > " without quotes in slymail.ini seems to strip the last space (I had to manually add the space, which then changed the color from gray to cyan
(I'm assuming that's the default quote color). Also, using " > " with quotes since quotes were used in your example, actually printed the quotes as part of
the quote character.

Quote wrapping doesn't seem to be working properly. I've disabled quoteing to terminal width, and then I'm using the "76" default setting for quote width,
and it seems to be adding a couple spaces into the line where it *should* be wrapping, but continues the line to the end of the screen.

Home and End keys don't seem to be working.

You have a "Theme" option in both the "Editor Settings" as well as the "Theme Settings". Changing one of them changes both, but there should probably be
only one place to set that, anyways (Theme Settings).

Actually Changing the theme seems to change the header and footer colors, but not the vertical column on the left side of the screen. I didn't notice if the
right side changed or not, but that may be a possibility, too.

Odd screen flickering when holding down an arrow key to scroll through my text (because Home and End aren't working, of course).

I'm not sure if I saw every option available in slymail.ini reflected in "config", but I could be wrong.

* Feature requests already being used in DDMsgReader that would work great in this:

Ability to set a signature.

A setting to snap to the next unread message area instead of having to scroll down a list of 10 areas with no messages.

Some may even want a setting to only show areas with new messages. Obviously this and the option above probably wouldn't be used in conjunction with each
other. I don't mind seeing the empty areas, but I prefer the lightbar skipping them and going to the next area with messages.

An option when you're on the last message in an area, much like DDMsgReader does, would be asking you if you want to go to the next area with
messages, if that's possible in this iteration.


Aside from all that, looks great so far! This could definitely fix a lot of MultiMail woes (namely UTF-8, ANSI display and color codes, just to start.

Regards,
Nick
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Some highlights of SlyMail:

Are you planning on adding the ability to send a REP packet back to the remote host?

Are you planning on some light lastread pointers maybe showing "New" alongside "Msgs" so you know which messages you have read out of which ones are in the
packet?

Do you have future plans, or are you just going off of feedback and feature requests from here on out? I only ask, because I don't want to ask a bunch of
questions you may already be in the works of. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Mar 25 2026 08:47 pm

Thanks for the feedback on SlyMail. I've saved your email and will look at the issues as I have time.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Mar 25 2026 08:53 pm

Are you planning on adding the ability to send a REP packet back to the remote host?

I think that may be a more complicated thing, and maybe I'm wrong, but after uploading the REP packet back to the host, I'm not sure how I would trigger the host to import the REP packet, or if that normally happens automatically. Now that I think about it, I could look at what Synchronet does when a REP packet is uploaded. Since Synchronet's source code is available, that should be easily accessible, and maybe even the AI could look at Synchronet's code regarding REP uploads. When REP packets for Dove-Net are uploaded, their messages will get imported, so I'm wondering that Synchronet does auto-import messages when a REP packet gets uploaded.

Are you planning on some light lastread pointers maybe showing "New" alongside "Msgs" so you know which messages you have read out of which ones are in the packet?

I'm not sure yet, but perhaps.

Do you have future plans, or are you just going off of feedback and feature requests from here on out? I only ask, because I don't want to ask a bunch of questions you may already be in the works of. ;)

I'm not entirely sure yet. :) I was initially just going to go off feedback, but when I start working on a project, I start thinking about things to improve to make it work well and make it easy to use, etc., so I may end up down a rabbit hole with this. :)

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Mar 25 2026 08:53 pm

I've released a new version of SlyMail, which improves (or maybe even fixes) some of the things you mentioned:

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/releases/tag/SlyMail_052

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:02:04 -0700, you wrote:

I think that may be a more complicated thing, and maybe I'm wrong, but
after uploading the REP packet back to the host, I'm not sure how I
would trigger the host to import the REP packet, or if that normally
happens automatically. Now that I think about it, I could look at what Synchronet does when a REP packet is uploaded. Since Synchronet's
source code is available, that should be easily accessible, and maybe
even the AI could look at Synchronet's code regarding REP uploads. When
REP packets for Dove-Net are uploaded, their messages will get imported,
so I'm wondering that Synchronet does auto-import messages when a REP
packet gets uploaded.

It most definitely does automatically import it. All you have to do is the reverse of how you download the QWK packet. FTP it to the same directory you download the QWK packet from, and the host will take care of the rest.

I'm not sure yet, but perhaps.

I'm not sure I'm totally referring to "last read pointers" in a broad sense, but moreso having two columns.. Unread messages ("Unread") and total messages (currently already the "Msgs" column). Mainly so if an offline reader wants to read a few, and revisit to finish later, it can take them to where they left off. Otherwise, one is scrolling through all of the messages they've already read in order to get to any they haven't. Now that I wrote it out, it definitely sounds kinda like last read pointers. This is something Multimail has, so just figured I'd ask. ;)

This may also bring up a message lister if there isn't one already (I don't remember and I'm not currently using it).

I'm not entirely sure yet. :) I was initially just going to go off feedback, but when I start working on a project, I start thinking about things to improve to make it work well and make it easy to use, etc., so
I may end up down a rabbit hole with this. :)

That's very possible. Up to and including all of the feature requests you are probably going to receive from all the current MultiMail and other old offline reader users that decide to try this out. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260304
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Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 04:20 pm

It most definitely does automatically import it. All you have to do is the reverse of how you download the QWK packet. FTP it to the same directory you download the QWK packet from, and the host will take care of the rest.

I posted a few minutes ago, but I've released a new vresion that includes being able to upload a REP packet to the host. I've tested it, and indeed, messages from the REP packet get auto-imported on the BBS that way.

Nightfox

Thanks for the feedback on SlyMail. I've saved your email and will look
at the issues as I have time.

Quote character works much better now.

I've also realized that I had this option wrong:

; Whether to word-wrap quoted lines to the terminal width
wrapQuoteLines=true

With the description, originally, I had it set to false, because I *didn't* want to wrap to terminal width (160 characters). Is the description wrong? Or is
true/false backwards?

Setting it to true definitely started quoting at 76 characters, though.. so I'm going to assume this is what you meant, and I completely misunderstood the
description. Or, the description should say "Whether to word-wrap quoted text to a set character limit" or some such.

The settings options now show the check mark, so I'm going to assume ANSI in a UTF-8 terminal may be getting closer. I'll let you know when I get to a
message with ANSI in it.

Home and End keys are still not working here, but this could be a Putty setting I just don't have enabled.

Definitely quite a bit less screen flickering, too!

"/Q" on the first line of a newly replied to message doesn't seem to be bringing up the quote window any more. I had to use "CTRL-Q" for this message.
However, I can hit "/Q" on any line after the first one and it works.

Regards,
Nick

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I've released a new version of SlyMail, which improves (or maybe even
fixes) some of the things you mentioned:

Looking great so far, besides the new "/Q" on the first line issue. I had to hit enter once to get to the second line, and it worked.

By the way, ANSI displays perfectly now. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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I've released a new version of SlyMail, which improves (or maybe even
fixes) some of the things you mentioned:

Pgup and Pgdn work, so I doubt Home and End are a Putty issue.

Feature request: the ability to read/edit your already written messages. This REP packet is going to contain an empty message that I couldn't find/edit/or
delete before sending it out.

Regards,
Nick

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I posted a few minutes ago, but I've released a new vresion that includes being able to upload a REP packet to the host. I've tested it, and
indeed, messages from the REP packet get auto-imported on the BBS that
way.

Also tested, and it works perfectly! ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 05:24 pm

Quote character works much better now.

Good to hear.

I've also realized that I had this option wrong:

; Whether to word-wrap quoted lines to the terminal width wrapQuoteLines=true

With the description, originally, I had it set to false, because I *didn't* want to wrap to terminal width (160 characters). Is the description wrong? Or is
true/false backwards?

Setting it to true definitely started quoting at 76 characters, though..

I think I had forgotten about that setting, so it might just not be working correctly. When I was updating SlyMail, I was thinking I thought it would be best to just wrap quote lines to 79 characters, since an 80-character terminal is a fairly common size. But SlyEdit has a wrapQuoteLines setting, so maybe there's value in having it. I'll have to look at that again.

The settings options now show the check mark, so I'm going to assume ANSI in a UTF-8 terminal may be getting closer. I'll let you know when I get to a message with ANSI in it.

Yeah, the check mark is what it's supposed to be showing. I actually didn't specifially requiest UTF-8 updates from Claude this time, but good to know that's working better.

Home and End keys are still not working here, but this could be a Putty setting I just don't have enabled.

Yeah, I hadn't put in a fix for that yet.

Definitely quite a bit less screen flickering, too!

Good to hear. That's one of the thing I tried to fix.

"/Q" on the first line of a newly replied to message doesn't seem to be bringing up the quote window any more. I had to use "CTRL-Q" for this message. However, I can hit "/Q" on any line after the first one and it works.

Ah, a regression. :/ I'll take a look at that when I have time.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 05:24 pm

Looking great so far, besides the new "/Q" on the first line issue. I had to hit enter once to get to the second line, and it worked.

Thanks. :)

By the way, ANSI displays perfectly now. ;)

Good to hear that's working for you. I worked on that this time, or rather, Claude AI worked hard to make that work. :) Claude AI even wrote an ANSI renderer in C++ for that to work properly in SlyMail. In the first iteration, Claude AI apparently didn't account for ANSI cursor movement, so it ended up with the bad ANSI rendering it was doing previously.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 05:24 pm

Feature request: the ability to read/edit your already written messages. This REP packet is going to contain an empty message that I couldn't find/edit/or delete before sending it out.

I'll add that as something to implement. Are you thinking you'd want SlyMail to prompt the user whether to read/edit the message immediately upon saving the message, or would you want this to be a feature where the user can go back later and edit already-written messages at some point before sending the REP packet?

Nightfox

Quote character works much better now.

Good to hear.

"/Q" on the first line is also fixed in 0.53.

; Whether to word-wrap quoted lines to the terminal width
wrapQuoteLines=true

I think I had forgotten about that setting, so it might just not be
working correctly. When I was updating SlyMail, I was thinking I thought it would be best to just wrap quote lines to 79 characters, since an 80-character terminal is a fairly common size. But SlyEdit has a wrapQuoteLines setting, so maybe there's value in having it. I'll have
to look at that again.

I'm not sure how you meant to implement it, but maybe just the description in the .ini is wrong? Rather than "the terminal width" it should be "to the
specified characters set below" or something.

Basically, just true and false are reversed from what you're describing in the comment, is all. Setting this option to "true" works as expected, and quotes
at the specified amound of characters.

Using the "delete" and "backspace" keys to reformat the above quoted text got me into a bit of a pickle, as well. The line below the line I was editing got
pulled up to the line I was editing, including the quote characters.

Regards,
Nick

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I'll add that as something to implement. Are you thinking you'd want SlyMail to prompt the user whether to read/edit the message immediately
upon saving the message, or would you want this to be a feature where the user can go back later and edit already-written messages at some point before sending the REP packet?

Probably not a prompt. I think the second option would suffice. You could possibly store them in their own area or something, so one could view all of their
messages before creating the REP packet.

Regards,
Nick

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Thanks. :)

ANSI messages are including the MSGID kludge on the first line of the message. Not sure if that's intended or not.

Are you by chance checking for "[ANSI]" in the subject line? I only ask, because one was posted here with "[AnsI]" instead, and it is the only one in the
past 24 hours to display incorrectly. Could be the ANSI itself's fault, too, though.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Mar 28 2026 09:33 am

I'm not sure how you meant to implement it, but maybe just the description in the .ini is wrong? Rather than "the terminal width" it should be "to the specified characters set below" or something.

I'll have a look.

Using the "delete" and "backspace" keys to reformat the above quoted text got me into a bit of a pickle, as well. The line below the line I was editing got pulled up to the line I was editing, including the quote characters.

That sounds as expected; that's how the editor works in general, whether a quote line or not. What would you expect it to do in that case for quote lines?

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Mar 28 2026 09:33 am

Probably not a prompt. I think the second option would suffice. You could possibly store them in their own area or something, so one could view all of their
messages before creating the REP packet.

I'll have a look at implementing that.

Nightfox

That sounds as expected; that's how the editor works in general, whether
a quote line or not. What would you expect it to do in that case for
quote lines?

I guess I've just spoiled myself with Golded and Thunderbird, but quoted lines seem to be able to be edited without any wrapping (or unwrapping) of lines. For
example, if I quote some initials (eg. " > XX> ") and want to remove them manually (eg. " >> "), it would just pull the current line back 3 characters without
unwrapping the next line on to the current line, keeping the 76 character wrap limit in tact. This also seems to work in nano when using it as an external
editor.

It's hard to explain, so I would suggest trying it yourself to see what I mean.

Speaking of which, how do I use nano as an external editor here? I have "useExternalEditor=true" and "selectedEditor=nano" at the moment, and it didn't work.
I'm confused by the "must match an [external_editor:NAME] section" part of the description.

Since SlyMail really has nothing to do with a BBS, I think one should be able to use "nano" if it is in your PATH, or even the full path to it (eg.
/usr/bin/nano), but have no idea what your description means.

Before I forget, you have "userName=Nightfox" in the default slymail.ini. Might want to remove that, or change it to something more "default" so people don't
accidentally post as you in the future. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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I'll have a look.

Nevermind my external editor questions in the previous message. I found where to set it in SlyMail, which is probably what was confusing to me when trying to do that via slymail.ini. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Nightfox!

On Sun, Mar 29 2026 01:19:07 -0500, you wrote:

I'll have a look at implementing that.

I noticed when viewing the message I wrote in SlyMail with another method (in this case, Thunderbird specifically), my written text is wrapped at the screen width I used when I wrote the message. I first noticed this when you quoted a couple of my previous messages so tried to investigate more..

https://pharcyde.org/slymail_quotewrap.png

When I originally wrote the message, "For" on the second line was at the end of my first line, on a 160 character wide window. If I stretch Thunderbird to fit the 160 characters it looks fine, but I imagine there's something wrong going on there with the "format=flowed" implementation, or something is preserving the window size/character width of the original message.

Just to make sure it wasn't my Thunderbird settings affecting it, I went back to my original PuTTY window where I wrote the message via SlyMail, and changed the window border size smaller, viewed the message again, and it basically did the same thing in regards to almost flowing the first line on to the second, but then somehow hard-wrapping the second line where the original end of the first line was (in the same case, the words "For", "without", "external" in the first paragraph and throughout the rest of the message).

My second reply using nano as an external editor did not seem to do this.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Mar 29 2026 09:49 am

I guess I've just spoiled myself with Golded and Thunderbird, but quoted lines seem to be able to be edited without any wrapping (or unwrapping) of lines. For example, if I quote some initials (eg. " > XX> ") and want to remove them

manually (eg. " >>> "), it would just pull the current line back 3 characters

without
unwrapping the next line on to the current line, keeping the 76 character wrap limit in tact. This also seems to work in nano when using it as an external editor.

I think I see what you mean. I've added that as an enhancement issue on GitHub.

Speaking of which, how do I use nano as an external editor here? I have "useExternalEditor=true" and "selectedEditor=nano" at the moment, and it didn't work.
I'm confused by the "must match an [external_editor:NAME] section" part of the description.

I think the easiest way to set up Nano as an external editor would be to use the config program - There's a section to add external editors in there, similar to the way you'd add external editors in SCFG for Synchronet. You can set the name to Nano, an then in the setting for which external editor to use, choose Nano. You can look at the .ini file afterward to see what it looks like.

Since SlyMail really has nothing to do with a BBS, I think one should be able to use "nano" if it is in your PATH, or even the full path to it (eg. /usr/bin/nano), but have no idea what your description means.

Yeah, it probably could. I haven't tested that; for now, when you choose an external editor in config, you can browse to the executable you want to use, and it will use the full path (which shouldn't hurt anything); I'll try to remember to do some testing to see if it can run an external editor without the path, as long as it's in your PATH.

Before I forget, you have "userName=Nightfox" in the default slymail.ini. Might want to remove that, or change it to something more "default" so people don't accidentally post as you in the future. ;)

Thanks. :)

And I was thinking, I might remove slymail.ini from the releases and from the repo; When you run slymail or config, it should generate a slymail.ini in your .slymail directory from your home directory, if it doesn't do that already.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Mar 29 2026 10:19 am

I noticed when viewing the message I wrote in SlyMail with another method (in this case, Thunderbird specifically), my written text is wrapped at the screen width I used when I wrote the message. I first noticed this when you quoted a couple of my previous messages so tried to investigate more..

https://pharcyde.org/slymail_quotewrap.png

Thanks; I've added this as a bug in GitHub.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Sun, Mar 29 2026 16:57:28 -0500, you wrote:

I think I see what you mean. I've added that as an enhancement
issue on GitHub.

Cool, thanks!

I think the easiest way to set up Nano as an external editor would
be to use the config program - There's a section to add external
editors in there, similar to the way you'd add external editors in
SCFG for Synchronet. You can set the name to Nano, an then in the
setting for which external editor to use, choose Nano. You can look
at the .ini file afterward to see what it looks like.

You probably saw it in a later message, but I figured it out.

And I was thinking, I might remove slymail.ini from the releases and
from the repo; When you run slymail or config, it should generate a slymail.ini in your .slymail directory from your home directory, if
it doesn't do that already.

Generated on the first use of the program wouldn't be a bad idea, as long as it works. Granted, keeping a "default" .ini to look back on still isn't a bad idea, either. If you go the first route, maybe have the config run automatically upon first startup, so that the .ini can be generated with some user defined settings already, instead of the defaults?

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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Hey Nightfox!

On Sun, Mar 29 2026 17:01:17 -0500, you wrote:

Thanks; I've added this as a bug in GitHub.

Some people are picky, and so far you haven't been.. but would you rather the bug reports and feature requests be on github? Ever since we started going back and forth about this, I did notice we were in the AGN_ADS area here and may not be the greatest place for everyone to know what's going on.. and while I don't care where it is, you might prefer it to all be in one place. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Mar 29 2026 08:14 pm

And I was thinking, I might remove slymail.ini from the releases and from
the repo; When you run slymail or config, it should generate a slymail.ini
in your .slymail directory from your home directory, if it doesn't do that
already.

Generated on the first use of the program wouldn't be a bad idea, as long as it works. Granted, keeping a "default" .ini to look back on still isn't a bad idea, either. If you go the first route, maybe have the config run automatically upon first startup, so that the .ini can be generated with some user defined settings already, instead of the defaults?

Yeah, I think I'd go this route.

One issue I thought of is that when it's distributed as a zip file, I feel like having slyedit.ini included in the zip file might make it a little confusing because SlyMail will end up using slymail.ini in the user's .slymail directory rather than slymail.ini in the current directory.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Mar 29 2026 08:17 pm

Thanks; I've added this as a bug in GitHub.

Some people are picky, and so far you haven't been.. but would you rather the bug reports and feature requests be on github? Ever since we started going back and forth about this, I did notice we were in the AGN_ADS area here and may not be the greatest place for everyone to know what's going on.. and while I don't care where it is, you might prefer it to all be in one place. ;)

:) I'm not really picky on that, but you can go ahead and file issues on GitHub:

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/issues

I've added some issues there too, so it would be good to see if an issue already exists before creating a new issue. Also, you can comment on any existing issues if you have thoughts on it if you think it should behave differently than the issue describes.

I don't mind talking about issues here either, but as you said, the ads echo might not be the best place; perhaps the 'general' echo would be better for that.

I'm also managing my time too, as I'm doing a job search right now, and I need to set aside time for that.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:20:38 -0700, you wrote:

One issue I thought of is that when it's distributed as a zip file, I
feel like having slyedit.ini included in the zip file might make it a
little confusing because SlyMail will end up using slymail.ini in the
user's .slymail directory rather than slymail.ini in the current
directory.

You could just rename it to something like "slymail_default.ini" or "slymail_example.ini" or something like that, so it makes it obvious it's not the /actual/ config file?

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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Hey Nightfox!

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:24:14 -0700, you wrote:

:) I'm not really picky on that, but you can go ahead and file issues
on GitHub:

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/issues

Will do.

I've added some issues there too, so it would be good to see if an issue already exists before creating a new issue. Also, you can comment on
any existing issues if you have thoughts on it if you think it should
behave differently than the issue describes.

I'll check it out the next time something crops up.

I don't mind talking about issues here either, but as you said, the ads
echo might not be the best place; perhaps the 'general' echo would be
better for that.

AGN_BBS might be better, and really it doesn't matter to me. I just wonder how many people actually skip over the BBS ads area due to people posting the same ads every day.

I'm also managing my time too, as I'm doing a job search right now, and
I need to set aside time for that.

No worries, obviously that's much more important than an offline reader for BBSing. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Mon Mar 30 2026 06:20 pm

You could just rename it to something like "slymail_default.ini" or "slymail_example.ini" or something like that, so it makes it obvious it's not the /actual/ config file?

If SlyMail automatically creates a slymail.ini in the user's .slymail directory, based on the settings you specify in config or within the configuration dialog in SlyMail itself, I've been wondering what the purpose would be of having the .ini at all in the release zip file or in the GitHub repository. I suppose a user could want to edit it with a text file first and then manually create their .slymail directory and copy the .ini file over.. But I'm not sure what other reasons there may be for keeping the .ini in the zip or GitHub repo.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:42:44 -0700, you wrote:

If SlyMail automatically creates a slymail.ini in the user's .slymail directory, based on the settings you specify in config or within the configuration dialog in SlyMail itself, I've been wondering what the
purpose would be of having the .ini at all in the release zip file or in
the GitHub repository. I suppose a user could want to edit it with a
text file first and then manually create their .slymail directory and
copy the .ini file over.. But I'm not sure what other reasons there may
be for keeping the .ini in the zip or GitHub repo.

One example is that some people would rather edit an .ini manually with a text editor than use a GUI config, always. Having an example .ini to look back on is sometimes helpful if there isn't commented out default settings in the *actual* config file.

If you remember, I had asked you why when I tried to set nano as my external editor it didn't work (via editing the .ini), until I actually found it in the GUI config and figured out how it actually stores that setting - which was way off from what I had assumed.

Other than that, I suppose I don't really see a reason for it, either.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Mon Mar 30 2026 07:10 pm

One example is that some people would rather edit an .ini manually with a text editor than use a GUI config, always. Having an example .ini to look back on is sometimes helpful if there isn't commented out default settings in the *actual* config file.

If you remember, I had asked you why when I tried to set nano as my external editor it didn't work (via editing the .ini), until I actually found it in the GUI config and figured out how it actually stores that setting - which was way off from what I had assumed.

I seem to recall you also saying that SlyMail could run its configuration program on first startup? After that, the user could always edit it with a text editor. Do you no longer think that would be acceptable?

Either way, I suppose I'll leave the .ini in the install zip & GitHub repo. I just think there should then be some clear instructions somewhere that that isn't the .ini file that will be used, and the .ini file will be created in the .slymail directory in the user's home directory, and that's the one that will be used.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:23:16 -0700, you wrote:

I seem to recall you also saying that SlyMail could run its
configuration program on first startup? After that, the user could
always edit it with a text editor. Do you no longer think that would be acceptable?

Yeah, that's definitely still an option (and a good one). With this option, you probably wouldn't need an example .ini. I was just giving reasons as to why one would want an example .ini included if you didn't do this option.

Either way, I suppose I'll leave the .ini in the install zip & GitHub
repo. I just think there should then be some clear instructions
somewhere that that isn't the .ini file that will be used, and the .ini
file will be created in the .slymail directory in the user's home
directory, and that's the one that will be used.

Up to you whether you keep it in there or not. If you don't want it in there, I guess I would at least expect the config to create it on first run of the program (which it probably should do that, since one needs to set their username at the very least before writing any messages).

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Mon Mar 30 2026 06:23 pm

I've made a new release of SlyMail, which should hopefully address/fix some of the issues we've discussed (I've added notes in the change log in the release page):

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/releases/tag/SlyMail_054

If you'd rather pull the changes and build it yourself rather than download one of the binary release zips, you can do that too (not sure if that's what you've been doing already).

Nightfox

I've made a new release of SlyMail, which should hopefully address/fix
some of the issues we've discussed (I've added notes in the change log in the release page):

This is the first area I've gone through so far, so haven't had much time to test yet, or the fact that I'm still using an external editor, so won't be testing the internal one this round.

If you'd rather pull the changes and build it yourself rather than
download one of the binary release zips, you can do that too (not sure if that's what you've been doing already).

I've been pulling an compiling the entire time, as I do for just about everything when possible.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: New offline QWK mail By: Accession to Nightfox on Mon Mar 30 2026 06:23 pm

I've made a new release of SlyMail, which should hopefully address/fix
some of the issues we've discussed (I've added notes in the change log in the release page):

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/releases/tag/SlyMail_054

If you'd rather pull the changes and build it yourself rather than
download one of the binary release zips, you can do that too (not sure if that's what you've been doing already).

Nightfox
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I had to edit this pending message, and wrote this just to send it out with some content.

SlyMail sent this to my external editor (nano) so I could reply, and while I aborted the message (I didn't save it), SlyMail still kept it as a pending message. That probably shouldn't happen.

Regards,
Nick


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I've made a new release of SlyMail

Before I forget, I'm displaying the kludges, and "TZ: fe5c" seems to be showing, and I don't know what that is. Are you trying to do "TZUTC: "?

There also seems to be a lot of kludge lines missing, but I'm not used to the QWK format, which probably carries a lot less so that's probably why I noticed.

Regards,
Nick

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I've made a new release of SlyMail

Lastly (for this run, anyway), I had 8 messages in AGN_ADS when I grabbed my QWK packet, and there was a checkmark under the "New" tab. Once I read all 8 messages and went back to the sub-board (maybe Conf in this case?) list, there was still a checkmark under the "New" tab.

I imagine this would need some kind of implementation of last read pointers, which I don't think you've done (or are going to do?).

If you don't plan on it, then the "New" tab, or even any keeping track of read/unread messages is kind of pointless.

On another note..

1) The MSGID kludge is still at the top of all messages that includes ANSI, whether kludges lines are turned on (expected) or off (not expected).

2) If you're using UTF-8 in your local version, take a look at the AGN_TST area. It looks like some of those messages that contain high ascii (CP437) characters aren't displaying properly.. and while I want to assume it's because none of them contain a "CHRS: " kludge, I'm unsure as to what is going on there. I'd imagine if ANSI can display properly, those messages should be able to also..?

Looking great dude!

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 05:34 pm

I had to edit this pending message, and wrote this just to send it out with some content.

SlyMail sent this to my external editor (nano) so I could reply, and while I aborted the message (I didn't save it), SlyMail still kept it as a pending message. That probably shouldn't happen.

Do you mean you initially had an empty message, then went back to edit it, then aborted, and it still sent out that message?

If you aborted out of the editor, I'd think the editor would not have saved the changes.. So I'm a little confused - What was the original message, and what did you add when editing the message?

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 05:34 pm

I've made a new release of SlyMail

Before I forget, I'm displaying the kludges, and "TZ: fe5c" seems to be showing, and I don't know what that is. Are you trying to do "TZUTC: "?

I actually hadn't directly done anything with those; it must have been something Claude AI decided to do. I'm actually not entirely sure what "TZ: fe5c" means or what that is; and does "TZUTC" mean UTC time zone?

There also seems to be a lot of kludge lines missing, but I'm not used to the QWK format, which probably carries a lot less so that's probably why I noticed.

I'll have to file that as an issue and look into it later.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 05:34 pm

Lastly (for this run, anyway), I had 8 messages in AGN_ADS when I grabbed my QWK packet, and there was a checkmark under the "New" tab. Once I read all 8 messages and went back to the sub-board (maybe Conf in this case?) list, there was still a checkmark under the "New" tab.

Yeah, it doesn't keep track of last read messages yet, so it probably thinks any message in a packet is "new".

I imagine this would need some kind of implementation of last read pointers, which I don't think you've done (or are going to do?).

If you don't plan on it, then the "New" tab, or even any keeping track of read/unread messages is kind of pointless.

I do plan to implement last read pointers at some point (not sure where you got the impression that I wasn't).. I had filed an issue for that a couple weeks ago:

https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/issues/19

I haven't gotten to that yet, so when I get to that, hopefully that fixes the "New" indicator issue.

1) The MSGID kludge is still at the top of all messages that includes ANSI, whether kludges lines are turned on (expected) or off (not expected).

I'm not entirely familiar with what the MSGID kludge is. I'd need to look that up to learn more about it, and probably other kludge lines too, to understand what they're for.

2) If you're using UTF-8 in your local version, take a look at the AGN_TST area. It looks like some of those messages that contain high ascii (CP437) characters aren't displaying properly.. and while I want to assume it's because none of them contain a "CHRS: " kludge, I'm unsure as to what is going on there. I'd imagine if ANSI can display properly, those messages should be able to also..?

Thanks. I'll take a look.

Looking great dude!

Thanks. :)

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 18:05:49 -0500, you wrote:

Do you mean you initially had an empty message, then went back to
edit it, then aborted, and it still sent out that message?

No, it wasn't empty. SlyMail sends the quoted text over to nano. When I got into nano, I hit CTRL-X and then "N" so as to not save. When I got back to SlyMail, it still said it was a pending message, and asked me if I wanted to make a REP packet.

If you aborted out of the editor, I'd think the editor would not
have saved the changes.. So I'm a little confused - What was the
original message, and what did you add when editing the message?

Yes, I aborted out of the editor, SlyMail still considered it a pending message, and when I went to edit it with SlyMail, it gave me the quoted text I originally aborted out of nano with. When I edited the message, I added all of the unquoted text you replied to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm confused too. This is the second or third time this has happened (in a past thread I mentioned to you that I may send an empty message due to quitting out of nano without saving), SlyMail still prompted me with a pending message anyway.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 18:07:55 -0500, you wrote:

I actually hadn't directly done anything with those; it must have
been something Claude AI decided to do. I'm actually not entirely
sure what "TZ: fe5c" means or what that is; and does "TZUTC" mean
UTC time zone?

TZUTC is the time zone offset from UTC (so in my case, -0500). However, I'm unsure that's even a kludge QWK uses. Maybe "fe5c" is some sort of code for time zones? I'm not sure. Probably need to look at the QWK spec in regards to kludges. I just know it's not nearly the same as FTN.

I'll have to file that as an issue and look into it later.

I'm not asking for anything outside the QWK standards, so if everything is correct, by all means leave it. I just have no idea what "fe5c" means. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 18:12:28 -0500, you wrote:

Yeah, it doesn't keep track of last read messages yet, so it
probably thinks any message in a packet is "new".

All good. That's what I had figured.

I do plan to implement last read pointers at some point (not sure
where you got the impression that I wasn't).. I had filed an issue
for that a couple weeks ago:

The only assumption I had was that you haven't gotten into lastread stuff yet. I didn't know whether or not you were going to, so I just made a point that /if/ you weren't, those feature requests were probably useless.

I haven't been tracking your github issues, so that's my fault.

I haven't gotten to that yet, so when I get to that, hopefully that
fixes the "New" indicator issue.

I would imagine it would. With that said, and once this is actually implemented, do you plan on adding another column between "Msgs" and "New" with "Unread"? ;)

I'm not entirely familiar with what the MSGID kludge is. I'd need
to look that up to learn more about it, and probably other kludge
lines too, to understand what they're for.

It's the message ID of a message. There is also a REPLY kludge which is the reply ID. But again, only certain/specific kludge lines are supported by QWK, so many kludge lines that appear in an FTN message are lost when you download a QWK packet. I just don't know which ones, specifically, without looking it up.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 06:40 pm

No, it wasn't empty. SlyMail sends the quoted text over to nano. When I got into nano, I hit CTRL-X and then "N" so as to not save. When I got back to SlyMail, it still said it was a pending message, and asked me if I wanted to make a REP packet.

Yes, I aborted out of the editor, SlyMail still considered it a pending message, and when I went to edit it with SlyMail, it gave me the quoted text I originally aborted out of nano with. When I edited the message, I added all of the unquoted text you replied to.

I see.. I've noted these down, and I'll look into this. Maybe SlyMail isn't paying attention to the exit code from the editor or something.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 06:45 pm

I'm not asking for anything outside the QWK standards, so if everything is correct, by all means leave it. I just have no idea what "fe5c" means. ;)

fe5c could be a hexadecimal number, which is 65116 in decimal, though after trying to do a few calculations, I'm still not sure what that number would represent. I'll need to look into it.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 06:51 pm

The only assumption I had was that you haven't gotten into lastread stuff yet.

I actually did ask Claude AI to implement some tracking of last-read pointers, which should be in this latest release. In your .slymail directory from your home directory, there may now be a file called lastread_<QWKID>.json (where <QWKID> is the QWK ID of the BBS you got it from). Maybe SlyMail still isn't keeping good track of those last read mesasge numbers everywhere.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 06:51 pm

I would imagine it would. With that said, and once this is actually implemented, do you plan on adding another column between "Msgs" and "New" with "Unread"? ;)

I was thinking "New" and "Unread" would mean the same thing for a QWK reader - It seems that a BBS would only include messages in the QWK packet if they're new messages for you (which you haven't read yet) - but maybe I'm mistaken about that.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Apr 08 2026 06:40 pm

No, it wasn't empty. SlyMail sends the quoted text over to nano. When I got into nano, I hit CTRL-X and then "N" so as to not save. When I got back to SlyMail, it still said it was a pending message, and asked me if I wanted to make a REP packet.

I've just pushed an update just now that should fix that issue, so if you want to pull the latest changes and rebuild, you can try it out.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 19:32:05 -0500, you wrote:

fe5c could be a hexadecimal number, which is 65116 in decimal,
though after trying to do a few calculations, I'm still not sure
what that number would represent. I'll need to look into it.

Heh.. I did the same thing, and when I got the same answer, I didn't bother saying anything because I had no idea what it meant, either. I even went so far as searching an AI that did seem to mention it was indeed timezone related.

Then I tried subtracting it from 65536 for whatever reason I don't know (maybe because QWK format stuff still has 16bit limits or something?), ended up with 420. I double checked all of your messages, and didn't see any posted at or near 420 (even a couple hours each way). So, I'm at a loss and am probably way off anyways. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 19:34:15 -0500, you wrote:

I actually did ask Claude AI to implement some tracking of last-read pointers, which should be in this latest release. In your .slymail
directory from your home directory, there may now be a file called lastread_<QWKID>.json (where <QWKID> is the QWK ID of the BBS you
got it from). Maybe SlyMail still isn't keeping good track of those
last read mesasge numbers everywhere.

That file is definitely there. At the moment it contains:

{
"2002": 19887,
"2007": 8261
}

I'd imagine it's because I've only accessed two message areas with SlyMail since updating. However, that doesn't seem to be keeping track of the new messages in the QWK packet, or which ones in that QWK packet are actually read. Looks like some totals from the BBS side, maybe by reading MESSAGES.DAT or something similar.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2026 04:58 pm

Then I tried subtracting it from 65536 for whatever reason I don't know (maybe because QWK format stuff still has 16bit limits or something?), ended up with 420. I double checked all of your messages, and didn't see any posted at or near 420 (even a couple hours each way). So, I'm at a loss and am probably way off anyways. ;)

420 looks like the most reasonable number of all of this though, but like you said, I'm still not sure what that would mean. If it's minutes, 420 would be 7 hours, but I'm not sure if that would be applicable (I don't think +7 would be right, and -7 from UTC might be too far west - although I think -7 from UTC is considered to be my time zone accounting for daylight saving time; normally we're -8 here).

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 19:35:44 -0500, you wrote:

I was thinking "New" and "Unread" would mean the same thing for a
QWK reader - It seems that a BBS would only include messages in the
QWK packet if they're new messages for you (which you haven't read
yet) - but maybe I'm mistaken about that.

Maybe I didn't explain that correctly, or enough. Yes, when you download the QWK packet, all messages are new and unread.

However, if you download a QWK packet, and there are 10 "Msgs" messages in an area, then go into the message area, read 2 out of 10 messages. Then exit the area (or the entire program), "Msgs" would still be 10, and "Unread" would now be 8.

The "New" column is currently only a check mark if there are new messages in any listed area. Once all 10 of those messages are read, I would assume the check mark would disappear.

Just looking at how MultiMail handles this, it looks like the area#, and description is highlighted if there are new messages (bright cyan whereas any areas without new messages are regular cyan; kind of like how SlyEdit does it, I believe). Then, there are only two columns on the right, "Total" which would be the same as your "Msgs" column, and "Unread".

When I go into a different area, read two messages, and back out. "Total" shows 22, "Unread" shows 20, and the entire line stays highlighted. Read messages end up with a star next to them in the message list.

Then, when I read all messages in the area, "Total" stays 22, "Unread" is 0, and the entire line is back to regular cyan (ie: not highlighted any more).

You definitely don't have to copy how MultiMail does this, I'm just giving you a better explanation as to the ideas I was trying to convey.

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 19:56:10 -0500, you wrote:

I've just pushed an update just now that should fix that issue, so
if you want to pull the latest changes and rebuild, you can try it
out.

"The message was not changed in the editor. Message not posted. Press any key..."

Much better, thank you. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Apr 08 2026 19:56:10 -0500, you wrote:

I've just pushed an update just now that should fix that issue, so
if you want to pull the latest changes and rebuild, you can try it
out.

I've also noticed that the "New" column is updated with no check mark after reading the entire area now. Thumbs up!

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2026 05:15 pm

The "New" column is currently only a check mark if there are new messages in any listed area. Once all 10 of those messages are read, I would assume the check mark would disappear.

Just looking at how MultiMail handles this, it looks like the area#, and description is highlighted if there are new messages (bright cyan whereas any areas without new messages are regular cyan; kind of like how SlyEdit does it, I believe). Then, there are only two columns on the right, "Total" which would be the same as your "Msgs" column, and "Unread".

When I go into a different area, read two messages, and back out. "Total" shows 22, "Unread" shows 20, and the entire line stays highlighted. Read messages end up with a star next to them in the message list.

Then, when I read all messages in the area, "Total" stays 22, "Unread" is 0, and the entire line is back to regular cyan (ie: not highlighted any more).

Makes sense. I should be able to implement that or similar in SlyMail.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2026 05:21 pm

"The message was not changed in the editor. Message not posted. Press any key..."

Much better, thank you. ;)

Good to hear that fix is working for you. :)

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2026 05:24 pm

I've also noticed that the "New" column is updated with no check mark after reading the entire area now. Thumbs up!

Ah cool, thanks for letting me know.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Thu, Apr 09 2026 17:24:23 -0500, you wrote:

420 looks like the most reasonable number of all of this though, but
like you said, I'm still not sure what that would mean. If it's
minutes, 420 would be 7 hours, but I'm not sure if that would be
applicable (I don't think +7 would be right, and -7 from UTC might
be too far west - although I think -7 from UTC is considered to be
my time zone accounting for daylight saving time; normally we're -8
here).

You might be on to something there. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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