Re: Outgoing mail defaults

[David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>]

On Mar 17, 2011, at 1:04 PM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> 
> So I'm wondering whether Emacs should default to using smtpmail.  The
> nice thing about using smtpmail is that Emacs has explicit control of
> how the mail is sent, which is more important now than it used to be,
> what with all the closed port 25s that ISP like to give their customers
> these days.

> 2) change smtpmail so that it queries the user for SMTP host name (and
> possibly port number)

Yes.  
In addition, you'll want to ask for the Sender name and address.

The `mailclient' package was written to address this problem, but the resulting behavior is not ideal as it passes the message to another mail client, which usually displays it before it is sent.  `Mailclient' is used on OS X as a default.

It may be sensible to do what you say, but use a different configuration, by default, for the bug reporter.   When no SMTP server is configured, I would suggest that the bug reporter attempts to go through a server-side script running on Savannah that files the bug report (or sends the message to a specific address).  One could also configure an open SMTP server that only accepts e-mail to the specific bug reporting addresses, which is then used as a default for bug reporting.

Otherwise, non-configuration will make bug-reporting cumbersome and keep some users from reporting their bugs.