Re: Mutt group reply

[Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 12:58:59AM +0400, Solar Designer wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 07:59:04PM +0100, Laurent Bercot wrote:
> > On 13/07/2014 17:34, Solar Designer wrote:
> > 
> > >An alternative is to reconfigure the list so that it doesn't set the
> > >Reply-To header, but this may result in many replies being inadvertently
> > >sent off-list.  I think it's better for Mutt users to adopt a habit to
> > >answer that question with "n".

Thanks! I had been looking for a solution to this issue for a long
time but didn't bother to really look into it.

> >  Even better: configure Mutt to use Mail-Followup-To.
> >  http://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html
> > 
> >  Mutt supports it, it just needs to be configured via an option. I can't
> > remember the details because it's been a long time, but back when I was
> > using Mutt, I did that for all the mailing-lists I was subscribed to, and
> > it worked flawlessly.
> 
> This suggestion keeps coming up, but I think it's a solution to a
> different problem.  The mailing list sets Reply-To to keep discussions
> on the list regardless of what MUA people are using.  When the mailing
> list is configured that way, Mutt exhibits the behavior with group
> replies that I have mentioned, and the workaround is either to answer
> "n" to the question or to set the reply_to option differently:
> 
>        reply_to
>               Type: quadoption
>               Default: ask-yes
> 
>               If  set, Mutt will ask you if you want to use the address listed
>               in the Reply-To: header field when replying to  a  message.   If
>               you answer no, it will use the address in the From: header field
>               instead.  This option is useful for reading a mailing list  that
>               sets the Reply-To: header field to the list address and you want
>               to send a private message to the author of a message.

What's really needed is for mutt to have a second variable like
reply_to but that's used for reply-to-all rather than plain reply. I
think this is something we could propose upstream, and probably easy
to patch in. Or maybe there's already a way to do it with hooks.

Rich