Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:47:57 -0400 Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote: 

SM> Maybe we should set it not to smtpmail-send-it nor to
SM> mailclient-send-it, but to a new function that prompts the user for
SM> which method to use (mailclient/smtpmail/sendmail) and then saves the
SM> result via customize.

SM> Of course, maybe we can spice up that function to try and guess which
SM> choice to make without prompting the user (e.g. maybe gconf already hods
SM> the answer?), but at least the fallback should be to prompt the user
SM> because in general there's no safe answer (mailclient won't work on most
SM> of my machines since I rarely bother to configure another MUA).

There is no right answer for everyone nowadays; let's start with that
assumption and work backwards to "we need a good multi-step
configuration interface and outbound mail is the right place to use it".

Customize is not the right interface for the step-by-step configuration
we need to set up outbound mail.  Please consider assistant.el in Gnus;
it or something like it is IMHO the right way to solve this problem.  A
simple `y-or-n-p' sequence or Yet Another Defcustom is not.

Ted