KMail2 configuration

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Mittwoch, 28. Oktober 2020 22:09:39 CET Luigi Toscano wrote:
> David Bryant ha scritto:
> > I have a question about one of the configuration screens for KMail.
> > 
> > I'm revising the documentation, which is seven years (±) out of date.

Awesome!

> > In
> > the "Identity" configuration dialog, "Advanced" tab, there are a few new
> > fields. I can understand "Attach my vCard to message" and "Autocorrection
> > language:". But the next field, "Default domain:", throws me for a loop.
> > 
> > I can see that the default value supplied by KMail came from /etc/conf.d/
> > hostname. But I don't understand how KMail uses this information. I think
> > it must be related to "sendmail" running on a local area network, but
> > since I don't have access to one of those, I can't easily test it to see
> > how it works. And it would take far too long to understand the source
> > code.
> > 
> > Can anybody explain what this field is for / how it works? I'm trying to
> > be as thorough as possible with the rewrite. Thanks!
> 
> I think you may want to direct those questions to the kde-pim mailing list
> (now in CC; we are not subscribed, please keep us - or at least David - in
> CC)

The default domain is appended to "email addresses" of recipients which only 
consist of the local part, i.e. the part before the '@'.

Example:
If the default domain is set to "example.com" and one enters "foo" as 
recipient, then KMail automatically changes the recipient address to 
"foo at example.com", but only when the message is actually sent (or sent later).

I think this feature was mostly useful for local accounts, i.e. other accounts 
on the same machine. That's why it defaults to the hostname. Unfortunately, 
KMail now forbids sending messages to addresses where the domain part of the 
email address does not contain a dot ('.') because, apparently, someone 
thought that an email address like ingo at localhost wouldn't be a valid address. 
Okay, if an SMTP server is used for sending mail, then that's probably true, 
but KMail does still support sending mail with sendmail and there an address 
like ingo at localhost or ingo at myhostname should work without problems.

I can imagine that nowadays people who send lots of messages to different 
people in their company could make use of this feature by setting the default 
domain to company.example.com (i.e. the domain part of the company email 
addresses). Then they'd only have to enter the local part as recipient address 
and KMail would automatically append the company domain. But that's not at all 
obvious. I guess it would make a lot more sense if the default domain was used 
by the email address auto-completion to offer email addresses with the default 
domain additionally to the other auto-completion candidates instead of 
sneakily appending the domain when the user hits Send or Queue.

Regards,
Ingo
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-doc-english/attachments/20201028/ea215e5a/attachment.sig>