Desktop web-apps won. Simply because native UI libraries never evolved past their 90s days. Either the UI is defined in some DSL, that's loaded (or compiled) and then you spend most of the time writing getElement(pathToElement) and wiring it up, or you have to boilerplate create each element and parent.addChild(element).

And wiring it up is also a pain. Send a signal or event, add a listener or slot, or whatever fancy name each framework comes up with, and if you have to modify another element, it means querying for it, or having a singleton, or passing a reference/pointer, or whatever. It's so friggin-old school.

In the meanwhile, the web discovered reactivity, components, declaring the UI and having the logic in the same file, live debugging, tight development loops, and so much more.

Is it just too difficult for native frameworks? Is it a sunken cost issue or fear of breaking backwards compatibility? Why can't native UI development be as easy and approachable as web dev?

Don't get me wrong, I need webdev like a child needs cancer, but I've tried Slint, imGUi, Qt, Gtk, wxWidgets, and more and the experience makes me want to blow my brains out every single time. I dread writing any native GUI that I got desperate enough to try writing a TUI but that's unbelievably worse!

It's gotten so bad, that Tauri and Dioxus are now on the menu. I never wanted to mix web dev into my native applications, but it feels like the abominably anachronistic state of native UI development is just forcing not only me, but anybody who wants to have a good experience writing native UI apps (especially those that are multi-platform), to use a fucking web view! A memory-hogging web view!

I've tried FairEMail and SimpleEmail, but they require opening the app to see emails. They seem to be forks or versions of each other without background syncing and (sorry) a terribly ugly interface. Neither seem to have filters.

Background syncing shouldn't be constantly on, just every 5-10 minutes or so. Normally I check once a day, but forget to quite easily and then miss an email. If it checked automatically even twice daily, that'd be enough.

The maker of Ghostty and Hashicorp is finally leaving Github.

"the_yank_stank" has nothing to do with programming or tech and the user just started posting news about child rape or something.

Framework released a love letter to Apple.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/49000591

TL;DR fetchmail to move all emails from email provider to local mailbox that is then served via IMAP by dovecot

Hi, I like being able to switch between email providers easily without having to change my email address (related post). For example right now people have to go through the hassle of going from mygreatusername@some.host to anotherusername@another.host. It's a big barrier because you now have to update that email address everywhere. Imagine having everything on gmail and then moving to startmail, fastmail, posteo, or whatever else.

A solution I was made aware of is to:

• pay for a domain e.g mydomain.org for 10 years (can be cheap)
• use their inbuilt email (sometimes free) or pick an email provider that allows custom domains
• pull all the email to server you host
• serve that email

That way, you will have your myname@mydomain.org and switch email providers underneath while keeping all your emails.

Example config

This config uses the module I wrote (maybe something else exists, but I couldn't find it). It pulls emails of myaccount@my.domain from pop.remote.host to my.host and exposes them via IMAPS as myaccount@my.domain on my.host.

Notice that my.domain need not be the same as my.host. This allows me to hide my IMAP server. Somebody looking at the MX record of my.domain won't immediately find the IMAP server.

{ config, ... }:
{
  /**
    configuration to for fetchmail to retrieve from the remote host
    emails will be moved into a the **local** mailbox of a user with the same email address
  */
  environment.etc."mail/fetchmailrc" = {
    text = ''
      poll pop.remote.host protocol pop3 port 995:
            user "myaccount@my.domain" with password "passwordWithouQuotes" is vmail here
            options fetchall
            ssl
            mda "dovecot-deliver -d myaccount@my.domain"
    '';
    user = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonUser;
    group = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonGroup;
  };
  
  /**
    usernames and passwords used to log into the **self-hosted** IMAP service
    Uses same format as /etc/passwd
    https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/databases/passwd_file.html
  */
  environment.etc."mail/imap.passwd" = {
    text = ''
      myAccount@my.domain:{plain}password
    '';
    user = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonUser;
    group = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonGroup;
  };
  services.email-fetch-serve = {
    enable = true;
    sslCertPath = "/var/acme/certs/mydomain.crt";
    sslCertKey = "/var/acme/certs/mydomain.key";
    fetchmailRcPath = "/etc/mail/fetchmailrc";
    imap = {
      port = 993;
      openFirewall = true;
      passdb = "/etc/mail/imap.passwd";
    };
  };
}

the module

{
  config,
  lib,
  pkgs,
  ...
}:

let
  cfg = config.services.email-fetch-serve;
  daemonUserHome = "/var/spool/${cfg.daemonUser}";
  sslEnabled = (cfg.sslCertPath != null) && (cfg.sslCertKey != null);
  /**
    Used by fetchmail to deliver mail to dovecot
  */
  dovecot-deliver-wrapper = pkgs.writeShellScriptBin "dovecot-deliver" ''${pkgs.dovecot}/libexec/dovecot/deliver "''${@}"'';
in
{
  /**
    A self-hosted "email relay" that allows fetching emails from a server and then serving it
    via IMAP.

    Emails are retrieved with fetchmail and exposed via dovecot.

    By default, dovecot used IMAP which unencrypted, but with an ssl certificate and key, it can
    be encrypted and thus turned into IMAPS.
    To generate SSL certs, the `security.acme` option is powerful, but you can also use a
    self-signed certificate.

    To store secrets, do consider using
    - agenix: https://github.com/ryantm/agenix
    - sopsnix: https://github.com/Mic92/sops-nix
  */
  options = with lib; {
    services.email-fetch-serve = {
      enable = mkEnableOption "emails from an email server and serve them via IMAP";
      sslCertPath = mkOption {
        type = types.nullOr types.externalPath;
        description = "Giving a path to an SSL cert **and** key will enable IMAPS and disable IMAP";
        default = null;
      };
      sslCertKey = mkOption {
        type = types.nullOr types.externalPath;
        description = "Giving a path to an SSL key **and** cert will enable IMAPS and disable IMAP";
        default = null;
      };
      fetchmailRcPath = mkOption {
        type = types.externalPath;
        description = "Configuration for fetchmail";
        example = ''
          poll pop.remote.host protocol pop3 port 995:
            user "accountName@remote.host" with password "passwordWithouQuotes" is vmail here
            options fetchall
            ssl
            mda "dovecot-deliver -d accountName@remote.host"
        '';
      };
      imap = {
        port = mkOption {
          type = types.int;
          description = ''
            Which port to host the IMAP service on. If sslCertPath is set this will
                        be the port of othe IMAPS service'';
          default = 143; # Default IMAP port
        };
        openFirewall = lib.mkOption {
          type = lib.types.bool;
          default = false;
          example = true;
          description = "Allow external traffic to reach the IMAP(S) port";
        };
        passdb = mkOption {
          type = types.externalPath;
          description = ''
            Where passwords for IMAP are stored. Should be secret and accessible by vmail user
                        https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/databases/passwd_file.html
                        https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/passdb.html
          '';
        };
      };
      daemonUser = mkOption {
        type = types.str;
        description = "Name of the user running the daemons";
        default = "vmail";
      };
      daemonGroup = mkOption {
        type = types.str;
        description = "Name of the user's group running the daemons";
        default = "vmail";
      };
    };
  };

  config = lib.mkIf cfg.enable {
    assertions = [
      {
        # Either both SSL vars are set or none are set
        assertion =
          (cfg.sslCertPath == null && cfg.sslCertKey == null)
          || (cfg.sslCertPath != null && cfg.sslCertKey != null);
        message = "email-fetch-serve service must have sslCertPath AND sslCertKey to have functional SSL";
      }
    ];
    # How electronic email works
    # https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO-3.html

    # ${daemonUserHome} needs to be created and owned by vmail
    users.users."${cfg.daemonUser}" = {
      createHome = true;
      home = daemonUserHome;
      group = cfg.daemonGroup;
      isSystemUser = true;
    };
    users.groups."${cfg.daemonGroup}" = { };

    services.dovecot2 = lib.mkMerge [
      ({
        # Taken and adapted from https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Dovecot
        enable = cfg.enable;
        createMailUser = true;

        enableImap = true;

        mailUser = cfg.daemonUser;
        mailGroup = cfg.daemonGroup;

        # implement virtual users
        # https://doc.dovecot.org/2.3/configuration_manual/howto/simple_virtual_install/
        # store virtual mail under
        # /var/spool/mail/vmail/<DOMAIN>/<USER>/Maildir/
        mailLocation = "maildir:~/Maildir";

        mailboxes = {
          # use rfc standard https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/201346
          All = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "All";
          };
          Archive = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Archive";
          };
          Drafts = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Drafts";
          };
          Flagged = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Flagged";
          };
          Junk = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = "60d";
            specialUse = "Junk";
          };
          Sent = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Sent";
          };
          Trash = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = "60d";
            specialUse = "Trash";
          };
        };

        extraConfig = lib.concatStrings [
          ''
            # force to use full user name plus domain name
            # for disambiguation
            auth_username_format = %Lu

            # Authentication configuration:
            auth_mechanisms = plain
            passdb {
              driver = passwd-file
              args = ${cfg.imap.passdb}
            }

            userdb {
              driver = static
              # the full e-mail address inside passwd-file is the username (%u)
              # user@example.com
              # %d for domain_name %n for user_name
              args = uid=${cfg.daemonUser} gid=${cfg.daemonGroup} username_format=%u home=${daemonUserHome}/%d/%n
            }
          ''

          (lib.optionalString (!sslEnabled) ''
            service imap-login {
              inet_listener imap {
                port = ${builtins.toString cfg.imap.port}
              }
              inet_listener imaps {
                port = 0
              }
          '')
          (lib.optionalString (sslEnabled) ''
            service imap-login {
              inet_listener imap {
                port = 0
              }
              inet_listener imaps {
                port = ${builtins.toString cfg.imap.port}
              }
            }'')
        ];
      })
      (lib.mkIf sslEnabled {
        sslServerCert = cfg.sslCertPath;
        sslServerKey = cfg.sslCertKey;
      })
    ];

    # Open the firewall port to be able to be contacted
    networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [ cfg.imap.port ];
    networking.firewall.allowedUDPPorts = [ cfg.imap.port ];

    #####################
    # To fetch the emails
    systemd.services.fetchmail = {
      enable = cfg.enable;
      after = [ "dovecot2.service" ];
      wantedBy = [ "dovecot2.service" ];
      path = [ dovecot-deliver-wrapper ];
      serviceConfig = {
        User = cfg.daemonUser;
        ExecStart = "${pkgs.fetchmail}/bin/fetchmail --fetchmailrc ${cfg.fetchmailRcPath} --daemon 60";
      };
    };
  };
}

TL;DR fetchmail to move all emails from email provider to local mailbox that is then served via IMAP by dovecot

Hi, I like being able to switch between email providers easily without having to change my email address (related post). For example right now people have to go through the hassle of going from mygreatusername@some.host to anotherusername@another.host. It's a big barrier because you now have to update that email address everywhere. Imagine having everything on gmail and then moving to startmail, fastmail, posteo, or whatever else.

A solution I was made aware of is to:

• pay for a domain e.g mydomain.org for 10 years (can be cheap)
• use their inbuilt email (sometimes free) or pick an email provider that allows custom domains
• pull all the email to server you host
• serve that email

That way, you will have your myname@mydomain.org and switch email providers underneath while keeping all your emails.

Example config

This config uses the module I wrote (maybe something else exists, but I couldn't find it). It pulls emails of myaccount@my.domain from pop.remote.host to my.host and exposes them via IMAPS as myaccount@my.domain on my.host.

Notice that my.domain need not be the same as my.host. This allows me to hide my IMAP server. Somebody looking at the MX record of my.domain won't immediately find the IMAP server.

{ config, ... }:
{
  /**
    configuration to for fetchmail to retrieve from the remote host
    emails will be moved into a the **local** mailbox of a user with the same email address
  */
  environment.etc."mail/fetchmailrc" = {
    text = ''
      poll pop.remote.host protocol pop3 port 995:
            user "myaccount@my.domain" with password "passwordWithouQuotes" is vmail here
            options fetchall
            ssl
            mda "dovecot-deliver -d myaccount@my.domain"
    '';
    user = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonUser;
    group = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonGroup;
  };
  
  /**
    usernames and passwords used to log into the **self-hosted** IMAP service
    Uses same format as /etc/passwd
    https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/databases/passwd_file.html
  */
  environment.etc."mail/imap.passwd" = {
    text = ''
      myAccount@my.domain:{plain}password
    '';
    user = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonUser;
    group = config.services.email-fetch-serve.daemonGroup;
  };
  services.email-fetch-serve = {
    enable = true;
    sslCertPath = "/var/acme/certs/mydomain.crt";
    sslCertKey = "/var/acme/certs/mydomain.key";
    fetchmailRcPath = "/etc/mail/fetchmailrc";
    imap = {
      port = 993;
      openFirewall = true;
      passdb = "/etc/mail/imap.passwd";
    };
  };
}

{
  config,
  lib,
  pkgs,
  ...
}:

let
  cfg = config.services.email-fetch-serve;
  daemonUserHome = "/var/spool/${cfg.daemonUser}";
  sslEnabled = (cfg.sslCertPath != null) && (cfg.sslCertKey != null);
  /**
    Used by fetchmail to deliver mail to dovecot
  */
  dovecot-deliver-wrapper = pkgs.writeShellScriptBin "dovecot-deliver" ''${pkgs.dovecot}/libexec/dovecot/deliver "''${@}"'';
in
{
  /**
    A self-hosted "email relay" that allows fetching emails from a server and then serving it
    via IMAP.

    Emails are retrieved with fetchmail and exposed via dovecot.

    By default, dovecot used IMAP which unencrypted, but with an ssl certificate and key, it can
    be encrypted and thus turned into IMAPS.
    To generate SSL certs, the `security.acme` option is powerful, but you can also use a
    self-signed certificate.

    To store secrets, do consider using
    - agenix: https://github.com/ryantm/agenix
    - sopsnix: https://github.com/Mic92/sops-nix
  */
  options = with lib; {
    services.email-fetch-serve = {
      enable = mkEnableOption "emails from an email server and serve them via IMAP";
      sslCertPath = mkOption {
        type = types.nullOr types.externalPath;
        description = "Giving a path to an SSL cert **and** key will enable IMAPS and disable IMAP";
        default = null;
      };
      sslCertKey = mkOption {
        type = types.nullOr types.externalPath;
        description = "Giving a path to an SSL key **and** cert will enable IMAPS and disable IMAP";
        default = null;
      };
      fetchmailRcPath = mkOption {
        type = types.externalPath;
        description = "Configuration for fetchmail";
        example = ''
          poll pop.remote.host protocol pop3 port 995:
            user "accountName@remote.host" with password "passwordWithouQuotes" is vmail here
            options fetchall
            ssl
            mda "dovecot-deliver -d accountName@remote.host"
        '';
      };
      imap = {
        port = mkOption {
          type = types.int;
          description = ''
            Which port to host the IMAP service on. If sslCertPath is set this will
                        be the port of othe IMAPS service'';
          default = 143; # Default IMAP port
        };
        openFirewall = lib.mkOption {
          type = lib.types.bool;
          default = false;
          example = true;
          description = "Allow external traffic to reach the IMAP(S) port";
        };
        passdb = mkOption {
          type = types.externalPath;
          description = ''
            Where passwords for IMAP are stored. Should be secret and accessible by vmail user
                        https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/databases/passwd_file.html
                        https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/auth/passdb.html
          '';
        };
      };
      daemonUser = mkOption {
        type = types.str;
        description = "Name of the user running the daemons";
        default = "vmail";
      };
      daemonGroup = mkOption {
        type = types.str;
        description = "Name of the user's group running the daemons";
        default = "vmail";
      };
    };
  };

  config = lib.mkIf cfg.enable {
    assertions = [
      {
        # Either both SSL vars are set or none are set
        assertion =
          (cfg.sslCertPath == null && cfg.sslCertKey == null)
          || (cfg.sslCertPath != null && cfg.sslCertKey != null);
        message = "email-fetch-serve service must have sslCertPath AND sslCertKey to have functional SSL";
      }
    ];
    # How electronic email works
    # https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO-3.html

    # ${daemonUserHome} needs to be created and owned by vmail
    users.users."${cfg.daemonUser}" = {
      createHome = true;
      home = daemonUserHome;
      group = cfg.daemonGroup;
      isSystemUser = true;
    };
    users.groups."${cfg.daemonGroup}" = { };

    services.dovecot2 = lib.mkMerge [
      ({
        # Taken and adapted from https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Dovecot
        enable = cfg.enable;
        createMailUser = true;

        enableImap = true;

        mailUser = cfg.daemonUser;
        mailGroup = cfg.daemonGroup;

        # implement virtual users
        # https://doc.dovecot.org/2.3/configuration_manual/howto/simple_virtual_install/
        # store virtual mail under
        # /var/spool/mail/vmail/<DOMAIN>/<USER>/Maildir/
        mailLocation = "maildir:~/Maildir";

        mailboxes = {
          # use rfc standard https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/201346
          All = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "All";
          };
          Archive = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Archive";
          };
          Drafts = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Drafts";
          };
          Flagged = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Flagged";
          };
          Junk = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = "60d";
            specialUse = "Junk";
          };
          Sent = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = null;
            specialUse = "Sent";
          };
          Trash = {
            auto = "create";
            autoexpunge = "60d";
            specialUse = "Trash";
          };
        };

        extraConfig = lib.concatStrings [
          ''
            # force to use full user name plus domain name
            # for disambiguation
            auth_username_format = %Lu

            # Authentication configuration:
            auth_mechanisms = plain
            passdb {
              driver = passwd-file
              args = ${cfg.imap.passdb}
            }

            userdb {
              driver = static
              # the full e-mail address inside passwd-file is the username (%u)
              # user@example.com
              # %d for domain_name %n for user_name
              args = uid=${cfg.daemonUser} gid=${cfg.daemonGroup} username_format=%u home=${daemonUserHome}/%d/%n
            }
          ''

          (lib.optionalString (!sslEnabled) ''
            service imap-login {
              inet_listener imap {
                port = ${builtins.toString cfg.imap.port}
              }
              inet_listener imaps {
                port = 0
              }
          '')
          (lib.optionalString (sslEnabled) ''
            service imap-login {
              inet_listener imap {
                port = 0
              }
              inet_listener imaps {
                port = ${builtins.toString cfg.imap.port}
              }
            }'')
        ];
      })
      (lib.mkIf sslEnabled {
        sslServerCert = cfg.sslCertPath;
        sslServerKey = cfg.sslCertKey;
      })
    ];

    # Open the firewall port to be able to be contacted
    networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [ cfg.imap.port ];
    networking.firewall.allowedUDPPorts = [ cfg.imap.port ];

    #####################
    # To fetch the emails
    systemd.services.fetchmail = {
      enable = cfg.enable;
      after = [ "dovecot2.service" ];
      wantedBy = [ "dovecot2.service" ];
      path = [ dovecot-deliver-wrapper ];
      serviceConfig = {
        User = cfg.daemonUser;
        ExecStart = "${pkgs.fetchmail}/bin/fetchmail --fetchmailrc ${cfg.fetchmailRcPath} --daemon 60";
      };
    };
  };
}

Opensource is undeniably a boon to the world. Without it, not only would there be few to no viable options to tech giants, competition would be rendered much more difficult. Fledgling companies would either have to pay for licensed code or implement everything themselves and that would lock out many from even starting companies and dare I say it, even programming as a whole.

But for all the good it has done, there is one thing (amongst many others) that irks me about the opensource community: the phrase "why don't you just...". It is uttered so easily and so thoughtlessly, as if the other person is either too dumb to have considered it, too lazy to have looked it up, or just unwilling to admit it's the right way to do things.

• I can't figure out how to do X: why don't you just do Y?
• Bug X has been hampering me: why don't you just fix it?
• Software X has been crashing and I don't know why: why don't you just....

We could go on and on. Yes, of course, people new to opensource or software in general have trouble voicing their thoughts and approaching problems in the way we software developers are used to. We have experienced the pain of having to track down the source of a bug, had to dig through somebody else's code, read terrible documentation (and consider ourselves lucky it even exists), basically, we have been through the baptism of fire.

Having gone through the hardships, we forget what it was like when we first started and what it was like to acquire the knowledge we have. To some, going through the fire must be the only way because "if I suffered, so should you"; a self-righteous, unsympathetic notion I wholeheartedly loathe.

How to improve

Some might not actually mean it badly, but "just" don't know how to express themselves better. To those who do actually want to help and not sound belittling, please do consider alternative wording:

• Have you thought of ...
• Could you try ... and get back with the results?
• I've had success with ...., maybe that could work for you
• I think this could help ...

If you are one of those people though who genuinely don't see a problem with it, why don't you just understand?

There are a few opensource games out there, but many aren't in distro repos, or for windows, or released on itch.io requiring an account to download, etc. What could a open source game store for opensource games for all distros look like?

Solution: FetchMail + Dovecot. Just need to set it up, but it's pretty much what I was looking for.

The goal is to allow easily moving away from an email provider e.g from protonmail to tutanota or fastmail or whatever. How do people achieve this?

I just want to have myname@mydomain, the emails to go to whichever managed email service that allows it, and to then grab everything from that service with POP to then self-host a proxy that multiple devices can connect to. STMP can go either to my hosted server or the managed host, doesn't matter.

The idea is explicitly not to do the job of a managed email service. No DKIM, no SPF, no DMARC, none of that.

Distro is NixOS, but can adapt any instructions given. Mentioning just in case somebody already has a nix configuration with this setup.

People's websites get pummeled by LLM companies scraping the web. I bet they don't use nor scrape I2P though. Would using eepsites be a remedy?

And that without calling in twice. Laptop cameras as normally very crap. They say "1080p", but most of the time they are 720p or less and have maybe 2 megapixels or less. Phones have way more and can be connected to the laptop via USB. There must be a way to use their camera over USB, right?

I know of USB over LAN, so surely this is possible.

Thanks to everybody. In the end I went with Scrcpy.