I was bored. More accurately, I didn’t want to do the work that I (still) have to do.
Sometimes, when I want to send a message using Gmail, I become frustrated by the overall inefficiency. First, I have to open up my browser. Then, I need to click the link on my favorites bar. Then, I need to click Compose Mail. And finally, I can write what I was going to write. (If you think I’m a lazy fool by now, you’re probably right.)
So, I decided to experiment with libgmail a bit. The result was an easy, clean command-line interface for writing email messages. Then, I decided to take things a step further. I built a dynamic menu system and added a few options to it (send an email, check unread messages, etc.). I then started to design a purely function-based script that would give me a fast, powerful email client.
I’m starting to like the result. So far, the client supports sending messages and checking the number of unread messages, but I plan to add support for reading messages and replying to them in the future. Furthermore, the code is fairly clean (it’s classless, but that’s okay) and very flexible. It shouldn’t be too hard to add new features.
You can download a preliminary test version here. I also have included some sample output. I’ve started a page here.
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