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Are there actually good clients for mailing lists? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 week ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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Some people talk about mailing lists with a lot of reverence, but I have only ever found them to be extremely ugly and unreadable.

Are there any good clients out there that make them readable? For example a lemmy-like, threaded interface with interactivity? Or for PR/MRs an interface that shows the diffs with syntax highlighting, toggleable unified and side by side diff views, ability to comment within diffs and continue discussions within them (maybe even threaded)?

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[-] who@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you hate having information delivered as text, you are never going to love mailing lists. They are not applications, and most likely never will be, since that would break the universal interoperability that makes email valuable.

However, email does support threading, and it is possible to find user agents (clients) that support it. Perhaps someone who has compared them recently can offer suggestions for whatever platform you use. (I can't, since I've been using a proprietary one for ages and don't know what else is out there these days.)

Also, you might find that some are better than others at formatting text to your liking.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you hate having information delivered as text, you are never going to love mailing lists.

Wdym? I'm reading text right now. We are interacting with text right now. It has formatting, has linking, has syntax highlighting, all depending on the client.

key: value
object:
  key: value

All this exists in lemmy and I love it.

A lot of other metadata exists in emails too:

  • identities
  • timing
  • person being responded to

Even reactions could be implemented via email e.g if the response body is a single emoji --> reaction.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

For example a lemmy-like, threaded interface with interactivity?

I don't mean to be rude, but surely you've used an email client that supports threading before?

I think I used elm at one point. (checks) Yeah, it doesn't support threading. But everything after that that I've used for any length of time has.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I'll check out Thunderbird's interface again, tried it more than a decade ago with a mailing list and it looked meh. Nothing like lemmy.

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The best thing I have found is this software, mailman. Check out an example: https://lists.openstack.org/archives/list/openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org/thread/GTPTFUPXXBDMWNQZGZDLM2IIX4FSTT5Y/

It lets you view discussions as threads on a website, and then you when click reply, it gives you the option to reply using your email software. This is a really neat way to do it, although the UI definitely looks rough compared to lemmy. But it might be a better way to do email, where you literally just present it via a forum website but all "posts" and "comments" are handled by your email client.

Or mailman lets you sign in and reply via the software itself, but idk if they are actually using that.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

I scrolled through the link but it can't find the threads. The person Jeremy is responding to somebody but I can't see who. Nothing seems to be indented to follow the discussion.

I'm on mobile right now. Does that make a difference for mailman?

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Oh yeah lmao it appears there are no indents on mobile.

[-] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

You could try Mutt or claws mail. Or Emacs, which also still has Usenet support. (In case you don't know, Usenet is the ancestor of reddit which is the predecessor of the fediverse. Or more succintly, both are Usenet with a web interface, instead of a proper client.)

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 1 week ago

It's a good question. I hope so, but I guess not - at best, a good email client will have some functionality that improves things a bit. Possible workflow:

  • a filter that puts all messages from one mailing list into a folder
  • enable Threaded View for that folder and possibly some other things that make it less "ugly" to you.

If email itself isn't interactive enough for you, I don't see how to increase that with email. And what have PRs got to do with mailing lists per se?

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

And what have PRs got to do with mailing lists per se?

I posted in the programming community. Mailing lists are used for submitting patches.

a good email client will have some functionality that improves things a bit

I've tried Thunderbird, KMail, and whatever the Gnome one is called. Frankly, it doesn't really improve on legibility. It's a bit better, yes, but even hackernews looks better. It's a far cry from lemmy's UI. If they had markdown support, that would be an improvement.

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Mailing lists are used for submitting patches

Inline? That seems wrong. Or as .patch files, i.e. attachments? Then the syntax highlighting becomes a task for whatever app opens that file.

BTW Evolution has markdown support.

I honestly don't understand your complaints about the visuals. It's plain text, sometimes HTML. It's readable. It brings the info across. You can reply, personally or to the list. What do you want, banners? Google Fonts? Big friendly green buttons? A social-media-fication of your programming mailing list?

The answer to what you're asking for / complaining about boils down to "don't use mailing lists if your community requires that amount of interactiveness and coding gamification".

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I knew I'd get at least one of you people in here 🙄

"I don't see a problem therefore it doesn't exist".

"Everything is fine the way it is, stop complaining."

"Muh terminals be best"

I guess Bauhaus is your favorite style too.

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

None of that reflects what I actually wrote.

I guess Bauhaus is your favorite style too.

Nah, more into Brutalism. What's yours ? Roccoco?

(I love the idea of architectural insults, bring it on)

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No, mailing lists are used for submitting patches inline. That's how the Linux kernel and many other projects do it.

For this reason, all patches should be submitted by e-mail “inline”.

https://docs.kernel.org/process/submitting-patches.html

Edit OP linked an example above: https://lkml.org/lkml/2026/5/12/22

this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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