claws-mail

fernandel · Sunday at 9:22 PM

Claws-mail was updated to version 4.40 and it used gtk3 now. It works as before but visual settings are disaster. I had/have default theme and it works good. Now is everything pale. I did some size of fonts but fonts in menus are too small and on the bottom where you see fetching email is very difficult to see.
Where to change those fonts, please?
Thank you.

mer · Sunday at 9:44 PM

Take a look under Configuration->Preferences->Display there are selections for Fonts and Themes. Start playing with the "themes"

fernandel · Sunday at 10:44 PM

mer said:
Take a look under Configuration->Preferences->Display there are selections for Fonts and Themes. Start playing with the "themes"

I did it but something is wrong because it doesn't change theme except the name.
I will wait if some other complain too or maybe will be update.
Thank you.

T-Aoki · Monday at 12:00 AM

Known issue for me with ClawsMail 4.x (and why I've never switched from Sylpheed to ClawsMail for Gtk3 support) is that changing column width in thread pane (top right, email lists) doesn't work as wanted especially on windowed (non-full screen) mode.

fernandel · Monday at 12:03 AM

T-Aoki said:
Known issue for me with ClawsMail 4.x (and why I've never switched from Sylpheed to ClawsMail for Gtk3 support) is that changing column width in thread pane (top right, email lists) doesn't work as wanted especially on windowed (non-full screen) mode.

Should I file bug report?

T-Aoki · Monday at 12:14 AM

I've not as I'm not sure it's upstream issue or porting issue and I can still use mail/sylpheed.

But it would be nice if you can (especially to upstream).

Note that I've never experienced the behavior on ClawsMail 3.x (Gtk2 version), but I've not switched to ClawsMail as I don't find enough motivation to move from Sylpheed at the moment. (If configuration importer of Claws sanely converts ALL configurations AND marks/colors/flags of Sylpheed, I could've been switched, though.)

Another note would be that ClawsMail is forked (spun out?) from the developement branch of Sylpheed, so I've expected everything can be converted (actually simply renamed) 100% sanely (backward compatibility), but it didn't work as I wanted/expected. But once Gtk2 dissappers completely, I'll be forced to switch to ClawsMail (hope Gtk2 remains!).

mer · Monday at 7:52 AM

I take it you are on latest? I'm on quarterly and my claws-mail is at version 3.2.1.
If you go under Help->About there is a user mailing list. Maybe post a question there?

bda65 · Monday at 8:54 AM

No problem here with lxapearance for the theme and font configuration in claws-mail preferences. (sorry i'm french but no problem with other langages).

fernandel · Monday at 10:46 AM

bda65 said:
No problem here with lxapearance for the theme and font configuration in claws-mail preferences. (sorry i'm french but no problem with other langages).
View attachment 25805

Thank you.
I have the same font settings. What theme do you use? For me changing the themes don't work. It changed just icons but not background.
On the bottom panel when you can see the downloading mail I cannot see anything because font is very small and light almost the same as panel.
I am using Openbox and FreeBSD-15.0-RELEASE-p5 and packages - latest.

fernandel · Monday at 10:48 AM

mer said:
I take it you are on latest? I'm on quarterly and my claws-mail is at version 3.2.1.
If you go under Help->About there is a user mailing list. Maybe post a question there?

I am member of mailing list.

bda65 · Monday at 1:06 PM

It's my own theme made some times ago on Arch with oomox. But x11-themes/clearlooks-themes is installed on my system and work perfectly.
I use no DE, just a WM launched with .xinitrc

T-Aoki · Monday at 2:05 PM

Just a FYI:
Not yet tested with the latest one in the ports tree, but at least on previous version (of 4.x), my issue would be easily reproduced when attempting to resize any of the columns at the email list pane (top right pane) on windowed (non-full screen) mode.
It would jump toooooo wide even on attempting to shrink the width.
This never happened on 3.x nor Sylpheed (both on Gtk2) as far as I've tested before.

fernandel · Monday at 5:07 PM

I did change some fonts and it looks better. As they told me on mailing list Themes change just icons.
I don't know how to change the blue color which is now on Mailbox(MH).
Thank you for help.

T-Daemon · 2026-03-31T15:17:58+0100

fernandel said:
I don't know how to change the blue color which is now on Mailbox(MH).

Apparently one can override background highlight colors for claws-mail panes in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css. I haven't tested it, it could effect other applications using gtk3 as well.

For details see MX Linux Forum - Setting GTK colors for Claws Mail

wolffnx · 2026-03-31T15:26:21+0100

fernandel said:
Claws-mail was updated to version 4.40 and it used gtk3 now. It works as before but visual settings are disaster. I had/have default theme and it works good. Now is everything pale. I did some size of fonts but fonts in menus are too small and on the bottom where you see fetching email is very difficult to see.
Where to change those fonts, please?
Thank you.

Welcome to the world of "only dark theme and gray icons to rule them all gtk3"

Look if the build options of claws have the option for use gtk2(if is not discarted by the developers)
And add the option in the ports Makefile
Or try to build from official sources from previous version that support gtk2

fernandel · 2026-03-31T15:37:29+0100

wolffnx said:
Welcome to the world of "only dark theme and gray icons to rule them all gtk3"

Look if the build options of claws have the option for use gtk2(if is not discarted by the developers)
And add the option in the ports Makefile
Or try to build from official sources from previous version that support gtk2

I am using packages and updated Claws-mail 4.40 doesn't use gtk-2 anymore.

dino1 · 2026-03-31T18:00:07+0100

wolffnx said:
Look if the build options of claws have the option for use gtk2(if is not discarted by the developers)
And add the option in the ports Makefile
Or try to build from official sources from previous version that support gtk2

Upstream developers (Claws Mail Team) no longer cares about GTK2 version. Basically no support. No security fixes, no new features.
Short term, it is possible to use old package, but that blocks other upgrades as well, so it is not the way to go.
Generally, we'll see probably no ports using GTK2 after some time, world moves to GTK3 and later to GTK4.

fernandel · 2026-03-31T18:17:09+0100

Mine claws-mail looks almost the same as before, some problems (visual) more but...
I like to delete gtk2 but I have aqualung, gperiodic, fbreader and parcellite. If I find substitutes I will do.

dino1 · 2026-03-31T18:19:14+0100

fernandel said:
Mine claws-mail looks almost the same as before, some problems (visual) more but...
I like to delete gtk2 but I have aqualung, gperiodic, fbreader and parcellite. If I find substitutes I will do.

Did you do some css tweaking for the GTK3 version?

cy@ · 2026-03-31T18:41:06+0100

T-Aoki said:
I've not as I'm not sure it's upstream issue or porting issue and I can still use mail/sylpheed.

Problems like this are usually upstream issues. Don't always assume the FreeBSD port maintainer will dig deeply into the code to create a custom FreeBSD-only version of the software. As upstream develops their code we porters end up spending a lot of time "fixing" when it could be handled at source.

I certainly don't do custom work like that unless someone is willing to pay.

T-Aoki said:
But it would be nice if you can (especially to upstream).

Exactly!

T-Aoki said:
Note that I've never experienced the behavior on ClawsMail 3.x (Gtk2 version), but I've not switched to ClawsMail as I don't find enough motivation to move from Sylpheed at the moment. (If configuration importer of Claws sanely converts ALL configurations AND marks/colors/flags of Sylpheed, I could've been switched, though.)

I normally use exmh2. It's simple. Though I use claws-mail (or sylpheed) when exmh2 or raw nmh cannot reply to some mime encoded message properly.

T-Aoki said:
Another note would be that ClawsMail is forked (spun out?) from the developement branch of Sylpheed, so I've expected everything can be converted (actually simply renamed) 100% sanely (backward compatibility), but it didn't work as I wanted/expected. But once Gtk2 dissappers completely, I'll be forced to switch to ClawsMail (hope Gtk2 remains!).

claws-mail is going a different direction. It's more actively developed than sylpheed.

fernandel · 2026-03-31T18:56:21+0100

dino1 said:
Did you do some css tweaking for the GTK3 version?

No, I didn't and do not have in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css. I didn't have or I still do not have for gtk2.

fernandel · 2026-03-31T19:28:04+0100

I found something more about fonts which do not understand.
In ~/.claws-mail/font like for example normal_font_gtk2=Sans 12. Why, please?

T-Aoki · 2026-03-31T20:08:52+0100

cy@ said:
Don't always assume the FreeBSD port maintainer will dig deeply into the code to create a custom FreeBSD-only version of the software.

I know, as I'm maintaining NVIDIA driver things.

NVIDIA incorporates our ports patches at some point they want (confirmed their internal QA results as OK, I think). But it's mostly the "interface" parts provided in source code forms. We need to wait for binary only parts to be fixed, and it's basically NOT FreeBSD specific.

On the other hand, and as far as I know, Chromium project doesn't accept *BSD (at least for FreeBSD and OpenBSD) specific changes at all, thus, rnagy@ and other porters are forced to maintain a plenty of patches within joint FreeBSD / OpenBSD Chromium maintaining team.

cy@ said:
claws-mail is going a different direction. It's more actively developed than sylpheed.

As far as I know, it is because ClawsMail became separate project, superceding development branch of Sylpheed, which is no longer maintained (100% handed over to ClawsMail project) and Sylpheed itself are maintained (slowly) on its stable branch only.

fernandel · 2026-03-31T23:39:01+0100

...and in claws-mail 4.40 if you use packages it installed plugins and one is claws-mail-dillo and dillo by itself are installed too.
Why are plugins not left for user choice?

T-Aoki · 2026-03-31T23:50:48+0100

fernandel said:
...and in claws-mail 4.40 if you use packages it installed plugins and one is claws-mail-dillo and dillo by itself are installed too.
Why are plugins not left for user choice?

You would need to install at least mail/claws-mail-plugins via ports, not via pre-built pkg, and choose what you want.

The flexibilities are achieved by ports, and pre-built packages (from before current pkg framework is developed) are prepared for convenience over flexibilities "as an non-standard option" at the first place.