EC Email Client -- Installation

This is beta software.  Please send comments to the author, 
rkiesling@mainmatter.com

NOTE: As of Version 0.90, EC stores some of its library
modules in the directory ~/.ec/EC/.  If you edit the path
names in the main program file, you will also need to edit
them in the library modules, especially ~/.ec/EC/Config.pm.



CONTENTS

  SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
  INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING
  PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION
  TROUBLESHOOTING

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

You will need, in addition to Perl:

1. A recent version of Perl/Tk.

INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING

1.  Unpack the tar archive, preferably in your home directory 
    (which you've already done it you're reading this).

    tar zxvf ec-<version>.tar.gz

2.  Edit the file ~/.ec/.servers (it's a hidden file in a hidden
    directory) so it contains the names of your ISP's POP and SMTP 
    servers, and your user name and password for each.  Refer to 
    the help documentation on EC's help menu for details.  

    If you're really paranoid about saving passwords in a file, 
    enter a hyphen ('-') in the space for the password, and ec will 
    prompt you for the password each time it tries to connect to 
    that server.

3.  Edit the ~/.ec/.ecconfig file with the program options of 
    your choice.  

4.  On Solaris systems, make sure that the value of "mailspooldir"
    in the ~/.ec/.ecconfig file is set to the system's mail spool
    directory, the /var/mail directory in standard configurations.

    You may also need to change the value of $SOCK_STREAM line 46 of
    the ec program to '2' to communicate directly with SMTP and 
    POP3 servers.  

5.  EC requires, at the very least, a top-level mail subdirectory, 
    and two sub-sub-directories, one for incoming mail and another 
    for trash.  Create the directories defined in the default 
    configuration with the following commands:

    cd 
    mkdir Mail
    mkdir Mail/incoming
    mkdir Mail/trash


PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION

It is possible produce this documentation in various formats
using Perl's POD formatting utilities:

  pod2html <ec >doc.html
  pod2latex <ec >doc.tex
  pod2man <ec >doc.man
  pod2text <ec >doc.txt
  pod2usage <ec >doc.msg

Refer to your system's manual pages for instructions of how
to use these utilities.


TROUBLESHOOTING

1. Setting the Location of the Perl Interpreter

  If you try to execute ec and recieve an error message like 
  this:

    bash: ./ec: No such file or directory

  Then you need to edit the first line of the file to give
  the path to the perl interpreter on your system.  Usually
  this is /usr/local/bin/perl (the default in the distributed 
  program), or /usr/bin/perl.  If neither of these work, try
  using the output of the command: "which perl".

2. Configuring for Solaris and SunOS Systems

  The ec program as distributed is configured for Linux systems.
  You'll need to edit the .ec/.ecconfig file, especially the
  setting of mailspooldir, and possibly the sendmail and qmail
  related settings.  In addition, the SOCK_STREAM parameter at 
  line 46 might need adjusting for some versions of Solaris or
  SunOS.  


If the program doesn't work for some reason that isn't covered in the
TROUBLESHOOTING section, please let the author know.  Send bug
reports, suggestions, and other feedback to rkiesling@mainmatter.com.

