offlineimapui - Man Page

OfflineIMAP comes with different UIs, each aiming its own purpose​.

TTYUI interface is for people running in terminals​. It prints out basic status messages and is generally friendly to use on a console or xterm​.

Basic is designed for situations in which OfflineIMAP will be run non-attended and the status of its execution will be logged​.

This user interface is not capable of reading a password from the keyboard; account passwords must be specified using one of the configuration file options​. For example, it will not print periodic sleep announcements and tends to be a tad less verbose, in general​.

Blinkenlights is an interface designed to be sleek, fun to watch, and informative of the overall picture of what OfflineIMAP is doing​.

Blinkenlights contains a row of "LEDs" with command buttons and a log​. The log shows more detail about what is happening and is color-coded to match the color of the lights​.

Each light in the Blinkenlights interface represents a thread of execution — that is, a particular task that OfflineIMAP is performing right now​. The colors indicate what task the particular thread is performing, and are as follows:

• Black

  indicates that this light's thread has terminated; it will light up again
  later when new threads start up​.  So, black indicates no activity​.

• Red (Meaning 1)

  is the color of the main program's thread, which basically does nothing but
  monitor the others​.  It might remind you of HAL 9000 in 2001​.

• Gray

  indicates that the thread is establishing a new connection to the IMAP
  server​.

• Purple

  is the color of an account synchronization thread that is monitoring the
  progress of the folders in that account (not generating any I/O)​.

• Cyan

  indicates that the thread is syncing a folder​.

• Green

  means that a folder's message list is being loaded​.

• Blue

  is the color of a message synchronization controller thread​.

• Orange

  indicates that an actual message is being copied​.  (We use fuchsia for fake
  messages​.)

• Red (meaning 2)

  indicates that a message is being deleted​.

• Yellow / bright orange

  indicates that message flags are being added​.

• Pink / bright red

  indicates that message flags are being removed​.

• Red / Black Flashing

  corresponds to the countdown timer that runs between synchronizations​.

The name of this interfaces derives from a bit of computer history​. Eric Raymond’s Jargon File defines blinkenlights, in part, as:

Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, esp​. a dinosaur​. Now that
dinosaurs are rare, this term usually refers to status lights on a modem,
network hub, or the like​.

This term derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the English-speaking world​. One version ran in its entirety as follows:

ACHTUNG!  ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!

Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben​.
Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
mit spitzensparken​.  Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen​.
Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten​.

It will output nothing except errors and serious warnings​. Like Basic, this user interface is not capable of reading a password from the keyboard; account passwords must be specified using one of the configuration file options​.

Syslog is designed for situations where OfflineIMAP is run as a daemon (e​.g​., as a systemd --user service), but errors should be forwarded to the system log​. Like Basic, this user interface is not capable of reading a password from the keyboard; account passwords must be specified using one of the configuration file options​.

MachineUI generates output in a machine-parsable format​. It is designed for other programs that will interface to OfflineIMAP​.

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