Massively Parallel Procrastination

K-9 - An android mutt

I swore to myself that I wouldn't get a T-Mobile G1. That..didn't work so well. I picked mine up after lunch on release day.

I knew I wasn't going to be happy with the stock mail client, but I had no idea how....not ready it was.

The total dealbreaker for me was that it didn't have keybindings for simple things like delete.

"No problem. I'll just build a patched copy and submit the changes upstream," I thought. So, I dusted off my Java, hauled down the SDK and the source for the core Email application. Once I got it to build, it was really only about 15 minutes of fiddling around until I could reliably crash the application on the emulator by hitting the delete key. 5 more minutes and I had what I wanted.

...and then I discovered that the Email application doesn't yet know how to propagate message deletion back to an IMAP server.

15 more minutes of hacking and that, too, was sorted out.

The moment of truth arrived. I tried to install it on my phone.

No go.

It turns out you can't replace system applications.

So, I did what any self-respecting hacker would. I complained about it on twitter....and then I registered for the Android Marketplace. It took 5 minutes and cost $25.

I set up a google code project, checked in the 'Email' app's original source code and started in with a regex-shaped chainsaw. When I was done K-9 was born.

While I hope to eventually get some fixes contributed back to the core Android 'Email' app, I want to get a bit of active development going on a more usable mail application right now. And yeah, there's a bit of me that's curious about how the community is going to handle forked bits of the core Android platform. If you'd like a commit bit, just ask.

Right now, K-9 has reasonable keybindings for message lists and individual messages as well as the delete fixes I mentioned. I've released 3 versions in the span of 6 hours. It's been downloaded by about 200 people.

Tomorrow, I expect to add a setting to let me set an always-Bcc address....unless one of you beat me to it.