I second the Claws-Mail suggestion. It's nice. I use Kontact, but then I use KDE. Were I not use it, Claws would be an excellent choice.

As for browsers, maybe you should take a look a QupZilla, a tiny but very capable browser based on WebKit.

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13...work/qupzilla/

Ditto.
I used SeaMonkey mail for a while and liked it, but went back to Thunderbird for just the reasons listed above.



Each to their own. I just tried Claws-mail again yesterday and deleted it (removepkg) within an hour. Why waste the disk space.

There is usually a "Manual Config" button that is immediately available (in the bottom row). Just hit that and you don't have to wait for any timeouts.

Thanks mRgOBLIN !

My email machine is running an older (ancient?) version of Thunderbird. Next month I'll be moving my email to a newer box with Slack 13.37 (or 14.0) and Thunderbird 14.0 (or 15.0). I'll look for the manual configuration option you mention.

I'm a Seamonkey fan at the moment. I've used Opera a bit in the past, but my favorite used to be Firefox. Then I realized that (for me) Seamonkey loads faster, looks more rational to me, and crashes less on my machines, despite using the same backend and doing email and IRC. Sounded like a good switch to me.

If I were delivering client systems to customers, and had to maintain them, I would try to keep the number of packages to maintain low. I'd go either for Seamonkey or Opera. Add LibreOffice as an Office Suite, and you make more than 80 percent of all computer users happy, with just two packages.

But there are more good arguments to prefer Opera or Seamonkey compared to others.

Seamonkey (as opposed to the infamous couple of FF + TB)

• Side bar included by default, no plug-in or add-on required
• Web editor included, no plug-in or add-on needed
• Takes less resources, overall, than FF + TB
• Much more intuitive configuration, especially regarding email accounts; FF and TB are almost going the Microsoft/Gnome way of trying to know better than the user; Seamonkey is applying old Unix/Netscape principles, instead
• UI; well, that's really a question of personal preferences, but I find quicker what I am looking for in Seamonkey than in FF/TB

Opera (as opposed to the infamous couple of FF + TB)

• most innovative web browser on the earth
• most innovative email client on the earth (it's been a while, since I stopped using it; is it still included?): M2 was able to create "virtual folders", which solved a problem, many users have: When you receive an email, it is not always easy to decide, to what topic or category, for which you have a folder, it belongs. Many emails are relevant for more than one topic. So moving it to one folder means to miss it in the folder for the other topic(s). Opera's M2 solved the problem with "virtual folders" in the most elegant form I have seen. It even was able to automatically sort emails to these folders.
• small footprint
• exists on many platforms

For an Xfce environment I'd go for Seamonkey, as it is linked to Gtk and therefore provides a very consistent look and feel.

Regarding Claws-Mail. I've tried that, too, and I liked it. It integrates very well with Xfce desktop, and with Xfce applications, such as Orage, the calendar application. But I'd team it up with Midori, which is a very capable and fast webkit based web browser developed as an Xfce sub-project, with a Gtk GUI. Someone recommended QupZilla. I tried that, too, and it would be a good choice for a Razor-Qt desktop, but as far as I know it is a relatively young project, and it is, in my experience, by far less stable, yet, than Midori. One argument against this combination, however, is that they are only available as 3rd party packages or SlackBuilds. That would impose a little more work and effort on you.

Regarding Calendar applications, unfortunately, no good news. Lightning and Orage share a weakness, that may or may not be a real disadvantage for your users: They both don't support hierarchies of tasks, ie you cannot define tasks and then break them down in detail or sub-tasks. They only support plain lists of tasks, which is one reason, why I use KDE --- Kontact is more complete, regarding my requirements. If task hierarchies are not relevant for you or your users, both Orage (in combination with Claws-Mail and Midori) and Lightning (as a plug-in for Seamonkey) are quite nice.

gargamel

Kind of off topic. I really like the web developer toolbar in Firefox. Also available in chrome. I can't find it for Opera. Does it exist, or am I being blind?

EDIT: I'm fairly certain it doesn't exist, but I am interested in knowing mileage in alternatives.

EDIT 2: I can't seem to find a GPG plugin either. Again, I might be being blind.

i switched to Seamonkey after FF tried to look like Chrome, with the buttons rearranged, tabs on top and all that... yes i know how to make FF look like before but just got tired of it. Seamonkey is somehow more traditional

What happened to these features? I use to use them, but they have disappeared and are no longer available via any of the drop down menus.
BTW, I noticed there are, as of a couple of days ago, 95 pages of themes available for Opera. You name it, from A to Z, and there is probably a theme. There are a few for ewe-buntu and a couple for Arch, but, unfortunately, none for Slackware. :(
:)

Edit in: Ah, so. Found it. Right click on a tab, then "arrange." Very nice feature, but I would prefer it be moved back to one of the drop down menus from main tool bar (File, Edit, View, Bookmarks, etc.). Wasn't it under "View" in the past? Maybe it was "tools"....