<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<section id="ch_intro">
<title>Introduction</title>

  <section id="intro_what">
    <title>What is Claws Mail?</title>
    <para>
	Claws Mail is an email client aiming at being fast, easy-to-use and
	powerful. It is mostly desktop-independent, but tries to integrate
	with your desktop as best as possible. The Claws Mail developers try
	hard to keep it lightweight, so that it should be usable on low-end
	computers without much memory or CPU power.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section id="intro_whatnot">
    <title>What Claws Mail is not</title>
    <para>
	Claws Mail is not a full-featured Personal Information Manager like
	Evolution or Outlook, although external plugins provide these
	functionalities. Claws Mail will not let you write and send HTML
	emails or other kind of annoyances, hence it may not be the software
	you need in some business environments.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section id="intro_features"> 
    <title>Main features</title>
    <para>
	Claws Mail sports almost everything a perfect email client needs.
	Mail retrieval over POP3, IMAP4, local mbox, over SSL; support for
	various authentication schemes. It has multiple accounts and
	mailboxes, powerful filtering and search functionality, import/export
	capabilities using a number of formats, support for GnuPG (digital
	signatures and encryption). It supports plugins, customisable
	toolbars, spell checking, a number of guards to prevent any data loss,
	per-folder preferences, and much more. A list of features can be
	found at <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/features.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/features.php</ulink>.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section id="intro_history">
    <title>History of Claws Mail</title>
    <para>
	Claws Mail has existed since April 2001. It was initially named
	Sylpheed-Claws and changed its name to Claws Mail in November 2006.
	The primary goal of Sylpheed-Claws was to be a test-bed for potential
	features of <ulink url="http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/"
	>Sylpheed</ulink>, so that new features could be tested thoroughly
	without compromising Sylpheed's stability. Sylpheed-Claws developers
	regularly synchronised their codebase with Sylpheed's codebase, and
	Sylpheed's author, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, took back the new features he
	liked once they were stabilised.
    </para><para>
	Originally both Sylpheed and Claws Mail were based on GTK1. The work
	on the GTK2 versions started in early 2003, and the first modern
	(GTK2-based) Sylpheed-Claws was released in March 2005. Since about
	this time, Sylpheed and Sylpheed-Claws' goals started to diverge more,
	and Sylpheed-Claws became an entity of its own. This is why its name
	is now Claws Mail.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section id="intro_information">
    <title>Useful URLs</title>
    <para>
	Website: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org"
	>www.claws-mail.org</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Latest News: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/news.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/news.php</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Plugins: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Icon Themes: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/themes.php</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Tools: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/tools.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/tools.php</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Mailing Lists: <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php"
	>www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Bugtracker: <ulink url="https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/"
	>www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/</ulink>
    </para>
    <para>
	Source code:
    </para>
    <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
	<term>Tarballs</term>
	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    <ulink url="https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.php"
	    >www.claws-mail.org/releases.php</ulink>
	  </para>
	</listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
	<term>VCS repository</term>
	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    <ulink url="https://git.claws-mail.org/"
	    >git.claws-mail.org/</ulink>
	  </para>
	</listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>
  </section>

</section>

