benmaddison / fzf-complete-query

Lookup addresses in mutt with fzf/notmuch

fzf-complete-query

A set of bash scripts to build an address cache using notmuch and look them up from mutt/neomutt

description

These scripts work together as follows:

• scripts/notmuch/post-new: Runs is called by notmuch in the post-new hook to build a complete cache of addresses appearing in the mail database.
• scripts/mutt/address-query.sh: Reads the address cache, formats each entry with jq and sed, and then runs fzf for address selection.
• scripts/mutt/address-query-wrapper.sh: Creates a named pipe for receiving results from address-query.sh and then launches a new terminal running address-query.sh for user input.

The reason for the wrapper design and the separate terminal is that anything which writes to STDERR (like fzf) messes up the (neo)mutt terminal. Because the "editor" mode lacks a <refresh>/<redraw-screen> command, there is no way (that I can find) to recover from this without user intervention.

The expectation is that the window manager/terminal are configured such that fzf terminal is launched as a floating window over (neo)mutt terminal window. With a bit of effort, a similar effect could probably be achieved with tmux (etc.)

dependencies

The scripts themselves require:

• notmuch: to build the address cache
• jq: to read and write the cache (which is serialised as json)
• tput and sed: to color the address list given to fzf
• fzf: obviously

Additionally, the scripts make certain assumptions about the desktop environment:

I use alacritty as my terminal emulator and i3wm as my window manager, and this is the only combination that I have tested, or plan to test. However, I'm happy to accept pull-requests that add generality for the purposes of making things easier in other environments.

The fzf terminal is launched with --class fzf_xfloating to set the WM_CLASS of the window. In my i3wm configuration, I have:

for_window [instance=^.+_xfloating$] floating enable

to make the resulting window float.

A similar effect is probably achievable in many other terminal/WM combinations, but I have attempted none.

setup

The scripts need to be moved/symlinked to specific locations in order to be usable.

My layout is as follows:

• Maildir is in $XDG_DATA_HOME/mail
• muttrc is in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mutt

Therefore, to link things into place (from my local clone of this repo):

SCRIPTS_DIR="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/scrips"
ln -s "$SCRIPTS_DIR/notmuch/post-new" "$XDG_DATA_HOME/mail/.notmuch/hooks/"
mkdir -p "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mutt/scripts"
ln -s "$SCRIPTS_DIR/mutt/*.sh" "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mutt/scripts/"

Then, in muttrc:

set   my_confdir          = "~/.config/mutt"            # base config directory
set   my_scriptsdir       = "$my_confdir/scripts"
bind  editor              <tab> complete-query
set   query_command       = "$my_scriptsdir/address-query-wrapper.sh %s"

Adjust as necessary for your directory layout.

running

Make sure that notmuch new is being called somehow (I use a systemd unit to call mbsync followed by notmuch new every two minutes). Once the cache is built, hitting <tab> in "editor" mode should launch the fzf terminal.

Please feel free to open issues if you run into issues. I'll try and help if I can!