This document aims to show how can we use exist mail utilites to send Thai mail via internet. Almost of examples here have done by Linux Slacware3.1 and SunOs4.
We will use almost xmodmap utility to input Thai characters to mail program. Make sure that you have Thai fonts and .Xmodmap for your system.
Make sure you are using xterm that can display Thai font.
%xterm -fn thai_font_name &
Make sure your keymap was modified to Thai keymap, use xmodamap and .Xmodmap file.
%xmodmap .Xmodmap
For more information, http://www.fedu.uec.ac.jp/ZzzThai/xio/
Now, you are ready to use one of these mail programs.
In unix, there is simple mail utility called mail (see mailx) to send and receive mail. This mail utility accept only 7 bit character set which is not enough to encode Thai character code. mailto utility is the extended mail utility to send mail in MIME format. As the name "mailto" said this is mail sending program not for reading.
Run mailto program.
%mailto -a ISO-8859-1
Press Mode_switch key to input Thai characters.
You can receive mail by using pine, netscape mail, mail program that support MIME format. This is man page for mailto program (This example was tested on Linux Slackware).
pine is a popular mail program on unix from the university of washington. Pine supports MIME format so we can use pine to send Thai mail. This example is PINE version 3.93, some version don't support iso-8859-1 character set. This is the man page for pine.
You may need to config pine to accept ISO-8859-1 character set. From main menu, choose SETUP then type "C" to enter configure menu. Find character-set and press "A" to add value. Add value to "ISO-8859-1" like the pictures below.
Save configuration and return to main menu.
Before you send Thai mail from pine, make sure that you are running pine from xterm with thai font. To compose Thai message, press Mode_switch key and type. Control-X to send that mail. This is an example.
Before you receiveThai mail by pine, make sure that you are running pine from xterm with thai font. Read mail as the English mail. This is an example.
You may notice that when we typed Thai characters, SARA, WANNAYUK. Pine can not display character's position correctly. When we receive the mail, there is no problem about that.
There is a good explanation on how to use Netscape mail with Thai, see
http://www.fedu.uec.ac.jp/ZzzThai/unix/nets-mail/nets-mail-big.html
Netscape mail is easy to use and available for many platform. Try it.
Also see http://www.fedu.uec.ac.jp/ZzzThai/unix/likit/ Likit is actually Thai editor for X by Vuthichai Amphornaramvej , you can send Thai email with Likit too. Likit does not require Thai fonts or xmodamp configuration.