Introduction

Empath was the name of a set of mail client support libraries and kparts which provide a complete framework for implementing a modular, standards-compliant, efficient, safe, flexible mail client.

Components

Empath consisted of several components.

librmm
librmm is an RFC822 message handling library. librmm was implemented using Qt only, which meant that no extra memory was wasted using STL, special string classes etc. librmm was extremely efficient and easy to use. It was designed in a style similar to DOM and used transparent lazy parsing.
libempathkernel
libempathkernel was a shared library which provided a set of core services including URL handling, job management, composition forms, filters, mailbox handling, mail sending and folder management. It was fully multi-threaded, allowing implementations to keep the GUI updated at all times.
libempathui
libempathui was a shared library which provides a set of reusable widgets which could be used as-is or inherited to add extra functionality or custom behaviour. libempathui also provided a set of configuration dialogs.
EmpathComposePart
EmpathComposePart was a kpart which provided widgets for handling text editing using a KTextEditor part or an external editor and managing attachments.
EmpathMessageViewPart
EmpathMessageViewPart was a kpart which provided a rich text view of messages via HTMLPart and handles viewing of attachments.
EmpathView
EmpathView was a kpart which encapsulates a folder view, a message list and a message viewer. EmpathView made it easy to create the standard mail client interface by wrapping the basic components up together.

Empath can also be used as a complete standalone mail client. This was mainly for testing purposes.

Screenshot

Screenshot of Empath working as a standalone client:

empath.png

Helping

Empath used to be in KDE CVS, module kdepim.