Yes tried that but still no joy. Even tried the hpijs pet package for the driver, but that is even worse. CUPS then throws a backend exception error.after you setup the printer did you go back to Printers, click on administration and selected 'set a server default' ?
Other thoughts:
What about trying to include support for ATI and NVIDIA video cards etc? Maybe the libraries would be a bit on the big side though. The fglrx driver seems to work in other puplets (sometimes!).
Claws can be problematical to compile with all the plugins (e.g. gpg support)
Seamonkey Mail is simply easier and also works with Enigmail for gpg.
Or .... Change to Firefox and use the Simple Mail extension. Firepup?