Ubuntu Manpage: nmh - overview of the new MH message system

NAME

       nmh - overview of the new MH message system

DESCRIPTION

nmh is the name of a powerful message handling system. Rather than being a single
comprehensive program, nmh consists of a collection of fairly simple single-purpose
programs to send, retrieve, save, and manipulate messages.

Unlike most mail clients in Unix, nmh is not a closed system which must be explicitly run,
then exited when you wish to return to the shell. You may freely intersperse nmh commands
with other shell commands, allowing you to read and answer your mail while you have (for
example) a compilation running, or search for a file or run programs as needed to find the
answer to someone's question before answering their mail.

The rest of this manual entry is a quick tutorial which will teach you the basics of nmh.
You should read the manual entries for the individual programs for complete documentation
(see the section on COMMANDS below).

To get started using nmh, put the directory “/usr/bin/mh” in your $PATH. Run the install-
mh command. If you've never used nmh before, it will create the necessary default files
and directories after asking you if you wish it to do so.

inc moves mail from your system mail drop into your nmh “+inbox” folder, breaking it up
into separate files and converting it to nmh format. It prints one line for each message
it processes, containing the from field, the subject field and as much of the first line
of the message as will fit. It leaves the first message it processes as your current
message. You'll need to run inc each time you wish to incorporate new mail into your nmh
file.

scan prints a list of the messages in your current folder.

The commands show, next, and prev are used to read specific messages from the current
folder. show displays the current message, or a specific message specified by its number
which is passed as an argument. next and prev display, respectively, the message
numerically after or before the current message. In all cases, the message displayed
becomes the current message. If there is no current message, show may be called with an
argument, or next may be used to advance to the first message.

rmm (remove message) deletes the current message. It may be called, with message numbers
passed as arguments, to delete specific messages.

repl is used to respond to the current message (by default). It places you in the editor
with a prototype response form. While you're in the editor, you may peruse the item
you're responding to by reading the file @. After completing your response, type “l” to
list (review) it, or “s” to send it.

comp allows you to compose a message by putting you in the editor on a prototype message
form, and then lets you send it via the whatnow command. whatnow also supports easy-to-
use management of MIME attachments via its attach and related responses, as described in
its man page.

nmh command arguments are usually called switches. Some switches have a corresponding
“-no” switch, which negates all previous occurrences of that switch on the command line.
This allows a user to conveniently override, on the command line, a switch in their
profile. Switches may be abbreviated as long as there is no ambiguity with another switch
of the same command. To avoid ambiguity with any switches that may be added in the
future, it is recommended that full switch names be used in durable code such as shell
scripts, functions, and aliases.

Each nmh command may be run with the single switch -help, which causes it to print its
available switches, along with any profile components that apply, and then exit.

All the nmh commands may be run with the single switch -version, which causes them to
print the version number of the nmh distribution, and then exit.

Commands which take a message number as an argument (scan, show, repl, ...) also take one
of the words “first”, “prev”, “cur”, “next”, or “last” to indicate (respectively) the
first, previous, current, next, or last message in the current folder (assuming they are
defined). As a shorthand, “.” is equivalent to “cur”.

Commands which take a range of message numbers (rmm, scan, show, ...) also take any of
the abbreviations:

<num1>-<num2> Indicates all messages in the range <num1> to <num2>, inclusive. The
range must be nonempty.

all Indicates all messages, i.e., first-last.

<num>:+N
<num>:-N Up to N, where N must be a positive number, messages beginning with (or
ending with) message num. Num may be any of the pre-defined symbols
first, prev, cur, next or last. The + can be omitted.

first:N
prev:N
next:N
last:N As many of the first, previous, next, or last N messages that exist. As
above, N can be preceded with - to end the listing at the specified
message, or with an optional +.

Commands that take a folder name (inc, refile, scan, ...) accept the folder name in two
formats: “+folder” or “@folder”. In both cases, “folder” can be a “/”-separated path,
e.g. “foo/bar”. “+folder” specifies a directory path to a folder. If “folder” starts
with “/” then it's an absolute path from the root directory. If it is “.” or “..”, or
starts with “./” or “../”, then it's relative to the current working directory. Otherwise
it's relative to mh-profile(5)'s “Path”, i.e. as given by `mhpath +`. “@folder” is a
shorthand for “+curfolder/folder”; it's a relative path from the current folder.
“curfolder” is given by `mhpath`. For example, assuming a Path profile component of Mail,

scan +inbox scans $HOME/Mail/inbox
scan +work/todo scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo
scan @todo scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo, if current folder is +work
refile @../done refiles to $HOME/Mail/work/done, if the current folder is +work/todo
scan +/tmp scans /tmp
scan +. scans the current directory
refile @. refiles current message to end of current folder.

There are many other possibilities such as creating multiple folders for different topics,
and automatically refiling messages according to subject, source, destination, or content.
These are beyond the scope of this manual entry.

COMMANDS

       Following is a list of all the nmh commands, grouped loosely according to their role.

   Sending
       comp(1)         compose a message
       forw(1)         forward messages
       repl(1)         reply to a message
       whatnow(1)      prompting front-end for send

       Note that although whatnow provides much of the primary nmh  user  interface  for  sending
       mail,  it is almost never invoked manually, but rather is invoked indirectly by one of the
       above commands, after you've composed a message in your editor, and before you've  decided
       to  send  it.   Here you can add attachments, check the recipient list, decide to quit and
       send it later, etc.

       Related utilities:

       ali(1)          list mail aliases
       anno(1)         annotate messages
       whom(1)         report to whom a message would go
       dist(1)         redistribute a message to additional addresses

       Advanced commands, only sometimes invoked directly:

       mhbuild(1)      translate MIME composition draft
       send(1)         send a message
       sendfiles(1)    send multiple files in a MIME message

   Incorporating
       inc(1)          incorporate new mail

       Related utilities:

       burst(1)        explode digests into messages
       msgchk(1)       check for messages
       rcvdist(1)      asynchronously redistribute new mail
       rcvpack(1)      append message to file
       rcvstore(1)     asynchronously incorporate new mail
       slocal(1)       asynchronously filter and deliver new mail

   Viewing
       next(1)         show the next message
       prev(1)         show the previous message
       show(1)         show (display) messages
       scan(1)         produce a one line per message scan listing
       fnext(1)        select the next folder with new messages
       fprev(1)        select the previous folder with new messages

       Related utilities, only sometimes invoked directly:

       mhl(1)          produce formatted listings of nmh messages
       mhlist(1)       list information about content of MIME messages
       mhn(1)          display/list/store MIME messages
       mhshow(1)       display MIME messages
       mhstore(1)      store contents of MIME messages into files

   Searching
       Within a folder:

       pick(1)         select messages by content

       Across folders:

       new(1)          list folders with new messages
       unseen(1)       list new messages in a given set of folders
       flist(1)        list folders with messages in given sequence(s)
       flists(1)       list all folders with messages in given sequence(s)
       folder(1)       set/list current folder/message
       folders(1)      list all folders

   Organizing
       mark(1)         mark messages
       refile(1)       file messages in other folders
       rmf(1)          remove folder
       rmm(1)          remove messages
       sortm(1)        sort messages

   Convenience Wrappers
       mhmail(1)       send or read mail

   Utilities
       mhfixmsg(1)     rewrite MIME messages with various transformations
       mhparam(1)      print nmh profile components
       mhpath(1)       print full pathnames of nmh messages and folders
       packf(1)        compress a folder into a single file
       prompter(1)     prompting editor front end
       rcvtty(1)       report new mail

   Indirectly Invoked Commands
       ap(8)           parse addresses RFC 822-style
       dp(8)           parse dates RFC 822-style
       fmtdump(8)      decode mh-format(5) files
       install-mh(8)   initialize the nmh environment
       post(8)         deliver a message

   Files Used by nmh Commands
       mh-alias(5)     alias file for nmh message system
       mh-format(5)    format file for nmh message system
       mh-profile(5)   user customization for nmh message system
       mh-tailor(5)    mail transport customization for nmh message system

   Formats
       mh-draft(5)     draft folder facility
       mh-folders(5)   nmh message storage format specification
       mh-mail(5)      message format for nmh message system
       mh-sequence(5)  sequence specification for nmh message system

FILES

       /usr/bin/mh
              contains nmh commands

       /etc/nmh
              contains nmh format files

       /usr/lib/mh
              contains nmh library commands

       $HOME/.mh_profile
              The user's nmh profile

BUGS

       Send bug reports, questions, suggestions, and  patches  to  nmh-workers@nongnu.org.   That
       mailing  list  is  relatively  quiet,  so  user  questions are encouraged.  Users are also
       encouraged      to      subscribe,       and       view       the       archives,       at
       https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers .

       If  problems  are  encountered  with  an nmh program, they should be reported to the local
       maintainers of nmh, if any, or to the mailing list noted above.  When doing this, the name
       of the program should be reported, along with the version information for the program.

       To  find  out  what  version  of  an nmh program is being run, invoke the program with the
       -version switch.  This prints the version of nmh, the host it was  compiled  on,  and  the
       date the program was linked.

       New   releases,   and   other   information   of  potential  interest,  are  announced  at
       http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/

NAME

DESCRIPTION

COMMANDS

FILES

SEE ALSO

BUGS