Ubuntu Manpage: nmh - new MH message system

name
description
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see also
bugs

NAME

       nmh - 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.

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 maildrop into your nmh “+inbox” folder, breaking it up into separate
files and converting it to nmh format as it goes. 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, which may be specified by its number, which you pass
as an argument to show. 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.

All the nmh commands may be run with the single switch -help, which causes them to print a list of the
switches they may be invoked with 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 messages beginning with (or ending with) message num. Num may be any of the pre-
defined symbols first, prev, cur, next or last.

first:N
prev:N
next:N
last:N The first, previous, next or last messages, if they exist.

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/cache 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 give 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
       msh(1)          nmh shell

   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
       conflict(8)     search for alias/password conflicts
       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

       If problems are encountered with an nmh program, the problems should be reported to the local maintainers
       of  nmh.  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.

       Send bug reports and suggestions to nmh-workers@nongnu.org.

NAME

DESCRIPTION

COMMANDS

FILES

SEE ALSO

BUGS