2 <!doctype linuxdoc system>
6 <title>The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client
7 <author>by Andreas Krennmair <htmlurl url="mailto:ak@synflood.at" name="<ak@synflood.at>"> and others
8 originally based on <em>mutt</em> by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>"> and others
9 <date>version @VERSION@
11 Michael Elinks on mutt, circa 1995: ``All mail clients suck.
12 This one just sucks less.'' - Sven Guckes on mutt, ca. 2003: ``But it still sucks!''
17 <chapt>Introduction <!--{{{-->
19 <sect>Overview <!--{{{-->
21 <bf/Mutt-ng/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng is
22 highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced
23 features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular
24 expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting
27 <p>This documentation additionally contains documentation to <bf/Mutt-NG/, a
28 fork from Mutt with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
29 integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the web, and to
30 add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng will be discussed in
31 an extra section. Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk about
32 Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many more.
36 <sect>Mutt-ng Home Page <!--{{{-->
38 <htmlurl url="http://www.muttng.org/"
39 name="http://www.muttng.org">
43 <sect>Mailing Lists <!--{{{-->
47 <item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-users"
48 name="mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de"> -- This is where the mutt-ng user support happens.
49 <item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-devel" name="mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de"> -- The development mailing list for mutt-ng
54 <sect>Software Distribution Sites <!--{{{-->
56 So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download
57 daily snapshots from <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/" name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/">
63 Visit channel <em/#muttng/ on <htmlurl
64 url="http://www.freenode.net/" name="irc.freenode.net
65 (www.freenode.net)"> to chat with other people interested in Mutt-ng.
69 <sect>Weblog <!--{{{-->
71 If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in Mutt-ng, and get informed
72 about stuff like interesting, Mutt-ng-related articles and packages for your favorite
73 distribution, you can read and/or subscribe to our
74 <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.supersized.org/" name="Mutt-ng development weblog">.
78 <sect>Copyright <!--{{{-->
80 Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins
81 <me@cs.hmc.edu> and others
83 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
84 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
85 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
86 (at your option) any later version.
88 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
89 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
90 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
91 GNU General Public License for more details.
93 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
94 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
95 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
101 <chapt>Getting Started <!--{{{-->
103 <sect>Basic Concepts <!--{{{-->
105 <sect1>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
107 <p>mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special
112 <item>The <em/index/ displays the contents of the currently opened
115 <item>The <em/pager/ is responsible for displaying messages, that
116 is, the header, the body and all attached parts.
118 <item>The <em/file browser/ offers operations on and displays
119 information of all folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
121 <item>The <em/sidebar/ offers a permanent view of which mailboxes
122 contain how many total, new and/or flagged mails.
124 <item>The <em/help screen/ lists for all currently available
125 commands how to invoke them as well as a short description.
127 <item>The <em/compose/ menu is a comfortable interface take last
128 actions before sending mail: change subjects, attach files, remove
131 <item>The <em/attachement/ menu gives a summary and the tree
132 structure of the attachements of the current message.
134 <item>The <em/alias/ menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases
137 <item>The <em/key/ menu used in connection with encryption lets
138 users choose the right key to encrypt with.
142 <p>When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open
143 the users default mailbox and display the index.
147 <sect1>Configuration <!--{{{-->
149 <p>Mutt-ng does <em/not/ feature an internal configuration
150 interface or menu due to the simple fact that this would be too
151 complex to handle (currently there are several <em/hundred/
152 variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
154 <p>Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow
155 users to add comments or manage them via version control systems
158 <p>Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named <tt/grml-muttng/
159 kindly contributed by users which really helps and eases the
160 creation of a user's configuration file. When downloading the
161 source code via a snapshot or via subversion, it can be found in
162 the <tt/contrib/ directory.
166 <sect1>Functions <!--{{{-->
168 <p>Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions:
169 internally, every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named
170 ``function.'' Those functions are assigned to keys (or even key
171 sequences) and may be completely adjusted to user's needs. The
172 basic idea is that the impatient users get a very intuitive
173 interface to start off with and advanced users virtually get no
174 limits to adjustments.
178 <sect1>Interaction <!--{{{-->
180 <p>Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
184 <item>There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query
185 the user for input, issue any command, query variables and
186 display error and informational messages. As for every type of
187 user input, this requires manual action leading to the need of
190 <item>The automatized interface for interaction are the so
191 called <em/hooks/. Hooks specify actions the user wants to be
192 performed at well-defined situations: what to do when entering
193 which folder, what to do when displaying or replying to what
194 kind of message, etc. These are optional, i.e. a user doesn't
195 need to specify them but can do so.
201 <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
203 <p>Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many
204 features can be delegated to external tools to increase
205 flexibility: users can define programs to filter a message through
206 before displaying, users can use any program they want for
207 displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or PostScript)
208 for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be rendered
209 by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
210 mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for
211 nearly every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases
212 or just the list of locally known users.
216 <sect1>Patterns <!--{{{-->
218 <p>Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is
219 as widely used as possible to present a consistent interface to
220 users. The same ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching,
221 scoring, message selection and much more.
227 <sect>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
229 <sect1>Index <!--{{{-->
231 <p>The index is the screen that you usually see first when you
232 start mutt-ng. It gives an overview over your emails in the
233 currently opened mailbox. By default, this is your system mailbox.
234 The information you see in the index is a list of emails, each with
235 its number on the left, its flags (new email, important email,
236 email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...),
237 the date when email was sent, its sender, the email size, and the
238 subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread hierarchies:
239 when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you
240 can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
241 especially useful for personal email between a group of people or
242 when you've subscribed to mailing lists.
246 <sect1>Pager <!--{{{-->
248 <p>The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the
249 top of the pager you have an overview over the most important email
250 headers like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more
251 information. How much information you actually see depends on your
252 configuration, which we'll describe below.
254 <p>Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains
255 the message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see
256 more information about them below the email body, or, if the
257 attachments are text files, you can view them directly in the
260 <p>To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure
261 mutt-ng to show different things in the pager with different
262 colors. Virtually everything that can be described with a regular
263 expression can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
267 <sect1>File Browser <!--{{{-->
269 <p>The file browser is the interface to the local or remote
270 file system. When selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows
271 custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular
272 expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in
273 which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the
274 file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message, select
275 multiple files to attach and many more.
279 <sect1>Sidebar <!--{{{-->
281 <p>The sidebar comes in handy to manage mails which are spread
282 over different folders. All folders users setup mutt-ng to watch
283 for new mail will be listed. The listing includes not only the
284 name but also the number of total messages, the number of new and
285 flagged messages. Items with new mail may be colored different
286 from those with flagged mail, items may be shortened or compress
287 if they're they to long to be printed in full form so that by
288 abbreviated names, user still now what the name stands for.
292 <sect1>Help <!--{{{-->
294 <p>The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It
295 lists the current configuration of key bindings and their
296 associated commands including a short description, and currently
297 unbound functions that still need to be associated with a key
298 binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the mutt-ng
303 <sect1>Compose Menu <!--{{{-->
305 <p>The compose menu features a split screen containing the
306 information which really matter before actually sending a
307 message by mail or posting an article to a newsgroup: who gets
308 the message as what (recipient, newsgroup, who gets what kind of
309 copy). Additionally, users may set security options like
310 deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and encrypt a message
313 <p>Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to
314 a message, to re-edit any attachment including the message
319 <sect1>Alias Menu <!--{{{-->
321 <p>The alias menu is used to help users finding the recipients
322 of messages. For users who need to contact many people, there's
323 no need to remember addresses or names completely because it
324 allows for searching, too. The alias mechanism and thus the
325 alias menu also features grouping several addresses by a shorter
326 nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select
327 each single recipient manually.
331 <sect1>Attachment Menu <!--{{{-->
333 <p>As will be later discussed in detail, mutt-ng features a good
334 and stable MIME implementation, that is, is greatly supports
335 sending and receiving messages of arbitrary type. The
336 attachment menu displays a message's structure in detail: what
337 content parts are attached to which parent part (which gives a
338 true tree structure), which type is of what type and what size.
339 Single parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and
340 easy access to message's internals.
344 <sect1>Key Menu <!--{{{-->
352 <sect>Moving Around in Menus <!--{{{-->
355 Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table
356 showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng.
359 j or Down next-entry move to the next entry
360 k or Up previous-entry move to the previous entry
361 z or PageDn page-down go to the next page
362 Z or PageUp page-up go to the previous page
363 = or Home first-entry jump to the first entry
364 * or End last-entry jump to the last entry
365 q quit exit the current menu
366 ? help list all key bindings for the current menu
371 <sect>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing"> <!--{{{-->
373 Mutt-ng has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input
374 textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to move
375 around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
378 ^A or <Home> bol move to the start of the line
379 ^B or <Left> backward-char move back one char
380 Esc B backward-word move back one word
381 ^D or <Delete> delete-char delete the char under the cursor
382 ^E or <End> eol move to the end of the line
383 ^F or <Right> forward-char move forward one char
384 Esc F forward-word move forward one word
385 <Tab> complete complete filename or alias
386 ^T complete-query complete address with query
387 ^K kill-eol delete to the end of the line
388 ESC d kill-eow delete to the end of the word
389 ^W kill-word kill the word in front of the cursor
390 ^U kill-line delete entire line
391 ^V quote-char quote the next typed key
392 <Up> history-up recall previous string from history
393 <Down> history-down recall next string from history
394 <BackSpace> backspace kill the char in front of the cursor
395 Esc u upcase-word convert word to upper case
396 Esc l downcase-word convert word to lower case
397 Esc c capitalize-word capitalize the word
399 <Return> n/a finish editing
402 You can remap the <em/editor/ functions using the <ref id="bind" name="bind">
403 command. For example, to make the <em/Delete/ key delete the character in
404 front of the cursor rather than under, you could use
406 <tt/bind editor <delete> backspace/
410 <sect>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager <!--{{{-->
413 Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is
414 read in Mutt-ng. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is
415 called the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display of the
416 message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
418 The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
421 <sect1>The Message Index
425 c change to a different mailbox
426 ESC c change to a folder in read-only mode
427 C copy the current message to another mailbox
428 ESC C decode a message and copy it to a folder
429 ESC s decode a message and save it to a folder
430 D delete messages matching a pattern
431 d delete the current message
433 l show messages matching a pattern
434 N mark message as new
435 o change the current sort method
436 O reverse sort the mailbox
437 q save changes and exit
439 T tag messages matching a pattern
440 t toggle the tag on a message
441 ESC t toggle tag on entire message thread
442 U undelete messages matching a pattern
445 x abort changes and exit
446 <Return> display-message
447 <Tab> jump to the next new message
448 @ show the author's full e-mail address
449 $ save changes to mailbox
452 ^L clear and redraw the screen
453 ^T untag messages matching a pattern
459 In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of
460 the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number.
461 Zero or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean:
465 <tag/D/ message is deleted (is marked for deletion)
466 <tag/d/ message have attachments marked for deletion
467 <tag/K/ contains a PGP public key
468 <tag/N/ message is new
469 <tag/O/ message is old
470 <tag/P/ message is PGP encrypted
471 <tag/r/ message has been replied to
472 <tag/S/ message is signed, and the signature is succesfully verified
473 <tag/s/ message is signed
474 <tag/!/ message is flagged
475 <tag/*/ message is tagged
478 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using
480 <item><bf/set-flag/ (default: w)
481 <item><bf/clear-flag/ (default: W)
485 Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed
486 to. They can be customized with the
487 <ref id="to_chars" name="$to_chars"> variable.
491 <tag/+/ message is to you and you only
492 <tag/T/ message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others
493 <tag/C/ message is cc'ed to you
494 <tag/F/ message is from you
495 <tag/L/ message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
501 By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages.
502 The pager is very similar to the Unix program <em/less/ though not nearly as
506 <Return> go down one line
507 <Space> display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message)
508 - go back to the previous page
509 n search for next match
510 S skip beyond quoted text
511 T toggle display of quoted text
513 / search for a regular expression (pattern)
514 ESC / search backwards for a regular expression
515 \ toggle search pattern coloring
516 ^ jump to the top of the message
519 In addition, many of the functions from the <em/index/ are available in
520 the pager, such as <em/delete-message/ or <em/copy-message/ (this is one
521 advantage over using an external pager to view messages).
523 Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For
524 one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences for
525 bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter,
526 backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace,
527 ``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt-ng will attempt to display these
528 in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If
529 not, you can use the bold and underline <ref id="color" name="color">
530 objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them.
532 Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for
533 character attributes. Mutt-ng translates them into the correct color and
534 character settings. The sequences Mutt-ng supports are:
538 ESC [ Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps m
545 3x Foreground color is x
546 4x Background color is x
559 Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they
560 can also be used by an external <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">
561 script for highlighting purposes. <bf/Note:/ If you change the colors for your
562 display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for
563 your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green.
565 <sect1>Threaded Mode<label id="threads">
567 When the mailbox is <ref id="sort" name="sorted"> by <em/threads/, there are
568 a few additional functions available in the <em/index/ and <em/pager/ modes.
571 ^D delete-thread delete all messages in the current thread
572 ^U undelete-thread undelete all messages in the current thread
573 ^N next-thread jump to the start of the next thread
574 ^P previous-thread jump to the start of the previous thread
575 ^R read-thread mark the current thread as read
576 ESC d delete-subthread delete all messages in the current subthread
577 ESC u undelete-subthread undelete all messages in the current subthread
578 ESC n next-subthread jump to the start of the next subthread
579 ESC p previous-subthread jump to the start of the previous subthread
580 ESC r read-subthread mark the current subthread as read
581 ESC t tag-thread toggle the tag on the current thread
582 ESC v collapse-thread toggle collapse for the current thread
583 ESC V collapse-all toggle collapse for all threads
584 P parent-message jump to parent message in thread
587 <bf/Note:/ Collapsing a thread displays only the first message
588 in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads
589 contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads on
590 the screen. See %M in <ref id="index_format"name="$index_format">.
591 For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in <ref
592 id="index_format"name="$index_format"> to optionally
593 display the number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
595 See also: <ref id="strict_threads" name="$strict_threads">.
597 <sect1>Miscellaneous Functions
598 <p><bf/create-alias/<label id="create-alias"> (default: a)<newline>
600 Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a
601 new one). Once editing is complete, an <ref id="alias" name="alias">
602 command is added to the file specified by the <ref id="alias_file"
603 name="$alias_file"> variable for future use. <bf/Note:/
604 Specifying an <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file">
605 does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also <ref
606 id="source" name="source"> the file.
608 <p><bf/check-traditional-pgp/<label id="check-traditional-pgp"> (default: ESC P)<newline>
610 This function will search the current message for content signed or
611 encrypted with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper
612 MIME tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change
613 the MIME content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this
614 is similar to the <ref id="edit-type" name="edit-type"> function's
618 <p><bf/display-toggle-weed/<label id="display-toggle-weed"> (default: h)<newline>
620 Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by <ref id="ignore"
621 name="ignore"> commands.
623 <p><bf/edit/<label id="edit"> (default: e)<newline>
625 This command (available in the ``index'' and ``pager'') allows you to
626 edit the raw current message as it's present in the mail folder.
627 After you have finished editing, the changed message will be
628 appended to the current folder, and the original message will be
631 <p><bf/edit-type/<label id="edit-type"><newline>
632 (default: ^E on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index menus; ^T on the
635 This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content
636 type to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When
637 invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the
638 opportunity to edit the top-level attachment's content type. On the
639 <ref id="attach_menu" name="attachment menu">, you can change any
640 attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get
641 lost upon changing folders.
643 Note that this command is also available on the <ref
644 id="compose_menu" name="compose menu">. There, it's used to
645 fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send.
647 <p><bf/enter-command/<label id="enter-command"> (default: ``:'')<newline>
649 This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a
650 configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or
651 in conjunction with <ref id="macro" name="macros"> to change settings on the
654 <p><bf/extract-keys/<label id="extract-keys"> (default: ^K)<newline>
656 This command extracts PGP public keys from the current or tagged
657 message(s) and adds them to your PGP public key ring.
659 <p><bf/forget-passphrase/<label id="forget-passphrase"> (default:
662 This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if
663 you misspelled the passphrase.
665 <p><bf/list-reply/<label id="list-reply"> (default: L)<newline>
667 Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which
668 match the regular expressions given by the <ref id="lists" name="lists or subscribe">
669 commands, but also honor any <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header(s) if the
670 <ref id="honor_followup_to" name="$honor_followup_to">
671 configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted
672 to mailing lists helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of
673 the message you are replying to.
675 <bf/pipe-message/<label id="pipe-message"> (default: |)<newline>
677 Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or
678 tagged message(s) to it. The variables <ref id="pipe_decode"
679 name="$pipe_decode">, <ref id="pipe_split"
680 name="$pipe_split">, <ref id="pipe_sep"
681 name="$pipe_sep"> and <ref id="wait_key"
682 name="$wait_key"> control the exact behavior of this
685 <bf/resend-message/<label id="resend-message"> (default: ESC e)<newline>
687 With resend-message, mutt takes the current message as a template for a
688 new message. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary
689 folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while
690 preserving the original mail structure. Note that the amount of headers
691 included here depends on the value of the <ref id="weed" name="$weed">
694 This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this
695 to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message
696 as a message/rfc822 body part.
698 <bf/shell-escape/<label id="shell-escape"> (default: !)<newline>
700 Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref
701 id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> can be used to control
702 whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns
703 (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on
704 the return status of the named command.
706 <bf/toggle-quoted/<label id="toggle-quoted"> (default: T)<newline>
708 The <em/pager/ uses the <ref id="quote_regexp"
709 name="$quote_regexp"> variable to detect quoted text when
710 displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display
711 of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when
712 are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of
713 quoted text in the way.
715 <bf/skip-quoted/<label id="skip-quoted"> (default: S)<newline>
717 This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come
718 after a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
722 <sect>Sending Mail <!--{{{-->
725 The following bindings are available in the <em/index/ for sending
729 m compose compose a new message
730 r reply reply to sender
731 g group-reply reply to all recipients
732 L list-reply reply to mailing list address
733 f forward forward message
734 b bounce bounce (remail) message
735 ESC k mail-key mail a PGP public key to someone
738 Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you
739 specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or
740 modify the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed
741 in greater detail in the next chapter <ref id="forwarding_mail"
742 name="``Forwarding and Bouncing Mail''">.
744 <sect1>Composing new messages <!--{{{-->
746 <p>When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press <tt/m/ on
747 your keyboard. Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in
754 <p>After you've finished entering the recipient(s), press return. If you
755 want to send an email to more than one recipient, separate the email
756 addresses using the comma "<tt/,/". Mutt-ng then asks you for the email
757 subject. Again, press return after you've entered it. After that, mutt-ng
758 got the most important information from you, and starts up an editor
759 where you can then enter your email.
761 <p>The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you
762 can e.g. set it in the mutt-ng configuration:
765 set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'"
770 <p>If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng
771 first looks whether the environment variable <tt/$VISUAL/ is set, and if
772 so, it takes its value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look
773 at <tt/$EDITOR/ and takes its value if it is set. If no editor command
774 can be found, mutt-ng simply assumes <tt/vi/ to be the default editor,
775 since it's the most widespread editor in the Unix world and it's pretty
776 safe to assume that it is installed and available.
778 <p>When you've finished entering your message, save it and quit your
779 editor. Mutt-ng will then present you with a summary screen, the compose menu.
780 On the top, you see a summary of the most important available key commands.
781 Below that, you see the sender, the recipient(s), Cc and/or Bcc
782 recipient(s), the subject, the reply-to address, and optionally
783 information where the sent email will be stored and whether it should
784 be digitally signed and/or encrypted.
786 <p>Below that, you see a list of "attachments". The mail you've just
787 entered before is also an attachment, but due to its special type
788 (it's plain text), it will be displayed as the normal message on
791 <p>At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing <tt/a/, you
792 can edit the recipient addresses, pressing <tt/t/ for the "To:" field,
793 <tt/c/ for the "Cc:" field, and <tt/b/ for the "Bcc: field. You can
794 also edit the subject the subject by simply pressing <tt/s/ or the
795 email message that you've entered before by pressing <tt/e/. You will
796 then again return to the editor. You can even edit the sender, by pressing
797 <tt/<esc>f/, but this shall only be used with caution.
799 <p>Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the
800 above settings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only
801 need to add the following to your configuration:
807 <p>Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
808 returned to the <em/compose/ menu. The following options are available:
811 a attach-file attach a file
812 A attach-message attach message(s) to the message
813 ESC k attach-key attach a PGP public key
814 d edit-description edit description on attachment
815 D detach-file detach a file
816 t edit-to edit the To field
817 ESC f edit-from edit the From field
818 r edit-reply-to edit the Reply-To field
819 c edit-cc edit the Cc field
820 b edit-bcc edit the Bcc field
821 y send-message send the message
822 s edit-subject edit the Subject
823 S smime-menu select S/MIME options
824 f edit-fcc specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox
825 p pgp-menu select PGP options
826 P postpone-message postpone this message until later
827 q quit quit (abort) sending the message
828 w write-fcc write the message to a folder
829 i ispell check spelling (if available on your system)
830 ^F forget-passphrase wipe passphrase(s) from memory
833 <bf/Note:/ The attach-message function will prompt you for a folder to
834 attach messages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and they
835 will be attached to the message you are sending. Note that certain
836 operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are
837 not permitted when you are in that folder. The %r in <ref
838 id="status_format" name="$status_format"> will change to
839 a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
843 <sect1>Replying <!--{{{-->
845 <sect2>Simple Replies <!--{{{-->
847 <p>When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index
848 menu and then press <tt/r/. Mutt-ng's behaviour is then similar to the
849 behaviour when you compose a message: first, you will be asked for
850 the recipient, then for the subject, and then, mutt-ng will start
851 the editor with the quote attribution and the quoted message. This
852 can e.g. look like the example below.
855 On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:02:12PM +0100, Michael Svensson wrote:
856 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
857 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
858 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
859 > project will go live.
862 <p>You can start editing the email message. It is strongly
863 recommended to put your answer <em/below/ the quoted text and to
864 only quote what is really necessary and that you refer to. Putting
865 your answer on top of the quoted message, is, although very
866 widespread, very often not considered to be a polite way to answer
869 <p>The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to
871 set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:"
874 <p>It can also be set to something more compact, e.g.
876 set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:"
879 <p>The example above results in the following attribution:
881 * Michael Svensson <svensson@foobar.com> [05-03-06 17:02]:
882 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
883 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
884 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
885 > project will go live.
888 <p>Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet
889 information-rich. It is <em/not/ the right place for witty quotes,
890 long "attribution" novels or anything like that: the right place
891 for such things is - if at all - the email signature at the very
892 bottom of the message.
894 <p>When you're done with writing your message, save and quit the
895 editor. As before, you will return to the compose menu, which is
896 used in the same way as before.
900 <sect2>Group Replies <!--{{{-->
902 <p>In the situation where a group of people uses email as a
903 discussion, most of the emails will have one or more recipients,
904 and probably several "Cc:" recipients. The group reply functionality
905 ensures that when you press <tt/g/ instead of <tt/r/ to do a reply,
906 each and every recipient that is contained in the original message
907 will receive a copy of the message, either as normal recipient or
912 <sect2>List Replies <!--{{{-->
914 <p>When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your
915 reply to a message only to the list instead of the list and the
916 original author. To make this easy to use, mutt-ng features list
919 <p>To do a list reply, simply press <tt/L/. If the email contains
920 a <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header, its value will be used as reply
921 address. Otherwise, mutt-ng searches through all mail addresses in
922 the original message and tries to match them a list of regular
923 expressions which can be specified using the <tt/lists/ command.
924 If any of the regular expression matches, a mailing
925 list address has been found, and it will be used as reply address.
928 lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@
931 <p>Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a
932 <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header to their emails anyway, so setting
933 <tt/lists/ is hardly ever necessary in practice.
939 <sect1>Editing the message header <!--{{{-->
941 When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of
942 special features available.
944 If you specify<newline>
945 <tt/Fcc:/ <em/filename/<newline>
946 Mutt-ng will pick up <em/filename/
947 just as if you had used the <em/edit-fcc/ function in the <em/compose/ menu.
949 You can also attach files to your message by specifying<newline>
950 <tt/Attach:/ <em/filename/ [ <em/description/ ]<newline>
951 where <em/filename/ is the file to attach and <em/description/ is an
952 optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
954 When replying to messages, if you remove the <em/In-Reply-To:/ field from
955 the header field, Mutt-ng will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which
956 allows you to create a new message thread.
958 Also see <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers">.
962 <sect1>Using Mutt-ng with PGP <!--{{{-->
965 If you want to use PGP, you can specify
967 <tt/Pgp:/ [ <tt/E/ | <tt/S/ | <tt/S/<em/<id>/ ] <newline>
969 ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and
970 ``S<id>'' signs with the given key, setting <ref
971 id="pgp_sign_as" name="$pgp_sign_as"> permanently.
973 If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you
974 through a key selection process when you try to send the message.
975 Mutt-ng will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
976 certified user ID matching one of the message recipients' mail
977 addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are
978 several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching
981 In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from
982 which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't
983 find any matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as
984 usually, abort this prompt using <tt/^G/. When you do so, mutt will
985 return to the compose screen.
987 Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message
988 will be encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out.
990 Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also <ref
991 id="pgp_entry_format" name="$pgp_entry_format">)
992 have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the capabilities, flags,
993 and validity fields are in order.
995 The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following flags:
997 R The key has been revoked and can't be used.
998 X The key is expired and can't be used.
999 d You have marked the key as disabled.
1000 c There are unknown critical self-signature
1004 The capabilities field (%c) expands to a two-character sequence
1005 representing a key's capabilities. The first character gives
1006 the key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (<bf/-/) means
1007 that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (<bf/./) means that
1008 it's marked as a signature key in one of the user IDs, but may
1009 also be used for encryption. The letter <bf/e/ indicates that
1010 this key can be used for encryption.
1012 The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once
1013 again, a ``<bf/-/'' implies ``not for signing'', ``<bf/./'' implies
1014 that the key is marked as an encryption key in one of the user-ids, and
1015 ``<bf/s/'' denotes a key which can be used for signing.
1017 Finally, the validity field (%t) indicates how well-certified a user-id
1018 is. A question mark (<bf/?/) indicates undefined validity, a minus
1019 character (<bf/-/) marks an untrusted association, a space character
1020 means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (<bf/+/)
1021 indicates complete validity.
1025 <sect1>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster <!--{{{-->
1028 You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
1029 anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages
1030 anonymously using a chain of remailers. Mixmaster support in mutt is for
1031 mixmaster version 2.04 (beta 45 appears to be the latest) and 2.03.
1032 It does not support earlier versions or the later so-called version 3 betas,
1033 of which the latest appears to be called 2.9b23.
1035 To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most
1036 important, you cannot use the <tt/Cc/ and <tt/Bcc/ headers. To tell
1037 Mutt-ng to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
1038 the mix function on the compose menu.
1040 The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the
1041 (larger) upper part, you get a list of remailers you may use. In
1042 the lower part, you see the currently selected chain of remailers.
1044 You can navigate in the chain using the <tt/chain-prev/ and
1045 <tt/chain-next/ functions, which are by default bound to the left
1046 and right arrows and to the <tt/h/ and <tt/l/ keys (think vi
1047 keyboard bindings). To insert a remailer at the current chain
1048 position, use the <tt/insert/ function. To append a remailer behind
1049 the current chain position, use <tt/select-entry/ or <tt/append/.
1050 You can also delete entries from the chain, using the corresponding
1051 function. Finally, to abandon your changes, leave the menu, or
1052 <tt/accept/ them pressing (by default) the <tt/Return/ key.
1054 Note that different remailers do have different capabilities,
1055 indicated in the %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see
1056 <ref id="mix_entry_format"
1057 name="$mix_entry_format">). Most important is
1058 the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a capital ``M'': This
1059 means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final
1060 element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other
1061 mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please
1062 have a look at the mixmaster documentation.
1068 <sect>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail<label id="forwarding_mail"> <!--{{{-->
1070 <p>Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people.
1071 Therefore, mutt-ng supports forwarding messages in two different
1074 <p>The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from
1075 other mail clients. You simply press <tt/f/, enter the recipient
1076 email address, the subject of the forwarded email, and then you can
1077 edit the message to be forwarded in the editor. The forwarded
1078 message is separated from the rest of the message via the two
1082 ----- Forwarded message from Lucas User <luser@example.com> -----
1084 From: Lucas User <luser@example.com>
1085 Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100
1086 To: Michael Random <mrandom@example.com>
1087 Subject: Re: blackmail
1089 Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die
1093 ----- End forwarded message -----</verb>
1095 <p>When you're done with editing the mail, save and quit the editor,
1096 and you will return to the compose menu, the same menu you also
1097 encounter when composing or replying to mails.
1099 <p>The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the
1100 so-called <em/bouncing/: when you bounce an email to another
1101 address, it will be sent in practically the same format you send it
1102 (except for headers that are created during transporting the
1103 message). To bounce a message, press <tt/b/ and enter the recipient
1104 email address. By default, you are then asked whether you really
1105 want to bounce the message to the specified recipient. If you answer
1106 with yes, the message will then be bounced.
1108 <p>To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it
1109 like a regular email where he was <tt/Bcc:/ recipient. The only
1110 possibility to find out whether it was a bounced email is to
1111 carefully study the email headers and to find out which host really
1116 <sect>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail"> <!--{{{-->
1119 At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have
1120 already begun to compose. When the <em/postpone-message/ function is
1121 used in the <em/compose/ menu, the body of your message and attachments
1122 are stored in the mailbox specified by the <ref id="postponed"
1123 name="$postponed"> variable. This means that you can recall the
1124 message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later time.
1126 Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the
1127 command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <em/compose/ a new
1128 message from the <em/index/ or <em/pager/ you will be prompted if postponed
1129 messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the
1130 <em/postponed/ menu will pop up and you can select which message you would
1133 <bf/Note:/ If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of
1134 the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and
1135 send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you
1136 replied to for the status of the message to be updated.
1138 See also the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> quad-option.
1144 <chapt>Configuration <!--{{{-->
1146 <sect>Locations of Configuration Files <!--{{{-->
1147 <p>While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable right out
1148 of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt-ng to suit your own tastes. When
1149 Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configuration
1150 file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the ``-n'' <ref
1151 id="commandline" name="command line"> option is specified. This file is
1152 typically <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc</tt> or <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>,
1153 Mutt-ng users will find this file in <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc</tt> or
1154 <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>. Mutt will next look for a file named <tt>.muttrc</tt>
1155 in your home directory, Mutt-ng will look for <tt>.muttngrc</tt>. If this file
1156 does not exist and your home directory has a subdirectory named <tt/.mutt/,
1157 mutt try to load a file named <tt>.muttng/muttngrc</tt>.
1159 <tt>.muttrc</tt> (or <tt>.muttngrc</tt> for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will
1160 usually place your <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt-ng.
1164 <sect>Syntax of Initialization Files<label id="muttrc-syntax"> <!--{{{-->
1167 An initialization file consists of a series of <ref id="commands"
1168 name="commands">. Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
1169 When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (;).
1171 set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x-
1173 The hash mark, or pound sign
1174 (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to
1175 annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character
1176 to the end of the line is ignored. For example,
1179 my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment
1182 Single quotes (') and double quotes (&dquot;) can be used to quote strings
1183 which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between
1184 the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs,
1185 namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is
1186 not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see
1187 next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which
1188 should be evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of double
1189 quotes, but <bf/not/ for single quotes.
1191 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh.
1192 For example, if want to put quotes ``&dquot;'' inside of a string, you can use
1193 ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted
1196 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1199 ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line.
1200 ``\n'' and ``\r'' have their usual C meanings of linefeed and
1201 carriage-return, respectively.
1203 A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over
1204 multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the
1205 middle of command names.
1207 Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a ``\''
1208 at the end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a command
1209 split over multiple lines with only one ``#''.
1213 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1216 When testing your config files, beware the following caveat. The backslash
1217 at the end of the commented line extends the current line with the next line
1218 - then referred to as a ``continuation line''. As the first line is
1219 commented with a hash (#) all following continuation lines are also
1220 part of a comment and therefore are ignored, too. So take care of comments
1221 when continuation lines are involved within your setup files!
1233 line1 ``continues'' until line4. however, the part after the # is a
1234 comment which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own and
1235 thus is interpreted again.
1237 It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
1238 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in
1239 backquotes (``). For example,
1241 my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a`
1243 The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted before the
1244 line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented, only
1245 the first line of output from the Unix command will be substituted.
1247 UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in shells like
1248 sh and bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a ``$''. For
1251 set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME
1254 The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs.
1255 For a complete list, see the <ref id="commands" name="command reference">.
1259 <sect>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias"> <!--{{{-->
1262 Usage: <tt/alias/ <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
1264 It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone
1265 you are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create ``aliases'' which map
1266 a short string to a full address.
1268 <bf/Note:/ if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than
1269 one address), you <bf/must/ separate the addresses with a comma (``,'').
1271 To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases):
1273 <tt/unalias/ [ * | <em/key/ <em/.../ ]
1276 alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
1277 alias theguys manny, moe, jack
1280 Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined
1281 in a special file. The <tt/alias/ command can appear anywhere in
1282 a configuration file, as long as this file is <ref id="source"
1283 name="sourced">. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or
1284 you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc.
1286 On the other hand, the <ref id="create-alias" name="create-alias">
1287 function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <ref
1288 id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable (which is
1289 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> by default). This file is not special either,
1290 in the sense that Mutt-ng will happily append aliases to any file, but in
1291 order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly <ref
1292 id="source" name="source"> this file too.
1297 source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases
1298 source ~/.mail_aliases
1299 set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases
1302 To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt
1303 prompts for addresses, such as the <em/To:/ or <em/Cc:/ prompt. You can
1304 also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the
1305 <ref id="edit_headers" name="$edit_headers"> variable set.
1307 In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character
1308 to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches,
1309 mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be
1310 presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a partial
1311 alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting
1314 In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the
1315 <em/select-entry/ key (default: RET), and use the <em/exit/ key
1316 (default: q) to return to the address prompt.
1320 <sect>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind"> <!--{{{-->
1322 Usage: <tt/bind/ <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
1324 This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation
1325 invoked when pressing a key).
1327 <em/map/ specifies in which menu the binding belongs. Multiple maps may
1328 be specified by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace is
1329 allowed). The currently defined maps are:
1334 This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of the other
1335 menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not defined in
1336 another menu, Mutt-ng will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows
1337 you to bind a key to a certain function in multiple menus instead of having
1338 multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task.
1340 The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined in your
1341 muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full email
1342 address(es) of the recipient(s).
1344 The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on received messages.
1346 The browser is used for both browsing the local directory structure, and for
1347 listing all of your incoming mailboxes.
1349 The editor is the line-based editor the user enters text data.
1351 The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox.
1353 The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message.
1355 The pager is the mode used to display message/attachment data, and help
1358 The pgp menu is used to select the OpenPGP keys used for encrypting outgoing
1361 The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used when
1362 recalling a message the user was composing, but saved until later.
1365 <em/key/ is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a
1366 control character, use the sequence <em/\Cx/, where <em/x/ is the
1367 letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use
1368 ``\Ca''). Note that the case of <em/x/ as well as <em/\C/ is
1369 ignored, so that <em/\CA/, <em/\Ca/, <em/\cA/ and <em/\ca/ are all
1370 equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit
1371 octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example <em/\177/ is
1372 equivalent to <em/\c?/).
1374 In addition, <em/key/ may consist of:
1379 <backtab> backtab / shift-tab
1389 <pagedown> Page Down
1390 <backspace> Backspace
1399 <f10> function key 10
1402 <em/key/ does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a
1405 <em/function/ specifies which action to take when <em/key/ is pressed.
1406 For a complete list of functions, see the <ref id="functions"
1407 name="reference">. The special function <tt/noop/ unbinds the specified key
1412 <sect>Defining aliases for character sets <label id="charset-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1414 Usage: <tt/charset-hook/ <em/alias/ <em/charset/<newline>
1415 Usage: <tt/iconv-hook/ <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
1417 The <tt/charset-hook/ command defines an alias for a character set.
1418 This is useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a
1419 character set name not known to mutt.
1421 The <tt/iconv-hook/ command defines a system-specific name for a
1422 character set. This is helpful when your systems character
1423 conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names
1428 <sect>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1430 Usage: <tt/folder-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/command/
1432 It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are
1433 reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute
1434 any configuration command. <em/regexp/ is a regular expression specifying
1435 in which mailboxes to execute <em/command/ before loading. If a mailbox
1436 matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the
1439 <bf/Note:/ if you use the ``!'' shortcut for <ref id="spoolfile"
1440 name="$spoolfile"> at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it
1441 inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the
1442 logical <em/not/ operator for the expression.
1444 Note that the settings are <em/not/ restored when you leave the mailbox.
1445 For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting method
1446 based upon the mailbox being read:
1449 folder-hook mutt set sort=threads
1452 However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when
1453 reading a different mailbox. To specify a <em/default/ command, use the
1458 folder-hook . set sort=date-sent
1463 <sect>Keyboard macros<label id="macro"> <!--{{{-->
1465 Usage: <tt/macro/ <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
1467 Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of
1468 actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt-ng will behave as if
1469 you had typed <em/sequence/. So if you have a common sequence of commands
1470 you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single
1473 <em/menu/ is the <ref id="maps" name="map"> which the macro will be bound.
1474 Multiple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments by
1475 commas. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and the
1476 commas separating them.
1478 <em/key/ and <em/sequence/ are expanded by the same rules as the <ref
1479 id="bind" name="key bindings">. There are some additions however. The
1480 first is that control characters in <em/sequence/ can also be specified
1481 as <em/ˆx/. In order to get a caret (`ˆ'') you need to use
1482 <em/ˆˆ/. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as <em/up/
1483 or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format
1484 <em/<key name>/ and <em/<function name>/. For a listing of key
1485 names see the section on <ref id="bind" name="key bindings">. Functions
1486 are listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
1488 The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros will
1489 work regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent on
1490 the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more robust
1491 and portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used by more
1492 than one user (eg. the system Muttngrc).
1494 Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after <em/sequence/,
1495 which is shown in the help screens.
1497 <bf/Note:/ Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are
1498 silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
1502 <sect>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color"> <!--{{{-->
1504 Usage: <tt/color/ <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1505 Usage: <tt/color/ index <em/foreground/ <em/background/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1506 Usage: <tt/uncolor/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1508 If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt-ng by creating your own
1509 color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information), you
1510 must specify both a foreground color <bf/and/ a background color (it is not
1511 possible to only specify one or the other).
1513 <em/object/ can be one of:
1517 <item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages)
1518 <item>bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
1519 <item>error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng)
1520 <item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header)
1521 <item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
1522 <item>index (match <em/pattern/ in the message index)
1523 <item>indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu)
1524 <item>markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the pager)
1525 <item>message (informational messages)
1527 <item>quoted (text matching <ref id="quote_regexp"
1528 name="$quote_regexp"> in the body of a message)
1529 <item>quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<bf/N/ (higher levels of quoting)
1530 <item>search (highlighting of words in the pager)
1532 <item>status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message)
1533 <item>tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
1534 <item>tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
1535 <item>underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
1538 <em/foreground/ and <em/background/ can be one of the following:
1553 <em/foreground/ can optionally be prefixed with the keyword <tt/bright/ to make
1554 the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., <tt/brightred/).
1556 If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <em/default/ can be
1557 used as a transparent color. The value <em/brightdefault/ is also valid.
1558 If Mutt-ng is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set
1559 the <em/COLORFGBG/ environment variable to the default colors of your
1560 terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
1563 set COLORFGBG="green;black"
1567 <bf/Note:/ The <em/S-Lang/ library requires you to use the <em/lightgray/
1568 and <em/brown/ keywords instead of <em/white/ and <em/yellow/ when
1569 setting this variable.
1571 <bf/Note:/ The uncolor command can be applied to the index object only. It
1572 removes entries from the list. You <bf/must/ specify the same pattern
1573 specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*'' is
1574 a special token which means to clear the color index list of all entries.
1576 Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …,
1577 <em/color/<bf/N-1/ (<bf/N/ being the number of colors supported
1578 by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your
1579 display (for example by changing the color associated with <em/color2/
1580 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning.
1582 If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the video
1583 attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command:
1585 Usage: <tt/mono/ <em/<object> <attribute>/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1586 Usage: <tt/mono/ index <em/attribute/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1587 Usage: <tt/unmono/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1589 where <em/attribute/ is one of the following:
1601 <sect>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore"> <!--{{{-->
1603 Usage: <tt/[un]ignore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
1605 Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing systems,
1606 or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command allows
1607 you to specify header fields which you don't normally want to see.
1609 You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example,
1610 ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the pattern
1611 ``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
1613 To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore'' command.
1614 The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with the given pattern.
1615 For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x-mailer''.
1617 ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
1621 # Sven's draconian header weeding
1623 unignore from date subject to cc
1624 unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
1630 <sect>Alternative addresses<label id="alternates"> <!--{{{-->
1632 Usage: <tt/[un]alternates/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1634 With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently,
1635 depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from
1636 someone else. For instance, when replying to a message that you
1637 sent to a different party, mutt will automatically suggest to send
1638 the response to the original message's recipients -- responding to
1639 yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See <ref
1640 id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">.)
1642 Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To
1643 fully use mutt's features here, the program must be able to
1644 recognize what e-mail addresses you receive mail under. That's the
1645 purpose of the <tt/alternates/ command: It takes a list of regular
1646 expressions, each of which can identify an address under which you
1649 The <tt/unalternates/ command can be used to write exceptions to
1650 <tt/alternates/ patterns. If an address matches something in an
1651 <tt/alternates/ command, but you nonetheless do not think it is
1652 from you, you can list a more precise pattern under an <tt/unalternates/
1655 To remove a regular expression from the <tt/alternates/ list, use the
1656 <tt/unalternates/ command with exactly the same <em/regexp/.
1657 Likewise, if the <em/regexp/ for a <tt/alternates/ command matches
1658 an entry on the <tt/unalternates/ list, that <tt/unalternates/
1659 entry will be removed. If the <em/regexp/ for <tt/unalternates/
1660 is ``*'', <em/all entries/ on <tt/alternates/ will be removed.
1664 <sect>Format = Flowed <!--{{{-->
1666 <p>Mutt-ng contains support for so-called <tt/format=flowed/ messages.
1667 In the beginning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and
1668 it was enough for displaying them on fixed-size terminals. But times
1669 changed, and nowadays hardly anybody still uses fixed-size terminals:
1670 more people nowaydays use graphical user interfaces, with dynamically
1671 resizable windows. This led to the demand of a new email format that
1672 makes it possible for the email client to make the email look nice
1673 in a resizable window without breaking quoting levels and creating
1674 an incompatible email format that can also be displayed nicely on
1675 old fixed-size terminals.
1677 <p>For introductory information on <tt/format=flowed/ messages, see
1678 <htmlurl url="http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html"
1679 name="<http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html>">.
1681 <p>When you receive emails that are marked as <tt/format=flowed/
1682 messages, and is formatted correctly, mutt-ng will try to reformat
1683 the message to optimally fit on your terminal. If you want a fixed
1684 margin on the right side of your terminal, you can set the
1691 <p>The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right
1692 side of the terminal.
1694 <p>If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long,
1695 you can also set a maximum line length:
1698 set max_line_length = 120
1701 <p>The example above will give you lines not longer than 120
1704 <p>When you view at <tt/format=flowed/ messages, you will often see
1705 the quoting hierarchy like in the following example:
1708 >Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1709 >Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1710 >production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1711 >project will go live.
1714 <p>This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very
1715 hard to differentiate between text and quoting character. The
1716 solution is to configure mutt-ng to "stuff" the quoting:
1722 <p>This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read:
1725 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1726 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1727 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1728 > project will go live.
1731 <p>If you want mutt-ng to send emails with <tt/format=flowed/ set, you
1732 need to explicitly set it:
1738 <p>Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing
1739 <tt/format=flowed/-conforming emails. For vim, this is done by
1740 adding <tt/w/ to the formatoptions (see <tt/:h formatoptions/ and
1741 <tt/:h fo-table/) when writing emails.
1745 <sect>Mailing lists<label id="lists"> <!--{{{-->
1747 Usage: <tt/[un]lists/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1748 Usage: <tt/[un]subscribe/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
1750 Mutt-ng has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling
1751 mailing lists">. In order to take advantage of them, you must
1752 specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing
1753 lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done this, the <ref
1754 id="list-reply" name="list-reply"> function will work for all known lists.
1755 Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed list, mutt will
1756 add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user agents
1757 not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that
1758 the Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not
1759 supported by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against
1760 receiving personal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation
1761 of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the <ref id="followup_to"
1762 name="$followup_to"> configuration variable.
1764 More precisely, Mutt-ng maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
1765 of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing
1766 list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists''
1767 command. To mark it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
1769 You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all
1770 messages sent to a specific bug report's address on mutt's bug
1771 tracking system as list mail, for instance, you could say
1772 ``subscribe [0-9]*@bugs.guug.de''. Often, it's sufficient to just
1773 give a portion of the list's e-mail address.
1775 Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
1776 example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will receive mail
1777 addressed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt-ng that this is a
1778 mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
1779 initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it,
1780 add ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead.
1781 If you also happen to get mail from someone whose address is
1782 <em/mutt-users@example.com/, you could use ``lists mutt-users@mutt\\.org''
1783 or ``subscribe mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' to
1784 match only mail from the actual list.
1786 The ``unlists'' command is used to remove a token from the list of
1787 known and subscribed mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all
1790 To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists,
1791 but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
1795 <sect>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1797 Usage: <tt/mbox-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1799 This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to a
1800 different mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders.
1801 <em/pattern/ is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a
1802 ``spool'' mailbox and <em/mailbox/ specifies where mail should be saved when
1805 Unlike some of the other <em/hook/ commands, only the <em/first/ matching
1806 pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single
1811 <sect>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes"> <!--{{{-->
1813 Usage: <tt/[un]mailboxes/ [!]<em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
1815 This command specifies folders which can receive mail and
1816 which will be checked for new messages. By default, the
1817 main menu status bar displays how many of these folders have
1820 When changing folders, pressing <em/space/ will cycle
1821 through folders with new mail.
1823 Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files
1824 specified by the <tt/mailboxes/ command, and indicate which contain new
1825 messages. Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
1826 command line with the <tt/-y/ option.
1828 The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list
1829 of folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all
1833 <bf/Note:/ new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to
1834 the last access time. Utilities like <tt/biff/ or <tt/frm/ or any other
1835 program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt-ng to never detect new mail
1836 for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup
1837 tools are another common reason for updated access times.
1840 <bf/Note:/ the filenames in the <tt/mailboxes/ command are resolved when
1841 the command is executed, so if these names contain <ref id="shortcuts"
1842 name="shortcut characters"> (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable
1843 definition that affect these characters (like <ref id="folder"
1844 name="$folder"> and <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile">)
1845 should be executed before the <tt/mailboxes/ command.
1849 <sect>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr"> <!--{{{-->
1852 <tt/my_hdr/ <em/string/<newline>
1853 <tt/unmy_hdr/ <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
1855 The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header
1856 fields which will be added to every message you send.
1858 For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field to
1859 all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command
1862 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA
1865 in your <tt/.muttrc/.
1867 <bf/Note:/ space characters are <em/not/ allowed between the keyword and
1868 the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that
1869 space is illegal there, so Mutt-ng enforces the rule.
1871 If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
1872 either set the <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers"> variable,
1873 or use the <em/edit-headers/ function (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so
1874 that you can edit the header of your message along with the body.
1876 To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr''
1877 command. You may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header
1878 fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and
1879 ``Cc'' header fields, you could use:
1887 <sect>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order"> <!--{{{-->
1889 Usage: <tt/hdr_order/ <em/header1/ <em/header2/ <em/header3/
1891 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt
1892 to present headers to you when viewing messages.
1894 ``unhdr_order *'' will clear all previous headers from the order list,
1895 thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup
1899 hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:
1904 <sect>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1906 Usage: <tt/save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/filename/
1908 This command is used to override the default filename used when saving
1909 messages. <em/filename/ will be used as the default filename if the message is
1910 <em/From:/ an address matching <em/regexp/ or if you are the author and the
1911 message is addressed <em/to:/ something matching <em/regexp/.
1913 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1918 save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins
1919 save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam
1922 Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
1926 <sect>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1928 Usage: <tt/fcc-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1930 This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than
1931 <ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt-ng searches the initial list of
1932 message recipients for the first matching <em/regexp/ and uses <em/mailbox/
1933 as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved
1934 to <ref id="record" name="$record"> mailbox.
1936 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1938 Example: <tt/fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers/
1940 The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to
1941 the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook"
1942 name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
1946 <sect>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once<label id="fcc-save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1948 Usage: <tt/fcc-save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1950 This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
1951 and a <ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"> with its arguments.
1955 <sect>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"><label id="reply-hook"><label id="send2-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1957 Usage: <tt/reply-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
1958 Usage: <tt/send-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
1959 Usage: <tt/send2-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
1961 These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based
1962 upon recipients of the message. <em/pattern/ is a regular expression
1963 matching the desired address. <em/command/ is executed when <em/regexp/
1964 matches recipients of the message.
1966 <tt/reply-hook/ is matched against the message you are <em/replying/
1967 <bf/to/, instead of the message you are <em/sending/. <tt/send-hook/ is
1968 matched against all messages, both <em/new/ and <em/replies/. <bf/Note:/
1969 <tt/reply-hook/s are matched <bf/before/ the <tt/send-hook/, <bf/regardless/
1970 of the order specified in the users's configuration file.
1972 <tt/send2-hook/ is matched every time a message is changed, either
1973 by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients
1974 or subject. <tt/send2-hook/ is executed after <tt/send-hook/, and
1975 can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the <ref id="sendmail"
1976 name="$sendmail"> variable depending on the message's sender
1979 For each type of <tt/send-hook/ or <tt/reply-hook/, when multiple matches
1980 occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc
1981 (for that type of hook).
1983 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1985 Example: <tt/send-hook mutt &dquot;set mime_forward signature=''&dquot;/
1987 Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the
1988 <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="signature"
1989 name="$signature"> and <ref id="locale" name="$locale">
1990 variables in order to change the language of the attributions and
1991 signatures based upon the recipients.
1993 <bf/Note:/ the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial
1994 list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the
1995 message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. Also note that
1996 my_hdr commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's
1997 subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed
2002 <sect>Change settings before formatting a message<label id="message-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2004 Usage: <tt/message-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
2006 This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
2007 before viewing or formatting a message based upon information about the message.
2008 <em/command/ is executed if the <em/pattern/ matches the message to be
2009 displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order
2010 they are specified in the muttrc.
2012 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for
2013 information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
2017 message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin'
2018 message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""'
2023 <sect>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient<label id="crypt-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2025 Usage: <tt/crypt-hook/ <em/pattern/ <em/keyid/
2027 When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a certain
2028 key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
2029 recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address,
2030 or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt-ng would
2031 normally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can
2032 specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to
2033 a certain recipient.
2035 The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You
2036 can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even
2041 <sect>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push"> <!--{{{-->
2043 Usage: <tt/push/ <em/string/
2045 This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may
2046 contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence
2047 string in the <ref id="macro" name="macro"> command. You may use it to
2048 automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering
2053 <sect>Executing functions<label id="exec"> <!--{{{-->
2055 Usage: <tt/exec/ <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
2057 This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are
2058 listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
2059 ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
2063 <sect>Message Scoring<label id="score-command"> <!--{{{-->
2066 Usage: <tt/score/ <em/pattern/ <em/value/<newline>
2067 Usage: <tt/unscore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
2070 In situations where you have to cope with a lot of emails, e.g.
2071 when you read many different mailing lists, and take part in
2072 discussions, it is always useful to have the important messages
2073 marked and the annoying messages or the ones that you aren't
2074 interested in deleted. For this purpose, mutt-ng features a
2075 mechanism called ``scoring''.
2078 When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You
2079 can then use the <tt/score/ command to define patterns and a
2080 positive or negative value associated with it. When a pattern
2081 matches a message, the message's score will be raised or lowered by
2082 the amount of the value associated with the pattern.
2085 score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50
2086 score "~f @sco\.com" -100</verb>
2088 <p>If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score
2089 value of the current message to a certain value and then stop
2093 score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666</verb>
2095 <p>What is important to note is that negative score values will be
2098 <p>To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in
2099 some way. That's what the <em/score thresholds/ are for. Currently,
2100 there are three score thresholds:
2104 <item>flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher
2105 than the flag threshold, it will be flagged.
2107 <item>read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower
2108 than the read threshold, it will be marked as read.
2110 <item>delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or
2111 lower than the delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted.
2115 <p>These three thresholds can be set via the variables <ref
2116 id="score_threshold_flag"
2117 name="$score_threshold_flag">, <ref
2118 id="score_threshold_read"
2119 name="$score_threshold_read">, <ref
2120 id="score_threshold_delete"
2121 name="$score_threshold_delete"> and. By
2122 default, <ref id="score_threshold_read"
2123 name="$score_threshold_read"> and <ref
2124 id="score_threshold_delete"
2125 name="$score_threshold_delete"> are set to
2126 <tt/-1/, which means that in the default threshold configuration no
2127 message will ever get marked as read or deleted.
2129 <p>Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the <tt/color/ command
2130 and the <tt>˜n</tt> pattern:
2133 color black yellow "~n 10-"
2134 color red yellow "~n 100-"</verb>
2136 <p>The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99
2137 with black and yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal
2138 100 with red and yellow. This might be unusual to you if you're used
2139 to e.g. slrn's scoring mechanism, but it is more flexible, as it
2140 visually marks different scores.
2144 <sect>Spam detection<label id="spam"> <!--{{{-->
2146 Usage: <tt/spam/ <em/pattern/ <em/format/<newline>
2147 Usage: <tt/nospam/ <em/pattern/
2149 Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
2150 By defining your spam patterns with the <tt/spam/ and <tt/nospam/
2151 commands, you can <em/limit/, <em/search/, and <em/sort/ your
2152 mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external
2153 filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index
2154 display using the <tt/%H/ selector in the <ref id="index_format"
2155 name="$index_format"> variable. (Tip: try <tt/%?H?[%H] ?/
2156 to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.)
2158 Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using
2159 the <tt/spam/ command. <em/pattern/ should be a regular expression
2160 that matches a header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox
2161 matches this regular expression, it will receive a ``spam tag'' or
2162 ``spam attribute'' (unless it also matches a <tt/nospam/ pattern -- see
2163 below.) The appearance of this attribute is entirely up to you, and is
2164 governed by the <em/format/ parameter. <em/format/ can be any static
2165 text, but it also can include back-references from the <em/pattern/
2166 expression. (A regular expression ``back-reference'' refers to a
2167 sub-expression contained within parentheses.) <tt/%1/ is replaced with
2168 the first back-reference in the regex, <tt/%2/ with the second, etc.
2170 If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than
2171 one spam-related header. You can define <tt/spam/ patterns for each
2172 filter you use. If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and
2173 the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the
2174 message's spam tag will consist of all the <em/format/ strings joined
2175 together, with the value of $spam_separator separating
2178 For example, suppose I use DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage. I might
2179 define these spam settings:
2181 spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1"
2182 spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA"
2183 spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM"
2184 set spam_separator=", "
2187 If I then received a message that DCC registered with ``many'' hits
2188 under the ``Fuz2'' checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a
2189 97% probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would read
2190 <tt>90+/DCC-Fuz2, 97/PM</tt>. (The four characters before ``=many'' in a
2191 DCC report indicate the checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
2193 If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each
2194 spam pattern match supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting
2195 joined <em/format/ strings, you'll get only the last one to match.
2197 The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use
2198 <tt/%H/ in the <tt/$index_format/ variable. It's also the
2199 string that the <tt/~H/ pattern-matching expression matches against for
2200 <em/search/ and <em/limit/ functions. And it's what sorting by spam
2201 attribute will use as a sort key.
2203 That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual
2204 environments will have only one spam filter. The simpler your
2205 configuration, the more effective mutt can be, especially when it comes
2208 Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort <em/lexically/ --
2209 that is, by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag
2210 begins with a number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically
2211 only when two numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's
2212 <tt/sort -n/.) A message with no spam attributes at all -- that is, one
2213 that didn't match <em/any/ of your <tt/spam/ patterns -- is sorted at
2214 lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next, beginning with 0 and ranging
2215 upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are sorted, with ``a'' taking lower
2216 priority than ``z''. Clearly, in general, sorting by spam tags is most
2217 effective when you can coerce your filter to give you a raw number. But
2218 in case you can't, mutt can still do something useful.
2220 The <tt/nospam/ command can be used to write exceptions to <tt/spam/
2221 patterns. If a header pattern matches something in a <tt/spam/ command,
2222 but you nonetheless do not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list a
2223 more precise pattern under a <tt/nospam/ command.
2225 If the <em/pattern/ given to <tt/nospam/ is exactly the same as the
2226 <em/pattern/ on an existing <tt/spam/ list entry, the effect will be to
2227 remove the entry from the spam list, instead of adding an exception.
2228 Likewise, if the <em/pattern/ for a <tt/spam/ command matches an entry
2229 on the <tt/nospam/ list, that <tt/nospam/ entry will be removed. If the
2230 <em/pattern/ for <tt/nospam/ is ``*'', <em/all entries on both lists/
2231 will be removed. This might be the default action if you use <tt/spam/
2232 and <tt/nospam/ in conjunction with a <tt/folder-hook/.
2234 You can have as many <tt/spam/ or <tt/nospam/ commands as you like.
2235 You can even do your own primitive spam detection within mutt -- for
2236 example, if you consider all mail from <tt/MAILER-DAEMON/ to be spam,
2237 you can use a <tt/spam/ command like this:
2240 spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"
2245 <sect>Setting variables<label id="set"> <!--{{{-->
2247 Usage: <tt/set/ [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2248 Usage: <tt/toggle/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2249 Usage: <tt/unset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2250 Usage: <tt/reset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
2252 This command is used to set (and unset) <ref id="variables"
2253 name="configuration variables">. There are four basic types of variables:
2254 boolean, number, string and quadoption. <em/boolean/ variables can be
2255 <em/set/ (true) or <em/unset/ (false). <em/number/ variables can be
2256 assigned a positive integer value.
2258 <em/string/ variables consist of any number of printable characters.
2259 <em/strings/ must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You
2260 may also use the ``C'' escape sequences <bf/\n/ and <bf/\t/ for
2261 newline and tab, respectively.
2263 <em/quadoption/ variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted
2264 for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of <em/yes/
2265 will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered
2266 yes to the question. Similarly, a value of <em/no/ will cause the the
2267 action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of
2268 <em/ask-yes/ will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and
2269 <em/ask-no/ will provide a default answer of ``no.''
2271 Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: <tt/set noaskbcc/.
2273 For <em/boolean/ variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with
2274 <tt/inv/ to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing
2275 macros. Example: <tt/set invsmart_wrap/.
2277 The <tt/toggle/ command automatically prepends the <tt/inv/ prefix to all
2278 specified variables.
2280 The <tt/unset/ command automatically prepends the <tt/no/ prefix to all
2281 specified variables.
2283 Using the enter-command function in the <em/index/ menu, you can query the
2284 value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question
2291 The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption
2294 The <tt/reset/ command resets all given variables to the compile time
2295 defaults (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command
2296 <tt/set/ and prefix the variable with ``&'' this has the same
2297 behavior as the reset command.
2299 With the <tt/reset/ command there exists the special variable ``all'',
2300 which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
2304 <sect>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source"> <!--{{{-->
2306 Usage: <tt/source/ <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
2308 This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands
2309 from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in
2310 <tt>˜/.mail_aliases</tt> so that I can make my
2311 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> readable and keep my aliases private.
2313 If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded to the
2314 path of your home directory.
2316 If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then <em/filename/ is
2317 considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
2318 <tt>source ~/bin/myscript|</tt>).
2322 <sect>Removing hooks<label id="unhook"> <!--{{{-->
2324 Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
2326 This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
2327 You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
2328 argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
2329 something like <tt/unhook send-hook/.
2333 <sect>Sharing Setups<label id="sect:sharingsetups"> <!--{{{-->
2335 <sect1>Character Sets <!--{{{-->
2337 <p>As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration
2338 must be maintained because it's likely that people want to use the
2339 setup everywhere they use mutt-ng. And mutt-ng tries to help where it
2342 <p>To not produce conflicts with different character sets, mutt-ng
2343 allows users to specify in which character set their configuration
2344 files are encoded. Please note that while reading the configuration
2345 files, this is only respected after the corresponding declaration
2346 appears. It's advised to put the following at the very beginning of a
2350 set config_charset = "..."</verb>
2352 <p>and replacing the dots with the actual character set. To avoid
2353 problems while maintaining the setup, vim user's may want to use
2354 modelines as show in:
2357 # vim:fileencoding=...:</verb>
2359 <p>while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This
2360 tells vim as which character set to read and save the file.
2364 <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
2366 <p>``Modularization'' means to divide the setup into several files
2367 while sorting the options or commands by topic. Especially for
2368 longer setups (e.g. with many hooks), this helps maintaining it
2369 and solving trouble.
2371 <p>When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in
2372 fractions, shared over different systems.
2376 <sect1>Conditional parts <!--{{{-->
2378 <p>When using a configuration on different systems, the user may not
2379 always have influence on how mutt-ng is installed and which features
2382 <p>To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef''
2383 patch written for mutt. Its basic syntax is:
2386 ifdef <item> <command>
2387 ifndef <item> <command></verb>
2389 <p>...whereby <tt/<item>/ can be one of:
2393 <item>a function name
2395 <item>a variable name
2399 <item>a feature name
2403 <p>All available functions, variables and menus are documented
2404 elsewhere in this manual but ``features'' is specific to these two
2405 commands. To test for one, prefix one of the following keywords with
2406 <tt/feature_/:
2409 ncurses, slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl,
2410 gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp,
2411 classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache</verb>
2413 <p>As an example, one can use the following in
2414 <tt>˜/.muttngrc</tt>:
2417 ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap'
2418 ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop'
2419 ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp'</verb>
2421 <p>...to only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-imap</tt> if IMAP
2422 support is built in, only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-pop</tt>
2423 if POP support is built in and only source
2424 <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp</tt> if NNTP support is built in.
2426 <p>An example for testing for variable names can be used if users
2427 use different revisions of mutt-ng whereby the older one may not
2428 have a certain variable. To test for the availability of <ref
2429 id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">,
2433 ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300'</verb>
2435 <p>Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set <ref
2436 id="pager_index_lines"
2437 name="$pager_index_lines"> only if the pager
2438 menu is available, use:
2441 ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10'</verb>
2443 <p>For completeness, too, the opposite of <tt/ifdef/ is provided:
2444 <tt/ifndef/ which only executes the command if the test fails. For
2445 example, the following two examples are equivalent:
2448 ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
2449 ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'</verb>
2454 ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
2455 ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'</verb>
2464 <chapt>Advanced Usage <!--{{{-->
2466 <sect>Regular Expressions<label id="regexp"> <!--{{{-->
2468 All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex
2469 <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> must be specified
2470 using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax (which
2471 is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your
2472 convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax.
2474 The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper
2475 case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\''
2476 must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization
2477 command: ``\\''.
2479 A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings.
2480 Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic
2481 expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
2483 Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either &dquot;
2484 or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space
2485 character. See <ref id="muttrc-syntax" name="Syntax of Initialization Files">
2486 for more information on &dquot; and ' delimiter processing. To match a
2487 literal &dquot; or ' you must preface it with \ (backslash).
2489 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
2490 a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits,
2491 are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with
2492 special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
2494 The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``ˆ'' and
2495 the dollar sign ``&dollar'' are metacharacters that respectively match
2496 the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.
2498 A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any
2499 single character in that list; if the first character of the list
2500 is a caret ``ˆ'' then it matches any character <bf/not/ in the
2501 list. For example, the regular expression <bf/[0123456789]/
2502 matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified
2503 by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen
2504 ``-''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
2505 lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the list.
2506 Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first.
2507 Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last.
2509 Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
2510 consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''.
2511 The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard:
2514 <tag/[:alnum:]/
2515 Alphanumeric characters.
2516 <tag/[:alpha:]/
2517 Alphabetic characters.
2518 <tag/[:blank:]/
2519 Space or tab characters.
2520 <tag/[:cntrl:]/
2522 <tag/[:digit:]/
2524 <tag/[:graph:]/
2525 Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable,
2526 but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.)
2527 <tag/[:lower:]/
2528 Lower-case alphabetic characters.
2529 <tag/[:print:]/
2530 Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.)
2531 <tag/[:punct:]/
2532 Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control
2533 characters, or space characters).
2534 <tag/[:space:]/
2535 Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few).
2536 <tag/[:upper:]/
2537 Upper-case alphabetic characters.
2538 <tag/[:xdigit:]/
2539 Characters that are hexadecimal digits.
2542 A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the
2543 brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these
2544 class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included
2545 in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For
2546 example, <bf/[[:digit:]]/ is equivalent to
2547 <bf/[0-9]/.
2549 Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These
2550 apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called
2551 collating elements) that are represented with more than one character,
2552 as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or
2556 <tag/Collating Symbols/
2557 A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed in
2558 ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating
2559 element, then <bf/[[.ch.]]/ is a regexp that matches
2560 this collating element, while <bf/[ch]/ is a regexp that
2561 matches either ``c'' or ``h''.
2562 <tag/Equivalence Classes/
2563 An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of
2564 characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in ``[=''
2565 and ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to
2566 represent all of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this case,
2567 <bf/[[=e=]]/ is a regexp that matches any of
2568 ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''.
2571 A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one
2572 of several repetition operators:
2576 The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
2578 The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
2580 The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
2582 The preceding item is matched exactly <em/n/ times.
2583 <tag/{n,}/
2584 The preceding item is matched <em/n/ or more times.
2585 <tag/{,m}/
2586 The preceding item is matched at most <em/m/ times.
2587 <tag/{n,m}/
2588 The preceding item is matched at least <em/n/ times, but no more than
2592 Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
2593 expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings
2594 that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions.
2596 Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator ``|'';
2597 the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
2600 Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
2601 precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
2602 parentheses to override these precedence rules.
2604 <bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt-ng with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the
2605 following operators may also be used in regular expressions:
2609 Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word.
2611 Matches the empty string within a word.
2612 <tag/\\</
2613 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.
2614 <tag/\\>/
2615 Matches the empty string at the end of a word.
2617 Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore).
2619 Matches any character that is not word-constituent.
2621 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).
2623 Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.
2626 Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so
2627 they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
2631 <sect>Patterns <!--{{{-->
2633 <p>Mutt-ng's pattern language provides a simple yet effective way to
2634 set up rules to match messages, e.g. for operations like tagging and
2635 scoring. A pattern consists of one or more sub-pattern, which can be
2636 logically grouped, ORed, and negated. For a complete listing of
2637 these patterns, please refer to table <ref id="patterns"
2638 name="Patterns"> in the Reference chapter.
2640 <p>It must be noted that in this table, <tt/EXPR/, <tt/USER/,
2641 <tt/ID/ and <tt/SUBJECT/ are regular expressions. For ranges, the
2642 forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>>[MIN]/, <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
2645 <sect1>Complex Patterns
2647 <p>It is possible to combine several sub-patterns to a more complex
2648 pattern. The most simple possibility is to logically AND several
2649 patterns by stringing them together:
2654 <p>The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in
2655 the subject and are unread.
2657 <p>To logical OR patterns, simply use the <tt/|/ operator. This one
2658 especially useful when using local groups:
2661 ~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org")
2662 (~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng)
2663 !~x '@synflood\.at'</verb>
2665 <p>The first pattern matches all messages that were sent by one of
2666 the mutt-ng maintainers, while the seconds pattern matches all
2667 messages that contain ``mutt-ng'' in the message body or ``Mutt-ng''
2668 in the subject. The third pattern matches all messages that do not
2669 contain ``@synflood\.at'' in the <tt/References:/ header, i.e.
2670 messages that are not an (indirect) reply to one of my messages. A
2671 pattern can be logicall negated using the <tt/!/ operator.
2673 <sect1>Patterns and Dates
2675 <p>When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a
2676 special format, i.e. <tt>DD/MM/YYYY</tt>. If you don't specify
2677 month or year, they default to the current month or year. When using
2678 date ranges, and you specify only the minimum or the maximum, the
2679 specified date will be excluded, e.g. <tt>01/06/2005-</tt> matches
2680 against all messages <em/after/ Juni 1st, 2005.
2682 <p>It is also possible to use so-called ``error margins'' when
2683 specifying date ranges. You simply specify a date, and then the
2684 error margin. This margin needs to contain the information whether
2685 it goes ``forth'' or ``back'' in time, by using <tt/+/ and <tt/-/.
2686 Then follows a number and a unit, i.e. <tt/y/ for years, <tt/m/ for
2687 months, <tt/w/ for weeks and <tt/d/ for days. If you use the special
2688 <tt/*/ sign, it means that the error margin goes to both
2689 ``directions'' in time.
2694 ~d 28/12/2004*1d</verb>
2696 <p>The first pattern matches all dates between January 1st, 2005 and
2697 January 1st 2006. The second pattern matches all dates between
2698 October 18th, 2004 and October 4th 2004 (2 weeks before 18/10/2004),
2699 while the third pattern matches all dates 1 day around December
2700 28th, 2004 (i.e. Dec 27th, 28th and 29th).
2702 <p>Relative dates are also very important, as they make it possible
2703 to specify date ranges between a fixed number of units and the
2704 current date. How this works can be seen in the following example:
2707 ~d >2w # messages older than two weeks
2708 ~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days
2709 ~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old</verb>
2713 <sect>Format Strings <!--{{{-->
2715 <sect1>Introduction <!--{{{-->
2717 <p>The so called <em/Format Strings/ offer great flexibility when
2718 configuring mutt-ng. In short, they describe what items to print
2719 out how in menus and status messages.
2721 <p>Basically, they work as this: for different menus and bars,
2722 there's a variable specifying the layout. For every item
2723 available, there is a so called <em/expando/.
2725 <p>For example, when running mutt-ng on different machines or
2726 different versions for testing purposes, it may be interesting to
2727 have the following information always printed on screen when one
2732 <item>the current hostname
2734 <item>the current mutt-ng version number
2738 <p>The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the
2739 <ref id="status_format" name="$status_format">
2740 variable. For the hostname and version string, there's an expando
2741 for <tt>$status_format</tt>: <tt/%h/ expands to the
2742 hostname and <tt/%v/ to the version string. When just configuring:
2745 set status_format = "%v on %h: ..."</verb>
2747 <p>mutt-ng will replace the sequence <tt/%v/ with the version string
2748 and <tt/%h/ with the host's name. When you are, for example, running
2749 mutt-ng version <tt/1.5.9i/ on host <tt/mailhost/, you'll see the
2750 following when you're in the index:
2753 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ...</verb>
2755 <p>In the index, there're more useful information one could want to
2760 <item>which mailbox is open
2762 <item>how man new, flagged or postponed messages
2768 <p>To include the mailbox' name is as easy as:
2771 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ...</verb>
2773 <p>When the currently opened mailbox is <tt/Inbox/, this will be expanded
2777 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ...</verb>
2779 <p>For the number of certain types of messages, one more feature of the format
2780 strings is extremely useful. If there aren't messages of a certain type, it
2781 may not be desired to print just that there aren't any but instead only
2782 print something if there are any.
2786 <sect1>Conditional Expansion <!--{{{-->
2788 <p>To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in
2789 the current mailbox, further extend
2790 <tt/$status_format/ to:
2793 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ...</verb>
2795 <p>This feature is called <em/nonzero-printing/ and works as this:
2796 some expandos may be optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion
2797 of the format string is only evaluated if the value of the expando
2798 is different from zero. The basic syntax is:
2801 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>?</verb>
2803 <p>which tells mutt-ng to only look at <tt><string if
2804 nonzero></tt> if the value of the <tt>%<item%gt;</tt>
2805 expando is different from zero. In our example, we used <tt/n/ as
2806 the expando to check for and <tt/%n new/ as the optional nonzero
2809 <p>But this is not all: this feature only offers one alternative:
2810 ``print something if not zero.'' Mutt-ng does, as you might guess,
2811 also provide a logically complete version: ``if zero, print
2812 something and else print something else.'' This is achieved by the
2813 following syntax for those expandos which may be printed nonzero:
2816 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>&<string if zero>?</verb>
2818 <p>Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following:
2822 <item> make it print ``<em/n/ new messages'' whereby <em/n/ is the
2823 count but only if there new ones
2825 <item> and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any
2829 <p>The corresponding configuration is:
2832 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ...</verb>
2834 <p>This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get
2835 always printed. Thus, it can be shortened to:
2838 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ...</verb>
2840 <p>As you might see from this rather simple example, one can create
2841 very complex but fancy status messages. Please see the reference
2842 chapter for expandos and those which may be printed nonzero.
2846 <sect1>Modifications and Padding <!--{{{-->
2848 <p>Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of
2853 <item>When specifying <tt>%_<item></tt> instead of
2854 just <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all
2855 characters in the expansion of <tt><item></tt> to
2858 <item>When specifying <tt>%:<item></tt> instead of just
2859 <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all dots in the
2860 expansion of <tt><item></tt> to underscores
2861 (<tt>_</tt>).
2865 <p>Also, there's a feature called <em/Padding/ supplied by the
2866 following two expandos: <tt/%|X/ and <tt/%>X/.
2870 <tag><tt>%|X</tt></tag> When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the
2871 rest of the line with the character <tt/X/. In our example,
2872 filling the rest of the line with dashes is done by setting:
2875 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-"</verb>
2877 <tag><tt>%>X</tt></tag> Since the previous expando stops at
2878 the end of line, there must be a way to fill the gap between
2879 two items via the <tt>%>X</tt> expando: it puts as many
2880 characters <tt>X</tt> in between two items so that the rest of
2881 the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the
2882 version string and hostname of our example on the left but on
2883 the right and fill the gap with spaces, one might use (note
2884 the space after <tt>%></tt>):
2887 set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)"</verb>
2895 <sect>Using Tags <!--{{{-->
2898 Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of
2899 messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be
2900 to save messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to
2901 delete all messages with a given subject. To tag all messages
2902 matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to
2903 ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by
2904 hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by
2905 default. See <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> for Mutt-ng's pattern
2908 Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the
2909 ``tag-prefix'' operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default.
2910 When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the <bf/next/ operation will
2911 be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that
2912 manner. If the <ref id="auto_tag" name="$auto_tag">
2913 variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages
2914 automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''.
2916 In <ref id="macro" name="macros"> or <ref id="push" name="push"> commands,
2917 you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator. If there are no tagged
2918 messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's execution.
2919 Mutt-ng will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the ``end-cond''
2920 operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed as
2925 <sect>Using Hooks<label id="hooks"> <!--{{{-->
2927 A <em/hook/ is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor which allows you to
2928 execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For example,
2929 you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you are
2930 reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a <em/hook/
2931 consists of a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> or
2932 <ref id="patterns" name="pattern"> along with a
2933 configuration option/command. See
2935 <item><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook">
2936 <item><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook">
2937 <item><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook">
2938 <item><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook">
2939 <item><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook">
2940 <item><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
2941 <item><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook">
2943 for specific details on each type of <em/hook/ available.
2945 <bf/Note:/ if a hook changes configuration settings, these changes remain
2946 effective until the end of the current mutt session. As this is generally
2947 not desired, a default hook needs to be added before all other hooks to
2948 restore configuration defaults. Here is an example with send-hook and the
2952 send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:'
2953 send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c
2956 <sect1>Message Matching in Hooks<label id="pattern_hook">
2958 Hooks that act upon messages (<tt/send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook,
2959 message-hook/) are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other
2960 types of hooks, a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> is
2961 sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is
2962 needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match
2965 Mutt-ng allows the use of the <ref id="patterns" name="search pattern">
2966 language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in
2967 exactly the same way as it would when <em/limiting/ or
2968 <em/searching/ the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those
2969 operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of
2970 the message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.).
2972 For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending
2973 mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
2975 send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User <user@host>'
2977 which would execute the given command when sending mail to
2980 However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the
2981 full searching language. You can still specify a simple <em/regular
2982 expression/ like the other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your
2983 pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by the
2984 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> variable. The
2985 pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value of
2986 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> that is in effect
2987 at that time will be used.
2991 <sect>Using the sidebar<label id="sidebar"> <!--{{{-->
2993 The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing
2994 which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients.
2995 The sidebar lists all specified mailboxes, shows the number in each
2996 and highlights the ones with new email
2997 Use the following configuration commands:
2999 set sidebar_visible="yes"
3000 set sidebar_width=25
3003 If you want to specify the mailboxes you can do so with:
3012 You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using:
3014 color sidebar_new red black
3015 color sidebar white black
3018 The available functions are:
3020 sidebar-scroll-up Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page
3021 sidebar-scroll-down Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page
3022 sidebar-next Highlights the next mailbox
3023 sidebar-next-new Highlights the next mailbox with new mail
3024 sidebar-previous Highlights the previous mailbox
3025 sidebar-open Opens the currently highlighted mailbox
3028 Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
3030 bind index \Cp sidebar-prev
3031 bind index \Cn sidebar-next
3032 bind index \Cb sidebar-open
3033 bind pager \Cp sidebar-prev
3034 bind pager \Cn sidebar-next
3035 bind pager \Cb sidebar-open
3037 macro index B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3038 macro pager B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3041 You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and
3042 switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
3046 <sect>External Address Queries<label id="query"> <!--{{{-->
3048 Mutt-ng supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
3049 ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt
3050 using a simple interface. Using the <ref id="query_command"
3051 name="$query_command"> variable, you specify the wrapper
3052 command to use. For example:
3055 set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'"
3058 The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It
3059 should return a one line message, then each matching response on a
3060 single line, each line containing a tab separated address then name then
3061 some other optional information. On error, or if there are no matching
3062 addresses, return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message.
3064 An example multiple response output:
3066 Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching:
3067 me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude
3068 blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more
3069 roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp
3072 There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One
3073 is to do a query from the index menu using the query function (default: Q).
3074 This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will
3075 list the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select
3076 addresses to create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple addresses
3077 to mail, start a new query, or have a new query appended to the current
3080 The other mechanism for accessing the query function is for address
3081 completion, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address
3082 entry, you can use the complete-query function (default: ^T) to run a
3083 query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, mutt
3084 will look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If
3085 there is a single response for that query, mutt will expand the address
3086 in place. If there are multiple responses, mutt will activate the query
3087 menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be
3088 added to the prompt.
3092 <sect>Mailbox Formats <!--{{{-->
3094 Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
3095 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there
3096 is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new
3097 mailboxes, Mutt-ng uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type"
3098 name="$mbox_type"> variable.
3100 <bf/mbox/. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All
3101 messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form:
3104 From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST
3107 to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the
3108 ``From_'' line).
3110 <bf/MMDF/. This is a variant of the <em/mbox/ format. Each message is
3111 surrounded by lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's).
3113 <bf/MH/. A radical departure from <em/mbox/ and <em/MMDF/, a mailbox
3114 consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file.
3115 The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not
3116 correspond to the message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages are
3117 renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <bf/Note:/ Mutt
3118 detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <tt/.mh_sequences/
3119 or <tt/.xmhcache/ (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH
3122 <bf/Maildir/. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a
3123 replacement for sendmail). Similar to <em/MH/, except that it adds three
3124 subdirectories of the mailbox: <em/tmp/, <em/new/ and <em/cur/. Filenames
3125 for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two
3126 programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking
3131 <sect>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts"> <!--{{{-->
3133 There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes.
3134 These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox
3138 <item>! -- refers to your <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile"> (incoming) mailbox
3139 <item>> -- refers to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> file
3140 <item>< -- refers to your <ref id="record" name="$record"> file
3141 <item>^ -- refers to the current mailbox
3142 <item>- or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
3143 <item>˜ -- refers to your home directory
3144 <item>= or + -- refers to your <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> directory
3145 <item>@<em/alias/ -- refers to the <ref id="save-hook"
3146 name="default save folder"> as determined by the address of the alias
3151 <sect>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists"> <!--{{{-->
3154 Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
3155 amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt
3156 know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically
3157 this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most
3158 often used for), and what lists you are subscribed to. This is
3159 accomplished through the use of the <ref id="lists"
3160 name="lists and subscribe"> commands in your muttrc.
3162 Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
3163 things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
3164 through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in
3165 the <em/index/ menu display. This is useful to distinguish between
3166 personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the <ref id="index_format"
3167 name="$index_format"> variable, the escape ``%L''
3168 will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the
3169 ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc''
3170 field (otherwise it returns the name of the author).
3172 Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages
3173 tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the
3174 author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in
3175 two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply''
3176 function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the <em/index/ menu
3177 and <em/pager/, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the
3178 known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as
3179 specified by <tt/Mail-Followup-To/, see below).
3181 Mutt-ng also supports the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header. When you send
3182 a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several
3183 subscribed mailing lists, and if the <ref id="followup_to"
3184 name="$followup_to"> option is set, mutt will generate
3185 a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom
3186 you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that
3187 group-replies or list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this
3188 message should only be sent to the original recipients of the
3189 message, and not separately to you - you'll receive your copy through
3190 one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to.
3192 Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which
3193 has a <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header, mutt will respect this header if
3194 the <ref id="honor_followup_to"
3195 name="$honor_followup_to"> configuration
3196 variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure
3197 that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified
3198 in the list of recipients in the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/.
3200 Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
3201 <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header manually. Mutt-ng will only auto-generate
3202 this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
3205 The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a
3206 ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather
3207 than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying
3208 to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients
3209 will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To''
3210 field. Mutt-ng uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">
3211 variable to help decide which address to use. If set to <em/ask-yes/ or
3212 <em/ask-no/, you will be
3213 prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in
3214 the ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the
3215 ``From'' field. When set to <em/yes/, the ``Reply-To'' field will be used when
3218 The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing
3219 lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages
3220 individually). The <ref id="index_format"
3221 name="$index_format"> variable's ``%y'' and
3222 ``%Y'' escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the
3223 index, and Mutt-ng's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
3224 ``X-Label:'' fields with the ``~y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a
3225 standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by procmail
3226 and other mail filtering agents.
3228 Lastly, Mutt-ng has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into
3229 <ref id="threads" name="threads">. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same
3230 subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a
3231 message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever
3232 used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealing
3233 with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete
3234 uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value.
3238 <sect>Editing threads <!--{{{-->
3240 Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
3241 either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some
3242 correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these
3243 annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion.
3245 <sect1>Linking threads
3248 Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
3249 "References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken
3250 discussions because Mutt-ng has not enough information to guess the correct
3252 You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent message
3253 and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default). The
3254 reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
3256 You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and using the
3257 tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
3259 <sect1>Breaking threads
3262 On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
3263 discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and changing
3264 the subject to a totally unrelated one.
3265 You can fix such threads by using the ``break-thread'' function (bound
3266 by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the
3267 current message into a whole different thread.
3271 <sect>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support <!--{{{-->
3274 RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information
3275 about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as
3276 ``return receipts.'' Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command
3277 line options in which the mail client can make requests as to what type
3278 of status messages should be returned.
3280 To support this, there are two variables. <ref id="dsn_notify"
3281 name="$dsn_notify"> is used to request receipts for
3282 different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.).
3283 <ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests how much
3284 of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full
3285 message). Refer to the man page on sendmail for more details on DSN.
3289 <sect>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3292 If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/
3293 script with the <em/--enable-pop/ flag), it has the ability to work
3294 with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local
3297 You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
3298 <tt>pop://popserver/</tt>.
3300 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3301 <tt>pop://popserver:port/</tt>.
3303 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3304 <tt>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</tt>.
3306 Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
3307 reason the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can be
3309 <ref id="pop_mail_check" name="$pop_mail_check">
3310 variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds.
3312 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
3313 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to POP3 servers
3314 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
3315 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should
3316 use pops: prefix, ie:
3317 <tt>pops://[username@]popserver[:port]/</tt>.
3319 Another way to access your POP3 mail is the <em/fetch-mail/ function
3320 (default: G). It allows to connect to <ref id="pop_host"
3321 name="pop_host">, fetch all your new mail and place it in the
3322 local <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile">. After this
3323 point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
3325 <bf/Note:/ If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox
3326 you should consider using a specialized program, such as <htmlurl
3327 url="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail" name="fetchmail">
3331 <sect>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3334 If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <em/configure/
3335 script with the <em/--enable-imap/ flag), it has the ability to work
3336 with folders located on a remote IMAP server.
3338 You can access the remote inbox by selecting the folder
3339 <tt>imap://imapserver/INBOX</tt>, where <tt/imapserver/ is the name of the
3340 IMAP server and <tt/INBOX/ is the special name for your spool mailbox on
3341 the IMAP server. If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP
3342 server, you should use <tt>imap://imapserver/path/to/folder</tt> where
3343 <tt>path/to/folder</tt> is the path of the folder you want to access.
3345 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3346 <tt>imap://imapserver:port/INBOX</tt>.
3348 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3349 <tt>imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX</tt>.
3351 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
3352 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to IMAP servers
3353 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
3354 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should
3355 use <tt>imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder</tt> as your
3358 Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e.
3359 <tt>{[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder</tt>
3361 Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt-ng should
3362 correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and convert
3365 When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look
3366 at only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the
3367 <em/toggle-subscribed/ command. See also the
3368 <ref id="imap_list_subscribed"
3369 name="$imap_list_subscribed"> variable.
3371 Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So, you'll
3372 want to carefully tune the
3373 <ref id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">
3375 <ref id="timeout" name="$timeout">
3378 Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior to
3379 v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client
3380 selects the same folder.
3382 <sect1>The Folder Browser
3385 As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP
3386 server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the
3387 following differences:
3389 <item>Instead of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
3390 possibly followed by the symbol "+", indicating
3391 that the entry contains both messages and subfolders. On
3392 Cyrus-like servers folders will often contain both messages and
3394 <item>For the case where an entry can contain both messages and
3395 subfolders, the selection key (bound to <tt>enter</tt> by default)
3396 will choose to descend into the subfolder view. If you wish to view
3397 the messages in that folder, you must use <tt>view-file</tt> instead
3398 (bound to <tt>space</tt> by default).
3399 <item>You can create, delete and rename mailboxes with the
3400 <tt>create-mailbox</tt>, <tt>delete-mailbox</tt>, and
3401 <tt>rename-mailbox</tt> commands (default bindings: <tt>C</tt>,
3402 <tt>d</tt> and <tt>r</tt>, respectively). You may also
3403 <tt>subscribe</tt> and <tt>unsubscribe</tt> to mailboxes (normally
3404 these are bound to <tt>s</tt> and <tt>u</tt>, respectively).
3407 <sect1>Authentication
3410 Mutt-ng supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
3411 GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add
3412 NTLM authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has
3413 yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for
3414 the pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public
3415 IMAP server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make
3416 your username blank or "anonymous".
3418 SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several protocols
3419 (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most secure
3420 method available on your host and the server. Using some of these methods
3421 (including DIGEST-MD5 and possibly GSSAPI), your entire session will be
3422 encrypted and invisible to those teeming network snoops. It is the best
3423 option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL library
3424 installed on your system and compile mutt with the <em/--with-sasl/ flag.
3426 Mutt-ng will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server,
3427 in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
3429 There are a few variables which control authentication:
3431 <item><ref id="imap_user" name="$imap_user"> - controls
3432 the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP server,
3433 for all authenticators. This is overridden by an explicit username in
3434 the mailbox path (i.e. by using a mailbox name of the form
3436 <item><ref id="imap_pass" name="$imap_pass"> - a
3437 password which you may preset, used by all authentication methods where
3438 a password is needed.
3439 <item><ref id="imap_authenticators"
3440 name="$imap_authenticators"> - a colon-delimited list of IMAP
3441 authentication methods to try, in the order you wish to try them. If
3442 specified, this overrides mutt's default (attempt everything, in the order
3448 <sect>NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)<label id="reading_news"> <!--{{{-->
3450 <p>If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt-ng can read news from
3451 a newsserver via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with the
3452 ``change-newsgroup'' function from the index/pager which is by default
3455 <p>The Default newsserver can be obtained from the
3456 <tt/$NNTPSERVER/ environment variable. Like other news readers,
3457 info about subscribed newsgroups is saved in a file as specified by the
3458 <ref id="nntp_newsrc" name="$nntp_newsrc"> variable.
3459 Article headers are cached and can be loaded from a file when a
3460 newsgroup is entered instead loading from newsserver; currently, this
3461 caching mechanism still is different from the header caching for
3464 <sect1>Again: Scoring <!--{{{-->
3466 <p>Especially for Usenet, people often ask for advanced filtering
3467 and scoring functionality. Of course, mutt-ng has scoring and
3468 allows a killfile, too. How to use a killfile has been discussed
3469 in <ref id="score-command" name="Message scoring">.
3471 <p>What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in
3472 realname filter. For may newsreaders including those for
3473 ``advanced users'' like <em/slrn/ or <em/tin/, there are frequent
3474 request for such functionality. The solutions offered often are
3475 complicated regular expressions.
3477 <p>In mutt-ng this is as easy as
3483 <p>This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose
3484 sender specified a valid realname and a valid email address. Using
3490 <p>on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages <em/not/
3491 matching those criteria which are very strict:
3495 <item>Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see
3496 <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt"
3497 name="<ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt>">
3499 <item>the name must consist of at least 2 fields whereby a field
3500 must not end in a dot. This means that ``Joe User'' and ``Joe A.
3501 User'' are valid while ``J. User'' and ``J. A. User'' aren't.
3503 <item>it's assumed that users are interested in reading their
3504 own mail and mail from people who they have defined an alias for
3505 so that those 2 groups of messages are excluded from the strict
3514 <sect>Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)<label id="account-hook"> <!--{{{-->
3517 If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers,
3518 you may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and
3519 error-prone. The account-hook command may help. This hook works like
3520 folder-hook but is invoked whenever you access a remote mailbox
3521 (including inside the folder browser), not just when you open the
3527 account-hook . 'unset imap_user; unset imap_pass; unset tunnel'
3528 account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo'
3529 account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'
3534 <sect>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)<label id="urlview"> <!--{{{-->
3536 If a message contains URLs (<em/unified resource locator/ = address in the
3537 WWW space like <em>http://www.mutt.org/</em>), it is efficient to get
3538 a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This
3539 functionality is provided by the external urlview program which can be
3540 retrieved at <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"
3541 name="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"> and the configuration commands:
3543 macro index \cb |urlview\n
3544 macro pager \cb |urlview\n
3549 <sect>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3552 If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
3553 <em/configure/ script with the <em/--enable-compressed/ flag), Mutt
3554 can open folders stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user
3555 has a script to convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
3557 The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with
3560 In addition, the user can provide a script that gets a folder in an
3561 accepted format and appends its context to the folder in the
3562 user-defined format, which may be faster than converting the entire
3563 folder to the accepted format, appending to it and converting back to
3564 the user-defined format.
3566 There are three hooks defined (<ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook">,
3567 <ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> and <ref id="append-hook"
3568 name="append-hook">) which define commands to uncompress and compress
3569 a folder and to append messages to an existing compressed folder
3575 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
3576 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
3577 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
3580 You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit <ref
3581 id="append-hook" name="append-hook">, the folder will be open and
3582 closed again each time you will add to it. If you omit <ref
3583 id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> (or give empty command) , the
3584 folder will be open in the mode. If you specify <ref
3585 id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> though you'll be able to append
3588 Note that Mutt-ng will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
3589 the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt
3590 supposes it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the
3591 use of programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use
3592 &dquot;.&dquot; as a regexp. But this may be surprising if your
3593 compressing script produces empty files. In this situation, unset <ref
3594 id="save_empty" name="$save_empty">, so that the compressed file
3595 will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
3597 <sect1>Open a compressed mailbox for reading<label id="open-hook">
3599 Usage: <tt/open-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3601 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for opening the
3602 folders whose names match <em/regexp/.
3604 The <em/command/ string is the printf-like format string, and it
3605 should accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the
3606 (compressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the
3607 name of the temporary folder to which to write.
3609 %f and %t can be repeated any number of times in the
3610 command string, and all of the entries are replaced with the
3611 appropriate folder name. In addition, %% is replaced by
3612 %, as in printf, and any other %anything is left as is.
3614 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the original compressed file.
3615 The <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so
3616 mutt knows something's wrong.
3621 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
3624 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3627 <sect1>Write a compressed mailbox<label id="close-hook">
3629 Usage: <tt/close-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3631 This is used to close the folder that was open with the <ref id="open-hook"
3632 name="open-hook"> command after some changes were made to it.
3634 The <em/command/ string is the command that can be used for closing the
3635 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
3636 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command. Temporary folder
3637 in this case is the folder previously produced by the <<ref id="open-hook"
3638 name="open-hook"> command.
3640 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
3641 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
3642 knows something's wrong.
3647 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
3650 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3651 type, and the file can only be open in the readonly mode.
3653 <ref id="close-hook" name ="close-hook"> is not called when you exit
3654 from the folder if the folder was not changed.
3656 <sect1>Append a message to a compressed mailbox<label id="append-hook">
3658 Usage: <tt/append-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3660 This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder.
3661 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for appending to the
3662 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
3663 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command.
3664 The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are being
3667 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
3668 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
3669 knows something's wrong.
3674 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
3677 When <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is used, the folder is
3678 not opened, which saves time, but this means that we can not find out
3679 what the folder type is. Thus the default (<ref id="mbox_type"
3680 name="$mbox_type">) type is always supposed (i.e.
3681 this is the format used for the temporary folder).
3683 If the file does not exist when you save to it, <ref id="close-hook"
3684 name="close-hook"> is called, and not <ref id="append-hook"
3685 name="append-hook">. <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is only
3686 for appending to existing folders.
3688 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3689 type. In this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using
3690 <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> and <ref id="close-hook"
3691 name="close-hook">respectively) each time you will add to it.
3693 <sect1>Encrypted folders
3695 The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
3696 folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to use
3697 the following hooks:
3700 open-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -f < %f > %t"
3701 close-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -fe YourPgpUserIdOrKeyId < %t > %f"
3704 Please note, that PGP does not support appending to an encrypted
3705 folder, so there is no append-hook defined.
3707 <bf/Note:/ the folder is temporary stored decrypted in the /tmp
3708 directory, where it can be read by your system administrator. So think
3709 about the security aspects of this.
3715 <chapt>Mutt-ng's MIME Support <!--{{{-->
3717 Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt-ng the premier text-mode
3718 MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
3719 the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
3720 wherever possible. When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two extra
3721 types of configuration files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the
3722 <tt/mime.types/ file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to
3723 IANA MIME types. The other is the <tt/mailcap/ file, which specifies
3724 the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
3726 <sect>Using MIME in Mutt <!--{{{-->
3728 There are three areas/menus in Mutt-ng which deal with MIME, they are the
3729 pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
3732 <sect1>Viewing MIME messages in the pager
3734 When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
3735 decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally supports
3736 a number of MIME types, including <tt>text/plain, text/enriched,
3737 message/rfc822, and message/news</tt>. In addition, the export
3738 controlled version of Mutt-ng recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
3739 including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
3741 Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
3742 These lines are of the form:
3744 [-- Attachment #1: Description --]
3745 [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]
3747 Where the <tt/Description/ is the description or filename given for the
3748 attachment, and the <tt/Encoding/ is one of
3749 <tt>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</tt>.
3751 If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
3753 [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
3756 <sect1>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu">
3758 The default binding for <tt/view-attachments/ is `v', which displays the
3759 attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of
3760 the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save,
3761 print, pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these
3762 operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments
3763 and by using the ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the
3764 current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the
3765 attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view
3766 attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition.
3768 Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
3769 <ref id="resend-message" name="resend-message">, and the reply
3770 and forward functions) to attachments of type <tt>message/rfc822</tt>.
3772 See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
3774 <sect1>The Compose Menu<label id="compose_menu">
3776 The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
3777 allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
3778 of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your
3779 message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy,
3780 filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a
3781 list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment
3782 information, notably the type, encoding and description.
3784 Attachments appear as follows:
3786 - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
3787 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
3790 The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or
3791 postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
3792 <tt/toggle-unlink/ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
3793 content-type, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-type/ command
3794 (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment,
3795 which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit
3796 links. It can be changed with the <tt/edit-encoding/ command
3797 (default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment,
3798 rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename,
3799 which can be changed with the <tt/rename-file/ command (default: R).
3800 The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
3801 changed with the <tt/edit-description/ command (default: d).
3805 <sect>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/ <!--{{{-->
3807 When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your
3808 personal mime.types file at <tt>${HOME}/.mime.types</tt>, and then
3809 the system mime.types file at <tt>/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</tt> or
3810 <tt>/etc/mime.types</tt>
3812 The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
3813 separated list of extensions. For example:
3815 application/postscript ps eps
3817 audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
3819 A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt-ng distribution, and
3820 should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
3822 If Mutt-ng can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
3823 attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
3824 information, Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
3825 as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt-ng will
3826 mark it as <tt>application/octet-stream</tt>. You can change the MIME
3827 type that Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/
3828 command from the compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a
3829 major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
3830 types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved
3831 after various internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of these if the
3832 appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises other
3833 major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
3834 molecular modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms to
3835 various molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used
3836 if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
3840 <sect>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/ <!--{{{-->
3842 Mutt-ng supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
3843 specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
3844 is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
3845 programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
3846 for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
3847 use this format include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
3849 In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt-ng can not handle
3850 internally, Mutt-ng parses a series of external configuration files to
3851 find an external handler. The default search string for these files
3852 is a colon delimited list set to
3854 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
3856 where <tt/$HOME/ is your home directory.
3858 In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
3859 usually as <tt>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</tt>, which contains some baseline
3862 <sect1>The Basics of the mailcap file
3864 A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank,
3867 A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want.
3869 A blank line is blank.
3871 A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
3872 number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is divided
3873 by a semicolon ';' character.
3875 The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method.
3877 <tt>text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </tt>
3878 etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for
3879 wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the implicit
3880 wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <tt>image/*</tt>, or
3881 <tt>video,</tt> will match all image types and video types,
3884 The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
3885 are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
3886 the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
3887 this behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
3888 This will cause Mutt-ng to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary
3889 file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
3890 the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt-ng will turn over the
3891 terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt
3892 will remove the temporary file if it exists.
3894 So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
3895 external pager more on stdin:
3899 Or, you could send the message as a file:
3903 Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
3908 In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you
3909 must use the %s syntax.
3910 <bf/Note:/ <em>Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where they
3911 will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will find
3912 the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to continuously
3913 spawn itself to view the object.</em>
3915 On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you
3916 just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can
3919 text/html; lynx -dump %s | more
3922 Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on
3923 all other text formats, then you would use the following:
3928 This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
3930 <sect1>Secure use of mailcap
3932 The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
3933 can lead to security problems in general. Mutt-ng tries to quote parameters
3934 in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
3935 substituting them, see the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
3936 name="mailcap_sanitize"> variable.
3938 Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
3939 safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care
3940 of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
3942 <em/Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting./
3943 Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt-ng does this for
3944 you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
3945 mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
3946 with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix
3947 broken behaviour with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no
3948 alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
3950 If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need
3951 quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable
3952 and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following
3953 example (using <tt/$charset/ inside the backtick expansion is safe,
3954 since it is not itself subject to any further expansion):
3957 text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
3958 && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
3961 <sect1>Advanced mailcap Usage
3964 <sect2>Optional Fields
3966 In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you
3967 can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
3968 Mutt-ng recognizes the following optional fields:
3971 This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly large amounts of
3972 text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager (either the internal
3973 pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output
3974 of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt-ng assumes that the command
3975 is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <tt>more</tt>
3976 in the <tt>lynx -dump</tt> example in the Basic section:
3978 text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
3980 This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
3981 and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the results.
3983 Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view"
3984 name="autoview">, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
3985 of the <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> variable or
3986 not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the
3987 corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt-ng will use
3988 <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> and the exit status
3989 of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the
3990 external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt
3992 <tag>compose=<command></tag>
3993 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
3994 specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
3995 <tag>composetyped=<command></tag>
3996 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
3997 specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in
3998 that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be
3999 used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new
4000 attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
4001 <tag>print=<command></tag>
4002 This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type.
4003 Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
4004 <tag>edit=<command></tag>
4005 This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type.
4006 Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
4007 new attachments. Mutt-ng will default to the defined editor for text
4009 <tag>nametemplate=<template></tag>
4010 This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
4011 command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file extension,
4012 for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx will only
4013 interpret a file as <tt>text/html</tt> if the file ends in <tt/.html/.
4014 So, you would specify lynx as a <tt>text/html</tt> viewer with a line in
4015 the mailcap file like:
4017 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4019 <tag>test=<command></tag>
4020 This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
4021 entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion
4022 rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the
4023 test passed, and Mutt-ng uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
4024 then the test failed, and Mutt-ng continues searching for the right entry.
4025 <bf/Note:/ <em>the content-type must match before Mutt-ng performs the test.</em>
4028 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4031 In this example, Mutt-ng will run the program RunningX which will return 0
4032 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If
4033 RunningX returns 0, then Mutt-ng will call netscape to display the
4034 text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt-ng will go on
4035 to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html object.
4040 When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for
4041 the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
4042 attempting to print an <tt>image/gif</tt>, and you have the following
4043 entries in your mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for an entry with the
4047 image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
4050 Mutt-ng will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt>
4051 entry with the print command.
4053 In addition, you can use this with <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">
4054 to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed
4055 automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the attachment
4056 menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine which
4057 viewer to use interactively depending on your environment.
4059 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4060 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4061 text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
4063 For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt-ng will choose the third
4064 entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt
4065 will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first
4066 entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt-ng will use the second entry
4067 for interactive viewing.
4069 <sect2>Command Expansion
4071 The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
4072 <tt>/bin/sh</tt> shell using the system() function. Before the
4073 command is passed to <tt>/bin/sh -c</tt>, it is parsed to expand
4074 various special parameters with information from Mutt-ng. The keywords
4075 Mutt-ng expands are:
4078 As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded
4079 to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
4080 the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
4081 program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
4082 use of this keyword causes Mutt-ng to not pass the body of the message
4083 to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
4085 Mutt-ng will expand %t to the text representation of the content
4086 type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
4087 mailcap definition line, ie <tt>text/html</tt> or
4089 <tag>%{<parameter>}</tag>
4090 Mutt-ng will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
4091 from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
4092 Your mail message contains:
4094 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4096 then Mutt-ng will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
4097 mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm
4098 using the right charset to view the message.
4099 <tag>\%</tag>
4100 This will be replaced by a %
4102 Mutt-ng does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
4103 specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
4104 multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt-ng.
4106 <sect1>Example mailcap files
4108 This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
4110 # I'm always running X :)
4111 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4112 image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
4114 # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
4115 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'
4118 This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
4121 # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
4122 # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
4123 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4125 # Send html to a running netscape by remote
4126 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape
4128 # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the
4130 text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX
4132 # Else use lynx to view it as text
4135 # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
4136 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
4138 # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
4139 text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
4141 # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
4142 image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
4144 # Use xv to view images if I'm running X
4145 # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
4147 image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; \
4150 # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
4151 image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
4152 pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
4154 # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
4155 application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
4160 <sect>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view"> <!--{{{-->
4162 In addition to explicitly telling Mutt-ng to view an attachment with the
4163 MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng has support for
4164 automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
4166 To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
4167 <tt/copiousoutput/ option to denote that it is non-interactive.
4168 Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text
4169 representation which you can view in the pager.
4171 You then use the <tt/auto_view/ muttrc command to list the
4172 content-types that you wish to view automatically.
4174 For instance, if you set auto_view to:
4176 auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz
4179 Mutt-ng could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
4180 attachments of these types.
4182 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
4183 image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
4184 application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
4185 application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
4186 application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput
4189 ``unauto_view'' can be used to remove previous entries from the autoview list.
4190 This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on size, etc.
4191 ``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
4195 <sect>MIME Multipart/Alternative<label id="alternative_order"> <!--{{{-->
4197 Mutt-ng has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
4198 multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
4199 alternative_order list to determine if one of the available types
4200 is preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a number of
4201 MIME types in order, including support for implicit and explicit
4202 wildcards, for example:
4204 alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text application/postscript image/*
4207 Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
4208 <ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view">, and use that. Failing
4209 that, Mutt-ng will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt will
4210 look for any type it knows how to handle.
4212 To remove a MIME type from the <tt/alternative_order/ list, use the
4213 <tt/unalternative_order/ command.
4217 <sect>MIME Lookup<label id="mime_lookup"> <!--{{{-->
4219 Mutt-ng's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
4220 be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed to
4221 deal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an attachment's
4222 mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the filename will
4223 be compared to the list of extensions in the mime.types file. The mime-type
4224 associated with this extension will then be used to process the attachment
4225 according to the rules in the mailcap file and according to any other configuration
4226 options (such as auto_view) specified. Common usage would be:
4228 mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript
4231 In addition, the unmime_lookup command may be used to disable this feature
4232 for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a global
4239 <chapt>Reference <!--{{{-->
4241 <sect>Command line options<label id="commandline"> <!--{{{-->
4243 Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt-ng attempt to read your spool
4244 mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and
4245 to send messages from the command line as well.
4249 -a attach a file to a message
4250 -b specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address
4251 -c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address
4252 -D print the value of all variables on stdout
4253 -e specify a config command to be run after initialization files are read
4254 -f specify a mailbox to load
4255 -F specify an alternate file to read initialization commands
4256 -h print help on command line options
4257 -H specify a draft file from which to read a header and body
4258 -i specify a file to include in a message composition
4259 -m specify a default mailbox type
4260 -n do not read the system Muttngrc
4261 -p recall a postponed message
4262 -Q query a configuration variable
4263 -R open mailbox in read-only mode
4264 -s specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces)
4265 -v show version number and compile-time definitions
4266 -x simulate the mailx(1) compose mode
4267 -y show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes command
4268 -z exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox
4269 -Z open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if none
4272 To read messages in a mailbox
4274 <tt/mutt/ [ -nz ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -m <em/type/ ] [ -f <em/mailbox/ ]
4276 To compose a new message
4278 <tt/mutt/ [ -n ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -a <em/file/ ] [ -c <em/address/ ] [ -i <em/filename/ ] [ -s <em/subject/ ] <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ]
4280 Mutt-ng also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect
4281 input from the file you wish to send. For example,
4283 <tt>mutt -s &dquot;data set for run #2&dquot; professor@bigschool.edu
4284 < ˜/run2.dat</tt>
4286 This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a subject
4287 of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the contents
4288 of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
4292 <sect>Patterns<label id="patterns"> <!--{{{-->
4297 ~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body
4298 ~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
4299 ~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER
4300 ~C EXPR message is either to: or cc: EXPR
4302 ~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
4304 ~e EXPR message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
4306 ~f USER messages originating from USER
4307 ~g cryptographically signed messages
4308 ~G cryptographically encrypted messages
4309 ~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR
4310 ~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
4311 ~k message contains PGP key material
4312 ~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
4313 ~L EXPR message is either originated or received by EXPR
4314 ~l message is addressed to a known mailing list
4315 ~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX *)
4316 ~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
4319 ~p message is addressed to you (consults alternates)
4320 ~P message is from you (consults alternates)
4321 ~Q messages which have been replied to
4323 ~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
4324 ~S superseded messages
4325 ~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
4327 ~t USER messages addressed to USER
4329 ~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
4330 ~V cryptographically verified messages
4331 ~w EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `Newsgroups' field
4332 (if compiled with NNTP support)
4333 ~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
4334 ~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
4335 ~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)
4336 ~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
4337 ~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)
4338 ~* ``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid
4339 address (excluded are addresses matching against
4340 alternates or any alias)
4343 Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are
4344 <ref id="regexp" name="regular expressions">. Special attention has to be
4345 made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
4346 Mutt-ng's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (\),
4347 which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
4348 backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes
4351 *) The forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>[MIN]/,
4352 <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
4357 <sect>Configuration Commands<label id="commands"> <!--{{{-->
4359 The following are the commands understood by mutt.
4363 <tt><ref id="account-hook" name="account-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4365 <tt><ref id="alias" name="alias"></tt> <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
4367 <tt><ref id="alias" name="unalias"></tt> [ * | <em/key/ ... ]
4369 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="alternates"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4371 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="unalternates"></tt> [ * | <em/regexp/ ... ]
4373 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="alternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4375 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="unalternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4377 <tt><ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4379 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4381 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="unauto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4383 <tt><ref id="bind" name="bind"></tt> <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
4385 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="charset-hook"></tt> <em/alias/ <em/charset/
4387 <tt><ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4389 <tt><ref id="color" name="color"></tt> <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
4391 <tt><ref id="color" name="uncolor"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4393 <tt><ref id="exec" name="exec"></tt> <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
4395 <tt><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4397 <tt><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4399 <tt><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4401 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="hdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
4403 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="unhdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
4405 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="iconv-hook"></tt> <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
4407 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="ignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4409 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="unignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4411 <tt><ref id="lists" name="lists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4413 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unlists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4415 <tt><ref id="macro" name="macro"></tt> <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
4417 <tt><ref id="mailboxes" name="mailboxes"></tt> <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
4419 <tt><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4421 <tt><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4423 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="mime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4425 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="unmime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4427 <tt><ref id="color" name="mono"></tt> <em/object attribute/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
4429 <tt><ref id="color" name="unmono"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4431 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"></tt> <em/string/
4433 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="unmy_hdr"></tt> <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
4435 <tt><ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4437 <tt><ref id="crypt-hook" name="crypt-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/key-id/
4439 <tt><ref id="push" name="push"></tt> <em/string/
4441 <tt><ref id="set" name="reset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4443 <tt><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/filename/
4445 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="score"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/value/
4447 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="unscore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4449 <tt><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4451 <tt><ref id="reply-hook" name="reply-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4453 <tt><ref id="set" name="set"></tt> [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]
4455 <tt><ref id="set" name="unset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4457 <tt><ref id="source" name="source"></tt> <em/filename/
4459 <tt><ref id="spam" name="spam"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/format/
4461 <tt><ref id="spam" name="nospam"></tt> <em/pattern/
4463 <tt><ref id="lists" name="subscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4465 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unsubscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4467 <tt><ref id="set" name="toggle"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4469 <tt><ref id="unhook" name="unhook"></tt> <em/hook-type/
4472 <sect>Configuration variables<label id="variables">