+<!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Getting Started <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect>Basic Concepts <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special
+ purpose:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>The <em/index/ displays the contents of the currently opened
+ mailbox.
+
+ <item>The <em/pager/ is responsible for displaying messages, that
+ is, the header, the body and all attached parts.
+
+ <item>The <em/file browser/ offers operations on and displays
+ information of all folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
+
+ <item>The <em/sidebar/ offers a permanent view of which mailboxes
+ contain how many total, new and/or flagged mails.
+
+ <item>The <em/help screen/ lists for all currently available
+ commands how to invoke them as well as a short description.
+
+ <item>The <em/compose/ menu is a comfortable interface take last
+ actions before sending mail: change subjects, attach files, remove
+ attachements, etc.
+
+ <item>The <em/attachement/ menu gives a summary and the tree
+ structure of the attachements of the current message.
+
+ <item>The <em/alias/ menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases
+ a user has defined.
+
+ <item>The <em/key/ menu used in connection with encryption lets
+ users choose the right key to encrypt with.
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <p>When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open
+ the users default mailbox and display the index.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Configuration <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng does <em/not/ feature an internal configuration
+ interface or menu due to the simple fact that this would be too
+ complex to handle (currently there are several <em/hundred/
+ variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow
+ users to add comments or manage them via version control systems
+ to ease maintenance.
+
+ <p>Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named <tt/grml-muttng/
+ kindly contributed by users which really helps and eases the
+ creation of a user's configuration file. When downloading the
+ source code via a snapshot or via subversion, it can be found in
+ the <tt/contrib/ directory.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Functions <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions:
+ internally, every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named
+ ``function.'' Those functions are assigned to keys (or even key
+ sequences) and may be completely adjusted to user's needs. The
+ basic idea is that the impatient users get a very intuitive
+ interface to start off with and advanced users virtually get no
+ limits to adjustments.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Interaction <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
+
+ <enum>
+
+ <item>There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query
+ the user for input, issue any command, query variables and
+ display error and informational messages. As for every type of
+ user input, this requires manual action leading to the need of
+ input.
+
+ <item>The automatized interface for interaction are the so
+ called <em/hooks/. Hooks specify actions the user wants to be
+ performed at well-defined situations: what to do when entering
+ which folder, what to do when displaying or replying to what
+ kind of message, etc. These are optional, i.e. a user doesn't
+ need to specify them but can do so.
+
+ </enum>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many
+ features can be delegated to external tools to increase
+ flexibility: users can define programs to filter a message through
+ before displaying, users can use any program they want for
+ displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or PostScript)
+ for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be rendered
+ by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
+ mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for
+ nearly every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases
+ or just the list of locally known users.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Patterns <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is
+ as widely used as possible to present a consistent interface to
+ users. The same ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching,
+ scoring, message selection and much more.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Index <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The index is the screen that you usually see first when you
+ start mutt-ng. It gives an overview over your emails in the
+ currently opened mailbox. By default, this is your system mailbox.
+ The information you see in the index is a list of emails, each with
+ its number on the left, its flags (new email, important email,
+ email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...),
+ the date when email was sent, its sender, the email size, and the
+ subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread hierarchies:
+ when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you
+ can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
+ especially useful for personal email between a group of people or
+ when you've subscribed to mailing lists.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Pager <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the
+ top of the pager you have an overview over the most important email
+ headers like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more
+ information. How much information you actually see depends on your
+ configuration, which we'll describe below.
+
+ <p>Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains
+ the message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see
+ more information about them below the email body, or, if the
+ attachments are text files, you can view them directly in the
+ pager.
+
+ <p>To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure
+ mutt-ng to show different things in the pager with different
+ colors. Virtually everything that can be described with a regular
+ expression can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>File Browser <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The file browser is the interface to the local or remote
+ file system. When selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows
+ custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular
+ expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in
+ which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the
+ file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message, select
+ multiple files to attach and many more.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Sidebar <!--{{{-->