3 <!doctype linuxdoc system>
7 <title>The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client
8 <author>by Andreas Krennmair <htmlurl url="mailto:ak@synflood.at" name="<ak@synflood.at>"> and others
9 originally based on <em>mutt</em> by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>"> and others
10 <date>version @VERSION@
12 Michael Elinks on mutt, circa 1995: ``All mail clients suck.
13 This one just sucks less.'' - Sven Guckes on mutt, ca. 2003: ``But it still sucks!''
18 <chapt>Introduction <!--{{{-->
20 <sect>Overview <!--{{{-->
22 <bf/Mutt-ng/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng is
23 highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced
24 features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular
25 expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting
28 <p>This documentation additionally contains documentation to <bf/Mutt-NG/, a
29 fork from Mutt with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
30 integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the web, and to
31 add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng will be discussed in
32 an extra section. Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk about
33 Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many more.
37 <sect>Mutt-ng Home Page <!--{{{-->
39 <htmlurl url="http://www.muttng.org/"
40 name="http://www.muttng.org">
44 <sect>Mailing Lists <!--{{{-->
48 <item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-users"
49 name="mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de"> -- This is where the mutt-ng user support happens.
50 <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
55 <sect>Software Distribution Sites <!--{{{-->
57 So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download
58 daily snapshots from <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/" name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/">
64 Visit channel <em/#muttng/ on <htmlurl
65 url="http://www.freenode.net/" name="irc.freenode.net
66 (www.freenode.net)"> to chat with other people interested in Mutt-ng.
70 <sect>Weblog <!--{{{-->
72 If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in Mutt-ng, and get informed
73 about stuff like interesting, Mutt-ng-related articles and packages for your favorite
74 distribution, you can read and/or subscribe to our
75 <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.supersized.org/" name="Mutt-ng development weblog">.
79 <sect>Copyright <!--{{{-->
81 Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins
82 <me@cs.hmc.edu> and others
84 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
85 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
86 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
87 (at your option) any later version.
89 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
90 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
91 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
92 GNU General Public License for more details.
94 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
95 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
96 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
102 <chapt>Getting Started <!--{{{-->
104 <sect>Basic Concepts <!--{{{-->
106 <sect1>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
108 <p>mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special
113 <item>The <em/index/ displays the contents of the currently opened
116 <item>The <em/pager/ is responsible for displaying messages, that
117 is, the header, the body and all attached parts.
119 <item>The <em/file browser/ offers operations on and displays
120 information of all folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
122 <item>The <em/sidebar/ offers a permanent view of which mailboxes
123 contain how many total, new and/or flagged mails.
125 <item>The <em/help screen/ lists for all currently available
126 commands how to invoke them as well as a short description.
128 <item>The <em/compose/ menu is a comfortable interface take last
129 actions before sending mail: change subjects, attach files, remove
132 <item>The <em/attachement/ menu gives a summary and the tree
133 structure of the attachements of the current message.
135 <item>The <em/alias/ menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases
138 <item>The <em/key/ menu used in connection with encryption lets
139 users choose the right key to encrypt with.
143 <p>When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open
144 the users default mailbox and display the index.
148 <sect1>Configuration <!--{{{-->
150 <p>Mutt-ng does <em/not/ feature an internal configuration
151 interface or menu due to the simple fact that this would be too
152 complex to handle (currently there are several <em/hundred/
153 variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
155 <p>Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow
156 users to add comments or manage them via version control systems
159 <p>Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named <tt/grml-muttng/
160 kindly contributed by users which really helps and eases the
161 creation of a user's configuration file. When downloading the
162 source code via a snapshot or via subversion, it can be found in
163 the <tt/contrib/ directory.
167 <sect1>Functions <!--{{{-->
169 <p>Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions:
170 internally, every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named
171 ``function.'' Those functions are assigned to keys (or even key
172 sequences) and may be completely adjusted to user's needs. The
173 basic idea is that the impatient users get a very intuitive
174 interface to start off with and advanced users virtually get no
175 limits to adjustments.
179 <sect1>Interaction <!--{{{-->
181 <p>Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
185 <item>There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query
186 the user for input, issue any command, query variables and
187 display error and informational messages. As for every type of
188 user input, this requires manual action leading to the need of
191 <item>The automatized interface for interaction are the so
192 called <em/hooks/. Hooks specify actions the user wants to be
193 performed at well-defined situations: what to do when entering
194 which folder, what to do when displaying or replying to what
195 kind of message, etc. These are optional, i.e. a user doesn't
196 need to specify them but can do so.
202 <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
204 <p>Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many
205 features can be delegated to external tools to increase
206 flexibility: users can define programs to filter a message through
207 before displaying, users can use any program they want for
208 displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or PostScript)
209 for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be rendered
210 by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
211 mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for
212 nearly every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases
213 or just the list of locally known users.
217 <sect1>Patterns <!--{{{-->
219 <p>Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is
220 as widely used as possible to present a consistent interface to
221 users. The same ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching,
222 scoring, message selection and much more.
228 <sect>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
230 <sect1>Index <!--{{{-->
232 <p>The index is the screen that you usually see first when you
233 start mutt-ng. It gives an overview over your emails in the
234 currently opened mailbox. By default, this is your system mailbox.
235 The information you see in the index is a list of emails, each with
236 its number on the left, its flags (new email, important email,
237 email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...),
238 the date when email was sent, its sender, the email size, and the
239 subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread hierarchies:
240 when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you
241 can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
242 especially useful for personal email between a group of people or
243 when you've subscribed to mailing lists.
247 <sect1>Pager <!--{{{-->
249 <p>The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the
250 top of the pager you have an overview over the most important email
251 headers like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more
252 information. How much information you actually see depends on your
253 configuration, which we'll describe below.
255 <p>Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains
256 the message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see
257 more information about them below the email body, or, if the
258 attachments are text files, you can view them directly in the
261 <p>To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure
262 mutt-ng to show different things in the pager with different
263 colors. Virtually everything that can be described with a regular
264 expression can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
268 <sect1>File Browser <!--{{{-->
270 <p>The file browser is the interface to the local or remote
271 file system. When selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows
272 custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular
273 expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in
274 which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the
275 file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message, select
276 multiple files to attach and many more.
280 <sect1>Sidebar <!--{{{-->
282 <p>The sidebar comes in handy to manage mails which are spread
283 over different folders. All folders users setup mutt-ng to watch
284 for new mail will be listed. The listing includes not only the
285 name but also the number of total messages, the number of new and
286 flagged messages. Items with new mail may be colored different
287 from those with flagged mail, items may be shortened or compress
288 if they're they to long to be printed in full form so that by
289 abbreviated names, user still now what the name stands for.
293 <sect1>Help <!--{{{-->
295 <p>The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It
296 lists the current configuration of key bindings and their
297 associated commands including a short description, and currently
298 unbound functions that still need to be associated with a key
299 binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the mutt-ng
304 <sect1>Compose Menu <!--{{{-->
306 <p>The compose menu features a split screen containing the
307 information which really matter before actually sending a
308 message by mail or posting an article to a newsgroup: who gets
309 the message as what (recipient, newsgroup, who gets what kind of
310 copy). Additionally, users may set security options like
311 deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and encrypt a message
314 <p>Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to
315 a message, to re-edit any attachment including the message
320 <sect1>Alias Menu <!--{{{-->
322 <p>The alias menu is used to help users finding the recipients
323 of messages. For users who need to contact many people, there's
324 no need to remember addresses or names completely because it
325 allows for searching, too. The alias mechanism and thus the
326 alias menu also features grouping several addresses by a shorter
327 nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select
328 each single recipient manually.
332 <sect1>Attachment Menu <!--{{{-->
334 <p>As will be later discussed in detail, mutt-ng features a good
335 and stable MIME implementation, that is, is greatly supports
336 sending and receiving messages of arbitrary type. The
337 attachment menu displays a message's structure in detail: what
338 content parts are attached to which parent part (which gives a
339 true tree structure), which type is of what type and what size.
340 Single parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and
341 easy access to message's internals.
345 <sect1>Key Menu <!--{{{-->
353 <sect>Moving Around in Menus <!--{{{-->
356 Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table
357 showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng.
360 j or Down next-entry move to the next entry
361 k or Up previous-entry move to the previous entry
362 z or PageDn page-down go to the next page
363 Z or PageUp page-up go to the previous page
364 = or Home first-entry jump to the first entry
365 * or End last-entry jump to the last entry
366 q quit exit the current menu
367 ? help list all key bindings for the current menu
372 <sect>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing"> <!--{{{-->
374 Mutt-ng has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input
375 textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to move
376 around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
379 ^A or <Home> bol move to the start of the line
380 ^B or <Left> backward-char move back one char
381 Esc B backward-word move back one word
382 ^D or <Delete> delete-char delete the char under the cursor
383 ^E or <End> eol move to the end of the line
384 ^F or <Right> forward-char move forward one char
385 Esc F forward-word move forward one word
386 <Tab> complete complete filename or alias
387 ^T complete-query complete address with query
388 ^K kill-eol delete to the end of the line
389 ESC d kill-eow delete to the end of the word
390 ^W kill-word kill the word in front of the cursor
391 ^U kill-line delete entire line
392 ^V quote-char quote the next typed key
393 <Up> history-up recall previous string from history
394 <Down> history-down recall next string from history
395 <BackSpace> backspace kill the char in front of the cursor
396 Esc u upcase-word convert word to upper case
397 Esc l downcase-word convert word to lower case
398 Esc c capitalize-word capitalize the word
400 <Return> n/a finish editing
403 You can remap the <em/editor/ functions using the <ref id="bind" name="bind">
404 command. For example, to make the <em/Delete/ key delete the character in
405 front of the cursor rather than under, you could use
407 <tt/bind editor <delete> backspace/
411 <sect>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager <!--{{{-->
414 Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is
415 read in Mutt-ng. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is
416 called the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display of the
417 message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
419 The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
422 <sect1>The Message Index
426 c change to a different mailbox
427 ESC c change to a folder in read-only mode
428 C copy the current message to another mailbox
429 ESC C decode a message and copy it to a folder
430 ESC s decode a message and save it to a folder
431 D delete messages matching a pattern
432 d delete the current message
434 l show messages matching a pattern
435 N mark message as new
436 o change the current sort method
437 O reverse sort the mailbox
438 q save changes and exit
440 T tag messages matching a pattern
441 t toggle the tag on a message
442 ESC t toggle tag on entire message thread
443 U undelete messages matching a pattern
446 x abort changes and exit
447 <Return> display-message
448 <Tab> jump to the next new message
449 @ show the author's full e-mail address
450 $ save changes to mailbox
453 ^L clear and redraw the screen
454 ^T untag messages matching a pattern
460 In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of
461 the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number.
462 Zero or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean:
466 <tag/D/ message is deleted (is marked for deletion)
467 <tag/d/ message have attachments marked for deletion
468 <tag/K/ contains a PGP public key
469 <tag/N/ message is new
470 <tag/O/ message is old
471 <tag/P/ message is PGP encrypted
472 <tag/r/ message has been replied to
473 <tag/S/ message is signed, and the signature is succesfully verified
474 <tag/s/ message is signed
475 <tag/!/ message is flagged
476 <tag/*/ message is tagged
479 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using
481 <item><bf/set-flag/ (default: w)
482 <item><bf/clear-flag/ (default: W)
486 Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed
487 to. They can be customized with the
488 <ref id="to_chars" name="$to_chars"> variable.
492 <tag/+/ message is to you and you only
493 <tag/T/ message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others
494 <tag/C/ message is cc'ed to you
495 <tag/F/ message is from you
496 <tag/L/ message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
502 By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages.
503 The pager is very similar to the Unix program <em/less/ though not nearly as
507 <Return> go down one line
508 <Space> display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message)
509 - go back to the previous page
510 n search for next match
511 S skip beyond quoted text
512 T toggle display of quoted text
514 / search for a regular expression (pattern)
515 ESC / search backwards for a regular expression
516 \ toggle search pattern coloring
517 ^ jump to the top of the message
520 In addition, many of the functions from the <em/index/ are available in
521 the pager, such as <em/delete-message/ or <em/copy-message/ (this is one
522 advantage over using an external pager to view messages).
524 Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For
525 one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences for
526 bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter,
527 backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace,
528 ``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt-ng will attempt to display these
529 in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If
530 not, you can use the bold and underline <ref id="color" name="color">
531 objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them.
533 Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for
534 character attributes. Mutt-ng translates them into the correct color and
535 character settings. The sequences Mutt-ng supports are:
539 ESC [ Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps m
546 3x Foreground color is x
547 4x Background color is x
560 Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they
561 can also be used by an external <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">
562 script for highlighting purposes. <bf/Note:/ If you change the colors for your
563 display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for
564 your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green.
566 <sect1>Threaded Mode<label id="threads">
568 When the mailbox is <ref id="sort" name="sorted"> by <em/threads/, there are
569 a few additional functions available in the <em/index/ and <em/pager/ modes.
572 ^D delete-thread delete all messages in the current thread
573 ^U undelete-thread undelete all messages in the current thread
574 ^N next-thread jump to the start of the next thread
575 ^P previous-thread jump to the start of the previous thread
576 ^R read-thread mark the current thread as read
577 ESC d delete-subthread delete all messages in the current subthread
578 ESC u undelete-subthread undelete all messages in the current subthread
579 ESC n next-subthread jump to the start of the next subthread
580 ESC p previous-subthread jump to the start of the previous subthread
581 ESC r read-subthread mark the current subthread as read
582 ESC t tag-thread toggle the tag on the current thread
583 ESC v collapse-thread toggle collapse for the current thread
584 ESC V collapse-all toggle collapse for all threads
585 P parent-message jump to parent message in thread
588 <bf/Note:/ Collapsing a thread displays only the first message
589 in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads
590 contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads on
591 the screen. See %M in <ref id="index_format"name="$index_format">.
592 For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in <ref
593 id="index_format"name="$index_format"> to optionally
594 display the number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
596 See also: <ref id="strict_threads" name="$strict_threads">.
598 <sect1>Miscellaneous Functions
599 <p><bf/create-alias/<label id="create-alias"> (default: a)<newline>
601 Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a
602 new one). Once editing is complete, an <ref id="alias" name="alias">
603 command is added to the file specified by the <ref id="alias_file"
604 name="$alias_file"> variable for future use. <bf/Note:/
605 Specifying an <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file">
606 does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also <ref
607 id="source" name="source"> the file.
609 <p><bf/check-traditional-pgp/<label id="check-traditional-pgp"> (default: ESC P)<newline>
611 This function will search the current message for content signed or
612 encrypted with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper
613 MIME tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change
614 the MIME content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this
615 is similar to the <ref id="edit-type" name="edit-type"> function's
619 <p><bf/display-toggle-weed/<label id="display-toggle-weed"> (default: h)<newline>
621 Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by <ref id="ignore"
622 name="ignore"> commands.
624 <p><bf/edit/<label id="edit"> (default: e)<newline>
626 This command (available in the ``index'' and ``pager'') allows you to
627 edit the raw current message as it's present in the mail folder.
628 After you have finished editing, the changed message will be
629 appended to the current folder, and the original message will be
632 <p><bf/edit-type/<label id="edit-type"><newline>
633 (default: ^E on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index menus; ^T on the
636 This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content
637 type to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When
638 invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the
639 opportunity to edit the top-level attachment's content type. On the
640 <ref id="attach_menu" name="attachment menu">, you can change any
641 attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get
642 lost upon changing folders.
644 Note that this command is also available on the <ref
645 id="compose_menu" name="compose menu">. There, it's used to
646 fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send.
648 <p><bf/enter-command/<label id="enter-command"> (default: ``:'')<newline>
650 This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a
651 configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or
652 in conjunction with <ref id="macro" name="macros"> to change settings on the
655 <p><bf/extract-keys/<label id="extract-keys"> (default: ^K)<newline>
657 This command extracts PGP public keys from the current or tagged
658 message(s) and adds them to your PGP public key ring.
660 <p><bf/forget-passphrase/<label id="forget-passphrase"> (default:
663 This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if
664 you misspelled the passphrase.
666 <p><bf/list-reply/<label id="list-reply"> (default: L)<newline>
668 Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which
669 match the regular expressions given by the <ref id="lists" name="lists or subscribe">
670 commands, but also honor any <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header(s) if the
671 <ref id="honor_followup_to" name="$honor_followup_to">
672 configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted
673 to mailing lists helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of
674 the message you are replying to.
676 <bf/pipe-message/<label id="pipe-message"> (default: |)<newline>
678 Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or
679 tagged message(s) to it. The variables <ref id="pipe_decode"
680 name="$pipe_decode">, <ref id="pipe_split"
681 name="$pipe_split">, <ref id="pipe_sep"
682 name="$pipe_sep"> and <ref id="wait_key"
683 name="$wait_key"> control the exact behavior of this
686 <bf/resend-message/<label id="resend-message"> (default: ESC e)<newline>
688 With resend-message, mutt takes the current message as a template for a
689 new message. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary
690 folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while
691 preserving the original mail structure. Note that the amount of headers
692 included here depends on the value of the <ref id="weed" name="$weed">
695 This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this
696 to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message
697 as a message/rfc822 body part.
699 <bf/shell-escape/<label id="shell-escape"> (default: !)<newline>
701 Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref
702 id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> can be used to control
703 whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns
704 (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on
705 the return status of the named command.
707 <bf/toggle-quoted/<label id="toggle-quoted"> (default: T)<newline>
709 The <em/pager/ uses the <ref id="quote_regexp"
710 name="$quote_regexp"> variable to detect quoted text when
711 displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display
712 of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when
713 are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of
714 quoted text in the way.
716 <bf/skip-quoted/<label id="skip-quoted"> (default: S)<newline>
718 This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come
719 after a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
723 <sect>Sending Mail <!--{{{-->
726 The following bindings are available in the <em/index/ for sending
730 m compose compose a new message
731 r reply reply to sender
732 g group-reply reply to all recipients
733 L list-reply reply to mailing list address
734 f forward forward message
735 b bounce bounce (remail) message
736 ESC k mail-key mail a PGP public key to someone
739 Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you
740 specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or
741 modify the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed
742 in greater detail in the next chapter <ref id="forwarding_mail"
743 name="``Forwarding and Bouncing Mail''">.
745 <sect1>Composing new messages <!--{{{-->
747 <p>When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press <tt/m/ on
748 your keyboard. Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in
755 <p>After you've finished entering the recipient(s), press return. If you
756 want to send an email to more than one recipient, separate the email
757 addresses using the comma "<tt/,/". Mutt-ng then asks you for the email
758 subject. Again, press return after you've entered it. After that, mutt-ng
759 got the most important information from you, and starts up an editor
760 where you can then enter your email.
762 <p>The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you
763 can e.g. set it in the mutt-ng configuration:
766 set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'"
771 <p>If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng
772 first looks whether the environment variable <tt/$VISUAL/ is set, and if
773 so, it takes its value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look
774 at <tt/$EDITOR/ and takes its value if it is set. If no editor command
775 can be found, mutt-ng simply assumes <tt/vi/ to be the default editor,
776 since it's the most widespread editor in the Unix world and it's pretty
777 safe to assume that it is installed and available.
779 <p>When you've finished entering your message, save it and quit your
780 editor. Mutt-ng will then present you with a summary screen, the compose menu.
781 On the top, you see a summary of the most important available key commands.
782 Below that, you see the sender, the recipient(s), Cc and/or Bcc
783 recipient(s), the subject, the reply-to address, and optionally
784 information where the sent email will be stored and whether it should
785 be digitally signed and/or encrypted.
787 <p>Below that, you see a list of "attachments". The mail you've just
788 entered before is also an attachment, but due to its special type
789 (it's plain text), it will be displayed as the normal message on
792 <p>At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing <tt/a/, you
793 can edit the recipient addresses, pressing <tt/t/ for the "To:" field,
794 <tt/c/ for the "Cc:" field, and <tt/b/ for the "Bcc: field. You can
795 also edit the subject the subject by simply pressing <tt/s/ or the
796 email message that you've entered before by pressing <tt/e/. You will
797 then again return to the editor. You can even edit the sender, by pressing
798 <tt/<esc>f/, but this shall only be used with caution.
800 <p>Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the
801 above settings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only
802 need to add the following to your configuration:
808 <p>Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
809 returned to the <em/compose/ menu. The following options are available:
812 a attach-file attach a file
813 A attach-message attach message(s) to the message
814 ESC k attach-key attach a PGP public key
815 d edit-description edit description on attachment
816 D detach-file detach a file
817 t edit-to edit the To field
818 ESC f edit-from edit the From field
819 r edit-reply-to edit the Reply-To field
820 c edit-cc edit the Cc field
821 b edit-bcc edit the Bcc field
822 y send-message send the message
823 s edit-subject edit the Subject
824 S smime-menu select S/MIME options
825 f edit-fcc specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox
826 p pgp-menu select PGP options
827 P postpone-message postpone this message until later
828 q quit quit (abort) sending the message
829 w write-fcc write the message to a folder
830 i ispell check spelling (if available on your system)
831 ^F forget-passphrase wipe passphrase(s) from memory
834 <bf/Note:/ The attach-message function will prompt you for a folder to
835 attach messages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and they
836 will be attached to the message you are sending. Note that certain
837 operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are
838 not permitted when you are in that folder. The %r in <ref
839 id="status_format" name="$status_format"> will change to
840 a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
844 <sect1>Replying <!--{{{-->
846 <sect2>Simple Replies <!--{{{-->
848 <p>When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index
849 menu and then press <tt/r/. Mutt-ng's behaviour is then similar to the
850 behaviour when you compose a message: first, you will be asked for
851 the recipient, then for the subject, and then, mutt-ng will start
852 the editor with the quote attribution and the quoted message. This
853 can e.g. look like the example below.
856 On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:02:12PM +0100, Michael Svensson wrote:
857 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
858 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
859 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
860 > project will go live.
863 <p>You can start editing the email message. It is strongly
864 recommended to put your answer <em/below/ the quoted text and to
865 only quote what is really necessary and that you refer to. Putting
866 your answer on top of the quoted message, is, although very
867 widespread, very often not considered to be a polite way to answer
870 <p>The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to
872 set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:"
875 <p>It can also be set to something more compact, e.g.
877 set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:"
880 <p>The example above results in the following attribution:
882 * Michael Svensson <svensson@foobar.com> [05-03-06 17:02]:
883 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
884 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
885 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
886 > project will go live.
889 <p>Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet
890 information-rich. It is <em/not/ the right place for witty quotes,
891 long "attribution" novels or anything like that: the right place
892 for such things is - if at all - the email signature at the very
893 bottom of the message.
895 <p>When you're done with writing your message, save and quit the
896 editor. As before, you will return to the compose menu, which is
897 used in the same way as before.
901 <sect2>Group Replies <!--{{{-->
903 <p>In the situation where a group of people uses email as a
904 discussion, most of the emails will have one or more recipients,
905 and probably several "Cc:" recipients. The group reply functionality
906 ensures that when you press <tt/g/ instead of <tt/r/ to do a reply,
907 each and every recipient that is contained in the original message
908 will receive a copy of the message, either as normal recipient or
913 <sect2>List Replies <!--{{{-->
915 <p>When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your
916 reply to a message only to the list instead of the list and the
917 original author. To make this easy to use, mutt-ng features list
920 <p>To do a list reply, simply press <tt/L/. If the email contains
921 a <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header, its value will be used as reply
922 address. Otherwise, mutt-ng searches through all mail addresses in
923 the original message and tries to match them a list of regular
924 expressions which can be specified using the <tt/lists/ command.
925 If any of the regular expression matches, a mailing
926 list address has been found, and it will be used as reply address.
929 lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@
932 <p>Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a
933 <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header to their emails anyway, so setting
934 <tt/lists/ is hardly ever necessary in practice.
940 <sect1>Editing the message header <!--{{{-->
942 When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of
943 special features available.
945 If you specify<newline>
946 <tt/Fcc:/ <em/filename/<newline>
947 Mutt-ng will pick up <em/filename/
948 just as if you had used the <em/edit-fcc/ function in the <em/compose/ menu.
950 You can also attach files to your message by specifying<newline>
951 <tt/Attach:/ <em/filename/ [ <em/description/ ]<newline>
952 where <em/filename/ is the file to attach and <em/description/ is an
953 optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
955 When replying to messages, if you remove the <em/In-Reply-To:/ field from
956 the header field, Mutt-ng will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which
957 allows you to create a new message thread.
959 Also see <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers">.
963 <sect1>Using Mutt-ng with PGP <!--{{{-->
966 If you want to use PGP, you can specify
968 <tt/Pgp:/ [ <tt/E/ | <tt/S/ | <tt/S/<em/<id>/ ] <newline>
970 ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and
971 ``S<id>'' signs with the given key, setting <ref
972 id="pgp_sign_as" name="$pgp_sign_as"> permanently.
974 If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you
975 through a key selection process when you try to send the message.
976 Mutt-ng will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
977 certified user ID matching one of the message recipients' mail
978 addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are
979 several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching
982 In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from
983 which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't
984 find any matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as
985 usually, abort this prompt using <tt/^G/. When you do so, mutt will
986 return to the compose screen.
988 Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message
989 will be encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out.
991 Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also <ref
992 id="pgp_entry_format" name="$pgp_entry_format">)
993 have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the capabilities, flags,
994 and validity fields are in order.
996 The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following flags:
998 R The key has been revoked and can't be used.
999 X The key is expired and can't be used.
1000 d You have marked the key as disabled.
1001 c There are unknown critical self-signature
1005 The capabilities field (%c) expands to a two-character sequence
1006 representing a key's capabilities. The first character gives
1007 the key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (<bf/-/) means
1008 that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (<bf/./) means that
1009 it's marked as a signature key in one of the user IDs, but may
1010 also be used for encryption. The letter <bf/e/ indicates that
1011 this key can be used for encryption.
1013 The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once
1014 again, a ``<bf/-/'' implies ``not for signing'', ``<bf/./'' implies
1015 that the key is marked as an encryption key in one of the user-ids, and
1016 ``<bf/s/'' denotes a key which can be used for signing.
1018 Finally, the validity field (%t) indicates how well-certified a user-id
1019 is. A question mark (<bf/?/) indicates undefined validity, a minus
1020 character (<bf/-/) marks an untrusted association, a space character
1021 means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (<bf/+/)
1022 indicates complete validity.
1026 <sect1>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster <!--{{{-->
1029 You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
1030 anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages
1031 anonymously using a chain of remailers. Mixmaster support in mutt is for
1032 mixmaster version 2.04 (beta 45 appears to be the latest) and 2.03.
1033 It does not support earlier versions or the later so-called version 3 betas,
1034 of which the latest appears to be called 2.9b23.
1036 To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most
1037 important, you cannot use the <tt/Cc/ and <tt/Bcc/ headers. To tell
1038 Mutt-ng to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
1039 the mix function on the compose menu.
1041 The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the
1042 (larger) upper part, you get a list of remailers you may use. In
1043 the lower part, you see the currently selected chain of remailers.
1045 You can navigate in the chain using the <tt/chain-prev/ and
1046 <tt/chain-next/ functions, which are by default bound to the left
1047 and right arrows and to the <tt/h/ and <tt/l/ keys (think vi
1048 keyboard bindings). To insert a remailer at the current chain
1049 position, use the <tt/insert/ function. To append a remailer behind
1050 the current chain position, use <tt/select-entry/ or <tt/append/.
1051 You can also delete entries from the chain, using the corresponding
1052 function. Finally, to abandon your changes, leave the menu, or
1053 <tt/accept/ them pressing (by default) the <tt/Return/ key.
1055 Note that different remailers do have different capabilities,
1056 indicated in the %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see
1057 <ref id="mix_entry_format"
1058 name="$mix_entry_format">). Most important is
1059 the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a capital ``M'': This
1060 means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final
1061 element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other
1062 mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please
1063 have a look at the mixmaster documentation.
1069 <sect>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail<label id="forwarding_mail"> <!--{{{-->
1071 <p>Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people.
1072 Therefore, mutt-ng supports forwarding messages in two different
1075 <p>The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from
1076 other mail clients. You simply press <tt/f/, enter the recipient
1077 email address, the subject of the forwarded email, and then you can
1078 edit the message to be forwarded in the editor. The forwarded
1079 message is separated from the rest of the message via the two
1083 ----- Forwarded message from Lucas User <luser@example.com> -----
1085 From: Lucas User <luser@example.com>
1086 Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100
1087 To: Michael Random <mrandom@example.com>
1088 Subject: Re: blackmail
1090 Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die
1094 ----- End forwarded message -----</verb>
1096 <p>When you're done with editing the mail, save and quit the editor,
1097 and you will return to the compose menu, the same menu you also
1098 encounter when composing or replying to mails.
1100 <p>The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the
1101 so-called <em/bouncing/: when you bounce an email to another
1102 address, it will be sent in practically the same format you send it
1103 (except for headers that are created during transporting the
1104 message). To bounce a message, press <tt/b/ and enter the recipient
1105 email address. By default, you are then asked whether you really
1106 want to bounce the message to the specified recipient. If you answer
1107 with yes, the message will then be bounced.
1109 <p>To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it
1110 like a regular email where he was <tt/Bcc:/ recipient. The only
1111 possibility to find out whether it was a bounced email is to
1112 carefully study the email headers and to find out which host really
1117 <sect>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail"> <!--{{{-->
1120 At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have
1121 already begun to compose. When the <em/postpone-message/ function is
1122 used in the <em/compose/ menu, the body of your message and attachments
1123 are stored in the mailbox specified by the <ref id="postponed"
1124 name="$postponed"> variable. This means that you can recall the
1125 message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later time.
1127 Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the
1128 command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <em/compose/ a new
1129 message from the <em/index/ or <em/pager/ you will be prompted if postponed
1130 messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the
1131 <em/postponed/ menu will pop up and you can select which message you would
1134 <bf/Note:/ If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of
1135 the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and
1136 send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you
1137 replied to for the status of the message to be updated.
1139 See also the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> quad-option.
1145 <chapt>Configuration <!--{{{-->
1147 <sect>Locations of Configuration Files <!--{{{-->
1148 <p>While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable right out
1149 of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt-ng to suit your own tastes. When
1150 Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configuration
1151 file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the ``-n'' <ref
1152 id="commandline" name="command line"> option is specified. This file is
1153 typically <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc</tt> or <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>,
1154 Mutt-ng users will find this file in <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc</tt> or
1155 <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>. Mutt will next look for a file named <tt>.muttrc</tt>
1156 in your home directory, Mutt-ng will look for <tt>.muttngrc</tt>. If this file
1157 does not exist and your home directory has a subdirectory named <tt/.mutt/,
1158 mutt try to load a file named <tt>.muttng/muttngrc</tt>.
1160 <tt>.muttrc</tt> (or <tt>.muttngrc</tt> for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will
1161 usually place your <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt-ng.
1165 <sect>Basic Syntax of Initialization Files<label id="muttrc-syntax"> <!--{{{-->
1168 An initialization file consists of a series of <ref id="commands"
1169 name="commands">. Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
1170 When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (;).
1172 set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x-
1174 The hash mark, or pound sign
1175 (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to
1176 annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character
1177 to the end of the line is ignored. For example,
1180 my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment
1183 Single quotes (') and double quotes (&dquot;) can be used to quote strings
1184 which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between
1185 the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs,
1186 namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is
1187 not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see
1188 next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which
1189 should be evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of double
1190 quotes, but <bf/not/ for single quotes.
1192 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh.
1193 For example, if want to put quotes ``&dquot;'' inside of a string, you can use
1194 ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted
1197 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1200 ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line.
1201 ``\n'' and ``\r'' have their usual C meanings of linefeed and
1202 carriage-return, respectively.
1204 A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over
1205 multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the
1206 middle of command names.
1208 Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a ``\''
1209 at the end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a command
1210 split over multiple lines with only one ``#''.
1214 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1217 When testing your config files, beware the following caveat. The backslash
1218 at the end of the commented line extends the current line with the next line
1219 - then referred to as a ``continuation line''. As the first line is
1220 commented with a hash (#) all following continuation lines are also
1221 part of a comment and therefore are ignored, too. So take care of comments
1222 when continuation lines are involved within your setup files!
1234 line1 ``continues'' until line4. however, the part after the # is a
1235 comment which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own and
1236 thus is interpreted again.
1238 The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs.
1239 For a complete list, see the <ref id="commands" name="command reference">.
1243 <sect>Expansion within variables <!--{{{-->
1245 <p>Besides just assign static content to variables, there's plenty of
1246 ways of adding external and more or less dynamic content.
1248 <sect1>Commands' Output
1250 <p>It is possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
1251 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command
1252 in backquotes (``) as in, for example:
1255 my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a`
1258 <p>The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted
1259 before the line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are
1260 line oriented, only the first line of output from the Unix command
1261 will be substituted.
1263 <sect1>Environment Variables
1265 <p>UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in
1266 shells like sh and bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a
1267 ``$'' sign. For example,
1270 set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME
1273 <p>sets the <ref id="record" name="$record"> variable to the
1274 string <em/+sent_on_/ and appends the value of the evironment
1275 variable <tt>$HOSTNAME</tt>.
1277 <p><bf/Note:/ There will be no warning if an environment variable
1278 is not defined. The result will of the expansion will then be empty.
1280 <sect1>Configuration Variables
1282 <p>As for environment variables, the values of all configuration
1283 variables as string can be used in the same way, too. For example,
1286 set imap_home_namespace = $folder
1289 <p>would set the value of <ref id="imap_home_namespace"
1290 name="$imap_home_namespace"> to the value to
1291 which <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> is <em/currently/ set
1294 <p><bf/Note:/ There're no logical links established in such cases so
1295 that the the value for <ref id="imap_home_namespace"
1296 name="$imap_home_namespace"> won't change even
1297 if <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> gets changed.
1299 <p><bf/Note:/ There will be no warning if a configuration variable
1300 is not defined or is empty. The result will of the expansion will
1303 <sect1>Self-Defined Variables
1305 <p>Mutt-ng flexibly allows users to define their own variables. To
1306 avoid conflicts with the standard set and to prevent misleading
1307 error messages, there's a reserved namespace for them: all
1308 user-defined variables must be prefixed with <tt/user_/ and can be
1309 used just like any ordinary configuration or environment
1312 <p>For example, to view the manual, users can either define two
1313 macros like the following
1316 macro generic <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"
1317 macro pager <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"
1320 <p>for <tt/generic/, <tt/pager/ and <tt/index/. The alternative is to
1321 define a custom variable like so:
1324 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r /path/to_manual"
1325 macro generic <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1326 macro pager <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1327 macro index <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1330 <p>to re-use the command sequence as in:
1333 macro index <F2> "$user_manualcmd | grep '\^[ ]\\+~. '" "Show Patterns"
1336 <p>Using this feature, arbitrary sequences can be defined once and
1337 recalled and reused where necessary. More advanced scenarios could
1338 include to save a variable's value at the beginning of macro
1339 sequence and restore it at end.
1341 <p>When the variable is first defined, the first value it gets
1342 assigned is also the initial value to which it can be reset using
1343 the <tt/reset/ command.
1345 <p>The complete removal is done via the <tt/unset/ keyword.
1347 <p>After the following sequence:
1354 <p>the variable <tt>$user_foo</tt> has a current value of 666 and an
1355 initial of 42. The query
1361 <p>will show 666. After doing the reset via
1367 <p>a following query will give 42 as the result. After unsetting it
1374 <p>any query or operation (except the noted expansion within other
1375 statements) will lead to an error message.
1377 <sect1>Pre-Defined Variables
1379 <p>In order to allow users to share one setup over a number of
1380 different machines without having to change its contents, there's a
1381 number of pre-defined variables. These are prefixed with
1382 <tt/muttng_/ and are read-only, i.e. they cannot be set, unset or
1383 reset. The reference chapter lists all available variables.
1385 <p><em> Please consult the local copy of your manual for their
1386 values as they may differ from different manual sources.</em> Where
1387 the manual is installed in can be queried (already using such a
1388 variable) by running:
1391 muttng -Q muttng_docdir
1394 <p>To extend the example for viewing the manual via self-defined
1395 variables, it can be made more readable and more portable by
1396 changing the real path in:
1399 set user_manualcmd = '!less -r /path/to_manual'
1405 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r $muttng_docdir/manual.txt"
1408 <p>which works everywhere if a manual is installed.
1410 <p><em>Note: this is a draft feature and maybe subject to change in
1411 the near future.</em>
1413 <sect1>Type Conversions
1415 <p>A note about variable's types during conversion: internally
1416 values are stored in internal types but for any dump/query or set
1417 operation they're converted to and from string. That means that
1418 there's no need to worry about types when referencing any variable.
1419 As an example, the following can be used without harm (besides
1420 makeing muttng very likely behave strange):
1424 set folder = $read_inc
1425 set read_inc = $folder
1426 set user_magic_number = 42
1427 set folder = $user_magic_number
1432 <sect>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias"> <!--{{{-->
1435 Usage: <tt/alias/ <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
1437 It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone
1438 you are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create ``aliases'' which map
1439 a short string to a full address.
1441 <bf/Note:/ if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than
1442 one address), you <bf/must/ separate the addresses with a comma (``,'').
1444 To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases):
1446 <tt/unalias/ [ * | <em/key/ <em/.../ ]
1449 alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
1450 alias theguys manny, moe, jack
1453 Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined
1454 in a special file. The <tt/alias/ command can appear anywhere in
1455 a configuration file, as long as this file is <ref id="source"
1456 name="sourced">. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or
1457 you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc.
1459 On the other hand, the <ref id="create-alias" name="create-alias">
1460 function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <ref
1461 id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable (which is
1462 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> by default). This file is not special either,
1463 in the sense that Mutt-ng will happily append aliases to any file, but in
1464 order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly <ref
1465 id="source" name="source"> this file too.
1470 source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases
1471 source ~/.mail_aliases
1472 set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases
1475 To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt
1476 prompts for addresses, such as the <em/To:/ or <em/Cc:/ prompt. You can
1477 also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the
1478 <ref id="edit_headers" name="$edit_headers"> variable set.
1480 In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character
1481 to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches,
1482 mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be
1483 presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a partial
1484 alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting
1487 In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the
1488 <em/select-entry/ key (default: RET), and use the <em/exit/ key
1489 (default: q) to return to the address prompt.
1493 <sect>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind"> <!--{{{-->
1495 Usage: <tt/bind/ <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
1497 This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation
1498 invoked when pressing a key).
1500 <em/map/ specifies in which menu the binding belongs. Multiple maps may
1501 be specified by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace is
1502 allowed). The currently defined maps are:
1507 This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of the other
1508 menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not defined in
1509 another menu, Mutt-ng will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows
1510 you to bind a key to a certain function in multiple menus instead of having
1511 multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task.
1513 The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined in your
1514 muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full email
1515 address(es) of the recipient(s).
1517 The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on received messages.
1519 The browser is used for both browsing the local directory structure, and for
1520 listing all of your incoming mailboxes.
1522 The editor is the line-based editor the user enters text data.
1524 The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox.
1526 The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message.
1528 The pager is the mode used to display message/attachment data, and help
1531 The pgp menu is used to select the OpenPGP keys used for encrypting outgoing
1534 The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used when
1535 recalling a message the user was composing, but saved until later.
1538 <em/key/ is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a
1539 control character, use the sequence <em/\Cx/, where <em/x/ is the
1540 letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use
1541 ``\Ca''). Note that the case of <em/x/ as well as <em/\C/ is
1542 ignored, so that <em/\CA/, <em/\Ca/, <em/\cA/ and <em/\ca/ are all
1543 equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit
1544 octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example <em/\177/ is
1545 equivalent to <em/\c?/).
1547 In addition, <em/key/ may consist of:
1552 <backtab> backtab / shift-tab
1562 <pagedown> Page Down
1563 <backspace> Backspace
1572 <f10> function key 10
1575 <em/key/ does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a
1578 <em/function/ specifies which action to take when <em/key/ is pressed.
1579 For a complete list of functions, see the <ref id="functions"
1580 name="reference">. The special function <tt/noop/ unbinds the specified key
1585 <sect>Defining aliases for character sets <label id="charset-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1587 Usage: <tt/charset-hook/ <em/alias/ <em/charset/<newline>
1588 Usage: <tt/iconv-hook/ <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
1590 The <tt/charset-hook/ command defines an alias for a character set.
1591 This is useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a
1592 character set name not known to mutt.
1594 The <tt/iconv-hook/ command defines a system-specific name for a
1595 character set. This is helpful when your systems character
1596 conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names
1601 <sect>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook"> <!--{{{-->
1603 Usage: <tt/folder-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/command/
1605 It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are
1606 reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute
1607 any configuration command. <em/regexp/ is a regular expression specifying
1608 in which mailboxes to execute <em/command/ before loading. If a mailbox
1609 matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the
1612 <bf/Note:/ if you use the ``!'' shortcut for <ref id="spoolfile"
1613 name="$spoolfile"> at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it
1614 inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the
1615 logical <em/not/ operator for the expression.
1617 Note that the settings are <em/not/ restored when you leave the mailbox.
1618 For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting method
1619 based upon the mailbox being read:
1622 folder-hook mutt set sort=threads
1625 However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when
1626 reading a different mailbox. To specify a <em/default/ command, use the
1631 folder-hook . set sort=date-sent
1636 <sect>Keyboard macros<label id="macro"> <!--{{{-->
1638 Usage: <tt/macro/ <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
1640 Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of
1641 actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt-ng will behave as if
1642 you had typed <em/sequence/. So if you have a common sequence of commands
1643 you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single
1646 <em/menu/ is the <ref id="maps" name="map"> which the macro will be bound.
1647 Multiple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments by
1648 commas. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and the
1649 commas separating them.
1651 <em/key/ and <em/sequence/ are expanded by the same rules as the <ref
1652 id="bind" name="key bindings">. There are some additions however. The
1653 first is that control characters in <em/sequence/ can also be specified
1654 as <em/ˆx/. In order to get a caret (`ˆ'') you need to use
1655 <em/ˆˆ/. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as <em/up/
1656 or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format
1657 <em/<key name>/ and <em/<function name>/. For a listing of key
1658 names see the section on <ref id="bind" name="key bindings">. Functions
1659 are listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
1661 The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros will
1662 work regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent on
1663 the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more robust
1664 and portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used by more
1665 than one user (eg. the system Muttngrc).
1667 Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after <em/sequence/,
1668 which is shown in the help screens.
1670 <bf/Note:/ Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are
1671 silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
1675 <sect>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color"> <!--{{{-->
1677 Usage: <tt/color/ <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1678 Usage: <tt/color/ index <em/foreground/ <em/background/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1679 Usage: <tt/uncolor/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1681 If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt-ng by creating your own
1682 color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information), you
1683 must specify both a foreground color <bf/and/ a background color (it is not
1684 possible to only specify one or the other).
1686 <em/object/ can be one of:
1690 <item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages)
1691 <item>bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
1692 <item>error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng)
1693 <item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header)
1694 <item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
1695 <item>index (match <em/pattern/ in the message index)
1696 <item>indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu)
1697 <item>markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the pager)
1698 <item>message (informational messages)
1700 <item>quoted (text matching <ref id="quote_regexp"
1701 name="$quote_regexp"> in the body of a message)
1702 <item>quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<bf/N/ (higher levels of quoting)
1703 <item>search (highlighting of words in the pager)
1705 <item>status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message)
1706 <item>tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
1707 <item>tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
1708 <item>underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
1711 <em/foreground/ and <em/background/ can be one of the following:
1726 <em/foreground/ can optionally be prefixed with the keyword <tt/bright/ to make
1727 the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., <tt/brightred/).
1729 If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <em/default/ can be
1730 used as a transparent color. The value <em/brightdefault/ is also valid.
1731 If Mutt-ng is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set
1732 the <em/COLORFGBG/ environment variable to the default colors of your
1733 terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
1736 set COLORFGBG="green;black"
1740 <bf/Note:/ The <em/S-Lang/ library requires you to use the <em/lightgray/
1741 and <em/brown/ keywords instead of <em/white/ and <em/yellow/ when
1742 setting this variable.
1744 <bf/Note:/ The uncolor command can be applied to the index object only. It
1745 removes entries from the list. You <bf/must/ specify the same pattern
1746 specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*'' is
1747 a special token which means to clear the color index list of all entries.
1749 Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …,
1750 <em/color/<bf/N-1/ (<bf/N/ being the number of colors supported
1751 by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your
1752 display (for example by changing the color associated with <em/color2/
1753 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning.
1755 If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the video
1756 attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command:
1758 Usage: <tt/mono/ <em/<object> <attribute>/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1759 Usage: <tt/mono/ index <em/attribute/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1760 Usage: <tt/unmono/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1762 where <em/attribute/ is one of the following:
1774 <sect>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore"> <!--{{{-->
1776 Usage: <tt/[un]ignore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
1778 Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing systems,
1779 or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command allows
1780 you to specify header fields which you don't normally want to see.
1782 You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example,
1783 ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the pattern
1784 ``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
1786 To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore'' command.
1787 The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with the given pattern.
1788 For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x-mailer''.
1790 ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
1794 # Sven's draconian header weeding
1796 unignore from date subject to cc
1797 unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
1803 <sect>Alternative addresses<label id="alternates"> <!--{{{-->
1805 Usage: <tt/[un]alternates/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1807 With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently,
1808 depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from
1809 someone else. For instance, when replying to a message that you
1810 sent to a different party, mutt will automatically suggest to send
1811 the response to the original message's recipients -- responding to
1812 yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See <ref
1813 id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">.)
1815 Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To
1816 fully use mutt's features here, the program must be able to
1817 recognize what e-mail addresses you receive mail under. That's the
1818 purpose of the <tt/alternates/ command: It takes a list of regular
1819 expressions, each of which can identify an address under which you
1822 The <tt/unalternates/ command can be used to write exceptions to
1823 <tt/alternates/ patterns. If an address matches something in an
1824 <tt/alternates/ command, but you nonetheless do not think it is
1825 from you, you can list a more precise pattern under an <tt/unalternates/
1828 To remove a regular expression from the <tt/alternates/ list, use the
1829 <tt/unalternates/ command with exactly the same <em/regexp/.
1830 Likewise, if the <em/regexp/ for a <tt/alternates/ command matches
1831 an entry on the <tt/unalternates/ list, that <tt/unalternates/
1832 entry will be removed. If the <em/regexp/ for <tt/unalternates/
1833 is ``*'', <em/all entries/ on <tt/alternates/ will be removed.
1837 <sect>Format = Flowed <!--{{{-->
1839 <sect1>Introduction <!--{{{-->
1841 <p>Mutt-ng contains support for so-called <tt/format=flowed/ messages.
1842 In the beginning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and
1843 it was enough for displaying them on fixed-size terminals. But times
1844 changed, and nowadays hardly anybody still uses fixed-size terminals:
1845 more people nowaydays use graphical user interfaces, with dynamically
1846 resizable windows. This led to the demand of a new email format that
1847 makes it possible for the email client to make the email look nice
1848 in a resizable window without breaking quoting levels and creating
1849 an incompatible email format that can also be displayed nicely on
1850 old fixed-size terminals.
1852 <p>For introductory information on <tt/format=flowed/ messages, see
1853 <htmlurl url="http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html"
1854 name="<http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html>">.
1858 <sect1>Receiving: Display Setup <!--{{{-->
1860 <p>When you receive emails that are marked as <tt/format=flowed/
1861 messages, and is formatted correctly, mutt-ng will try to reformat
1862 the message to optimally fit on your terminal. If you want a fixed
1863 margin on the right side of your terminal, you can set the
1870 <p>The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right
1871 side of the terminal.
1873 <p>If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long,
1874 you can also set a maximum line length:
1877 set max_line_length = 120
1880 <p>The example above will give you lines not longer than 120
1883 <p>When you view at <tt/format=flowed/ messages, you will often see
1884 the quoting hierarchy like in the following example:
1887 >Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1888 >Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1889 >production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1890 >project will go live.
1893 <p>This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very
1894 hard to differentiate between text and quoting character. The
1895 solution is to configure mutt-ng to "stuff" the quoting:
1901 <p>This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read:
1904 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1905 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1906 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1907 > project will go live.
1912 <sect1>Sending <!--{{{-->
1914 <p>If you want mutt-ng to send emails with <tt/format=flowed/ set, you
1915 need to explicitly set it:
1921 <p>Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing
1922 <tt/format=flowed/-conforming emails. For vim, this is done by
1923 adding <tt/w/ to the formatoptions (see <tt/:h formatoptions/ and
1924 <tt/:h fo-table/) when writing emails.
1926 <p>Also note that <em/format=flowed/ knows about ``space-stuffing'',
1927 that is, when sending messages, some kinds of lines have to be
1928 indented with a single space on the sending side. On the receiving
1929 side, the first space (if any) is removed. As a consequence and in
1930 addition to the above simple setting, please keep this in mind when
1931 making manual formattings within the editor. Also note that mutt-ng
1932 currently violates the standard (RfC 3676) as it does not
1933 space-stuff lines starting with:
1937 <item><tt/>/ This is <em/not/ the quote character but a right
1938 angle used for other reasons
1940 <item><tt/From/ with a trailing space.
1942 <item>just a space for formatting reasons
1946 Please make sure that you manually prepend a space to each of them.
1950 <sect1>Additional Notes <!--{{{-->
1952 <p> For completeness, the <ref id="delete_space"
1953 name="$delete_space"> variable provides the mechanism
1954 to generate a <tt/DelSp=yes/ parameter on <em/outgoing/ messages.
1955 According to the standard, clients receiving a <tt/format=flowed/
1956 messages should delete the last space of a flowed line but still
1957 interpret the line as flowed. Because flowed lines usually contain
1958 only one space at the end, this parameter would make the receiving
1959 client concatenate the last word of the previous with the first of
1960 the current line <em/without/ a space. This makes ordinary text
1961 unreadable and is intended for languages rarely using spaces. So
1962 please use this setting only if you're sure what you're doing.
1968 <sect>Mailing lists<label id="lists"> <!--{{{-->
1970 Usage: <tt/[un]lists/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1971 Usage: <tt/[un]subscribe/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
1973 Mutt-ng has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling
1974 mailing lists">. In order to take advantage of them, you must
1975 specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing
1976 lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done this, the <ref
1977 id="list-reply" name="list-reply"> function will work for all known lists.
1978 Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed list, mutt will
1979 add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user agents
1980 not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that
1981 the Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not
1982 supported by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against
1983 receiving personal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation
1984 of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the <ref id="followup_to"
1985 name="$followup_to"> configuration variable.
1987 More precisely, Mutt-ng maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
1988 of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing
1989 list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists''
1990 command. To mark it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
1992 You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all
1993 messages sent to a specific bug report's address on mutt's bug
1994 tracking system as list mail, for instance, you could say
1995 ``subscribe [0-9]*@bugs.guug.de''. Often, it's sufficient to just
1996 give a portion of the list's e-mail address.
1998 Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
1999 example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will receive mail
2000 addressed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt-ng that this is a
2001 mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
2002 initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it,
2003 add ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead.
2004 If you also happen to get mail from someone whose address is
2005 <em/mutt-users@example.com/, you could use ``lists mutt-users@mutt\\.org''
2006 or ``subscribe mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' to
2007 match only mail from the actual list.
2009 The ``unlists'' command is used to remove a token from the list of
2010 known and subscribed mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all
2013 To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists,
2014 but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
2018 <sect>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2020 Usage: <tt/mbox-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
2022 This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to a
2023 different mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders.
2024 <em/pattern/ is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a
2025 ``spool'' mailbox and <em/mailbox/ specifies where mail should be saved when
2028 Unlike some of the other <em/hook/ commands, only the <em/first/ matching
2029 pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single
2034 <sect>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes"> <!--{{{-->
2036 Usage: <tt/[un]mailboxes/ [!]<em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
2038 This command specifies folders which can receive mail and
2039 which will be checked for new messages. By default, the
2040 main menu status bar displays how many of these folders have
2043 When changing folders, pressing <em/space/ will cycle
2044 through folders with new mail.
2046 Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files
2047 specified by the <tt/mailboxes/ command, and indicate which contain new
2048 messages. Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
2049 command line with the <tt/-y/ option.
2051 The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list
2052 of folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all
2056 <bf/Note:/ new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to
2057 the last access time. Utilities like <tt/biff/ or <tt/frm/ or any other
2058 program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt-ng to never detect new mail
2059 for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup
2060 tools are another common reason for updated access times.
2063 <bf/Note:/ the filenames in the <tt/mailboxes/ command are resolved when
2064 the command is executed, so if these names contain <ref id="shortcuts"
2065 name="shortcut characters"> (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable
2066 definition that affect these characters (like <ref id="folder"
2067 name="$folder"> and <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile">)
2068 should be executed before the <tt/mailboxes/ command.
2072 <sect>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr"> <!--{{{-->
2075 <tt/my_hdr/ <em/string/<newline>
2076 <tt/unmy_hdr/ <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
2078 The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header
2079 fields which will be added to every message you send.
2081 For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field to
2082 all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command
2085 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA
2088 in your <tt/.muttrc/.
2090 <bf/Note:/ space characters are <em/not/ allowed between the keyword and
2091 the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that
2092 space is illegal there, so Mutt-ng enforces the rule.
2094 If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
2095 either set the <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers"> variable,
2096 or use the <em/edit-headers/ function (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so
2097 that you can edit the header of your message along with the body.
2099 To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr''
2100 command. You may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header
2101 fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and
2102 ``Cc'' header fields, you could use:
2110 <sect>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order"> <!--{{{-->
2112 Usage: <tt/hdr_order/ <em/header1/ <em/header2/ <em/header3/
2114 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt
2115 to present headers to you when viewing messages.
2117 ``unhdr_order *'' will clear all previous headers from the order list,
2118 thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup
2122 hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:
2127 <sect>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2129 Usage: <tt/save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/filename/
2131 This command is used to override the default filename used when saving
2132 messages. <em/filename/ will be used as the default filename if the message is
2133 <em/From:/ an address matching <em/regexp/ or if you are the author and the
2134 message is addressed <em/to:/ something matching <em/regexp/.
2136 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
2141 save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins
2142 save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam
2145 Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
2149 <sect>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2151 Usage: <tt/fcc-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
2153 This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than
2154 <ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt-ng searches the initial list of
2155 message recipients for the first matching <em/regexp/ and uses <em/mailbox/
2156 as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved
2157 to <ref id="record" name="$record"> mailbox.
2159 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
2161 Example: <tt/fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers/
2163 The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to
2164 the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook"
2165 name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
2169 <sect>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once<label id="fcc-save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2171 Usage: <tt/fcc-save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
2173 This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
2174 and a <ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"> with its arguments.
2178 <sect>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"><label id="reply-hook"><label id="send2-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2180 Usage: <tt/reply-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
2181 Usage: <tt/send-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
2182 Usage: <tt/send2-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
2184 These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based
2185 upon recipients of the message. <em/pattern/ is a regular expression
2186 matching the desired address. <em/command/ is executed when <em/regexp/
2187 matches recipients of the message.
2189 <tt/reply-hook/ is matched against the message you are <em/replying/
2190 <bf/to/, instead of the message you are <em/sending/. <tt/send-hook/ is
2191 matched against all messages, both <em/new/ and <em/replies/. <bf/Note:/
2192 <tt/reply-hook/s are matched <bf/before/ the <tt/send-hook/, <bf/regardless/
2193 of the order specified in the users's configuration file.
2195 <tt/send2-hook/ is matched every time a message is changed, either
2196 by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients
2197 or subject. <tt/send2-hook/ is executed after <tt/send-hook/, and
2198 can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the <ref id="sendmail"
2199 name="$sendmail"> variable depending on the message's sender
2202 For each type of <tt/send-hook/ or <tt/reply-hook/, when multiple matches
2203 occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc
2204 (for that type of hook).
2206 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
2208 Example: <tt/send-hook mutt &dquot;set mime_forward signature=''&dquot;/
2210 Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the
2211 <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="signature"
2212 name="$signature"> and <ref id="locale" name="$locale">
2213 variables in order to change the language of the attributions and
2214 signatures based upon the recipients.
2216 <bf/Note:/ the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial
2217 list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the
2218 message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. Also note that
2219 my_hdr commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's
2220 subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed
2225 <sect>Change settings before formatting a message<label id="message-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2227 Usage: <tt/message-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
2229 This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
2230 before viewing or formatting a message based upon information about the message.
2231 <em/command/ is executed if the <em/pattern/ matches the message to be
2232 displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order
2233 they are specified in the muttrc.
2235 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for
2236 information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
2240 message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin'
2241 message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""'
2246 <sect>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient<label id="crypt-hook"> <!--{{{-->
2248 Usage: <tt/crypt-hook/ <em/pattern/ <em/keyid/
2250 When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a certain
2251 key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
2252 recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address,
2253 or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt-ng would
2254 normally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can
2255 specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to
2256 a certain recipient.
2258 The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You
2259 can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even
2264 <sect>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push"> <!--{{{-->
2266 Usage: <tt/push/ <em/string/
2268 This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may
2269 contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence
2270 string in the <ref id="macro" name="macro"> command. You may use it to
2271 automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering
2276 <sect>Executing functions<label id="exec"> <!--{{{-->
2278 Usage: <tt/exec/ <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
2280 This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are
2281 listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
2282 ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
2286 <sect>Message Scoring<label id="score-command"> <!--{{{-->
2289 Usage: <tt/score/ <em/pattern/ <em/value/<newline>
2290 Usage: <tt/unscore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
2293 In situations where you have to cope with a lot of emails, e.g.
2294 when you read many different mailing lists, and take part in
2295 discussions, it is always useful to have the important messages
2296 marked and the annoying messages or the ones that you aren't
2297 interested in deleted. For this purpose, mutt-ng features a
2298 mechanism called ``scoring''.
2301 When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You
2302 can then use the <tt/score/ command to define patterns and a
2303 positive or negative value associated with it. When a pattern
2304 matches a message, the message's score will be raised or lowered by
2305 the amount of the value associated with the pattern.
2308 score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50
2309 score "~f @sco\.com" -100</verb>
2311 <p>If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score
2312 value of the current message to a certain value and then stop
2316 score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666</verb>
2318 <p>What is important to note is that negative score values will be
2321 <p>To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in
2322 some way. That's what the <em/score thresholds/ are for. Currently,
2323 there are three score thresholds:
2327 <item>flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher
2328 than the flag threshold, it will be flagged.
2330 <item>read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower
2331 than the read threshold, it will be marked as read.
2333 <item>delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or
2334 lower than the delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted.
2338 <p>These three thresholds can be set via the variables <ref
2339 id="score_threshold_flag"
2340 name="$score_threshold_flag">, <ref
2341 id="score_threshold_read"
2342 name="$score_threshold_read">, <ref
2343 id="score_threshold_delete"
2344 name="$score_threshold_delete"> and. By
2345 default, <ref id="score_threshold_read"
2346 name="$score_threshold_read"> and <ref
2347 id="score_threshold_delete"
2348 name="$score_threshold_delete"> are set to
2349 <tt/-1/, which means that in the default threshold configuration no
2350 message will ever get marked as read or deleted.
2352 <p>Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the <tt/color/ command
2353 and the <tt>˜n</tt> pattern:
2356 color index black yellow "~n 10-"
2357 color index red yellow "~n 100-"</verb>
2359 <p>The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99
2360 with black and yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal
2361 100 with red and yellow. This might be unusual to you if you're used
2362 to e.g. slrn's scoring mechanism, but it is more flexible, as it
2363 visually marks different scores.
2367 <sect>Spam detection<label id="spam"> <!--{{{-->
2369 Usage: <tt/spam/ <em/pattern/ <em/format/<newline>
2370 Usage: <tt/nospam/ <em/pattern/
2372 Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
2373 By defining your spam patterns with the <tt/spam/ and <tt/nospam/
2374 commands, you can <em/limit/, <em/search/, and <em/sort/ your
2375 mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external
2376 filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index
2377 display using the <tt/%H/ selector in the <ref id="index_format"
2378 name="$index_format"> variable. (Tip: try <tt/%?H?[%H] ?/
2379 to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.)
2381 Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using
2382 the <tt/spam/ command. <em/pattern/ should be a regular expression
2383 that matches a header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox
2384 matches this regular expression, it will receive a ``spam tag'' or
2385 ``spam attribute'' (unless it also matches a <tt/nospam/ pattern -- see
2386 below.) The appearance of this attribute is entirely up to you, and is
2387 governed by the <em/format/ parameter. <em/format/ can be any static
2388 text, but it also can include back-references from the <em/pattern/
2389 expression. (A regular expression ``back-reference'' refers to a
2390 sub-expression contained within parentheses.) <tt/%1/ is replaced with
2391 the first back-reference in the regex, <tt/%2/ with the second, etc.
2393 If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than
2394 one spam-related header. You can define <tt/spam/ patterns for each
2395 filter you use. If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and
2396 the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the
2397 message's spam tag will consist of all the <em/format/ strings joined
2398 together, with the value of $spam_separator separating
2401 For example, suppose I use DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage. I might
2402 define these spam settings:
2404 spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1"
2405 spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA"
2406 spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM"
2407 set spam_separator=", "
2410 If I then received a message that DCC registered with ``many'' hits
2411 under the ``Fuz2'' checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a
2412 97% probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would read
2413 <tt>90+/DCC-Fuz2, 97/PM</tt>. (The four characters before ``=many'' in a
2414 DCC report indicate the checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
2416 If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each
2417 spam pattern match supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting
2418 joined <em/format/ strings, you'll get only the last one to match.
2420 The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use
2421 <tt/%H/ in the <tt/$index_format/ variable. It's also the
2422 string that the <tt/~H/ pattern-matching expression matches against for
2423 <em/search/ and <em/limit/ functions. And it's what sorting by spam
2424 attribute will use as a sort key.
2426 That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual
2427 environments will have only one spam filter. The simpler your
2428 configuration, the more effective mutt can be, especially when it comes
2431 Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort <em/lexically/ --
2432 that is, by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag
2433 begins with a number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically
2434 only when two numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's
2435 <tt/sort -n/.) A message with no spam attributes at all -- that is, one
2436 that didn't match <em/any/ of your <tt/spam/ patterns -- is sorted at
2437 lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next, beginning with 0 and ranging
2438 upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are sorted, with ``a'' taking lower
2439 priority than ``z''. Clearly, in general, sorting by spam tags is most
2440 effective when you can coerce your filter to give you a raw number. But
2441 in case you can't, mutt can still do something useful.
2443 The <tt/nospam/ command can be used to write exceptions to <tt/spam/
2444 patterns. If a header pattern matches something in a <tt/spam/ command,
2445 but you nonetheless do not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list a
2446 more precise pattern under a <tt/nospam/ command.
2448 If the <em/pattern/ given to <tt/nospam/ is exactly the same as the
2449 <em/pattern/ on an existing <tt/spam/ list entry, the effect will be to
2450 remove the entry from the spam list, instead of adding an exception.
2451 Likewise, if the <em/pattern/ for a <tt/spam/ command matches an entry
2452 on the <tt/nospam/ list, that <tt/nospam/ entry will be removed. If the
2453 <em/pattern/ for <tt/nospam/ is ``*'', <em/all entries on both lists/
2454 will be removed. This might be the default action if you use <tt/spam/
2455 and <tt/nospam/ in conjunction with a <tt/folder-hook/.
2457 You can have as many <tt/spam/ or <tt/nospam/ commands as you like.
2458 You can even do your own primitive spam detection within mutt -- for
2459 example, if you consider all mail from <tt/MAILER-DAEMON/ to be spam,
2460 you can use a <tt/spam/ command like this:
2463 spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"
2468 <sect>Setting variables<label id="set"> <!--{{{-->
2470 Usage: <tt/set/ [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2471 Usage: <tt/toggle/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2472 Usage: <tt/unset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
2473 Usage: <tt/reset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
2475 This command is used to set (and unset) <ref id="variables"
2476 name="configuration variables">. There are four basic types of variables:
2477 boolean, number, string and quadoption. <em/boolean/ variables can be
2478 <em/set/ (true) or <em/unset/ (false). <em/number/ variables can be
2479 assigned a positive integer value.
2481 <em/string/ variables consist of any number of printable characters.
2482 <em/strings/ must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You
2483 may also use the ``C'' escape sequences <bf/\n/ and <bf/\t/ for
2484 newline and tab, respectively.
2486 <em/quadoption/ variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted
2487 for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of <em/yes/
2488 will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered
2489 yes to the question. Similarly, a value of <em/no/ will cause the the
2490 action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of
2491 <em/ask-yes/ will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and
2492 <em/ask-no/ will provide a default answer of ``no.''
2494 Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: <tt/set noaskbcc/.
2496 For <em/boolean/ variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with
2497 <tt/inv/ to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing
2498 macros. Example: <tt/set invsmart_wrap/.
2500 The <tt/toggle/ command automatically prepends the <tt/inv/ prefix to all
2501 specified variables.
2503 The <tt/unset/ command automatically prepends the <tt/no/ prefix to all
2504 specified variables.
2506 Using the enter-command function in the <em/index/ menu, you can query the
2507 value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question
2514 The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption
2517 The <tt/reset/ command resets all given variables to the compile time
2518 defaults (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command
2519 <tt/set/ and prefix the variable with ``&'' this has the same
2520 behavior as the reset command.
2522 With the <tt/reset/ command there exists the special variable ``all'',
2523 which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
2527 <sect>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source"> <!--{{{-->
2529 Usage: <tt/source/ <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
2531 This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands
2532 from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in
2533 <tt>˜/.mail_aliases</tt> so that I can make my
2534 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> readable and keep my aliases private.
2536 If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded to the
2537 path of your home directory.
2539 If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then <em/filename/ is
2540 considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
2541 <tt>source ~/bin/myscript|</tt>).
2545 <sect>Removing hooks<label id="unhook"> <!--{{{-->
2547 Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
2549 This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
2550 You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
2551 argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
2552 something like <tt/unhook send-hook/.
2556 <sect>Sharing Setups<label id="sect:sharingsetups"> <!--{{{-->
2558 <sect1>Character Sets <!--{{{-->
2560 <p>As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration
2561 must be maintained because it's likely that people want to use the
2562 setup everywhere they use mutt-ng. And mutt-ng tries to help where it
2565 <p>To not produce conflicts with different character sets, mutt-ng
2566 allows users to specify in which character set their configuration
2567 files are encoded. Please note that while reading the configuration
2568 files, this is only respected after the corresponding declaration
2569 appears. It's advised to put the following at the very beginning of a
2573 set config_charset = "..."</verb>
2575 <p>and replacing the dots with the actual character set. To avoid
2576 problems while maintaining the setup, vim user's may want to use
2577 modelines as show in:
2580 # vim:fileencoding=...:</verb>
2582 <p>while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This
2583 tells vim as which character set to read and save the file.
2587 <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
2589 <p>``Modularization'' means to divide the setup into several files
2590 while sorting the options or commands by topic. Especially for
2591 longer setups (e.g. with many hooks), this helps maintaining it
2592 and solving trouble.
2594 <p>When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in
2595 fractions, shared over different systems.
2599 <sect1>Conditional parts <!--{{{-->
2601 <p>When using a configuration on different systems, the user may not
2602 always have influence on how mutt-ng is installed and which features
2605 <p>To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef''
2606 patch written for mutt. Its basic syntax is:
2609 ifdef <item> <command>
2610 ifndef <item> <command></verb>
2612 <p>...whereby <tt/<item>/ can be one of:
2616 <item>a function name
2618 <item>a variable name
2622 <item>a feature name
2626 <p>All available functions, variables and menus are documented
2627 elsewhere in this manual but ``features'' is specific to these two
2628 commands. To test for one, prefix one of the following keywords with
2629 <tt/feature_/:
2632 ncurses, slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl,
2633 gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp,
2634 classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache</verb>
2636 <p>As an example, one can use the following in
2637 <tt>˜/.muttngrc</tt>:
2640 ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap'
2641 ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop'
2642 ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp'</verb>
2644 <p>...to only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-imap</tt> if IMAP
2645 support is built in, only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-pop</tt>
2646 if POP support is built in and only source
2647 <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp</tt> if NNTP support is built in.
2649 <p>An example for testing for variable names can be used if users
2650 use different revisions of mutt-ng whereby the older one may not
2651 have a certain variable. To test for the availability of <ref
2652 id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">,
2656 ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300'</verb>
2658 <p>Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set <ref
2659 id="pager_index_lines"
2660 name="$pager_index_lines"> only if the pager
2661 menu is available, use:
2664 ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10'</verb>
2666 <p>For completeness, too, the opposite of <tt/ifdef/ is provided:
2667 <tt/ifndef/ which only executes the command if the test fails. For
2668 example, the following two examples are equivalent:
2671 ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
2672 ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'</verb>
2677 ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
2678 ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'</verb>
2685 <sect>Obsolete Variables <!--{{{-->
2687 <p>In the process of ensuring and creating more consistency, many
2688 variables have been renamed and some of the old names were already
2689 removed. Please see <ref id="sect_obsolete" name="Obsolete Variables">
2690 for a complete list.
2696 <chapt>Advanced Usage <!--{{{-->
2698 <sect>Regular Expressions<label id="regexp"> <!--{{{-->
2700 All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex
2701 <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> must be specified
2702 using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax (which
2703 is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your
2704 convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax.
2706 The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper
2707 case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\''
2708 must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization
2709 command: ``\\''.
2711 A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings.
2712 Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic
2713 expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
2715 Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either &dquot;
2716 or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space
2717 character. See <ref id="muttrc-syntax" name="Syntax of Initialization Files">
2718 for more information on &dquot; and ' delimiter processing. To match a
2719 literal &dquot; or ' you must preface it with \ (backslash).
2721 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
2722 a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits,
2723 are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with
2724 special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
2726 The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``ˆ'' and
2727 the dollar sign ``&dollar'' are metacharacters that respectively match
2728 the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.
2730 A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any
2731 single character in that list; if the first character of the list
2732 is a caret ``ˆ'' then it matches any character <bf/not/ in the
2733 list. For example, the regular expression <bf/[0123456789]/
2734 matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified
2735 by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen
2736 ``-''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
2737 lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the list.
2738 Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first.
2739 Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last.
2741 Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
2742 consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''.
2743 The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard:
2746 <tag/[:alnum:]/
2747 Alphanumeric characters.
2748 <tag/[:alpha:]/
2749 Alphabetic characters.
2750 <tag/[:blank:]/
2751 Space or tab characters.
2752 <tag/[:cntrl:]/
2754 <tag/[:digit:]/
2756 <tag/[:graph:]/
2757 Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable,
2758 but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.)
2759 <tag/[:lower:]/
2760 Lower-case alphabetic characters.
2761 <tag/[:print:]/
2762 Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.)
2763 <tag/[:punct:]/
2764 Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control
2765 characters, or space characters).
2766 <tag/[:space:]/
2767 Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few).
2768 <tag/[:upper:]/
2769 Upper-case alphabetic characters.
2770 <tag/[:xdigit:]/
2771 Characters that are hexadecimal digits.
2774 A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the
2775 brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these
2776 class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included
2777 in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For
2778 example, <bf/[[:digit:]]/ is equivalent to
2779 <bf/[0-9]/.
2781 Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These
2782 apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called
2783 collating elements) that are represented with more than one character,
2784 as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or
2788 <tag/Collating Symbols/
2789 A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed in
2790 ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating
2791 element, then <bf/[[.ch.]]/ is a regexp that matches
2792 this collating element, while <bf/[ch]/ is a regexp that
2793 matches either ``c'' or ``h''.
2794 <tag/Equivalence Classes/
2795 An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of
2796 characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in ``[=''
2797 and ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to
2798 represent all of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this case,
2799 <bf/[[=e=]]/ is a regexp that matches any of
2800 ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''.
2803 A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one
2804 of several repetition operators:
2808 The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
2810 The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
2812 The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
2814 The preceding item is matched exactly <em/n/ times.
2815 <tag/{n,}/
2816 The preceding item is matched <em/n/ or more times.
2817 <tag/{,m}/
2818 The preceding item is matched at most <em/m/ times.
2819 <tag/{n,m}/
2820 The preceding item is matched at least <em/n/ times, but no more than
2824 Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
2825 expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings
2826 that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions.
2828 Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator ``|'';
2829 the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
2832 Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
2833 precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
2834 parentheses to override these precedence rules.
2836 <bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt-ng with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the
2837 following operators may also be used in regular expressions:
2841 Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word.
2843 Matches the empty string within a word.
2844 <tag/\\</
2845 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.
2846 <tag/\\>/
2847 Matches the empty string at the end of a word.
2849 Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore).
2851 Matches any character that is not word-constituent.
2853 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).
2855 Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.
2858 Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so
2859 they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
2863 <sect>Patterns <!--{{{-->
2865 <p>Mutt-ng's pattern language provides a simple yet effective way to
2866 set up rules to match messages, e.g. for operations like tagging and
2867 scoring. A pattern consists of one or more sub-pattern, which can be
2868 logically grouped, ORed, and negated. For a complete listing of
2869 these patterns, please refer to table <ref id="patterns"
2870 name="Patterns"> in the Reference chapter.
2872 <p>It must be noted that in this table, <tt/EXPR/, <tt/USER/,
2873 <tt/ID/ and <tt/SUBJECT/ are regular expressions. For ranges, the
2874 forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>>[MIN]/, <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
2877 <sect1>Complex Patterns
2879 <p>It is possible to combine several sub-patterns to a more complex
2880 pattern. The most simple possibility is to logically AND several
2881 patterns by stringing them together:
2886 <p>The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in
2887 the subject and are unread.
2889 <p>To logical OR patterns, simply use the <tt/|/ operator. This one
2890 especially useful when using local groups:
2893 ~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org")
2894 (~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng)
2895 !~x '@synflood\.at'</verb>
2897 <p>The first pattern matches all messages that were sent by one of
2898 the mutt-ng maintainers, while the seconds pattern matches all
2899 messages that contain ``mutt-ng'' in the message body or ``Mutt-ng''
2900 in the subject. The third pattern matches all messages that do not
2901 contain ``@synflood\.at'' in the <tt/References:/ header, i.e.
2902 messages that are not an (indirect) reply to one of my messages. A
2903 pattern can be logicall negated using the <tt/!/ operator.
2905 <sect1>Patterns and Dates
2907 <p>When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a
2908 special format, i.e. <tt>DD/MM/YYYY</tt>. If you don't specify
2909 month or year, they default to the current month or year. When using
2910 date ranges, and you specify only the minimum or the maximum, the
2911 specified date will be excluded, e.g. <tt>01/06/2005-</tt> matches
2912 against all messages <em/after/ Juni 1st, 2005.
2914 <p>It is also possible to use so-called ``error margins'' when
2915 specifying date ranges. You simply specify a date, and then the
2916 error margin. This margin needs to contain the information whether
2917 it goes ``forth'' or ``back'' in time, by using <tt/+/ and <tt/-/.
2918 Then follows a number and a unit, i.e. <tt/y/ for years, <tt/m/ for
2919 months, <tt/w/ for weeks and <tt/d/ for days. If you use the special
2920 <tt/*/ sign, it means that the error margin goes to both
2921 ``directions'' in time.
2926 ~d 28/12/2004*1d</verb>
2928 <p>The first pattern matches all dates between January 1st, 2005 and
2929 January 1st 2006. The second pattern matches all dates between
2930 October 18th, 2004 and October 4th 2004 (2 weeks before 18/10/2004),
2931 while the third pattern matches all dates 1 day around December
2932 28th, 2004 (i.e. Dec 27th, 28th and 29th).
2934 <p>Relative dates are also very important, as they make it possible
2935 to specify date ranges between a fixed number of units and the
2936 current date. How this works can be seen in the following example:
2939 ~d >2w # messages older than two weeks
2940 ~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days
2941 ~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old</verb>
2945 <sect>Format Strings <!--{{{-->
2947 <sect1>Introduction <!--{{{-->
2949 <p>The so called <em/Format Strings/ offer great flexibility when
2950 configuring mutt-ng. In short, they describe what items to print
2951 out how in menus and status messages.
2953 <p>Basically, they work as this: for different menus and bars,
2954 there's a variable specifying the layout. For every item
2955 available, there is a so called <em/expando/.
2957 <p>For example, when running mutt-ng on different machines or
2958 different versions for testing purposes, it may be interesting to
2959 have the following information always printed on screen when one
2964 <item>the current hostname
2966 <item>the current mutt-ng version number
2970 <p>The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the
2971 <ref id="status_format" name="$status_format">
2972 variable. For the hostname and version string, there's an expando
2973 for <tt>$status_format</tt>: <tt/%h/ expands to the
2974 hostname and <tt/%v/ to the version string. When just configuring:
2977 set status_format = "%v on %h: ..."</verb>
2979 <p>mutt-ng will replace the sequence <tt/%v/ with the version string
2980 and <tt/%h/ with the host's name. When you are, for example, running
2981 mutt-ng version <tt/1.5.9i/ on host <tt/mailhost/, you'll see the
2982 following when you're in the index:
2985 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ...</verb>
2987 <p>In the index, there're more useful information one could want to
2992 <item>which mailbox is open
2994 <item>how man new, flagged or postponed messages
3000 <p>To include the mailbox' name is as easy as:
3003 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ...</verb>
3005 <p>When the currently opened mailbox is <tt/Inbox/, this will be expanded
3009 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ...</verb>
3011 <p>For the number of certain types of messages, one more feature of the format
3012 strings is extremely useful. If there aren't messages of a certain type, it
3013 may not be desired to print just that there aren't any but instead only
3014 print something if there are any.
3018 <sect1>Conditional Expansion <!--{{{-->
3020 <p>To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in
3021 the current mailbox, further extend
3022 <tt/$status_format/ to:
3025 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ...</verb>
3027 <p>This feature is called <em/nonzero-printing/ and works as this:
3028 some expandos may be optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion
3029 of the format string is only evaluated if the value of the expando
3030 is different from zero. The basic syntax is:
3033 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>?</verb>
3035 <p>which tells mutt-ng to only look at <tt><string if
3036 nonzero></tt> if the value of the <tt>%<item%gt;</tt>
3037 expando is different from zero. In our example, we used <tt/n/ as
3038 the expando to check for and <tt/%n new/ as the optional nonzero
3041 <p>But this is not all: this feature only offers one alternative:
3042 ``print something if not zero.'' Mutt-ng does, as you might guess,
3043 also provide a logically complete version: ``if zero, print
3044 something and else print something else.'' This is achieved by the
3045 following syntax for those expandos which may be printed nonzero:
3048 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>&<string if zero>?</verb>
3050 <p>Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following:
3054 <item> make it print ``<em/n/ new messages'' whereby <em/n/ is the
3055 count but only if there new ones
3057 <item> and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any
3061 <p>The corresponding configuration is:
3064 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ...</verb>
3066 <p>This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get
3067 always printed. Thus, it can be shortened to:
3070 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ...</verb>
3072 <p>As you might see from this rather simple example, one can create
3073 very complex but fancy status messages. Please see the reference
3074 chapter for expandos and those which may be printed nonzero.
3078 <sect1>Modifications and Padding <!--{{{-->
3080 <p>Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of
3085 <item>When specifying <tt>%_<item></tt> instead of
3086 just <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all
3087 characters in the expansion of <tt><item></tt> to
3090 <item>When specifying <tt>%:<item></tt> instead of just
3091 <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all dots in the
3092 expansion of <tt><item></tt> to underscores
3093 (<tt>_</tt>).
3097 <p>Also, there's a feature called <em/Padding/ supplied by the
3098 following two expandos: <tt/%|X/ and <tt/%>X/.
3102 <tag><tt>%|X</tt></tag> When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the
3103 rest of the line with the character <tt/X/. In our example,
3104 filling the rest of the line with dashes is done by setting:
3107 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-"</verb>
3109 <tag><tt>%>X</tt></tag> Since the previous expando stops at
3110 the end of line, there must be a way to fill the gap between
3111 two items via the <tt>%>X</tt> expando: it puts as many
3112 characters <tt>X</tt> in between two items so that the rest of
3113 the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the
3114 version string and hostname of our example on the left but on
3115 the right and fill the gap with spaces, one might use (note
3116 the space after <tt>%></tt>):
3119 set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)"</verb>
3127 <sect>Using Tags <!--{{{-->
3130 Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of
3131 messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be
3132 to save messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to
3133 delete all messages with a given subject. To tag all messages
3134 matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to
3135 ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by
3136 hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by
3137 default. See <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> for Mutt-ng's pattern
3140 Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the
3141 ``tag-prefix'' operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default.
3142 When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the <bf/next/ operation will
3143 be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that
3144 manner. If the <ref id="auto_tag" name="$auto_tag">
3145 variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages
3146 automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''.
3148 In <ref id="macro" name="macros"> or <ref id="push" name="push"> commands,
3149 you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator. If there are no tagged
3150 messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's execution.
3151 Mutt-ng will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the ``end-cond''
3152 operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed as
3157 <sect>Using Hooks<label id="hooks"> <!--{{{-->
3159 A <em/hook/ is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor which allows you to
3160 execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For example,
3161 you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you are
3162 reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a <em/hook/
3163 consists of a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> or
3164 <ref id="patterns" name="pattern"> along with a
3165 configuration option/command. See
3167 <item><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook">
3168 <item><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook">
3169 <item><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook">
3170 <item><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook">
3171 <item><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook">
3172 <item><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
3173 <item><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook">
3175 for specific details on each type of <em/hook/ available.
3177 <bf/Note:/ if a hook changes configuration settings, these changes remain
3178 effective until the end of the current mutt session. As this is generally
3179 not desired, a default hook needs to be added before all other hooks to
3180 restore configuration defaults. Here is an example with send-hook and the
3184 send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:'
3185 send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c
3188 <sect1>Message Matching in Hooks<label id="pattern_hook">
3190 Hooks that act upon messages (<tt/send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook,
3191 message-hook/) are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other
3192 types of hooks, a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> is
3193 sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is
3194 needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match
3197 Mutt-ng allows the use of the <ref id="patterns" name="search pattern">
3198 language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in
3199 exactly the same way as it would when <em/limiting/ or
3200 <em/searching/ the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those
3201 operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of
3202 the message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.).
3204 For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending
3205 mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
3207 send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User <user@host>'
3209 which would execute the given command when sending mail to
3212 However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the
3213 full searching language. You can still specify a simple <em/regular
3214 expression/ like the other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your
3215 pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by the
3216 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> variable. The
3217 pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value of
3218 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> that is in effect
3219 at that time will be used.
3223 <sect>Using the sidebar<label id="sidebar"> <!--{{{-->
3225 The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing
3226 which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients.
3227 The sidebar lists all specified mailboxes, shows the number in each
3228 and highlights the ones with new email
3229 Use the following configuration commands:
3231 set sidebar_visible="yes"
3232 set sidebar_width=25
3235 If you want to specify the mailboxes you can do so with:
3244 You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using:
3246 color sidebar_new red black
3247 color sidebar white black
3250 The available functions are:
3252 sidebar-scroll-up Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page
3253 sidebar-scroll-down Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page
3254 sidebar-next Highlights the next mailbox
3255 sidebar-next-new Highlights the next mailbox with new mail
3256 sidebar-previous Highlights the previous mailbox
3257 sidebar-open Opens the currently highlighted mailbox
3260 Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
3262 bind index \Cp sidebar-prev
3263 bind index \Cn sidebar-next
3264 bind index \Cb sidebar-open
3265 bind pager \Cp sidebar-prev
3266 bind pager \Cn sidebar-next
3267 bind pager \Cb sidebar-open
3269 macro index B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3270 macro pager B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3273 You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and
3274 switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
3278 <sect>External Address Queries<label id="query"> <!--{{{-->
3280 Mutt-ng supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
3281 ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt
3282 using a simple interface. Using the <ref id="query_command"
3283 name="$query_command"> variable, you specify the wrapper
3284 command to use. For example:
3287 set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'"
3290 The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It
3291 should return a one line message, then each matching response on a
3292 single line, each line containing a tab separated address then name then
3293 some other optional information. On error, or if there are no matching
3294 addresses, return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message.
3296 An example multiple response output:
3298 Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching:
3299 me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude
3300 blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more
3301 roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp
3304 There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One
3305 is to do a query from the index menu using the query function (default: Q).
3306 This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will
3307 list the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select
3308 addresses to create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple addresses
3309 to mail, start a new query, or have a new query appended to the current
3312 The other mechanism for accessing the query function is for address
3313 completion, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address
3314 entry, you can use the complete-query function (default: ^T) to run a
3315 query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, mutt
3316 will look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If
3317 there is a single response for that query, mutt will expand the address
3318 in place. If there are multiple responses, mutt will activate the query
3319 menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be
3320 added to the prompt.
3324 <sect>Mailbox Formats <!--{{{-->
3326 Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
3327 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there
3328 is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new
3329 mailboxes, Mutt-ng uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type"
3330 name="$mbox_type"> variable.
3332 <bf/mbox/. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All
3333 messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form:
3336 From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST
3339 to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the
3340 ``From_'' line).
3342 <bf/MMDF/. This is a variant of the <em/mbox/ format. Each message is
3343 surrounded by lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's).
3345 <bf/MH/. A radical departure from <em/mbox/ and <em/MMDF/, a mailbox
3346 consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file.
3347 The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not
3348 correspond to the message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages are
3349 renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <bf/Note:/ Mutt
3350 detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <tt/.mh_sequences/
3351 or <tt/.xmhcache/ (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH
3354 <bf/Maildir/. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a
3355 replacement for sendmail). Similar to <em/MH/, except that it adds three
3356 subdirectories of the mailbox: <em/tmp/, <em/new/ and <em/cur/. Filenames
3357 for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two
3358 programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking
3363 <sect>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts"> <!--{{{-->
3365 There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes.
3366 These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox
3370 <item>! -- refers to your <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile"> (incoming) mailbox
3371 <item>> -- refers to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> file
3372 <item>< -- refers to your <ref id="record" name="$record"> file
3373 <item>^ -- refers to the current mailbox
3374 <item>- or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
3375 <item>˜ -- refers to your home directory
3376 <item>= or + -- refers to your <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> directory
3377 <item>@<em/alias/ -- refers to the <ref id="save-hook"
3378 name="default save folder"> as determined by the address of the alias
3383 <sect>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists"> <!--{{{-->
3386 Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
3387 amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt
3388 know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically
3389 this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most
3390 often used for), and what lists you are subscribed to. This is
3391 accomplished through the use of the <ref id="lists"
3392 name="lists and subscribe"> commands in your muttrc.
3394 Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
3395 things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
3396 through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in
3397 the <em/index/ menu display. This is useful to distinguish between
3398 personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the <ref id="index_format"
3399 name="$index_format"> variable, the escape ``%L''
3400 will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the
3401 ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc''
3402 field (otherwise it returns the name of the author).
3404 Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages
3405 tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the
3406 author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in
3407 two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply''
3408 function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the <em/index/ menu
3409 and <em/pager/, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the
3410 known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as
3411 specified by <tt/Mail-Followup-To/, see below).
3413 Mutt-ng also supports the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header. When you send
3414 a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several
3415 subscribed mailing lists, and if the <ref id="followup_to"
3416 name="$followup_to"> option is set, mutt will generate
3417 a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom
3418 you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that
3419 group-replies or list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this
3420 message should only be sent to the original recipients of the
3421 message, and not separately to you - you'll receive your copy through
3422 one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to.
3424 Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which
3425 has a <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header, mutt will respect this header if
3426 the <ref id="honor_followup_to"
3427 name="$honor_followup_to"> configuration
3428 variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure
3429 that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified
3430 in the list of recipients in the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/.
3432 Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
3433 <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header manually. Mutt-ng will only auto-generate
3434 this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
3437 The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a
3438 ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather
3439 than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying
3440 to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients
3441 will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To''
3442 field. Mutt-ng uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">
3443 variable to help decide which address to use. If set to <em/ask-yes/ or
3444 <em/ask-no/, you will be
3445 prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in
3446 the ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the
3447 ``From'' field. When set to <em/yes/, the ``Reply-To'' field will be used when
3450 The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing
3451 lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages
3452 individually). The <ref id="index_format"
3453 name="$index_format"> variable's ``%y'' and
3454 ``%Y'' escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the
3455 index, and Mutt-ng's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
3456 ``X-Label:'' fields with the ``˜y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a
3457 standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by procmail
3458 and other mail filtering agents.
3460 Lastly, Mutt-ng has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into
3461 <ref id="threads" name="threads">. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same
3462 subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a
3463 message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever
3464 used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealing
3465 with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete
3466 uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value.
3470 <sect>Editing threads <!--{{{-->
3472 Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
3473 either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some
3474 correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these
3475 annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion.
3477 <sect1>Linking threads
3480 Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
3481 "References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken
3482 discussions because Mutt-ng has not enough information to guess the correct
3484 You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent message
3485 and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default). The
3486 reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
3488 You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and using the
3489 tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
3491 <sect1>Breaking threads
3494 On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
3495 discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and changing
3496 the subject to a totally unrelated one.
3497 You can fix such threads by using the ``break-thread'' function (bound
3498 by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the
3499 current message into a whole different thread.
3503 <sect>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support<label id="dsn"> <!--{{{-->
3506 RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information
3507 about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as
3508 ``return receipts.''
3510 Users can make use of it in one of the following two ways:
3513 <item>Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command line options
3514 in which the mail client can make requests as to what type of status
3515 messages should be returned.
3516 <item>The SMTP support via libESMTP supports it, too.
3519 To support this, there are two variables:
3523 <item><ref id="dsn_notify" name="$dsn_notify"> is used
3524 to request receipts for different results (such as failed message,
3525 message delivered, etc.).
3527 <item><ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests
3528 how much of your message should be returned with the receipt
3529 (headers or full message).
3533 Please see the reference chapter for possible values.
3537 <sect>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3540 If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/
3541 script with the <em/--enable-pop/ flag), it has the ability to work
3542 with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local
3545 You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
3546 <tt>pop://popserver/</tt>.
3548 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3549 <tt>pop://popserver:port/</tt>.
3551 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3552 <tt>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</tt>.
3554 Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
3555 reason the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can be
3557 <ref id="pop_mail_check" name="$pop_mail_check">
3558 variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds.
3560 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
3561 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to POP3 servers
3562 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
3563 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should
3564 use pops: prefix, ie:
3565 <tt>pops://[username@]popserver[:port]/</tt>.
3567 Another way to access your POP3 mail is the <em/fetch-mail/ function
3568 (default: G). It allows to connect to <ref id="pop_host"
3569 name="pop_host">, fetch all your new mail and place it in the
3570 local <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile">. After this
3571 point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
3573 <bf/Note:/ If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox
3574 you should consider using a specialized program, such as <htmlurl
3575 url="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail" name="fetchmail">
3579 <sect>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3582 If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <em/configure/
3583 script with the <em/--enable-imap/ flag), it has the ability to work
3584 with folders located on a remote IMAP server.
3586 You can access the remote inbox by selecting the folder
3587 <tt>imap://imapserver/INBOX</tt>, where <tt/imapserver/ is the name of the
3588 IMAP server and <tt/INBOX/ is the special name for your spool mailbox on
3589 the IMAP server. If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP
3590 server, you should use <tt>imap://imapserver/path/to/folder</tt> where
3591 <tt>path/to/folder</tt> is the path of the folder you want to access.
3593 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3594 <tt>imap://imapserver:port/INBOX</tt>.
3596 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3597 <tt>imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX</tt>.
3599 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
3600 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to IMAP servers
3601 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
3602 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should
3603 use <tt>imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder</tt> as your
3606 Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e.
3607 <tt>{[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder</tt>
3609 Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt-ng should
3610 correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and convert
3613 When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look
3614 at only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the
3615 <em/toggle-subscribed/ command. See also the
3616 <ref id="imap_list_subscribed"
3617 name="$imap_list_subscribed"> variable.
3619 Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So, you'll
3620 want to carefully tune the
3621 <ref id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">
3623 <ref id="timeout" name="$timeout">
3626 Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior to
3627 v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client
3628 selects the same folder.
3630 <sect1>The Folder Browser
3633 As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP
3634 server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the
3635 following differences:
3637 <item>Instead of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
3638 possibly followed by the symbol "+", indicating
3639 that the entry contains both messages and subfolders. On
3640 Cyrus-like servers folders will often contain both messages and
3642 <item>For the case where an entry can contain both messages and
3643 subfolders, the selection key (bound to <tt>enter</tt> by default)
3644 will choose to descend into the subfolder view. If you wish to view
3645 the messages in that folder, you must use <tt>view-file</tt> instead
3646 (bound to <tt>space</tt> by default).
3647 <item>You can create, delete and rename mailboxes with the
3648 <tt>create-mailbox</tt>, <tt>delete-mailbox</tt>, and
3649 <tt>rename-mailbox</tt> commands (default bindings: <tt>C</tt>,
3650 <tt>d</tt> and <tt>r</tt>, respectively). You may also
3651 <tt>subscribe</tt> and <tt>unsubscribe</tt> to mailboxes (normally
3652 these are bound to <tt>s</tt> and <tt>u</tt>, respectively).
3655 <sect1>Authentication
3658 Mutt-ng supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
3659 GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add
3660 NTLM authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has
3661 yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for
3662 the pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public
3663 IMAP server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make
3664 your username blank or "anonymous".
3666 SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several protocols
3667 (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most secure
3668 method available on your host and the server. Using some of these methods
3669 (including DIGEST-MD5 and possibly GSSAPI), your entire session will be
3670 encrypted and invisible to those teeming network snoops. It is the best
3671 option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL library
3672 installed on your system and compile mutt with the <em/--with-sasl/ flag.
3674 Mutt-ng will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server,
3675 in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
3677 There are a few variables which control authentication:
3679 <item><ref id="imap_user" name="$imap_user"> - controls
3680 the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP server,
3681 for all authenticators. This is overridden by an explicit username in
3682 the mailbox path (i.e. by using a mailbox name of the form
3684 <item><ref id="imap_pass" name="$imap_pass"> - a
3685 password which you may preset, used by all authentication methods where
3686 a password is needed.
3687 <item><ref id="imap_authenticators"
3688 name="$imap_authenticators"> - a colon-delimited list of IMAP
3689 authentication methods to try, in the order you wish to try them. If
3690 specified, this overrides mutt's default (attempt everything, in the order
3696 <sect>NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)<label id="reading_news"> <!--{{{-->
3698 <p>If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt-ng can read news from
3699 a newsserver via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with the
3700 ``change-newsgroup'' function from the index/pager which is by default
3703 <p>The Default newsserver can be obtained from the
3704 <tt/$NNTPSERVER/ environment variable. Like other news readers,
3705 info about subscribed newsgroups is saved in a file as specified by the
3706 <ref id="nntp_newsrc" name="$nntp_newsrc"> variable.
3707 Article headers are cached and can be loaded from a file when a
3708 newsgroup is entered instead loading from newsserver; currently, this
3709 caching mechanism still is different from the header caching for
3712 <sect1>Again: Scoring <!--{{{-->
3714 <p>Especially for Usenet, people often ask for advanced filtering
3715 and scoring functionality. Of course, mutt-ng has scoring and
3716 allows a killfile, too. How to use a killfile has been discussed
3717 in <ref id="score-command" name="Message scoring">.
3719 <p>What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in
3720 realname filter. For may newsreaders including those for
3721 ``advanced users'' like <em/slrn/ or <em/tin/, there are frequent
3722 request for such functionality. The solutions offered often are
3723 complicated regular expressions.
3725 <p>In mutt-ng this is as easy as
3731 <p>This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose
3732 sender specified a valid realname and a valid email address. Using
3738 <p>on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages <em/not/
3739 matching those criteria which are very strict:
3743 <item>Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see
3744 <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt"
3745 name="<ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt>">
3747 <item>the name must consist of at least 2 fields whereby a field
3748 must not end in a dot. This means that ``Joe User'' and ``Joe A.
3749 User'' are valid while ``J. User'' and ``J. A. User'' aren't.
3751 <item>it's assumed that users are interested in reading their
3752 own mail and mail from people who they have defined an alias for
3753 so that those 2 groups of messages are excluded from the strict
3762 <sect>SMTP Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3764 <p>Mutt-ng can be built using a library called ``libESMTP'' which
3765 provides SMTP functionality. When <tt/configure/ was called with
3766 <tt/--with-libesmtp/ or the output <tt>muttng -v</tt> contains
3767 <tt>+USE_LIBESMTP</tt>, this will be or is the case already. The SMTP
3768 support includes support for Delivery Status Notification (see <ref
3769 id="dsn" name="Delivery Status Notification"> section) as well as
3770 handling the <tt/8BITMIME/ flag controlled via <ref id="use_8bitmime"
3771 name="$use_8bitmime">.
3773 <p>To enable sending mail directly via SMTP without an MTA such as
3774 Postfix or SSMTP and the like, simply set the <ref id="smtp_host"
3775 name="$smtp_host"> variable pointing to your SMTP server.
3777 <p>Authentication mechanisms are available via the <ref id="smtp_user"
3778 name="$smtp_user"> and <ref id="smtp_pass"
3779 name="$smtp_pass"> variables.
3781 <p>Transport Encryption via the StartTLS command is also available. For
3782 this to work, first of all Mutt-ng must be built with SSL or GNUTLS.
3783 Secondly, the <ref id="smtp_use_tls"
3784 name="$smtp_use_tls"> variable must be either set
3785 to ``enabled'' or ``required.'' In both cases, StartTLS will be used if
3786 the server supports it: for the second case, the connection will fail if
3787 it doesn't while switching back to unencrypted communication for the
3790 <p>Some mail providers require user's to set a particular envelope
3791 sender, i.e. they allow for only one value which may not be what the
3792 user wants to send as the <tt/From:/ header. In this case, the variable
3793 <ref id="smtp_envelope" name="$smtp_envelope"> may be used
3794 to set the envelope different from the <tt/From:/ header.
3798 <sect>Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)<label id="account-hook"> <!--{{{-->
3801 If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers,
3802 you may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and
3803 error-prone. The account-hook command may help. This hook works like
3804 folder-hook but is invoked whenever you access a remote mailbox
3805 (including inside the folder browser), not just when you open the
3811 account-hook . 'unset imap_user; unset imap_pass; unset tunnel'
3812 account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo'
3813 account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'
3818 <sect>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)<label id="urlview"> <!--{{{-->
3820 If a message contains URLs (<em/unified resource locator/ = address in the
3821 WWW space like <em>http://www.mutt.org/</em>), it is efficient to get
3822 a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This
3823 functionality is provided by the external urlview program which can be
3824 retrieved at <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"
3825 name="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"> and the configuration commands:
3827 macro index \cb |urlview\n
3828 macro pager \cb |urlview\n
3833 <sect>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
3836 If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
3837 <em/configure/ script with the <em/--enable-compressed/ flag), Mutt
3838 can open folders stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user
3839 has a script to convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
3841 The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with
3844 In addition, the user can provide a script that gets a folder in an
3845 accepted format and appends its context to the folder in the
3846 user-defined format, which may be faster than converting the entire
3847 folder to the accepted format, appending to it and converting back to
3848 the user-defined format.
3850 There are three hooks defined (<ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook">,
3851 <ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> and <ref id="append-hook"
3852 name="append-hook">) which define commands to uncompress and compress
3853 a folder and to append messages to an existing compressed folder
3859 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
3860 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
3861 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
3864 You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit <ref
3865 id="append-hook" name="append-hook">, the folder will be open and
3866 closed again each time you will add to it. If you omit <ref
3867 id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> (or give empty command) , the
3868 folder will be open in the mode. If you specify <ref
3869 id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> though you'll be able to append
3872 Note that Mutt-ng will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
3873 the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt
3874 supposes it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the
3875 use of programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use
3876 &dquot;.&dquot; as a regexp. But this may be surprising if your
3877 compressing script produces empty files. In this situation, unset <ref
3878 id="save_empty" name="$save_empty">, so that the compressed file
3879 will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
3881 <sect1>Open a compressed mailbox for reading<label id="open-hook">
3883 Usage: <tt/open-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3885 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for opening the
3886 folders whose names match <em/regexp/.
3888 The <em/command/ string is the printf-like format string, and it
3889 should accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the
3890 (compressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the
3891 name of the temporary folder to which to write.
3893 %f and %t can be repeated any number of times in the
3894 command string, and all of the entries are replaced with the
3895 appropriate folder name. In addition, %% is replaced by
3896 %, as in printf, and any other %anything is left as is.
3898 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the original compressed file.
3899 The <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so
3900 mutt knows something's wrong.
3905 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
3908 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3911 <sect1>Write a compressed mailbox<label id="close-hook">
3913 Usage: <tt/close-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3915 This is used to close the folder that was open with the <ref id="open-hook"
3916 name="open-hook"> command after some changes were made to it.
3918 The <em/command/ string is the command that can be used for closing the
3919 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
3920 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command. Temporary folder
3921 in this case is the folder previously produced by the <<ref id="open-hook"
3922 name="open-hook"> command.
3924 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
3925 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
3926 knows something's wrong.
3931 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
3934 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3935 type, and the file can only be open in the readonly mode.
3937 <ref id="close-hook" name ="close-hook"> is not called when you exit
3938 from the folder if the folder was not changed.
3940 <sect1>Append a message to a compressed mailbox<label id="append-hook">
3942 Usage: <tt/append-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
3944 This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder.
3945 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for appending to the
3946 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
3947 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command.
3948 The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are being
3951 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
3952 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
3953 knows something's wrong.
3958 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
3961 When <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is used, the folder is
3962 not opened, which saves time, but this means that we can not find out
3963 what the folder type is. Thus the default (<ref id="mbox_type"
3964 name="$mbox_type">) type is always supposed (i.e.
3965 this is the format used for the temporary folder).
3967 If the file does not exist when you save to it, <ref id="close-hook"
3968 name="close-hook"> is called, and not <ref id="append-hook"
3969 name="append-hook">. <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is only
3970 for appending to existing folders.
3972 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
3973 type. In this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using
3974 <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> and <ref id="close-hook"
3975 name="close-hook">respectively) each time you will add to it.
3977 <sect1>Encrypted folders
3979 The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
3980 folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to use
3981 the following hooks:
3984 open-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -f < %f > %t"
3985 close-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -fe YourPgpUserIdOrKeyId < %t > %f"
3988 Please note, that PGP does not support appending to an encrypted
3989 folder, so there is no append-hook defined.
3991 <bf/Note:/ the folder is temporary stored decrypted in the /tmp
3992 directory, where it can be read by your system administrator. So think
3993 about the security aspects of this.
3999 <chapt>Mutt-ng's MIME Support <!--{{{-->
4001 Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt-ng the premier text-mode
4002 MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
4003 the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
4004 wherever possible. When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two extra
4005 types of configuration files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the
4006 <tt/mime.types/ file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to
4007 IANA MIME types. The other is the <tt/mailcap/ file, which specifies
4008 the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
4010 <sect>Using MIME in Mutt <!--{{{-->
4012 There are three areas/menus in Mutt-ng which deal with MIME, they are the
4013 pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
4016 <sect1>Viewing MIME messages in the pager
4018 When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
4019 decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally supports
4020 a number of MIME types, including <tt>text/plain, text/enriched,
4021 message/rfc822, and message/news</tt>. In addition, the export
4022 controlled version of Mutt-ng recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
4023 including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
4025 Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
4026 These lines are of the form:
4028 [-- Attachment #1: Description --]
4029 [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]
4031 Where the <tt/Description/ is the description or filename given for the
4032 attachment, and the <tt/Encoding/ is one of
4033 <tt>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</tt>.
4035 If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
4037 [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
4040 <sect1>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu">
4042 The default binding for <tt/view-attachments/ is `v', which displays the
4043 attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of
4044 the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save,
4045 print, pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these
4046 operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments
4047 and by using the ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the
4048 current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the
4049 attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view
4050 attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition.
4052 Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
4053 <ref id="resend-message" name="resend-message">, and the reply
4054 and forward functions) to attachments of type <tt>message/rfc822</tt>.
4056 See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
4058 <sect1>The Compose Menu<label id="compose_menu">
4060 The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
4061 allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
4062 of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your
4063 message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy,
4064 filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a
4065 list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment
4066 information, notably the type, encoding and description.
4068 Attachments appear as follows:
4070 - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
4071 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
4074 The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or
4075 postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
4076 <tt/toggle-unlink/ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
4077 content-type, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-type/ command
4078 (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment,
4079 which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit
4080 links. It can be changed with the <tt/edit-encoding/ command
4081 (default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment,
4082 rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename,
4083 which can be changed with the <tt/rename-file/ command (default: R).
4084 The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
4085 changed with the <tt/edit-description/ command (default: d).
4089 <sect>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/ <!--{{{-->
4091 When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your
4092 personal mime.types file at <tt>${HOME}/.mime.types</tt>, and then
4093 the system mime.types file at <tt>/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</tt> or
4094 <tt>/etc/mime.types</tt>
4096 The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
4097 separated list of extensions. For example:
4099 application/postscript ps eps
4101 audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
4103 A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt-ng distribution, and
4104 should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
4106 If Mutt-ng can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
4107 attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
4108 information, Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
4109 as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt-ng will
4110 mark it as <tt>application/octet-stream</tt>. You can change the MIME
4111 type that Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/
4112 command from the compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a
4113 major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
4114 types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved
4115 after various internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of these if the
4116 appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises other
4117 major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
4118 molecular modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms to
4119 various molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used
4120 if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
4124 <sect>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/ <!--{{{-->
4126 Mutt-ng supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
4127 specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
4128 is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
4129 programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
4130 for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
4131 use this format include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
4133 In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt-ng can not handle
4134 internally, Mutt-ng parses a series of external configuration files to
4135 find an external handler. The default search string for these files
4136 is a colon delimited list set to
4138 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
4140 where <tt/$HOME/ is your home directory.
4142 In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
4143 usually as <tt>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</tt>, which contains some baseline
4146 <sect1>The Basics of the mailcap file
4148 A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank,
4151 A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want.
4153 A blank line is blank.
4155 A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
4156 number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is divided
4157 by a semicolon ';' character.
4159 The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method.
4161 <tt>text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </tt>
4162 etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for
4163 wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the implicit
4164 wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <tt>image/*</tt>, or
4165 <tt>video,</tt> will match all image types and video types,
4168 The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
4169 are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
4170 the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
4171 this behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
4172 This will cause Mutt-ng to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary
4173 file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
4174 the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt-ng will turn over the
4175 terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt
4176 will remove the temporary file if it exists.
4178 So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
4179 external pager more on stdin:
4183 Or, you could send the message as a file:
4187 Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
4192 In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you
4193 must use the %s syntax.
4194 <bf/Note:/ <em>Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where they
4195 will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will find
4196 the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to continuously
4197 spawn itself to view the object.</em>
4199 On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you
4200 just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can
4203 text/html; lynx -dump %s | more
4206 Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on
4207 all other text formats, then you would use the following:
4212 This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
4214 <sect1>Secure use of mailcap
4216 The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
4217 can lead to security problems in general. Mutt-ng tries to quote parameters
4218 in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
4219 substituting them, see the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
4220 name="mailcap_sanitize"> variable.
4222 Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
4223 safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care
4224 of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
4226 <em/Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting./
4227 Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt-ng does this for
4228 you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
4229 mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
4230 with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix
4231 broken behaviour with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no
4232 alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
4234 If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need
4235 quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable
4236 and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following
4237 example (using <tt/$charset/ inside the backtick expansion is safe,
4238 since it is not itself subject to any further expansion):
4241 text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
4242 && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
4245 <sect1>Advanced mailcap Usage
4248 <sect2>Optional Fields
4250 In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you
4251 can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
4252 Mutt-ng recognizes the following optional fields:
4255 This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly large amounts of
4256 text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager (either the internal
4257 pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output
4258 of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt-ng assumes that the command
4259 is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <tt>more</tt>
4260 in the <tt>lynx -dump</tt> example in the Basic section:
4262 text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
4264 This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
4265 and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the results.
4267 Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view"
4268 name="autoview">, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
4269 of the <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> variable or
4270 not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the
4271 corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt-ng will use
4272 <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> and the exit status
4273 of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the
4274 external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt
4276 <tag>compose=<command></tag>
4277 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
4278 specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
4279 <tag>composetyped=<command></tag>
4280 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
4281 specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in
4282 that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be
4283 used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new
4284 attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
4285 <tag>print=<command></tag>
4286 This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type.
4287 Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
4288 <tag>edit=<command></tag>
4289 This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type.
4290 Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
4291 new attachments. Mutt-ng will default to the defined editor for text
4293 <tag>nametemplate=<template></tag>
4294 This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
4295 command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file extension,
4296 for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx will only
4297 interpret a file as <tt>text/html</tt> if the file ends in <tt/.html/.
4298 So, you would specify lynx as a <tt>text/html</tt> viewer with a line in
4299 the mailcap file like:
4301 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4303 <tag>test=<command></tag>
4304 This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
4305 entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion
4306 rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the
4307 test passed, and Mutt-ng uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
4308 then the test failed, and Mutt-ng continues searching for the right entry.
4309 <bf/Note:/ <em>the content-type must match before Mutt-ng performs the test.</em>
4312 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4315 In this example, Mutt-ng will run the program RunningX which will return 0
4316 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If
4317 RunningX returns 0, then Mutt-ng will call netscape to display the
4318 text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt-ng will go on
4319 to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html object.
4324 When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for
4325 the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
4326 attempting to print an <tt>image/gif</tt>, and you have the following
4327 entries in your mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for an entry with the
4331 image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
4334 Mutt-ng will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt>
4335 entry with the print command.
4337 In addition, you can use this with <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">
4338 to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed
4339 automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the attachment
4340 menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine which
4341 viewer to use interactively depending on your environment.
4343 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4344 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4345 text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
4347 For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt-ng will choose the third
4348 entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt
4349 will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first
4350 entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt-ng will use the second entry
4351 for interactive viewing.
4353 <sect2>Command Expansion
4355 The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
4356 <tt>/bin/sh</tt> shell using the system() function. Before the
4357 command is passed to <tt>/bin/sh -c</tt>, it is parsed to expand
4358 various special parameters with information from Mutt-ng. The keywords
4359 Mutt-ng expands are:
4362 As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded
4363 to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
4364 the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
4365 program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
4366 use of this keyword causes Mutt-ng to not pass the body of the message
4367 to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
4369 Mutt-ng will expand %t to the text representation of the content
4370 type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
4371 mailcap definition line, ie <tt>text/html</tt> or
4373 <tag>%{<parameter>}</tag>
4374 Mutt-ng will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
4375 from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
4376 Your mail message contains:
4378 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4380 then Mutt-ng will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
4381 mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm
4382 using the right charset to view the message.
4383 <tag>\%</tag>
4384 This will be replaced by a %
4386 Mutt-ng does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
4387 specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
4388 multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt-ng.
4390 <sect1>Example mailcap files
4392 This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
4394 # I'm always running X :)
4395 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4396 image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
4398 # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
4399 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'
4402 This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
4405 # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
4406 # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
4407 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4409 # Send html to a running netscape by remote
4410 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape
4412 # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the
4414 text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX
4416 # Else use lynx to view it as text
4419 # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
4420 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
4422 # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
4423 text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
4425 # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
4426 image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
4428 # Use xv to view images if I'm running X
4429 # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
4431 image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; \
4434 # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
4435 image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
4436 pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
4438 # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
4439 application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
4444 <sect>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view"> <!--{{{-->
4446 In addition to explicitly telling Mutt-ng to view an attachment with the
4447 MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng has support for
4448 automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
4450 To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
4451 <tt/copiousoutput/ option to denote that it is non-interactive.
4452 Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text
4453 representation which you can view in the pager.
4455 You then use the <tt/auto_view/ muttrc command to list the
4456 content-types that you wish to view automatically.
4458 For instance, if you set auto_view to:
4460 auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz
4463 Mutt-ng could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
4464 attachments of these types.
4466 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
4467 image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
4468 application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
4469 application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
4470 application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput
4473 ``unauto_view'' can be used to remove previous entries from the autoview list.
4474 This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on size, etc.
4475 ``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
4479 <sect>MIME Multipart/Alternative<label id="alternative_order"> <!--{{{-->
4481 Mutt-ng has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
4482 multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
4483 alternative_order list to determine if one of the available types
4484 is preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a number of
4485 MIME types in order, including support for implicit and explicit
4486 wildcards, for example:
4488 alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text application/postscript image/*
4491 Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
4492 <ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view">, and use that. Failing
4493 that, Mutt-ng will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt will
4494 look for any type it knows how to handle.
4496 To remove a MIME type from the <tt/alternative_order/ list, use the
4497 <tt/unalternative_order/ command.
4501 <sect>MIME Lookup<label id="mime_lookup"> <!--{{{-->
4503 Mutt-ng's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
4504 be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed to
4505 deal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an attachment's
4506 mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the filename will
4507 be compared to the list of extensions in the mime.types file. The mime-type
4508 associated with this extension will then be used to process the attachment
4509 according to the rules in the mailcap file and according to any other configuration
4510 options (such as auto_view) specified. Common usage would be:
4512 mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript
4515 In addition, the unmime_lookup command may be used to disable this feature
4516 for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a global
4523 <chapt>Security Considerations <!--{{{-->
4525 <p>First of all, mutt-ng contains no security holes included by
4526 intention but may contain unknown security holes. As a consequence,
4527 please run mutt-ng only with as few permissions as possible.
4529 <p>Please do not run mutt-ng as the super user.
4531 <p>When configuring mutt-ng, there're some points to note about secure
4534 <p>In practice, mutt-ng can be easily made as vulnerable as even the
4535 most insecure mail user agents (in their default configuration) just
4536 by changing mutt-ng's configuration files: it then can execute
4537 arbitrary programs and scripts attached to messages, send out private
4538 data on its own, etc. Although this is not believed to the common type
4539 of setup, please read this chapter carefully.
4541 <sect>Passwords <!--{{{-->
4543 <p>Although mutt-ng can be told the various passwords for accounts,
4544 please never store passwords in configuration files. Besides the
4545 fact that the system's operator can always read them, you could
4546 forget to replace the actual password with asterisks when reporting
4547 a bug or asking for help via, for example, a mailing list so that
4548 your mail including your password could be archived by internet
4549 search engines, etc. Please never store passwords on disk.
4553 <sect>Temporary Files <!--{{{-->
4555 <p>Mutt-ng uses many temporary files for viewing messages, verifying
4556 digital signatures, etc. The <ref id="umask" name="$umask">
4557 variable can be used to change the default permissions of these
4558 files. Please only change it if you really know what you are doing.
4559 Also, a different location for these files may be desired which can
4560 be changed via the <ref id="tmpdir" name="$tmpdir"> variable.
4564 <sect>Information Leaks <!--{{{-->
4566 <sect1>Message-ID: headers <!--{{{-->
4568 <p>In the default configuration, mutt-ng will leak some information
4569 to the outside world when sending messages: the generation of
4570 <tt/Message-ID:/ headers includes a step counter which is increased
4571 (and rotated) with every message sent. If you'd like to hide this
4572 information probably telling others how many mail you sent in which
4573 time, you at least need to remove the <tt/%P/ expando from the
4574 default setting of the <ref id="msgid_format"
4575 name="$msgid_format"> variable. Please make sure that
4576 you really know how local parts of these <tt/Message-ID:/ headers
4581 <sect1>mailto:-style links <!--{{{-->
4583 <p>As mutt-ng be can be set up to be the mail client to handle
4584 <tt/mailto:/ style links in websites, there're security
4585 considerations, too. To keep the old behavior by default, mutt-ng
4586 will be strict in interpreting them which means that arbitrary
4587 header fields can be embedded in these links which could override
4588 existing header fields or attach arbitrary files. This may be
4589 problematic if the <ref id="edit_headers"
4590 name="$edit_headers"> variable is <em/unset/, i.e. the
4591 user doesn't want to see header fields while editing the message.
4593 <p>For example, following a link like
4596 mailto:joe@host?Attach=~/.gnupg/secring.gpg</verb>
4598 will send out the user's private gnupg keyring to <tt/joe@host/ if
4599 the user doesn't follow the information on screen carefully
4602 <p>When <em/unsetting/ the <ref id="strict_mailto"
4603 name="$strict_mailto"> variable, mutt-ng will
4607 <item>be less strict when interpreting these links by
4608 prepending a <tt/X-Mailto-/ string to all header fields
4609 embedded in such a link <em/and/
4611 <item>turn on the <ref id="edit_headers"
4612 name="$edit_headers"> variable by
4613 force to let the user see all the headers
4614 (because they still may leak information.)
4622 <sect>External applications <!--{{{-->
4624 <p>Mutt-ng in many places has to rely on external applications or
4625 for convenience supports mechanisms involving external
4628 <sect1>mailcap <!--{{{-->
4630 <p>One of these is the <tt/mailcap/ mechanism as defined by RfC
4631 1524. Mutt-ng can be set up to <em/automatically/ execute any
4632 given utility as listed in one of the mailcap files (see the
4633 <ref id="mailcap_path" name="$mailcap_path">
4634 variable for details.)
4636 These utilities may have a variety of security vulnerabilities,
4637 including overwriting of arbitrary files, information leaks or
4638 other exploitable bugs. These vulnerabilities may go unnoticed by
4639 the user, especially when they are called automatically (and
4640 without interactive prompting) from the mailcap file(s). When
4641 using mutt-ng's autoview mechanism in combination with mailcap
4642 files, please be sure to...
4646 <item>manually select trustworth applications with a reasonable
4649 <item>periodically check the contents of mailcap files,
4650 especially after software installations or upgrades
4652 <item>keep the software packages referenced in the mailcap file up to date
4654 <item>leave the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
4655 name="$mailcap_sanitize"> variable in its default
4656 state to restrict mailcap expandos to a safe set of characters
4662 <sect1>Other <!--{{{-->
4664 <p>Besides the mailcap mechanism, mutt-ng uses a number of other
4665 external utilities for operation.
4667 <p>The same security considerations apply for these as for tools
4668 involved via mailcap (for example, mutt-ng is vulnerable to Denial
4669 of Service Attacks with compressed folders support if the
4670 uncompressed mailbox is too large for the disk it is saved to.)
4672 <p>As already noted, most of these problems are not built in but
4673 caused by wrong configuration, so please check your configuration.
4681 <chapt>Reference <!--{{{-->
4683 <sect>Command line options<label id="commandline"> <!--{{{-->
4685 Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt-ng attempt to read your spool
4686 mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and
4687 to send messages from the command line as well.
4691 -a attach a file to a message
4692 -b specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address
4693 -c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address
4694 -e specify a config command to be run after initialization files are read
4695 -f specify a mailbox to load
4696 -F specify an alternate file to read initialization commands
4697 -h print help on command line options
4698 -H specify a draft file from which to read a header and body
4699 -i specify a file to include in a message composition
4700 -m specify a default mailbox type
4701 -n do not read the system Muttngrc
4702 -p recall a postponed message
4703 -Q query a configuration variable
4704 -R open mailbox in read-only mode
4705 -s specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces)
4706 -t dump the value of all variables to stdout
4707 -T dump the value of all changed variables to stdout
4708 -v show version number and compile-time definitions
4709 -x simulate the mailx(1) compose mode
4710 -y show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes command
4711 -z exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox
4712 -Z open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if none
4715 To read messages in a mailbox
4717 <tt/mutt/ [ -nz ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -m <em/type/ ] [ -f <em/mailbox/ ]
4719 To compose a new message
4721 <tt/mutt/ [ -n ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -a <em/file/ ] [ -c <em/address/ ] [ -i <em/filename/ ] [ -s <em/subject/ ] <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ]
4723 Mutt-ng also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect
4724 input from the file you wish to send. For example,
4726 <tt>mutt -s &dquot;data set for run #2&dquot; professor@bigschool.edu
4727 < ˜/run2.dat</tt>
4729 This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a subject
4730 of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the contents
4731 of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
4735 <sect>Patterns<label id="patterns"> <!--{{{-->
4740 ~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body
4741 ~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
4742 ~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER
4743 ~C EXPR message is either to: or cc: EXPR
4745 ~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
4747 ~e EXPR message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
4749 ~f USER messages originating from USER
4750 ~g cryptographically signed messages
4751 ~G cryptographically encrypted messages
4752 ~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR
4753 ~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
4754 ~k message contains PGP key material
4755 ~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
4756 ~L EXPR message is either originated or received by EXPR
4757 ~l message is addressed to a known mailing list
4758 ~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX *)
4759 ~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
4762 ~p message is addressed to you (consults alternates)
4763 ~P message is from you (consults alternates)
4764 ~Q messages which have been replied to
4766 ~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
4767 ~S superseded messages
4768 ~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
4770 ~t USER messages addressed to USER
4772 ~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
4773 ~V cryptographically verified messages
4774 ~w EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `Newsgroups' field
4775 (if compiled with NNTP support)
4776 ~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
4777 ~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
4778 ~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)
4779 ~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
4780 ~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)
4781 ~* ``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid
4782 address (excluded are addresses matching against
4783 alternates or any alias)
4786 Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are
4787 <ref id="regexp" name="regular expressions">. Special attention has to be
4788 made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
4789 Mutt-ng's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (\),
4790 which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
4791 backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes
4794 *) The forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>[MIN]/,
4795 <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
4800 <sect>Configuration Commands<label id="commands"> <!--{{{-->
4802 The following are the commands understood by mutt.
4806 <tt><ref id="account-hook" name="account-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4808 <tt><ref id="alias" name="alias"></tt> <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
4810 <tt><ref id="alias" name="unalias"></tt> [ * | <em/key/ ... ]
4812 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="alternates"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4814 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="unalternates"></tt> [ * | <em/regexp/ ... ]
4816 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="alternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4818 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="unalternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4820 <tt><ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4822 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4824 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="unauto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4826 <tt><ref id="bind" name="bind"></tt> <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
4828 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="charset-hook"></tt> <em/alias/ <em/charset/
4830 <tt><ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4832 <tt><ref id="color" name="color"></tt> <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
4834 <tt><ref id="color" name="uncolor"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4836 <tt><ref id="exec" name="exec"></tt> <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
4838 <tt><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4840 <tt><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4842 <tt><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4844 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="hdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
4846 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="unhdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
4848 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="iconv-hook"></tt> <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
4850 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="ignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4852 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="unignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4854 <tt><ref id="lists" name="lists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4856 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unlists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4858 <tt><ref id="macro" name="macro"></tt> <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
4860 <tt><ref id="mailboxes" name="mailboxes"></tt> <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
4862 <tt><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
4864 <tt><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
4866 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="mime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4868 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="unmime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
4870 <tt><ref id="color" name="mono"></tt> <em/object attribute/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
4872 <tt><ref id="color" name="unmono"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4874 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"></tt> <em/string/
4876 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="unmy_hdr"></tt> <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
4878 <tt><ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4880 <tt><ref id="crypt-hook" name="crypt-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/key-id/
4882 <tt><ref id="push" name="push"></tt> <em/string/
4884 <tt><ref id="set" name="reset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4886 <tt><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/filename/
4888 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="score"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/value/
4890 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="unscore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
4892 <tt><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4894 <tt><ref id="reply-hook" name="reply-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
4896 <tt><ref id="set" name="set"></tt> [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]
4898 <tt><ref id="set" name="unset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4900 <tt><ref id="source" name="source"></tt> <em/filename/
4902 <tt><ref id="spam" name="spam"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/format/
4904 <tt><ref id="spam" name="nospam"></tt> <em/pattern/
4906 <tt><ref id="lists" name="subscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4908 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unsubscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
4910 <tt><ref id="set" name="toggle"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
4912 <tt><ref id="unhook" name="unhook"></tt> <em/hook-type/
4915 <sect>Configuration variables<label id="variables">
4917 <p>The following list contains all variables which, in the process of
4918 providing more consistency, have been renamed and are partially even
4919 removed already. The left column contains the old synonym variables,
4920 the right column the full/new name:
4922 <label id="sect_obsolete">
4924 edit_hdrs edit_headers
4925 forw_decode forward_decode
4926 forw_format forward_format
4927 forw_quote forward_quote
4928 hdr_format index_format
4929 indent_str indent_string
4930 mime_fwd mime_forward
4931 msg_format message_format
4932 pgp_autosign crypt_autosign
4933 pgp_autoencrypt crypt_autoencrypt
4934 pgp_replyencrypt crypt_replyencrypt
4935 pgp_replysign crypt_replysign
4936 pgp_replysignencrypted crypt_replysignencrypted
4937 pgp_verify_sig crypt_verify_sig
4938 pgp_create_traditional pgp_autoinline
4939 pgp_auto_traditional pgp_replyinline
4940 forw_decrypt forward_decrypt
4941 smime_sign_as smime_default_key
4942 post_indent_str post_indent_string
4943 print_cmd print_command
4944 shorten_hierarchy sidebar_shorten_hierarchy
4945 ask_followup_to nntp_ask_followup_to
4946 ask_x_comment_to nntp_ask_x_comment_to
4947 catchup_newsgroup nntp_catchup
4948 followup_to_poster nntp_followup_to_poster
4949 group_index_format nntp_group_index_format
4951 mime_subject nntp_mime_subject
4952 news_cache_dir nntp_cache_dir
4953 news_server nntp_host
4955 nntp_poll nntp_mail_check
4956 pop_checkinterval pop_mail_check
4957 post_moderated nntp_post_moderated
4958 save_unsubscribed nntp_save_unsubscribed
4959 show_new_news nntp_show_new_news
4960 show_only_unread nntp_show_only_unread
4961 x_comment_to nntp_x_comment_to
4962 smtp_auth_username smtp_user
4963 smtp_auth_password smtp_pass
4966 The <tt/contrib/ subdirectory contains a script named
4967 <tt/update-config.pl/ which eases migration.
4969 A complete list of current variables follows.