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8 <title>The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client</title>
10 <firstname>Andreas</firstname><surname>Krennmair</surname>
11 <email>ak@synflood.at</email>
14 <firstname>Michael</firstname><surname>Elkins</surname>
15 <email>me@cs.hmc.edu</email>
17 <pubdate>version devel-r473</pubdate>
20 Michael Elinks on mutt, circa 1995:
21 ``All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.''
24 Sven Guckes on mutt, ca. 2003: ``But it still sucks!''
30 <title>Introduction </title>
33 <title>Overview </title>
36 <emphasis role="bold">Mutt-ng</emphasis> is a small but very
37 powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng is highly
38 configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with
39 advanced features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail
40 threading, regular expression searches and a powerful pattern
41 matching language for selecting groups of messages.
45 This documentation additionally contains documentation to
46 <emphasis role="bold"> Mutt-NG </emphasis> ,a fork from Mutt
47 with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
48 integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the
49 web, and to add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng
50 will be discussed in an extra section. Don't be confused when
51 most of the documentation talk about Mutt and not Mutt-ng,
52 Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many more.
62 <title>Mutt-ng Home Page </title>
65 <ulink url="http://www.muttng.org/">http://www.muttng.org</ulink>
75 <title>Mailing Lists </title>
83 <email>mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de</email>: This is
84 where the mutt-ng user support happens.
90 <email>mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de</email>: The
91 development mailing list for mutt-ng
106 <title>Software Distribution Sites </title>
109 So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can
110 download daily snapshots from <ulink
111 url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/"
112 >http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/</ulink>
125 Visit channel <emphasis>#muttng</emphasis> on <ulink
126 url="http://www.freenode.net/">irc.freenode.net
127 (www.freenode.net) </ulink> to chat with other people
128 interested in Mutt-ng.
134 <title>Weblog </title>
137 If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in
138 Mutt-ng, and get informed about stuff like interesting,
139 Mutt-ng-related articles and packages for your favorite
140 distribution, you can read and/or subscribe to our <ulink
141 url="http://mutt-ng.supersized.org/">Mutt-ng development
148 <title>Copyright </title>
151 Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins
152 <me@cs.hmc.edu> and others
156 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
157 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
158 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
159 (at your option) any later version.
163 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
164 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
165 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
166 GNU General Public License for more details.
170 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
171 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
172 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
181 <title>Getting Started </title>
184 <title>Basic Concepts </title>
187 <title>Screens and Menus </title>
190 mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special
200 The <emphasis>index</emphasis> displays the contents of the
209 The <emphasis>pager</emphasis> is responsible for displaying
211 is, the header, the body and all attached parts.
218 The <emphasis>file browser</emphasis> offers operations on and
220 information of all folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
227 The <emphasis>sidebar</emphasis> offers a permanent view of
229 contain how many total, new and/or flagged mails.
236 The <emphasis>help screen</emphasis> lists for all currently
238 commands how to invoke them as well as a short description.
245 The <emphasis>compose</emphasis> menu is a comfortable
247 actions before sending mail: change subjects, attach files,
256 The <emphasis>attachement</emphasis> menu gives a summary and
258 structure of the attachements of the current message.
265 The <emphasis>alias</emphasis> menu lists all or a fraction of
274 The <emphasis>key</emphasis> menu used in connection with
276 users choose the right key to encrypt with.
286 When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open
287 the users default mailbox and display the index.
298 <title>Configuration </title>
301 Mutt-ng does <emphasis>not</emphasis> feature an internal
303 interface or menu due to the simple fact that this would be too
304 complex to handle (currently there are several <emphasis>hundred</emphasis>
305 variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
309 Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow
310 users to add comments or manage them via version control systems
315 Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named <literal>grml-muttng</literal>
316 kindly contributed by users which really helps and eases the
317 creation of a user's configuration file. When downloading the
318 source code via a snapshot or via subversion, it can be found in
319 the <literal>contrib</literal> directory.
330 <title>Functions </title>
333 Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions:
334 internally, every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named
335 ``function.'' Those functions are assigned to keys (or even key
336 sequences) and may be completely adjusted to user's needs. The
337 basic idea is that the impatient users get a very intuitive
338 interface to start off with and advanced users virtually get no
339 limits to adjustments.
350 <title>Interaction </title>
353 Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
362 There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query
363 the user for input, issue any command, query variables and
364 display error and informational messages. As for every type of
365 user input, this requires manual action leading to the need of
373 The automatized interface for interaction are the so
374 called <emphasis>hooks</emphasis>. Hooks specify actions the
376 performed at well-defined situations: what to do when entering
377 which folder, what to do when displaying or replying to what
378 kind of message, etc. These are optional, i.e. a user doesn't
379 need to specify them but can do so.
396 <title>Modularization </title>
399 Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many
400 features can be delegated to external tools to increase
401 flexibility: users can define programs to filter a message through
402 before displaying, users can use any program they want for
403 displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or PostScript)
404 for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be rendered
405 by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
406 mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for
407 nearly every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases
408 or just the list of locally known users.
419 <title>Patterns </title>
422 Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is
423 as widely used as possible to present a consistent interface to
424 users. The same ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching,
425 scoring, message selection and much more.
444 <title>Screens and Menus </title>
447 <title>Index </title>
450 The index is the screen that you usually see first when you
451 start mutt-ng. It gives an overview over your emails in the
452 currently opened mailbox. By default, this is your system mailbox.
453 The information you see in the index is a list of emails, each with
454 its number on the left, its flags (new email, important email,
455 email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...),
456 the date when email was sent, its sender, the email size, and the
457 subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread hierarchies:
458 when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you
459 can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
460 especially useful for personal email between a group of people or
461 when you've subscribed to mailing lists.
471 <title>Pager </title>
474 The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the
475 top of the pager you have an overview over the most important email
476 headers like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more
477 information. How much information you actually see depends on your
478 configuration, which we'll describe below.
482 Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains
483 the message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see
484 more information about them below the email body, or, if the
485 attachments are text files, you can view them directly in the
490 To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure
491 mutt-ng to show different things in the pager with different
492 colors. Virtually everything that can be described with a regular
493 expression can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
503 <title>File Browser </title>
506 The file browser is the interface to the local or remote
507 file system. When selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows
508 custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular
509 expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in
510 which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the
511 file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message, select
512 multiple files to attach and many more.
522 <title>Sidebar </title>
525 The sidebar comes in handy to manage mails which are spread
526 over different folders. All folders users setup mutt-ng to watch
527 for new mail will be listed. The listing includes not only the
528 name but also the number of total messages, the number of new and
529 flagged messages. Items with new mail may be colored different
530 from those with flagged mail, items may be shortened or compress
531 if they're they to long to be printed in full form so that by
532 abbreviated names, user still now what the name stands for.
545 The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It
546 lists the current configuration of key bindings and their
547 associated commands including a short description, and currently
548 unbound functions that still need to be associated with a key
549 binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the mutt-ng
560 <title>Compose Menu </title>
563 The compose menu features a split screen containing the
564 information which really matter before actually sending a
565 message by mail or posting an article to a newsgroup: who gets
566 the message as what (recipient, newsgroup, who gets what kind of
567 copy). Additionally, users may set security options like
568 deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and encrypt a message
573 Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to
574 a message, to re-edit any attachment including the message
585 <title>Alias Menu </title>
588 The alias menu is used to help users finding the recipients
589 of messages. For users who need to contact many people, there's
590 no need to remember addresses or names completely because it
591 allows for searching, too. The alias mechanism and thus the
592 alias menu also features grouping several addresses by a shorter
593 nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select
594 each single recipient manually.
604 <title>Attachment Menu </title>
607 As will be later discussed in detail, mutt-ng features a good
608 and stable MIME implementation, that is, is greatly supports
609 sending and receiving messages of arbitrary type. The
610 attachment menu displays a message's structure in detail: what
611 content parts are attached to which parent part (which gives a
612 true tree structure), which type is of what type and what size.
613 Single parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and
614 easy access to message's internals.
624 <title>Key Menu </title>
627 <literal>FIXME</literal>
644 <title>Moving Around in Menus </title>
647 Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a
648 tableshowing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng.
654 <title>Default Menu Movement Keys</title>
655 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
659 <entry>Function</entry>
660 <entry>Description</entry>
665 <entry><code>j</code> or <code>Down</code></entry>
666 <entry><code>next-entry</code></entry>
667 <entry>move to the next entry</entry>
670 <entry><code>k</code> or <code>Up</code></entry>
671 <entry><code>previous-entry</code></entry>
672 <entry>move to the previous entry</entry>
675 <entry><code>z</code> or <code>PageDn</code></entry>
676 <entry><code>page-down</code></entry>
677 <entry>go to the next page</entry>
680 <entry><code>Z</code> or <code>PageUp</code></entry>
681 <entry><code>page-up</code></entry>
682 <entry>go to the previous page</entry>
685 <entry><code>=</code> or <code>Home</code></entry>
686 <entry><code>first-entry</code></entry>
687 <entry>jump to the first entry</entry>
690 <entry><code>*</code> or <code>End</code></entry>
691 <entry><code>last-entry</code></entry>
692 <entry>jump to the last entry</entry>
695 <entry><code>q</code></entry>
696 <entry><code>quit</code></entry>
697 <entry>exit the current menu</entry>
700 <entry><code>?</code></entry>
701 <entry><code>help</code></entry>
702 <entry>list all key bindings for the current menu</entry>
718 <sect1 id="editing"> <!--{{{-->
719 <title>Editing Input Fields </title>
722 Mutt-ng has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to
724 textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to
726 around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
732 <title>Built-In Editor Functions</title>
733 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
737 <entry>Function</entry>
738 <entry>Description</entry>
743 <entry><code>^A or <Home> </code></entry>
744 <entry><code>bol </code></entry>
745 <entry>move to the start of the line</entry>
748 <entry><code>^B or <Left> </code></entry>
749 <entry><code>backward-char </code>
750 </entry><entry>move back one char</entry>
753 <entry><code>Esc B </code></entry>
754 <entry><code>backward-word </code></entry>
755 <entry>move back one word</entry>
758 <entry><code>^D or <Delete> </code></entry>
759 <entry><code>delete-char </code></entry>
760 <entry>delete the char under the cursor</entry>
763 <entry><code>^E or <End> </code></entry>
764 <entry><code>eol </code></entry>
765 <entry>move to the end of the line</entry>
768 <entry><code>^F or <Right> </code></entry>
769 <entry><code>forward-char </code></entry>
770 <entry>move forward one char</entry>
773 <entry><code>Esc F </code></entry>
774 <entry><code>forward-word </code></entry>
775 <entry>move forward one word</entry>
778 <entry><code><Tab> </code></entry>
779 <entry><code>complete </code></entry>
780 <entry>complete filename or alias</entry>
783 <entry><code>^T </code></entry>
784 <entry><code>complete-query </code></entry>
785 <entry>complete address with query</entry>
788 <entry><code>^K </code></entry>
789 <entry><code>kill-eol </code></entry>
790 <entry>delete to the end of the line</entry>
793 <entry><code>ESC d </code></entry>
794 <entry><code>kill-eow </code></entry>
795 <entry>delete to the end of the word</entry>
798 <entry><code>^W </code></entry>
799 <entry><code>kill-word </code></entry>
800 <entry>kill the word in front of the cursor</entry>
803 <entry><code>^U </code></entry>
804 <entry><code>kill-line </code></entry>
805 <entry>delete entire line</entry>
808 <entry><code>^V </code></entry>
809 <entry><code>quote-char </code></entry>
810 <entry>quote the next typed key</entry>
813 <entry><code><Up> </code></entry>
814 <entry><code>history-up </code></entry>
815 <entry>recall previous string from history</entry>
818 <entry><code><Down> </code></entry>
819 <entry><code>history-down </code></entry>
820 <entry>recall next string from history</entry>
823 <entry><code><BackSpace> </code></entry>
824 <entry><code>backspace </code></entry>
825 <entry>kill the char in front of the cursor</entry>
828 <entry><code>Esc u </code></entry>
829 <entry><code>upcase-word </code></entry>
830 <entry>convert word to upper case</entry>
833 <entry><code>Esc l </code></entry>
834 <entry><code>downcase-word </code></entry>
835 <entry>convert word to lower case</entry>
838 <entry><code>Esc c </code></entry>
839 <entry><code>capitalize-word </code></entry>
840 <entry>capitalize the word</entry>
843 <entry><code>^G </code></entry>
844 <entry><code>n/a </code></entry>
848 <entry><code><Return> </code></entry>
849 <entry><code>n/a </code></entry>
850 <entry>finish editing</entry>
859 You can remap the <emphasis>editor</emphasis> functions using the <link linkend="bind">
862 command. For example, to make the <emphasis>Delete</emphasis> key
863 delete the character in
864 front of the cursor rather than under, you could use
868 <literal>bind editor <delete> backspace</literal>
879 <title>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager </title> <!--{{{-->
882 Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail
883 isread in Mutt-ng. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox,
885 called the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display of the
886 message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
890 The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
895 <title>The Message Index</title> <!--{{{-->
900 <title>Default Index Menu Bindings</title>
901 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
905 <entry>Function</entry>
906 <entry>Description</entry>
910 <row><entry><code>c </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>change to a different mailbox</entry></row>
911 <row><entry><code>ESC c </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>change to a folder in read-only mode</entry></row>
912 <row><entry><code>C </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>copy the current message to another mailbox</entry></row>
913 <row><entry><code>ESC C </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>decode a message and copy it to a folder</entry></row>
914 <row><entry><code>ESC s </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>decode a message and save it to a folder</entry></row>
915 <row><entry><code>D </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>delete messages matching a pattern</entry></row>
916 <row><entry><code>d </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>delete the current message</entry></row>
917 <row><entry><code>F </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>mark as important</entry></row>
918 <row><entry><code>l </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>show messages matching a pattern</entry></row>
919 <row><entry><code>N </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>mark message as new</entry></row>
920 <row><entry><code>o </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>change the current sort method</entry></row>
921 <row><entry><code>O </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>reverse sort the mailbox</entry></row>
922 <row><entry><code>q </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>save changes and exit</entry></row>
923 <row><entry><code>s </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>save-message</entry></row>
924 <row><entry><code>T </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>tag messages matching a pattern</entry></row>
925 <row><entry><code>t </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>toggle the tag on a message</entry></row>
926 <row><entry><code>ESC t </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>toggle tag on entire message thread</entry></row>
927 <row><entry><code>U </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>undelete messages matching a pattern</entry></row>
928 <row><entry><code>u </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>undelete-message</entry></row>
929 <row><entry><code>v </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>view-attachments</entry></row>
930 <row><entry><code>x </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>abort changes and exit</entry></row>
931 <row><entry><code><Return> </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>display-message</entry></row>
932 <row><entry><code><Tab> </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>jump to the next new message</entry></row>
933 <row><entry><code>@ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>show the author's full e-mail address</entry></row>
934 <row><entry><code>$ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>save changes to mailbox</entry></row>
935 <row><entry><code>/ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>search</entry></row>
936 <row><entry><code>ESC / </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>search-reverse</entry></row>
937 <row><entry><code>^L </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>clear and redraw the screen</entry></row>
938 <row><entry><code>^T </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>untag messages matching a pattern</entry></row>
946 <title>Status Flags</title> <!--{{{-->
949 In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short
951 the disposition of each message is printed beside the message
953 Zero or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean:
964 message is deleted (is marked for deletion)
972 message have attachments marked for deletion
980 contains a PGP public key
1004 message is PGP encrypted
1012 message has been replied to
1020 message is signed, and the signature is succesfully
1053 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using
1059 <emphasis role="bold">set-flag</emphasis> (default: w)
1065 <emphasis role="bold">clear-flag</emphasis> (default: W)
1074 Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is
1076 to. They can be customized with the
1077 <link linkend="to-chars">$to_chars</link> variable.
1087 message is to you and you only
1095 message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others
1103 message is cc'ed to you
1119 message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
1133 <title>The Pager</title> <!--{{{-->
1136 By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of
1138 The pager is very similar to the Unix program <emphasis>less</emphasis> though not nearly as
1145 <title>Default Pager Menu Bindings</title>
1146 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1150 <entry>Function</entry>
1151 <entry>Description</entry>
1155 <row><entry><code><Return> </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>go down one line</entry></row>
1156 <row><entry><code><Space> </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message)</entry></row>
1157 <row><entry><code>- </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>go back to the previous page</entry></row>
1158 <row><entry><code>n </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>search for next match</entry></row>
1159 <row><entry><code>S </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>skip beyond quoted text</entry></row>
1160 <row><entry><code>T </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>toggle display of quoted text</entry></row>
1161 <row><entry><code>? </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>show key bindings</entry></row>
1162 <row><entry><code>/ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>search for a regular expression (pattern)</entry></row>
1163 <row><entry><code>ESC / </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>search backwards for a regular expression</entry></row>
1164 <row><entry><code>\ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>toggle search pattern coloring</entry></row>
1165 <row><entry><code>^ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>jump to the top of the message</entry></row>
1174 In addition, many of the functions from the <emphasis>index</emphasis> are available in
1175 the pager, such as <emphasis>delete-message</emphasis> or <emphasis>
1179 advantage over using an external pager to view messages).
1183 Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features.
1185 one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences
1186 forbold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the
1188 backspace (ˆH), the letter again for bold or the letter,
1190 ``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt-ng will attempt to display
1192 in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If
1193 not, you can use the bold and underline <link
1194 linkend="color">color</link>
1195 objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them.
1199 Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape
1200 sequences for character attributes. Mutt-ng translates them
1201 into the correct color and character settings. The sequences
1202 Mutt-ng supports are: <literal>ESC [ Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps
1203 m</literal> (see table below for possible values for
1210 <title>ANSI Escape Sequences</title>
1211 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1214 <entry>Value</entry>
1215 <entry>Attribute</entry>
1219 <row><entry><code>0 </code></entry><entry>All Attributes Off</entry></row>
1220 <row><entry><code>1 </code></entry><entry>Bold on</entry></row>
1221 <row><entry><code>4 </code></entry><entry>Underline on</entry></row>
1222 <row><entry><code>5 </code></entry><entry>Blink on</entry></row>
1223 <row><entry><code>7 </code></entry><entry>Reverse video on</entry></row>
1224 <row><entry><code>3x </code></entry><entry>Foreground color is x (see table below)</entry></row>
1225 <row><entry><code>4x </code></entry><entry>Background color is x (see table below)</entry></row>
1232 <title>ANSI Colors</title>
1233 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1236 <entry>Number</entry>
1237 <entry>Color</entry>
1241 <row><entry><code>0 </code></entry><entry>black</entry></row>
1242 <row><entry><code>1 </code></entry><entry>red</entry></row>
1243 <row><entry><code>2 </code></entry><entry>green</entry></row>
1244 <row><entry><code>3 </code></entry><entry>yellow</entry></row>
1245 <row><entry><code>4 </code></entry><entry>blue</entry></row>
1246 <row><entry><code>5 </code></entry><entry>magenta</entry></row>
1247 <row><entry><code>6 </code></entry><entry>cyan</entry></row>
1248 <row><entry><code>7 </code></entry><entry>white</entry></row>
1257 Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages,
1259 can also be used by an external <link
1260 linkend="auto-view">autoview</link>
1261 script for highlighting purposes. <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> If you change the colors for your
1262 display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for
1263 your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green.
1269 <sect2 id="threads">
1270 <title>Threaded Mode</title> <!--{{{-->
1273 When the mailbox is <link linkend="sort">sorted</link> by <emphasis>
1277 a few additional functions available in the <emphasis>index</emphasis> and <emphasis>
1286 <title>Default Thread Function Bindings</title>
1287 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1291 <entry>Function</entry>
1292 <entry>Description</entry>
1296 <row><entry><code>^D </code></entry><entry><code>delete-thread </code></entry><entry>delete all messages in the current thread</entry></row>
1297 <row><entry><code>^U </code></entry><entry><code>undelete-thread </code></entry><entry>undelete all messages in the current thread</entry></row>
1298 <row><entry><code>^N </code></entry><entry><code>next-thread </code></entry><entry>jump to the start of the next thread</entry></row>
1299 <row><entry><code>^P </code></entry><entry><code>previous-thread </code></entry><entry>jump to the start of the previous thread</entry></row>
1300 <row><entry><code>^R </code></entry><entry><code>read-thread </code></entry><entry>mark the current thread as read</entry></row>
1301 <row><entry><code>ESC d </code></entry><entry><code>delete-subthread </code></entry><entry>delete all messages in the current subthread</entry></row>
1302 <row><entry><code>ESC u </code></entry><entry><code>undelete-subthread </code></entry><entry>undelete all messages in the current subthread</entry></row>
1303 <row><entry><code>ESC n </code></entry><entry><code>next-subthread </code></entry><entry>jump to the start of the next subthread</entry></row>
1304 <row><entry><code>ESC p </code></entry><entry><code>previous-subthread </code></entry><entry>jump to the start of the previous subthread</entry></row>
1305 <row><entry><code>ESC r </code></entry><entry><code>read-subthread </code></entry><entry>mark the current subthread as read </entry></row>
1306 <row><entry><code>ESC t </code></entry><entry><code>tag-thread </code></entry><entry>toggle the tag on the current thread</entry></row>
1307 <row><entry><code>ESC v </code></entry><entry><code>collapse-thread </code></entry><entry>toggle collapse for the current thread</entry></row>
1308 <row><entry><code>ESC V </code></entry><entry><code>collapse-all </code></entry><entry>toggle collapse for all threads</entry></row>
1309 <row><entry><code>P </code></entry><entry><code>parent-message </code></entry><entry>jump to parent message in thread</entry></row>
1318 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> Collapsing a thread displays
1319 only the first message
1320 in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads
1321 contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads
1322 onthe screen. See %M in <link
1323 linkend="index-format">
1327 For example, you could use
1328 "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in <link linkend="index-format">
1332 display the number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
1336 See also: <link linkend="strict-threads">strict-threads</link>.
1343 <title>Miscellaneous Functions</title> <!--{{{-->
1346 <emphasis role="bold">create-alias</emphasis><anchor id="create-alias"/>
1352 Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a
1353 new one). Once editing is complete, an <link linkend="alias">alias</link>
1354 command is added to the file specified by the <link linkend="alias-file">
1357 variable for future use. <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis>
1358 Specifying an <link linkend="alias-file">alias-file</link>
1359 does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also <link linkend="source">
1366 <emphasis role="bold">check-traditional-pgp</emphasis><anchor id="check-traditional-pgp"/>
1372 This function will search the current message for content signed or
1373 encrypted with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper
1374 MIME tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change
1375 the MIME content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this
1376 is similar to the <link linkend="edit-type">edit-type</link>
1382 <emphasis role="bold">display-toggle-weed</emphasis><anchor id="display-toggle-weed"/>
1388 Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by <link linkend="ignore">
1395 <emphasis role="bold">edit</emphasis><anchor id="edit"/>
1401 This command (available in the ``index'' and ``pager'') allows you to
1402 edit the raw current message as it's present in the mail folder.
1403 After you have finished editing, the changed message will be
1404 appended to the current folder, and the original message will be
1405 marked for deletion.
1409 <emphasis role="bold">edit-type</emphasis><anchor id="edit-type"/>
1411 (default: ˆE on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index
1412 menus; ˆT on the
1417 This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content
1418 type to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When
1419 invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the
1420 opportunity to edit the top-level attachment's content type. On the
1421 <link linkend="attach-menu">attach-menu</link>, you can change any
1422 attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get
1423 lost upon changing folders.
1427 Note that this command is also available on the <link linkend="compose-menu">
1430 .There, it's used to
1431 fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send.
1435 <emphasis role="bold">enter-command</emphasis><anchor id="enter-command"/>
1441 This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in
1443 configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of
1445 in conjunction with <link linkend="macro">macro</link> to change
1451 <emphasis role="bold">extract-keys</emphasis><anchor id="extract-keys"/>
1457 This command extracts PGP public keys from the current or tagged
1458 message(s) and adds them to your PGP public key ring.
1462 <emphasis role="bold">forget-passphrase</emphasis><anchor id="forget-passphrase"/>
1469 This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if
1470 you misspelled the passphrase.
1474 <emphasis role="bold">list-reply</emphasis><anchor id="func-list-reply"/>
1480 Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses
1482 match the regular expressions given by the <link linkend="lists">
1485 commands, but also honor any <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal>
1487 <link linkend="honor-followup-to">honor-followup-to</link>
1488 configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages
1490 to mailing lists helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the
1492 the message you are replying to.
1496 <emphasis role="bold">pipe-message</emphasis><anchor id="pipe-message"/>
1502 Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or
1503 tagged message(s) to it. The variables <link linkend="pipe-decode">
1506 ,<link linkend="pipe-split">pipe-split</link>, <link linkend="pipe-sep">
1509 and <link linkend="wait-key">wait-key</link> control the exact
1515 <emphasis role="bold">resend-message</emphasis><anchor id="resend-message"/>
1521 With resend-message, mutt takes the current message as a template for
1523 new message. This function is best described as "recall from
1525 folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while
1526 preserving the original mail structure. Note that the amount of
1528 included here depends on the value of the <link linkend="weed">weed</link>
1533 This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use
1535 to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message
1536 as a message/rfc822 body part.
1540 <emphasis role="bold">shell-escape</emphasis><anchor id="shell-escape"/>
1546 Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <link linkend="wait-key">
1549 can be used to control
1550 whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key to be pressed when the command
1552 (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on
1553 the return status of the named command.
1557 <emphasis role="bold">toggle-quoted</emphasis><anchor id="toggle-quoted"/>
1563 The <emphasis>pager</emphasis> uses the <link linkend="quote-regexp">
1566 variable to detect quoted text when
1567 displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the
1568 displayof the quoted material in the message. It is particularly
1570 are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of
1571 quoted text in the way.
1575 <emphasis role="bold">skip-quoted</emphasis><anchor id="skip-quoted"/>
1581 This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come
1582 after a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
1596 <title>Sending Mail </title> <!--{{{-->
1599 The following bindings are available in the <emphasis>index</emphasis>
1607 <title>Default Mail Composition Bindings</title>
1608 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1612 <entry>Function</entry>
1613 <entry>Description</entry>
1617 <row><entry><code>m </code></entry><entry><code>compose </code></entry><entry>compose a new message</entry></row>
1618 <row><entry><code>r </code></entry><entry><code>reply </code></entry><entry>reply to sender</entry></row>
1619 <row><entry><code>g </code></entry><entry><code>group-reply </code></entry><entry>reply to all recipients</entry></row>
1620 <row><entry><code>L </code></entry><entry><code>list-reply </code></entry><entry>reply to mailing list address</entry></row>
1621 <row><entry><code>f </code></entry><entry><code>forward </code></entry><entry>forward message</entry></row>
1622 <row><entry><code>b </code></entry><entry><code>bounce </code></entry><entry>bounce (remail) message</entry></row>
1623 <row><entry><code>ESC k </code></entry><entry><code>mail-key </code></entry><entry>mail a PGP public key to someone</entry></row>
1631 Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you
1632 specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or
1633 modify the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed
1634 in greater detail in the next chapter <link linkend="forwarding-mail">
1641 <title>Composing new messages </title> <!--{{{-->
1644 When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press <literal>m</literal> on
1645 your keyboard. Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in
1657 After you've finished entering the recipient(s), press return. If you
1658 want to send an email to more than one recipient, separate the email
1659 addresses using the comma "<literal>,</literal>". Mutt-ng then asks
1661 subject. Again, press return after you've entered it. After that,
1663 got the most important information from you, and starts up an editor
1664 where you can then enter your email.
1668 The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you
1669 can e.g. set it in the mutt-ng configuration:
1675 set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'"
1677 set editor = "emacs"</screen>
1682 If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng
1683 first looks whether the environment variable <literal>$VISUAL</literal> is set, and if
1684 so, it takes its value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look
1685 at <literal>$EDITOR</literal> and takes its value if it is set. If no
1687 can be found, mutt-ng simply assumes <literal>vi</literal> to be the
1689 since it's the most widespread editor in the Unix world and it's
1691 safe to assume that it is installed and available.
1695 When you've finished entering your message, save it and quit your
1696 editor. Mutt-ng will then present you with a summary screen, the
1698 On the top, you see a summary of the most important available key
1700 Below that, you see the sender, the recipient(s), Cc and/or Bcc
1701 recipient(s), the subject, the reply-to address, and optionally
1702 information where the sent email will be stored and whether it should
1703 be digitally signed and/or encrypted.
1707 Below that, you see a list of "attachments". The mail you've just
1708 entered before is also an attachment, but due to its special type
1709 (it's plain text), it will be displayed as the normal message on
1710 the receiver's side.
1714 At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing <literal>a</literal>, you
1715 can edit the recipient addresses, pressing <literal>t</literal> for
1717 <literal>c</literal> for the "Cc:" field, and <literal>b</literal>
1718 for the "Bcc: field. You can
1719 also edit the subject the subject by simply pressing <literal>s</literal> or the
1720 email message that you've entered before by pressing <literal>e</literal>. You will
1721 then again return to the editor. You can even edit the sender, by
1723 <literal><esc>f</literal>, but this shall only be used with
1728 Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the
1729 above settings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only
1730 need to add the following to your configuration:
1736 set edit_headers</screen>
1741 Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
1742 returned to the <emphasis>compose</emphasis> menu. The following
1743 options are available:
1749 <title>Default Compose Menu Bindings</title>
1750 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
1754 <entry>Function</entry>
1755 <entry>Description</entry>
1759 <row><entry><code>a </code></entry><entry><code>attach-file </code></entry><entry>attach a file</entry></row>
1760 <row><entry><code>A </code></entry><entry><code>attach-message </code></entry><entry>attach message(s) to the message</entry></row>
1761 <row><entry><code>ESC k </code></entry><entry><code>attach-key </code></entry><entry>attach a PGP public key</entry></row>
1762 <row><entry><code>d </code></entry><entry><code>edit-description </code></entry><entry>edit description on attachment</entry></row>
1763 <row><entry><code>D </code></entry><entry><code>detach-file </code></entry><entry>detach a file</entry></row>
1764 <row><entry><code>t </code></entry><entry><code>edit-to </code></entry><entry>edit the To field</entry></row>
1765 <row><entry><code>ESC f </code></entry><entry><code>edit-from </code></entry><entry>edit the From field</entry></row>
1766 <row><entry><code>r </code></entry><entry><code>edit-reply-to </code></entry><entry>edit the Reply-To field</entry></row>
1767 <row><entry><code>c </code></entry><entry><code>edit-cc </code></entry><entry>edit the Cc field</entry></row>
1768 <row><entry><code>b </code></entry><entry><code>edit-bcc </code></entry><entry>edit the Bcc field</entry></row>
1769 <row><entry><code>y </code></entry><entry><code>send-message </code></entry><entry>send the message</entry></row>
1770 <row><entry><code>s </code></entry><entry><code>edit-subject </code></entry><entry>edit the Subject</entry></row>
1771 <row><entry><code>S </code></entry><entry><code>smime-menu </code></entry><entry>select S/MIME options</entry></row>
1772 <row><entry><code>f </code></entry><entry><code>edit-fcc </code></entry><entry>specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox</entry></row>
1773 <row><entry><code>p </code></entry><entry><code>pgp-menu </code></entry><entry>select PGP options</entry></row>
1774 <row><entry><code>P </code></entry><entry><code>postpone-message </code></entry><entry>postpone this message until later</entry></row>
1775 <row><entry><code>q </code></entry><entry><code>quit </code></entry><entry>quit (abort) sending the message</entry></row>
1776 <row><entry><code>w </code></entry><entry><code>write-fcc </code></entry><entry>write the message to a folder</entry></row>
1777 <row><entry><code>i </code></entry><entry><code>ispell </code></entry><entry>check spelling (if available on your system)</entry></row>
1778 <row><entry><code>^F </code></entry><entry><code>forget-passphrase </code></entry><entry>wipe passphrase(s) from memory</entry></row>
1786 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> The attach-message function
1787 will prompt you for a folder to
1788 attach messages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and
1789 theywill be attached to the message you are sending. Note that
1790 certainoperations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding,
1792 not permitted when you are in that folder. The %r in <link linkend="status-format">
1796 a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
1807 <title>Replying </title> <!--{{{-->
1810 <title>Simple Replies </title> <!--{{{-->
1813 When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index
1814 menu and then press <literal>r</literal>. Mutt-ng's behaviour is
1816 behaviour when you compose a message: first, you will be asked for
1817 the recipient, then for the subject, and then, mutt-ng will start
1818 the editor with the quote attribution and the quoted message. This
1819 can e.g. look like the example below.
1825 On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:02:12PM +0100, Michael Svensson wrote:
1826 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1827 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1828 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1829 > project will go live.</screen>
1834 You can start editing the email message. It is strongly
1835 recommended to put your answer <emphasis>below</emphasis> the
1837 only quote what is really necessary and that you refer to. Putting
1838 your answer on top of the quoted message, is, although very
1839 widespread, very often not considered to be a polite way to answer
1844 The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to
1847 set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:"</screen>
1852 It can also be set to something more compact, e.g.
1855 set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:"</screen>
1860 The example above results in the following attribution:
1863 * Michael Svensson <svensson@foobar.com> [05-03-06 17:02]:
1864 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1865 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1866 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1867 > project will go live.</screen>
1872 Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet
1873 information-rich. It is <emphasis>not</emphasis> the right place
1875 long "attribution" novels or anything like that: the right place
1876 for such things is - if at all - the email signature at the very
1877 bottom of the message.
1881 When you're done with writing your message, save and quit the
1882 editor. As before, you will return to the compose menu, which is
1883 used in the same way as before.
1894 <title>Group Replies </title> <!--{{{-->
1897 In the situation where a group of people uses email as a
1898 discussion, most of the emails will have one or more recipients,
1899 and probably several "Cc:" recipients. The group reply
1900 functionalityensures that when you press <literal>g</literal>
1901 instead of <literal>r</literal> to do a reply,
1902 each and every recipient that is contained in the original message
1903 will receive a copy of the message, either as normal recipient or
1915 <title>List Replies </title> <!--{{{-->
1918 When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your
1919 reply to a message only to the list instead of the list and the
1920 original author. To make this easy to use, mutt-ng features list
1925 To do a list reply, simply press <literal>L</literal>. If the email
1927 a <literal>Mail-Followup-To:</literal> header, its value will be
1929 address. Otherwise, mutt-ng searches through all mail addresses in
1930 the original message and tries to match them a list of regular
1931 expressions which can be specified using the <literal>lists</literal> command.
1932 If any of the regular expression matches, a mailing
1933 list address has been found, and it will be used as reply address.
1939 lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@</screen>
1944 Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a
1945 <literal>Mail-Followup-To:</literal> header to their emails anyway,
1947 <literal>lists</literal> is hardly ever necessary in practice.
1965 <title>Editing the message header </title>
1968 When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple
1970 special features available.
1976 <literal>Fcc:</literal> <emphasis>filename</emphasis>
1978 Mutt-ng will pick up <emphasis>filename</emphasis>
1979 just as if you had used the <emphasis>edit-fcc</emphasis> function in
1980 the <emphasis>compose</emphasis> menu.
1984 You can also attach files to your message by specifying
1986 <literal>Attach:</literal> <emphasis>filename</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
1991 where <emphasis>filename</emphasis> is the file to attach and <emphasis>
1995 optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
1999 When replying to messages, if you remove the <emphasis>In-Reply-To:</emphasis> field from
2000 the header field, Mutt-ng will not generate a <emphasis>References:</emphasis> field, which
2001 allows you to create a new message thread.
2005 Also see <link linkend="edit-headers">edit-headers</link>.
2015 <title>Using Mutt-ng with PGP </title>
2018 If you want to use PGP, you can specify
2022 <literal>Pgp:</literal> [ <literal>E</literal> | <literal>
2025 | <literal>S</literal><emphasis><id></emphasis> ]
2030 ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and
2031 ``S<id>'' signs with the given key, setting <link linkend="pgp-sign-as">
2038 If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you
2039 through a key selection process when you try to send the message.
2040 Mutt-ng will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
2041 certified user ID matching one of the message recipients' mail
2042 addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are
2043 several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching
2048 In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from
2049 which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't
2050 find any matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as
2051 usually, abort this prompt using <literal>ˆG</literal>. When
2052 you do so, mutt will
2053 return to the compose screen.
2057 Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message
2058 will be encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out.
2062 Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also <link linkend="pgp-entry-format">
2066 have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the capabilities,
2068 and validity fields are in order.
2072 The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following
2077 <title>PGP Key Menu Flags</title>
2078 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
2082 <entry>Description</entry>
2086 <row><entry><code>R </code></entry><entry>The key has been revoked and can't be used.</entry></row>
2087 <row><entry><code>X </code></entry><entry>The key is expired and can't be used.</entry></row>
2088 <row><entry><code>d </code></entry><entry>You have marked the key as disabled.</entry></row>
2089 <row><entry><code>c </code></entry><entry>There are unknown critical self-signature packets.</entry></row>
2097 The capabilities field (%c) expands to a two-character
2098 sequencerepresenting a key's capabilities. The first character gives
2099 the key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (<emphasis role="bold">
2103 that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (<emphasis role="bold">
2107 it's marked as a signature key in one of the user IDs, but may
2108 also be used for encryption. The letter <emphasis role="bold">e</emphasis> indicates that
2109 this key can be used for encryption.
2113 The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once
2114 again, a ``<emphasis role="bold">-</emphasis>'' implies ``not for
2115 signing'', ``<emphasis role="bold">.</emphasis>'' implies
2116 that the key is marked as an encryption key in one of the user-ids,
2118 ``<emphasis role="bold">s</emphasis>'' denotes a key which can be
2123 Finally, the validity field (%t) indicates how well-certified
2125 is. A question mark (<emphasis role="bold">?</emphasis>) indicates
2126 undefined validity, a minus
2127 character (<emphasis role="bold">-</emphasis>) marks an untrusted
2128 association, a space character
2129 means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (<emphasis role="bold">
2133 indicates complete validity.
2143 <title>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster </title>
2146 You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
2147 anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages
2148 anonymously using a chain of remailers. Mixmaster support in mutt is
2150 mixmaster version 2.04 (beta 45 appears to be the latest) and 2.03.
2151 It does not support earlier versions or the later so-called version 3
2153 of which the latest appears to be called 2.9b23.
2157 To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most
2158 important, you cannot use the <literal>Cc</literal> and <literal>Bcc</literal> headers. To tell
2159 Mutt-ng to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
2160 the mix function on the compose menu.
2164 The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the
2165 (larger) upper part, you get a list of remailers you may use. In
2166 the lower part, you see the currently selected chain of remailers.
2170 You can navigate in the chain using the <literal>chain-prev</literal>
2172 <literal>chain-next</literal> functions, which are by default bound
2174 and right arrows and to the <literal>h</literal> and <literal>l</literal> keys (think vi
2175 keyboard bindings). To insert a remailer at the current chain
2176 position, use the <literal>insert</literal> function. To append a
2178 the current chain position, use <literal>select-entry</literal> or <literal>
2182 You can also delete entries from the chain, using the corresponding
2183 function. Finally, to abandon your changes, leave the menu, or
2184 <literal>accept</literal> them pressing (by default) the <literal>
2191 Note that different remailers do have different capabilities,
2192 indicated in the %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see
2193 <link linkend="mix-entry-format">mix-entry-format</link>). Most
2195 the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a capital ``M'': This
2196 means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final
2197 element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other
2198 mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please
2199 have a look at the mixmaster documentation.
2214 <sect1 id="forwarding-mail">
2215 <title>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail </title>
2218 Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people.
2219 Therefore, mutt-ng supports forwarding messages in two different
2224 The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from
2225 other mail clients. You simply press <literal>f</literal>, enter the
2227 email address, the subject of the forwarded email, and then you can
2228 edit the message to be forwarded in the editor. The forwarded
2229 message is separated from the rest of the message via the two
2236 ----- Forwarded message from Lucas User <luser@example.com> -----
2238 From: Lucas User <luser@example.com>
2239 Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100
2240 To: Michael Random <mrandom@example.com>
2241 Subject: Re: blackmail
2243 Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die
2246 ----- End forwarded message -----</screen>
2251 When you're done with editing the mail, save and quit the editor,
2252 and you will return to the compose menu, the same menu you also
2253 encounter when composing or replying to mails.
2257 The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the
2258 so-called <emphasis>bouncing</emphasis>: when you bounce an email to
2260 address, it will be sent in practically the same format you send it
2261 (except for headers that are created during transporting the
2262 message). To bounce a message, press <literal>b</literal> and enter the
2264 email address. By default, you are then asked whether you really
2265 want to bounce the message to the specified recipient. If you answer
2266 with yes, the message will then be bounced.
2270 To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it
2271 like a regular email where he was <literal>Bcc:</literal> recipient.
2273 possibility to find out whether it was a bounced email is to
2274 carefully study the email headers and to find out which host really
2284 <sect1 id="postponing-mail">
2285 <title>Postponing Mail </title>
2288 At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have
2289 already begun to compose. When the <emphasis>postpone-message</emphasis> function is
2290 used in the <emphasis>compose</emphasis> menu, the body of your message
2292 are stored in the mailbox specified by the <link linkend="postponed">
2295 variable. This means that you can recall the
2296 message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later time.
2300 Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From
2302 command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <emphasis>compose</emphasis> a new
2303 message from the <emphasis>index</emphasis> or <emphasis>pager</emphasis> you will be prompted if postponed
2304 messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the
2305 <emphasis>postponed</emphasis> menu will pop up and you can select
2306 which message you would
2311 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> If you postpone a reply to a
2312 message, the reply setting of
2313 the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and
2314 send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you
2315 replied to for the status of the message to be updated.
2319 See also the <link linkend="postpone">postpone</link> quad-option.
2335 <title>Configuration </title>
2338 <title>Locations of Configuration Files </title>
2341 While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng
2343 of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt-ng to suit your own
2345 Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system''
2347 file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the
2348 ``-n'' <link linkend="commandline">commandline</link> option is
2349 specified. This file is
2350 typically <literal>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc</literal> or <literal>
2354 Mutt-ng users will find this file in <literal>
2355 /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc
2358 <literal>/etc/Muttngrc</literal>. Mutt will next look for a file named <literal>
2361 in your home directory, Mutt-ng will look for <literal>.muttngrc</literal>. If this file
2362 does not exist and your home directory has a subdirectory named <literal>
2366 mutt try to load a file named <literal>.muttng/muttngrc</literal>.
2370 <literal>.muttrc</literal> (or <literal>.muttngrc</literal> for
2371 Mutt-ng) is the file where you will
2372 usually place your <link linkend="commands">commands</link> to
2382 <sect1 id="muttrc-syntax">
2383 <title>Basic Syntax of Initialization Files </title>
2386 An initialization file consists of a series of <link linkend="commands">
2389 .Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
2390 When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon
2394 set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x-</screen>
2396 The hash mark, or pound sign
2397 (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to
2398 annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character
2399 to the end of the line is ignored. For example,
2405 my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment</screen>
2410 Single quotes (') and double quotes (") can be used to quote
2412 which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference
2414 the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell
2416 namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one
2418 not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash
2420 next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which
2421 should be evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of
2423 quotes, but <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> for single quotes.
2427 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and
2429 For example, if want to put quotes ``"'' inside of a string, you
2431 ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of
2436 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"</screen>
2441 ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line.
2442 ``\n'' and ``\r'' have their usual C meanings of linefeed and
2443 carriage-return, respectively.
2447 A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over
2448 multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the
2449 middle of command names.
2453 Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a
2455 at the end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a
2457 split over multiple lines with only one ``#''.
2464 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"</screen>
2469 When testing your config files, beware the following caveat. The
2471 at the end of the commented line extends the current line with the next
2473 - then referred to as a ``continuation line''. As the first line is
2474 commented with a hash (#) all following continuation lines are also
2475 part of a comment and therefore are ignored, too. So take care of
2477 when continuation lines are involved within your setup files!
2496 line1 ``continues'' until line4. however, the part after the # is a
2497 comment which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own
2499 thus is interpreted again.
2503 The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs.
2504 For a complete list, see the <link linkend="commands">commands</link>.
2514 <title>Expansion within variables </title>
2517 Besides just assign static content to variables, there's plenty of
2518 ways of adding external and more or less dynamic content.
2522 <title>Commands' Output </title>
2525 It is possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
2526 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command
2527 in backquotes (``) as in, for example:
2533 my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a`</screen>
2538 The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted
2539 before the line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are
2540 line oriented, only the first line of output from the Unix command
2541 will be substituted.
2547 <title>Environment Variables </title>
2550 UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in
2551 shells like sh and bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a
2552 ``$'' sign. For example,
2558 set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME</screen>
2563 sets the <link linkend="record">record</link> variable to the
2564 string <emphasis>+sent_on_</emphasis> and appends the
2565 value of the evironment
2566 variable <literal>$HOSTNAME</literal>.
2570 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> There will be no warning if an
2571 environment variable
2572 is not defined. The result will of the expansion will then be empty.
2578 <title>Configuration Variables </title>
2581 As for environment variables, the values of all configuration
2582 variables as string can be used in the same way, too. For example,
2588 set imap_home_namespace = $folder</screen>
2593 would set the value of <link linkend="imap-home-namespace">
2597 which <link linkend="folder">folder</link> is <emphasis>currently</emphasis> set
2602 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> There're no logical links
2603 established in such cases so
2604 that the the value for <link linkend="imap-home-namespace">
2608 if <link linkend="folder">folder</link> gets changed.
2612 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> There will be no warning if a
2613 configuration variable
2614 is not defined or is empty. The result will of the expansion will
2621 <title>Self-Defined Variables </title>
2624 Mutt-ng flexibly allows users to define their own variables. To
2625 avoid conflicts with the standard set and to prevent misleading
2626 error messages, there's a reserved namespace for them: all
2627 user-defined variables must be prefixed with <literal>user_</literal> and can be
2628 used just like any ordinary configuration or environment
2633 For example, to view the manual, users can either define two
2634 macros like the following
2640 macro generic <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"
2641 macro pager <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"</screen>
2646 for <literal>generic</literal>, <literal>pager</literal> and <literal>
2649 .The alternative is to
2650 define a custom variable like so:
2656 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r /path/to_manual"
2657 macro generic <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
2658 macro pager <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
2659 macro index <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"</screen>
2664 to re-use the command sequence as in:
2670 macro index <F2> "$user_manualcmd | grep '\^[ ]\\+~. '" "Show Patterns"</screen>
2675 Using this feature, arbitrary sequences can be defined once and
2676 recalled and reused where necessary. More advanced scenarios could
2677 include to save a variable's value at the beginning of macro
2678 sequence and restore it at end.
2682 When the variable is first defined, the first value it gets
2683 assigned is also the initial value to which it can be reset using
2684 the <literal>reset</literal> command.
2688 The complete removal is done via the <literal>unset</literal>
2693 After the following sequence:
2700 set user_foo = 666</screen>
2705 the variable <literal>$user_foo</literal> has a current value
2707 initial of 42. The query
2713 set ?user_foo</screen>
2718 will show 666. After doing the reset via
2724 reset user_foo</screen>
2729 a following query will give 42 as the result. After unsetting it
2736 unset user_foo</screen>
2741 any query or operation (except the noted expansion within other
2742 statements) will lead to an error message.
2748 <title>Pre-Defined Variables </title>
2751 In order to allow users to share one setup over a number of
2752 different machines without having to change its contents, there's a
2753 number of pre-defined variables. These are prefixed with
2754 <literal>muttng_</literal> and are read-only, i.e. they cannot
2756 reset. The reference chapter lists all available variables.
2760 <emphasis> Please consult the local copy of your manual for their
2761 values as they may differ from different manual sources.
2764 the manual is installed in can be queried (already using such a
2765 variable) by running:
2771 muttng -Q muttng_docdir</screen>
2776 To extend the example for viewing the manual via self-defined
2777 variables, it can be made more readable and more portable by
2778 changing the real path in:
2784 set user_manualcmd = '!less -r /path/to_manual'</screen>
2795 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r $muttng_docdir/manual.txt"</screen>
2800 which works everywhere if a manual is installed.
2804 Please note that by the type of quoting, muttng determines when
2805 to expand these values: when it finds double quotes, the value will
2806 be expanded during reading the setup files but when it finds single
2807 quotes, it'll expand it at runtime as needed.
2811 For example, the statement
2817 folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name"</screen>
2822 will be already be translated to the following when reading the
2829 folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = some_folder"</screen>
2834 with <literal>some_folder</literal> being the name of the
2836 opens. On the contrary,
2842 folder-hook . 'set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name'</screen>
2847 will be executed at runtime because of the single quotes so that
2848 <literal>user_current_folder</literal> will always have
2849 the value of the currently
2854 A more practical example is:
2860 folder-hook . 'source ~/.mutt/score-$muttng_folder_name'</screen>
2865 which can be used to source files containing score commands
2866 depending on the folder the user enters.
2872 <title>Type Conversions </title>
2875 A note about variable's types during conversion: internally
2876 values are stored in internal types but for any dump/query or set
2877 operation they're converted to and from string. That means that
2878 there's no need to worry about types when referencing any variable.
2879 As an example, the following can be used without harm (besides
2880 makeing muttng very likely behave strange):
2887 set folder = $read_inc
2888 set read_inc = $folder
2889 set user_magic_number = 42
2890 set folder = $user_magic_number</screen>
2899 <title>Defining/Using aliases </title>
2902 Usage: <literal>alias</literal> <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
2905 [ , <emphasis>address</emphasis>, ... ]
2909 It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of
2911 you are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create ``aliases''
2913 a short string to a full address.
2917 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> if you want to create an alias
2918 for a group (by specifying more than
2919 one address), you <emphasis role="bold">must</emphasis> separate the
2920 addresses with a comma (``,'').
2924 To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases):
2928 <literal>unalias</literal> [ * | <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
2937 alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
2938 alias theguys manny, moe, jack</screen>
2943 Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined
2944 in a special file. The <literal>alias</literal> command can appear
2946 a configuration file, as long as this file is <link linkend="source">
2949 .Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or
2950 you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc.
2954 On the other hand, the <link linkend="create-alias">create-alias</link>
2955 function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <link linkend="alias-file">
2959 <literal>˜/.muttrc</literal> by default). This file is not
2961 in the sense that Mutt-ng will happily append aliases to any file, but
2963 order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly <link linkend="source">
2976 source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases
2977 source ~/.mail_aliases
2978 set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases</screen>
2983 To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where
2984 muttprompts for addresses, such as the <emphasis>To:</emphasis> or <emphasis>
2988 also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you
2990 <link linkend="edit-headers">edit-headers</link> variable set.
2994 In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab
2996 to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple
2998 mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be
2999 presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a
3001 alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting
3006 In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the
3007 <emphasis>select-entry</emphasis> key (default: RET), and use the <emphasis>
3011 (default: q) to return to the address prompt.
3021 <title>Changing the default key bindings </title>
3024 Usage: <literal>bind</literal> <emphasis>map</emphasis> <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
3030 This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation
3031 invoked when pressing a key).
3035 <emphasis>map</emphasis> specifies in which menu the binding belongs.
3037 be specified by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace
3038 isallowed). The currently defined maps are:
3046 <term>generic</term>
3049 This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of
3051 menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not
3053 another menu, Mutt-ng will look for a binding to use in this
3055 you to bind a key to a certain function in multiple menus
3057 multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task.
3065 The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined
3067 muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full
3069 address(es) of the recipient(s).
3077 The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on
3083 <term>browser</term>
3086 The browser is used for both browsing the local directory
3088 listing all of your incoming mailboxes.
3096 The editor is the line-based editor the user enters text data.
3104 The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox.
3109 <term>compose</term>
3112 The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message.
3120 The pager is the mode used to display message/attachment data,
3130 The pgp menu is used to select the OpenPGP keys used for
3137 <term>postpone</term>
3140 The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used
3142 recalling a message the user was composing, but saved until
3151 <emphasis>key</emphasis> is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind.
3153 control character, use the sequence <emphasis>\Cx</emphasis>,
3154 where <emphasis>x</emphasis> is the
3155 letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use
3156 ``\Ca''). Note that the case of <emphasis>x</emphasis> as well as
3157 <emphasis>\C</emphasis> is
3158 ignored, so that <emphasis>\CA</emphasis>, <emphasis>\Ca</emphasis>, <emphasis>
3161 and <emphasis>\ca</emphasis> are all
3162 equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit
3163 octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example <emphasis>
3167 equivalent to <emphasis>\c?</emphasis>).
3171 In addition, <emphasis>key</emphasis> may consist of:
3177 <title>Alternative Key Names</title>
3178 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
3181 <entry>Sequence</entry>
3182 <entry>Description</entry>
3186 <row><entry><code>\t </code></entry><entry>tab</entry></row>
3187 <row><entry><code><tab> </code></entry><entry>tab</entry></row>
3188 <row><entry><code><backtab> </code></entry><entry>backtab / shift-tab</entry></row>
3189 <row><entry><code>\r </code></entry><entry>carriage return</entry></row>
3190 <row><entry><code>\n </code></entry><entry>newline</entry></row>
3191 <row><entry><code>\e </code></entry><entry>escape</entry></row>
3192 <row><entry><code><esc> </code></entry><entry>escape</entry></row>
3193 <row><entry><code><up> </code></entry><entry>up arrow</entry></row>
3194 <row><entry><code><down> </code></entry><entry>down arrow</entry></row>
3195 <row><entry><code><left> </code></entry><entry>left arrow</entry></row>
3196 <row><entry><code><right> </code></entry><entry>right arrow</entry></row>
3197 <row><entry><code><pageup> </code></entry><entry>Page Up</entry></row>
3198 <row><entry><code><pagedown> </code></entry><entry>Page Down</entry></row>
3199 <row><entry><code><backspace> </code></entry><entry>Backspace</entry></row>
3200 <row><entry><code><delete> </code></entry><entry>Delete</entry></row>
3201 <row><entry><code><insert> </code></entry><entry>Insert</entry></row>
3202 <row><entry><code><enter> </code></entry><entry>Enter</entry></row>
3203 <row><entry><code><return> </code></entry><entry>Return</entry></row>
3204 <row><entry><code><home> </code></entry><entry>Home</entry></row>
3205 <row><entry><code><end> </code></entry><entry>End</entry></row>
3206 <row><entry><code><space> </code></entry><entry>Space bar</entry></row>
3207 <row><entry><code><f1> </code></entry><entry>function key 1</entry></row>
3208 <row><entry><code><f10> </code></entry><entry>function key 10</entry></row>
3216 <emphasis>key</emphasis> does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless
3222 <emphasis>function</emphasis> specifies which action to take when <emphasis>
3226 For a complete list of functions, see the <link linkend="functions">
3229 .The special function <literal>noop</literal> unbinds the specified key
3239 <sect1 id="charset-hook">
3240 <title>Defining aliases for character sets </title>
3243 Usage: <literal>charset-hook</literal> <emphasis>alias</emphasis> <emphasis>
3247 Usage: <literal>iconv-hook</literal> <emphasis>charset</emphasis> <emphasis>
3253 The <literal>charset-hook</literal> command defines an alias for a
3255 This is useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a
3256 character set name not known to mutt.
3260 The <literal>iconv-hook</literal> command defines a system-specific
3262 character set. This is helpful when your systems character
3263 conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names
3273 <sect1 id="folder-hook">
3274 <title>Setting variables based upon mailbox </title>
3277 Usage: <literal>folder-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>
3283 It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are
3284 reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can
3286 any configuration command. <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> is a regular
3287 expression specifying
3288 in which mailboxes to execute <emphasis>command</emphasis> before
3289 loading. If a mailbox
3290 matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in
3296 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> if you use the ``!'' shortcut
3297 for <link linkend="spoolfile">spoolfile</link> at the beginning of the
3298 pattern, you must place it
3299 inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the
3300 logical <emphasis>not</emphasis> operator for the expression.
3304 Note that the settings are <emphasis>not</emphasis> restored when you
3306 For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting
3307 methodbased upon the mailbox being read:
3313 folder-hook mutt set sort=threads</screen>
3318 However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when
3319 reading a different mailbox. To specify a <emphasis>default</emphasis>
3327 folder-hook . set sort=date-sent</screen>
3338 <title>Keyboard macros </title>
3341 Usage: <literal>macro</literal> <emphasis>menu</emphasis> <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
3344 [ <emphasis>description</emphasis> ]
3348 Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series
3350 actions. When you press <emphasis>key</emphasis> in menu <emphasis>
3353 ,Mutt-ng will behave as if
3354 you had typed <emphasis>sequence</emphasis>. So if you have a common
3355 sequence of commands
3356 you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a
3361 <emphasis>menu</emphasis> is the <link linkend="maps">maps</link> which
3362 the macro will be bound.
3363 Multiple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments by
3364 commas. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and
3365 thecommas separating them.
3369 <emphasis>key</emphasis> and <emphasis>sequence</emphasis> are expanded
3370 by the same rules as the <link linkend="bind">bind</link>. There are
3371 some additions however. The
3372 first is that control characters in <emphasis>sequence</emphasis> can
3374 as <emphasis>ˆx</emphasis>. In order to get a caret (`ˆ'')
3376 <emphasis>ˆˆ</emphasis>. Secondly, to specify a certain key
3377 such as <emphasis>up</emphasis>
3378 or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format
3379 <emphasis><key name></emphasis> and <emphasis><function
3382 .For a listing of key
3383 names see the section on <link linkend="bind">bind</link>. Functions
3384 are listed in the <link linkend="functions">functions</link>.
3388 The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros
3389 willwork regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not
3391 the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more
3392 robustand portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files
3394 than one user (eg. the system Muttngrc).
3398 Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after <emphasis>sequence</emphasis>,
3399 which is shown in the help screens.
3403 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> Macro definitions (if any)
3404 listed in the help screen(s), are
3405 silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
3415 <title>Using color and mono video attributes </title>
3418 Usage: <literal>color</literal> <emphasis>object</emphasis> <emphasis>
3421 <emphasis>background</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
3424 Usage: <literal>color</literal> index <emphasis>foreground</emphasis> <emphasis>
3427 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
3429 Usage: <literal>uncolor</literal> index <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
3430 [ <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> ... ]
3435 If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt-ng by creating
3437 color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information),
3439 must specify both a foreground color <emphasis role="bold">and</emphasis> a background color (it is not
3440 possible to only specify one or the other).
3444 <emphasis>object</emphasis> can be one of:
3459 body (match <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> in the body of messages)
3465 bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
3471 error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng)
3477 header (match <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> in the message header)
3483 hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
3489 index (match <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> in the message index)
3495 indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a
3502 markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in
3509 message (informational messages)
3521 quoted (text matching <link linkend="quote-regexp">quote-regexp</link> in the body of a message)
3527 quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<emphasis role="bold">N</emphasis>
3528 (higher levels of quoting)
3534 search (highlighting of words in the pager)
3546 status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or
3553 tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
3559 tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
3565 underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of
3575 <emphasis>foreground</emphasis> and <emphasis>background</emphasis> can
3576 be one of the following:
3639 color<emphasis>x</emphasis>
3648 <emphasis>foreground</emphasis> can optionally be prefixed with the
3649 keyword <literal>bright</literal> to make
3650 the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., <literal>brightred</literal>).
3654 If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <emphasis>default</emphasis> can be
3655 used as a transparent color. The value <emphasis>brightdefault</emphasis> is also valid.
3656 If Mutt-ng is linked against the <emphasis>S-Lang</emphasis> library,
3657 you also need to set
3658 the <emphasis>COLORFGBG</emphasis> environment variable to the default
3660 terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
3666 set COLORFGBG="green;black"
3667 export COLORFGBG</screen>
3672 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> The <emphasis>S-Lang</emphasis>
3673 library requires you to use the <emphasis>lightgray</emphasis>
3674 and <emphasis>brown</emphasis> keywords instead of <emphasis>white</emphasis> and <emphasis>
3678 setting this variable.
3682 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> The uncolor command can be
3683 applied to the index object only. It
3684 removes entries from the list. You <emphasis role="bold">must</emphasis> specify the same pattern
3685 specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*''
3687 a special token which means to clear the color index list of all
3692 Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords <emphasis>color0</emphasis>, <emphasis>
3696 <emphasis>color</emphasis><emphasis role="bold">N-1</emphasis> (<emphasis role="bold">
3699 being the number of colors supported
3700 by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your
3701 display (for example by changing the color associated with <emphasis>
3704 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning.
3708 If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change
3710 attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command:
3714 Usage: <literal>mono</literal> <emphasis><object>
3717 [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> ]
3719 Usage: <literal>mono</literal> index <emphasis>attribute</emphasis> <emphasis>
3723 Usage: <literal>unmono</literal> index <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
3724 [ <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> ... ]
3729 where <emphasis>attribute</emphasis> is one of the following:
3777 <title>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers </title>
3780 Usage: <literal>[un]ignore</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
3787 Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing
3789 or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command
3791 you to specify header fields which you don't normally want to see.
3795 You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example,
3796 ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the
3798 ``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
3802 To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore''
3804 The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with the
3806 For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore
3811 ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
3818 # Sven's draconian header weeding
3820 unignore from date subject to cc
3821 unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
3822 unignore posted-to:</screen>
3832 <sect1 id="alternates">
3833 <title>Alternative addresses </title>
3836 Usage: <literal>[un]alternates</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
3844 With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently,
3845 depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from
3846 someone else. For instance, when replying to a message that you
3847 sent to a different party, mutt will automatically suggest to send
3848 the response to the original message's recipients -- responding to
3849 yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See <link linkend="reply-to">
3856 Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To
3857 fully use mutt's features here, the program must be able to
3858 recognize what e-mail addresses you receive mail under. That's the
3859 purpose of the <literal>alternates</literal> command: It takes a list
3861 expressions, each of which can identify an address under which you
3866 The <literal>unalternates</literal> command can be used to write
3868 <literal>alternates</literal> patterns. If an address matches something
3870 <literal>alternates</literal> command, but you nonetheless do not think
3872 from you, you can list a more precise pattern under an <literal>
3879 To remove a regular expression from the <literal>alternates</literal>
3881 <literal>unalternates</literal> command with exactly the same <emphasis>
3885 Likewise, if the <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> for a <literal>alternates</literal> command matches
3886 an entry on the <literal>unalternates</literal> list, that <literal>
3889 entry will be removed. If the <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> for <literal>
3892 is ``*'', <emphasis>all entries</emphasis> on <literal>alternates</literal> will be removed.
3902 <title>Format = Flowed </title>
3905 <title>Introduction </title>
3908 Mutt-ng contains support for so-called <literal>format=flowed</literal> messages.
3909 In the beginning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and
3910 it was enough for displaying them on fixed-size terminals. But times
3911 changed, and nowadays hardly anybody still uses fixed-size terminals:
3912 more people nowaydays use graphical user interfaces, with dynamically
3913 resizable windows. This led to the demand of a new email format that
3914 makes it possible for the email client to make the email look nice
3915 in a resizable window without breaking quoting levels and creating
3916 an incompatible email format that can also be displayed nicely on
3917 old fixed-size terminals.
3921 For introductory information on <literal>format=flowed</literal>
3923 <ulink URL="http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html"><http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html></ulink>.
3929 <title>Receiving: Display Setup </title>
3932 When you receive emails that are marked as <literal>format=flowed</literal>
3933 messages, and is formatted correctly, mutt-ng will try to reformat
3934 the message to optimally fit on your terminal. If you want a fixed
3935 margin on the right side of your terminal, you can set the
3942 set wrapmargin = 10</screen>
3947 The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right
3948 side of the terminal.
3952 If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long,
3953 you can also set a maximum line length:
3959 set max_line_length = 120</screen>
3964 The example above will give you lines not longer than 120
3969 When you view at <literal>format=flowed</literal> messages, you will
3971 the quoting hierarchy like in the following example:
3977 >Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
3978 >Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
3979 >production server that we want to set up before our customer's
3980 >project will go live.</screen>
3985 This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very
3986 hard to differentiate between text and quoting character. The
3987 solution is to configure mutt-ng to "stuff" the quoting:
3993 set stuff_quoted</screen>
3998 This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read:
4004 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
4005 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
4006 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
4007 > project will go live.</screen>
4014 <title>Sending </title>
4017 If you want mutt-ng to send emails with <literal>format=flowed</literal> set, you
4018 need to explicitly set it:
4024 set text_flowed</screen>
4029 Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing
4030 <literal>format=flowed</literal>-conforming emails. For vim, this is
4032 adding <literal>w</literal> to the formatoptions (see <literal>:h
4036 <literal>:h fo-table</literal>) when writing emails.
4040 Also note that <emphasis>format=flowed</emphasis> knows about
4042 that is, when sending messages, some kinds of lines have to be
4043 indented with a single space on the sending side. On the receiving
4044 side, the first space (if any) is removed. As a consequence and in
4045 addition to the above simple setting, please keep this in mind when
4046 making manual formattings within the editor. Also note that mutt-ng
4047 currently violates the standard (RfC 3676) as it does not
4048 space-stuff lines starting with:
4057 <literal>></literal> This is <emphasis>not</emphasis> the
4058 quote character but a right
4059 angle used for other reasons
4066 <literal>From</literal> with a trailing space.
4073 just a space for formatting reasons
4083 Please make sure that you manually prepend a space to each of them.
4089 <title>Additional Notes</title>
4092 For completeness, the <link linkend="delete-space">delete-space</link> variable provides the mechanism
4093 to generate a <literal>DelSp=yes</literal> parameter on <emphasis>
4097 According to the standard, clients receiving a <literal>format=flowed</literal>
4098 messages should delete the last space of a flowed line but still
4099 interpret the line as flowed. Because flowed lines usually contain
4100 only one space at the end, this parameter would make the receiving
4101 client concatenate the last word of the previous with the first of
4102 the current line <emphasis>without</emphasis> a space. This makes
4104 unreadable and is intended for languages rarely using spaces. So
4105 please use this setting only if you're sure what you're doing.
4117 <title>Mailing lists </title>
4120 Usage: <literal>[un]lists</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
4125 Usage: <literal>[un]subscribe</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
4132 Mutt-ng has a few nice features for <link linkend="using-lists">
4135 .In order to take advantage of them, you must
4136 specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing
4137 lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done this, the <link linkend="func-list-reply">
4140 function will work for all known lists.
4141 Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed list, mutt will
4142 add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user agents
4143 not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that
4144 the Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not
4145 supported by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof
4147 receiving personal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation
4148 of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the <link linkend="followup-to">
4151 configuration variable.
4155 More precisely, Mutt-ng maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
4156 of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing
4157 list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists''
4158 command. To mark it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
4162 You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all
4163 messages sent to a specific bug report's address on mutt's bug
4164 tracking system as list mail, for instance, you could say
4165 ``subscribe [0-9]*@bugs.guug.de''. Often, it's sufficient to just
4166 give a portion of the list's e-mail address.
4170 Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
4171 example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will
4173 addressed to <emphasis>mutt-users@mutt.org</emphasis>. So, to tell
4174 Mutt-ng that this is a
4175 mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
4176 initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it,
4177 add ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead.
4178 If you also happen to get mail from someone whose address is
4179 <emphasis>mutt-users@example.com</emphasis>, you could use ``lists
4180 mutt-users@mutt\\.org''
4181 or ``subscribe mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' to
4182 match only mail from the actual list.
4186 The ``unlists'' command is used to remove a token from the list of
4187 known and subscribed mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all
4192 To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists,
4193 but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
4202 <sect1 id="mbox-hook">
4203 <title>Using Multiple spool mailboxes </title>
4206 Usage: <literal>mbox-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4212 This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to
4213 adifferent mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders.
4214 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> is a regular expression specifying the
4215 mailbox to treat as a
4216 ``spool'' mailbox and <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis> specifies where mail
4217 should be saved when
4222 Unlike some of the other <emphasis>hook</emphasis> commands, only the <emphasis>
4226 pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a
4237 <sect1 id="mailboxes">
4238 <title>Defining mailboxes which receive mail </title>
4241 Usage: <literal>[un]mailboxes</literal> [!]<emphasis>
4244 [ <emphasis>filename</emphasis> ... ]
4248 This command specifies folders which can receive mail and
4249 which will be checked for new messages. By default, the
4250 main menu status bar displays how many of these folders have
4255 When changing folders, pressing <emphasis>space</emphasis> will cycle
4256 through folders with new mail.
4260 Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the
4262 specified by the <literal>mailboxes</literal> command, and indicate
4264 messages. Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from
4266 command line with the <literal>-y</literal> option.
4270 The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list
4271 of folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all
4276 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> new mail is detected by
4277 comparing the last modification time to
4278 the last access time. Utilities like <literal>biff</literal> or <literal>
4282 program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt-ng to never detect
4284 for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup
4285 tools are another common reason for updated access times.
4289 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> the filenames in the <literal>
4292 command are resolved when
4293 the command is executed, so if these names contain <link linkend="shortcuts">
4296 (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable
4297 definition that affect these characters (like <link linkend="folder">
4300 and <link linkend="spoolfile">spoolfile</link>)
4301 should be executed before the <literal>mailboxes</literal> command.
4311 <title>User defined headers </title>
4316 <literal>my_hdr</literal> <emphasis>string</emphasis>
4318 <literal>unmy_hdr</literal> <emphasis>field</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
4325 The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header
4326 fields which will be added to every message you send.
4330 For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field
4332 all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command
4337 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA</screen>
4341 in your <literal>.muttrc</literal>.
4345 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> space characters are <emphasis>
4348 allowed between the keyword and
4349 the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that
4350 space is illegal there, so Mutt-ng enforces the rule.
4354 If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
4355 either set the <link linkend="edit-headers">edit-headers</link>
4357 or use the <emphasis>edit-headers</emphasis> function (default: ``E'')
4359 that you can edit the header of your message along with the body.
4363 To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr''
4364 command. You may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header
4365 fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and
4366 ``Cc'' header fields, you could use:
4371 unmy_hdr to cc</screen>
4380 <sect1 id="hdr-order">
4381 <title>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages </title>
4384 Usage: <literal>hdr_order</literal> <emphasis>header1</emphasis>
4385 <emphasis>header2</emphasis> <emphasis>header3</emphasis>
4389 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt
4390 to present headers to you when viewing messages.
4394 ``unhdr_order *'' will clear all previous headers from the order
4396 thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup
4403 hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:</screen>
4413 <sect1 id="save-hook">
4414 <title>Specify default save filename </title>
4417 Usage: <literal>save-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4423 This command is used to override the default filename used when saving
4424 messages. <emphasis>filename</emphasis> will be used as the default
4425 filename if the message is
4426 <emphasis>From:</emphasis> an address matching <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> or if you are the author and the
4427 message is addressed <emphasis>to:</emphasis> something matching <emphasis>
4434 See <link linkend="pattern-hook">pattern-hook</link> for information on
4435 the exact format of <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>.
4445 save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins
4446 save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam</screen>
4451 Also see the <link linkend="fcc-save-hook">fcc-save-hook</link>
4461 <sect1 id="fcc-hook">
4462 <title>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing </title>
4465 Usage: <literal>fcc-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4471 This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than
4472 <link linkend="record">record</link>. Mutt-ng searches the initial
4474 message recipients for the first matching <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
4475 and uses <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis>
4476 as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be
4478 to <link linkend="record">record</link> mailbox.
4482 See <link linkend="pattern-hook">pattern-hook</link> for information on
4483 the exact format of <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>.
4487 Example: <literal>fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$
4493 The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain
4495 the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the <link linkend="fcc-save-hook">
4507 <sect1 id="fcc-save-hook">
4508 <title>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once </title>
4511 Usage: <literal>fcc-save-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4517 This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a <link linkend="fcc-hook">
4520 and a <link linkend="save-hook">save-hook</link> with its arguments.
4529 <sect1 id="send-hook">
4530 <title>Change settings based upon message recipients </title>
4533 Usage: <literal>reply-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4537 Usage: <literal>send-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4541 Usage: <literal>send2-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4547 These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
4549 upon recipients of the message. <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> is a
4551 matching the desired address. <emphasis>command</emphasis> is executed
4552 when <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
4553 matches recipients of the message.
4557 <literal>reply-hook</literal> is matched against the message you are <emphasis>
4560 <emphasis role="bold">to</emphasis>, instead of the message you are <emphasis>
4563 .<literal>send-hook</literal> is
4564 matched against all messages, both <emphasis>new</emphasis> and <emphasis>
4567 .<emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis>
4568 <literal>reply-hook</literal>s are matched <emphasis role="bold">before</emphasis> the <literal>
4571 ,<emphasis role="bold">regardless</emphasis>
4572 of the order specified in the users's configuration file.
4576 <literal>send2-hook</literal> is matched every time a message is
4578 by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients
4579 or subject. <literal>send2-hook</literal> is executed after <literal>
4583 can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the <link linkend="sendmail">
4586 variable depending on the message's sender
4591 For each type of <literal>send-hook</literal> or <literal>reply-hook</literal>, when multiple matches
4592 occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the
4594 (for that type of hook).
4598 See <link linkend="pattern-hook">pattern-hook</link> for information on
4599 the exact format of <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>.
4603 Example: <literal>send-hook mutt "set mime_forward
4609 Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the
4610 <link linkend="attribution">attribution</link>, <link linkend="signature">
4613 and <link linkend="locale">locale</link>
4614 variables in order to change the language of the attributions and
4615 signatures based upon the recipients.
4619 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> the send-hook's are only
4620 executed ONCE after getting the initial
4621 list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the
4622 message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. Also note that
4623 my_hdr commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's
4624 subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed
4634 <sect1 id="message-hook">
4635 <title>Change settings before formatting a message </title>
4638 Usage: <literal>message-hook</literal> [!]<emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4644 This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
4645 before viewing or formatting a message based upon information about the
4647 <emphasis>command</emphasis> is executed if the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matches the message to be
4648 displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the
4650 they are specified in the muttrc.
4654 See <link linkend="pattern-hook">pattern-hook</link> for
4655 information on the exact format of <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>.
4662 message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin'
4663 message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject:.*\""'</screen>
4673 <sect1 id="crypt-hook">
4674 <title>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient </title>
4677 Usage: <literal>crypt-hook</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4683 When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate
4685 key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
4686 recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address,
4687 or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt-ng
4688 wouldnormally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which
4690 specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to
4691 a certain recipient.
4695 The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You
4696 can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even
4707 <title>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer </title>
4710 Usage: <literal>push</literal> <emphasis>string</emphasis>
4714 This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string
4716 contain control characters, key names and function names like the
4718 string in the <link linkend="macro">macro</link> command. You may use
4720 automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering
4731 <title>Executing functions </title>
4734 Usage: <literal>exec</literal> <emphasis>function</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
4741 This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are
4742 listed in the <link linkend="functions">functions</link>.
4743 ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
4752 <sect1 id="score-command">
4753 <title>Message Scoring </title>
4756 Usage: <literal>score</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4760 Usage: <literal>unscore</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
4767 In situations where you have to cope with a lot of emails, e.g.
4768 when you read many different mailing lists, and take part in
4769 discussions, it is always useful to have the important messages
4770 marked and the annoying messages or the ones that you aren't
4771 interested in deleted. For this purpose, mutt-ng features a
4772 mechanism called ``scoring''.
4776 When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You
4777 can then use the <literal>score</literal> command to define patterns
4779 positive or negative value associated with it. When a pattern
4780 matches a message, the message's score will be raised or lowered by
4781 the amount of the value associated with the pattern.
4787 score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50
4788 score "~f @sco\.com" -100</screen>
4793 If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score
4794 value of the current message to a certain value and then stop
4801 score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666</screen>
4806 What is important to note is that negative score values will be
4811 To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in
4812 some way. That's what the <emphasis>score thresholds</emphasis> are
4814 there are three score thresholds:
4823 flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher
4824 than the flag threshold, it will be flagged.
4831 read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower
4832 than the read threshold, it will be marked as read.
4839 delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or
4840 lower than the delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted.
4850 These three thresholds can be set via the variables <link linkend="score-threshold-flag">
4851 score-threshold-flag
4853 ,<link linkend="score-threshold-read">score-threshold-read</link>, <link linkend="score-threshold-delete">
4854 score-threshold-delete
4857 default, <link linkend="score-threshold-read">score-threshold-read</link> and <link linkend="score-threshold-delete">
4858 score-threshold-delete
4861 <literal>-1</literal>, which means that in the default threshold
4863 message will ever get marked as read or deleted.
4867 Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the <literal>
4871 and the <literal>˜n</literal> pattern:
4877 color index black yellow "~n 10-"
4878 color index red yellow "~n 100-"</screen>
4883 The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99
4884 with black and yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal
4885 100 with red and yellow. This might be unusual to you if you're used
4886 to e.g. slrn's scoring mechanism, but it is more flexible, as it
4887 visually marks different scores.
4897 <title>Spam detection </title>
4900 Usage: <literal>spam</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>
4904 Usage: <literal>nospam</literal> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
4908 Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
4909 By defining your spam patterns with the <literal>spam</literal> and <literal>
4912 commands, you can <emphasis>limit</emphasis>, <emphasis>search</emphasis>, and <emphasis>
4916 mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external
4917 filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index
4918 display using the <literal>%H</literal> selector in the <link linkend="index-format">
4921 variable. (Tip: try <literal>%?H?[%H] ?</literal>
4922 to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.)
4926 Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using
4927 the <literal>spam</literal> command. <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
4928 should be a regular expression
4929 that matches a header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox
4930 matches this regular expression, it will receive a ``spam tag'' or
4931 ``spam attribute'' (unless it also matches a <literal>nospam</literal>
4933 below.) The appearance of this attribute is entirely up to you, and is
4934 governed by the <emphasis>format</emphasis> parameter. <emphasis>format</emphasis> can be any static
4935 text, but it also can include back-references from the <emphasis>
4938 expression. (A regular expression ``back-reference'' refers to a
4939 sub-expression contained within parentheses.) <literal>%1</literal> is replaced with
4940 the first back-reference in the regex, <literal>%2</literal>
4941 with the second, etc.
4945 If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than
4946 one spam-related header. You can define <literal>spam</literal>
4948 filter you use. If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and
4949 the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the
4950 message's spam tag will consist of all the <emphasis>format</emphasis>
4952 together, with the value of $spam_separator separating
4957 For example, suppose I use DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage. I might
4958 define these spam settings:
4961 spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1"
4962 spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA"
4963 spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM"
4964 set spam_separator=", "</screen>
4969 If I then received a message that DCC registered with ``many'' hits
4970 under the ``Fuz2'' checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a
4971 97% probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would
4972 read<literal>90+/DCC-Fuz2, 97/PM</literal>. (The four characters before
4974 DCC report indicate the checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
4978 If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each
4979 spam pattern match supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting
4980 joined <emphasis>format</emphasis> strings, you'll get only the last
4985 The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use
4986 <literal>%H</literal> in the <literal>
4987 $index_format
4989 variable. It's also the
4990 string that the <literal>˜H</literal> pattern-matching expression
4992 <emphasis>search</emphasis> and <emphasis>limit</emphasis> functions.
4993 And it's what sorting by spam
4994 attribute will use as a sort key.
4998 That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual
4999 environments will have only one spam filter. The simpler your
5000 configuration, the more effective mutt can be, especially when it comes
5005 Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort <emphasis>
5009 that is, by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag
5010 begins with a number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically
5011 only when two numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's
5012 <literal>sort -n</literal>.) A message with no spam attributes at all
5014 that didn't match <emphasis>any</emphasis> of your <literal>spam</literal> patterns -- is sorted at
5015 lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next, beginning with 0 and ranging
5016 upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are sorted, with ``a'' taking
5017 lowerpriority than ``z''. Clearly, in general, sorting by spam tags is
5019 effective when you can coerce your filter to give you a raw number. But
5020 in case you can't, mutt can still do something useful.
5024 The <literal>nospam</literal> command can be used to write exceptions
5025 to <literal>spam</literal>
5026 patterns. If a header pattern matches something in a <literal>spam</literal> command,
5027 but you nonetheless do not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list
5028 amore precise pattern under a <literal>nospam</literal> command.
5032 If the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> given to <literal>nospam</literal>
5033 is exactly the same as the
5034 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> on an existing <literal>spam</literal>
5035 list entry, the effect will be to
5036 remove the entry from the spam list, instead of adding an exception.
5037 Likewise, if the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> for a <literal>spam</literal> command matches an entry
5038 on the <literal>nospam</literal> list, that <literal>nospam</literal>
5039 entry will be removed. If the
5040 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> for <literal>nospam</literal> is ``*'', <emphasis>
5041 all entries on both lists
5043 will be removed. This might be the default action if you use <literal>
5046 and <literal>nospam</literal> in conjunction with a <literal>
5053 You can have as many <literal>spam</literal> or <literal>nospam</literal> commands as you like.
5054 You can even do your own primitive spam detection within mutt -- for
5055 example, if you consider all mail from <literal>MAILER-DAEMON</literal>
5057 you can use a <literal>spam</literal> command like this:
5063 spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"</screen>
5074 <title>Setting variables </title>
5077 Usage: <literal>set</literal> [no|inv]<emphasis>
5080 [=<emphasis>value</emphasis>] [ <emphasis>variable</emphasis> ... ]
5082 Usage: <literal>toggle</literal> <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>
5087 Usage: <literal>unset</literal> <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>
5092 Usage: <literal>reset</literal> <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>
5099 This command is used to set (and unset) <link linkend="variables">
5102 .There are four basic types of variables:
5103 boolean, number, string and quadoption. <emphasis>boolean</emphasis>
5105 <emphasis>set</emphasis> (true) or <emphasis>unset</emphasis> (false).
5106 <emphasis>number</emphasis> variables can be
5107 assigned a positive integer value.
5111 <emphasis>string</emphasis> variables consist of any number of
5112 printable characters.
5113 <emphasis>strings</emphasis> must be enclosed in quotes if they contain
5115 may also use the ``C'' escape sequences <emphasis role="bold">\n</emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">
5119 newline and tab, respectively.
5123 <emphasis>quadoption</emphasis> variables are used to control whether
5124 or not to be prompted
5125 for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of <emphasis>
5128 will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had
5130 yes to the question. Similarly, a value of <emphasis>no</emphasis>
5132 action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of
5133 <emphasis>ask-yes</emphasis> will cause a prompt with a default answer
5135 <emphasis>ask-no</emphasis> will provide a default answer of ``no.''
5139 Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: <literal>set
5146 For <emphasis>boolean</emphasis> variables, you may optionally prefix
5147 the variable name with
5148 <literal>inv</literal> to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful
5150 macros. Example: <literal>set invsmart_wrap</literal>.
5154 The <literal>toggle</literal> command automatically prepends the <literal>
5158 specified variables.
5162 The <literal>unset</literal> command automatically prepends the <literal>
5166 specified variables.
5170 Using the enter-command function in the <emphasis>index</emphasis>
5171 menu, you can query the
5172 value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a
5180 set ?allow_8bit</screen>
5185 The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption
5190 The <literal>reset</literal> command resets all given variables to the
5192 defaults (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command
5193 <literal>set</literal> and prefix the variable with ``&'' this has
5195 behavior as the reset command.
5199 With the <literal>reset</literal> command there exists the special
5201 which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
5211 <title>Reading initialization commands from another file </title>
5214 Usage: <literal>source</literal> <emphasis>filename</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
5221 This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands
5222 from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in
5223 <literal>˜/.mail_aliases</literal> so that I can make my
5224 <literal>˜/.muttrc</literal> readable and keep my aliases
5229 If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded
5231 path of your home directory.
5235 If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then <emphasis>
5239 considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
5240 <literal>source ˜/bin/myscript|</literal>).
5250 <title>Removing hooks </title>
5253 Usage: <literal>unhook</literal> [ * | <emphasis>hook-type</emphasis> ]
5257 This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
5258 You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
5259 argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
5260 something like <literal>unhook send-hook</literal>.
5269 <sect1 id="sect:sharingsetups">
5270 <title>Sharing Setups </title>
5273 <title>Character Sets </title>
5276 As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration
5277 must be maintained because it's likely that people want to use the
5278 setup everywhere they use mutt-ng. And mutt-ng tries to help where it
5283 To not produce conflicts with different character sets, mutt-ng
5284 allows users to specify in which character set their configuration
5285 files are encoded. Please note that while reading the configuration
5286 files, this is only respected after the corresponding declaration
5287 appears. It's advised to put the following at the very beginning of a
5294 set config_charset = "..."</screen>
5299 and replacing the dots with the actual character set. To avoid
5300 problems while maintaining the setup, vim user's may want to use
5301 modelines as show in:
5307 # vim:fileencoding=...:</screen>
5312 while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This
5313 tells vim as which character set to read and save the file.
5323 <title>Modularization </title>
5326 ``Modularization'' means to divide the setup into several files
5327 while sorting the options or commands by topic. Especially for
5328 longer setups (e.g. with many hooks), this helps maintaining it
5329 and solving trouble.
5333 When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in
5334 fractions, shared over different systems.
5344 <title>Conditional parts </title>
5347 When using a configuration on different systems, the user may not
5348 always have influence on how mutt-ng is installed and which features
5353 To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef''
5354 patch written for mutt. Its basic syntax is:
5360 ifdef <item> <command>
5361 ifndef <item> <command></screen>
5366 ...whereby <literal><item></literal> can be one of:
5406 All available functions, variables and menus are documented
5407 elsewhere in this manual but ``features'' is specific to these
5408 two commands. To test for one, prefix one of the following
5409 keywords with <literal>feature_</literal>: ncurses,
5410 slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl,
5411 gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp,
5412 classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache
5416 As an example, one can use the following in
5417 <literal>˜/.muttngrc</literal>:
5423 ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap'
5424 ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop'
5425 ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp'</screen>
5430 ...to only source <literal>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-imap</literal> if
5432 support is built in, only source <literal>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-pop</literal>
5433 if POP support is built in and only source
5434 <literal>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp</literal> if NNTP support is
5439 An example for testing for variable names can be used if users
5440 use different revisions of mutt-ng whereby the older one may not
5441 have a certain variable. To test for the availability of <link linkend="imap-mail-check">
5451 ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300'</screen>
5456 Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set <link linkend="pager-index-lines">
5460 menu is available, use:
5466 ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10'</screen>
5471 For completeness, too, the opposite of <literal>ifdef</literal> is
5473 <literal>ifndef</literal> which only executes the command if the test
5475 example, the following two examples are equivalent:
5481 ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
5482 ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'</screen>
5493 ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
5494 ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'</screen>
5511 <title>Obsolete Variables </title>
5514 In the process of ensuring and creating more consistency, many
5515 variables have been renamed and some of the old names were already
5516 removed. Please see <link linkend="sect-obsolete">sect-obsolete</link>
5517 for a complete list.
5533 <title>Advanced Usage </title>
5536 <title>Regular Expressions </title>
5539 All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex
5540 <link linkend="patterns">patterns</link> must be specified
5541 using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax
5543 is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your
5544 convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax.
5548 The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper
5549 case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\''
5550 must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization
5551 command: ``\\''.
5555 A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings.
5556 Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic
5557 expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
5561 Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either
5563 or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space
5564 character. See <link linkend="muttrc-syntax">muttrc-syntax</link>
5565 for more information on " and ' delimiter processing. To match a
5566 literal " or ' you must preface it with \ (backslash).
5570 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
5571 a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits,
5572 are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with
5573 special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
5577 The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``ˆ''
5578 andthe dollar sign ``$'' are metacharacters that respectively
5580 the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.
5584 A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any
5585 single character in that list; if the first character of the list
5586 is a caret ``ˆ'' then it matches any character <emphasis role="bold">
5590 list. For example, the regular expression <emphasis role="bold">
5591 [0123456789]
5593 matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified
5594 by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen
5595 ``-''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
5596 lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the list.
5597 Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first.
5598 Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last.
5602 Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
5603 consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''.
5604 The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard:
5611 <term>[:alnum:]</term>
5614 Alphanumeric characters.
5619 <term>[:alpha:]</term>
5622 Alphabetic characters.
5627 <term>[:blank:]</term>
5630 Space or tab characters.
5635 <term>[:cntrl:]</term>
5643 <term>[:digit:]</term>
5651 <term>[:graph:]</term>
5654 Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is
5656 but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.)
5661 <term>[:lower:]</term>
5664 Lower-case alphabetic characters.
5669 <term>[:print:]</term>
5672 Printable characters (characters that are not control
5678 <term>[:punct:]</term>
5681 Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits,
5683 characters, or space characters).
5688 <term>[:space:]</term>
5691 Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a
5697 <term>[:upper:]</term>
5700 Upper-case alphabetic characters.
5705 <term>[:xdigit:]</term>
5708 Characters that are hexadecimal digits.
5716 A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the
5717 brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these
5718 class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included
5719 in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For
5720 example, <emphasis role="bold">[[:digit:]]</emphasis> is equivalent to
5721 <emphasis role="bold">[0-9]</emphasis>.
5725 Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These
5726 apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols
5727 (calledcollating elements) that are represented with more than one
5729 as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or
5737 <term>Collating Symbols</term>
5740 A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element
5742 ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a
5744 element, then <emphasis role="bold">
5745 [[.ch.]]
5747 is a regexp that matches
5748 this collating element, while <emphasis role="bold">
5752 matches either ``c'' or ``h''.
5757 <term>Equivalence Classes</term>
5760 An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of
5761 characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in
5763 and ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to
5764 represent all of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this
5766 <emphasis role="bold">[[=e=]]</emphasis> is
5767 a regexp that matches any of
5768 ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''.
5776 A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one
5777 of several repetition operators:
5787 The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
5795 The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
5803 The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
5808 <term>{n}</term>
5811 The preceding item is matched exactly <emphasis>n</emphasis>
5817 <term>{n,}</term>
5820 The preceding item is matched <emphasis>n</emphasis> or more
5826 <term>{,m}</term>
5829 The preceding item is matched at most <emphasis>m</emphasis>
5835 <term>{n,m}</term>
5838 The preceding item is matched at least <emphasis>n</emphasis>
5839 times, but no more than
5840 <emphasis>m</emphasis> times.
5848 Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
5849 expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings
5850 that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions.
5854 Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator
5856 the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
5861 Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
5862 precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
5863 parentheses to override these precedence rules.
5867 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> If you compile Mutt-ng with the
5868 GNU <emphasis>rx</emphasis> package, the
5869 following operators may also be used in regular expressions:
5876 <term>\\y</term>
5879 Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of
5885 <term>\\B</term>
5888 Matches the empty string within a word.
5893 <term>\\<</term>
5896 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.
5901 <term>\\></term>
5904 Matches the empty string at the end of a word.
5909 <term>\\w</term>
5912 Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or
5918 <term>\\W</term>
5921 Matches any character that is not word-constituent.
5926 <term>\\`</term>
5929 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).
5934 <term>\\'</term>
5937 Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.
5945 Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so
5946 they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
5956 <title>Patterns </title>
5959 Mutt-ng's pattern language provides a simple yet effective way to
5960 set up rules to match messages, e.g. for operations like tagging and
5961 scoring. A pattern consists of one or more sub-pattern, which can be
5962 logically grouped, ORed, and negated. For a complete listing of
5963 these patterns, please refer to table <link linkend="patterns">patterns</link> in the Reference chapter.
5967 It must be noted that in this table, <literal>EXPR</literal> is
5968 a regular expression. For ranges, the forms
5969 <literal><[MAX]</literal>, <literal>>>[MIN]</literal>,
5970 <literal> [MIN]- </literal> and <literal>-[MAX]</literal> are
5975 <title>Complex Patterns </title>
5978 It is possible to combine several sub-patterns to a more complex
5979 pattern. The most simple possibility is to logically AND several
5980 patterns by stringing them together:
5986 ~s 'SPAM' ~U</screen>
5991 The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in
5992 the subject and are unread.
5996 To logical OR patterns, simply use the <literal>|</literal>
5998 especially useful when using local groups:
6004 ~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org")
6005 (~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng)
6006 !~x '@synflood\.at'</screen>
6011 The first pattern matches all messages that were sent by one of
6012 the mutt-ng maintainers, while the seconds pattern matches all
6013 messages that contain ``mutt-ng'' in the message body or ``Mutt-ng''
6014 in the subject. The third pattern matches all messages that do not
6015 contain ``@synflood\.at'' in the <literal>References:</literal>
6017 messages that are not an (indirect) reply to one of my messages. A
6018 pattern can be logicall negated using the <literal>!</literal>
6025 <title>Patterns and Dates </title>
6028 When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a
6029 special format, i.e. <literal>DD/MM/YYYY</literal>. If you don't
6031 month or year, they default to the current month or year. When using
6032 date ranges, and you specify only the minimum or the maximum, the
6033 specified date will be excluded, e.g. <literal>01/06/2005-</literal>
6035 against all messages <emphasis>after</emphasis> Juni 1st, 2005.
6039 It is also possible to use so-called ``error margins'' when
6040 specifying date ranges. You simply specify a date, and then the
6041 error margin. This margin needs to contain the information whether
6042 it goes ``forth'' or ``back'' in time, by using <literal>+</literal>
6043 and <literal>-</literal>.
6044 Then follows a number and a unit, i.e. <literal>y</literal> for
6045 years, <literal>m</literal> for
6046 months, <literal>w</literal> for weeks and <literal>d</literal> for
6047 days. If you use the special
6048 <literal>*</literal> sign, it means that the error margin goes to
6049 both``directions'' in time.
6057 ~d 28/12/2004*1d</screen>
6062 The first pattern matches all dates between January 1st, 2005 and
6063 January 1st 2006. The second pattern matches all dates between
6064 October 18th, 2004 and October 4th 2004 (2 weeks before 18/10/2004),
6065 while the third pattern matches all dates 1 day around December
6066 28th, 2004 (i.e. Dec 27th, 28th and 29th).
6070 Relative dates are also very important, as they make it possible
6071 to specify date ranges between a fixed number of units and the
6072 current date. How this works can be seen in the following example:
6078 ~d >2w # messages older than two weeks
6079 ~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days
6080 ~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old</screen>
6093 <title>Format Strings </title>
6096 <title>Introduction </title>
6099 The so called <emphasis>Format Strings</emphasis> offer great
6101 configuring mutt-ng. In short, they describe what items to print
6102 out how in menus and status messages.
6106 Basically, they work as this: for different menus and bars,
6107 there's a variable specifying the layout. For every item
6108 available, there is a so called <emphasis>expando</emphasis>.
6112 For example, when running mutt-ng on different machines or
6113 different versions for testing purposes, it may be interesting to
6114 have the following information always printed on screen when one
6124 the current hostname
6131 the current mutt-ng version number
6141 The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the
6142 <link linkend="status-format">status-format</link>
6143 variable. For the hostname and version string, there's an expando
6144 for <literal>$status_format</literal>: <literal>
6148 hostname and <literal>%v</literal> to the version string. When
6155 set status_format = "%v on %h: ..."</screen>
6160 mutt-ng will replace the sequence <literal>%v</literal> with
6162 and <literal>%h</literal> with the host's name. When you are,
6163 for example, running
6164 mutt-ng version <literal>1.5.9i</literal> on host <literal>mailhost</literal>, you'll see the
6165 following when you're in the index:
6171 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ...</screen>
6176 In the index, there're more useful information one could want to
6186 which mailbox is open
6193 how man new, flagged or postponed messages
6210 To include the mailbox' name is as easy as:
6216 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ...</screen>
6221 When the currently opened mailbox is <literal>Inbox</literal>, this
6229 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ...</screen>
6234 For the number of certain types of messages, one more feature of the
6236 strings is extremely useful. If there aren't messages of a certain
6238 may not be desired to print just that there aren't any but instead
6240 print something if there are any.
6250 <title>Conditional Expansion </title>
6253 To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in
6254 the current mailbox, further extend
6255 <literal>$status_format</literal> to:
6261 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ...</screen>
6266 This feature is called <emphasis>nonzero-printing</emphasis> and
6268 some expandos may be optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion
6269 of the format string is only evaluated if the value of the expando
6270 is different from zero. The basic syntax is:
6276 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>?</screen>
6281 which tells mutt-ng to only look at <literal><string if
6284 if the value of the <literal>%<item%gt;</literal>
6285 expando is different from zero. In our example, we used <literal>n</literal> as
6286 the expando to check for and <literal>%n new</literal> as the
6292 But this is not all: this feature only offers one alternative:
6293 ``print something if not zero.'' Mutt-ng does, as you might guess,
6294 also provide a logically complete version: ``if zero, print
6295 something and else print something else.'' This is achieved by the
6296 following syntax for those expandos which may be printed nonzero:
6302 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>&<string if zero>?</screen>
6307 Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following:
6316 make it print ``<emphasis>n</emphasis> new messages'' whereby <emphasis>
6320 count but only if there new ones
6327 and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any
6337 The corresponding configuration is:
6343 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ...</screen>
6348 This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get
6349 always printed. Thus, it can be shortened to:
6355 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ...</screen>
6360 As you might see from this rather simple example, one can create
6361 very complex but fancy status messages. Please see the reference
6362 chapter for expandos and those which may be printed nonzero.
6372 <title>Modifications and Padding </title>
6375 Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of
6385 When specifying <literal>%_<item></literal>
6387 just <literal>%<item></literal>, mutt-ng will
6389 characters in the expansion of <literal><item></literal>
6398 When specifying <literal>%:<item></literal>
6400 <literal>%<item></literal>, mutt-ng will convert
6402 expansion of <literal><item></literal> to underscores
6403 (<literal>_</literal>).
6413 Also, there's a feature called <emphasis>Padding</emphasis> supplied
6415 following two expandos: <literal>%|X</literal> and <literal>
6426 <literal>%|X</literal>
6430 When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the
6431 rest of the line with the character <literal>X</literal>. In
6433 filling the rest of the line with dashes is done by setting:
6439 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-"</screen>
6446 <literal>%>X</literal>
6450 Since the previous expando stops at
6451 the end of line, there must be a way to fill the gap between
6452 two items via the <literal>%>X</literal> expando:
6454 characters <literal>X</literal> in between two items so that
6456 the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the
6457 version string and hostname of our example on the left but on
6458 the right and fill the gap with spaces, one might use (note
6459 the space after <literal>%></literal>):
6465 set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)"</screen>
6486 <title>Using Tags </title>
6489 Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of
6490 messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be
6491 to save messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to
6492 delete all messages with a given subject. To tag all messages
6493 matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to
6494 ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by
6495 hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by
6496 default. See <link linkend="patterns">patterns</link> for Mutt-ng's
6502 Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the
6503 ``tag-prefix'' operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default.
6504 When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the <emphasis role="bold">
6508 be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that
6509 manner. If the <link linkend="auto-tag">auto-tag</link>
6510 variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages
6511 automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''.
6515 In <link linkend="macro">macro</link> or <link linkend="push">push</link> commands,
6516 you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator. If there are no tagged
6517 messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's
6518 execution.Mutt-ng will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the
6520 operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed
6531 <title>Using Hooks </title>
6534 A <emphasis>hook</emphasis> is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor
6536 execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For
6538 you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you
6540 reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a <emphasis>
6543 consists of a <link linkend="regexp">regexp</link> or
6544 <link linkend="patterns">patterns</link> along with a
6545 configuration option/command. See
6551 <link linkend="folder-hook">folder-hook</link>
6557 <link linkend="send-hook">send-hook</link>
6563 <link linkend="message-hook">message-hook</link>
6569 <link linkend="save-hook">save-hook</link>
6575 <link linkend="mbox-hook">mbox-hook</link>
6581 <link linkend="fcc-hook">fcc-hook</link>
6587 <link linkend="fcc-save-hook">fcc-save-hook</link>
6593 for specific details on each type of <emphasis>hook</emphasis>
6598 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> if a hook changes configuration
6599 settings, these changes remain
6600 effective until the end of the current mutt session. As this is
6602 not desired, a default hook needs to be added before all other hooks to
6603 restore configuration defaults. Here is an example with send-hook and
6605 my_hdr directive:
6611 send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:'
6612 send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c</screen>
6616 <sect2 id="pattern-hook">
6617 <title>Message Matching in Hooks</title>
6620 Hooks that act upon messages (<literal>send-hook, save-hook,
6621 fcc-hook,message-hook
6623 )are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other
6624 types of hooks, a <link linkend="regexp">regexp</link> is
6625 sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is
6626 needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match
6631 Mutt-ng allows the use of the <link linkend="patterns">patterns</link>
6632 language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in
6633 exactly the same way as it would when <emphasis>limiting</emphasis>
6634 or<emphasis>searching</emphasis> the mailbox, except that you are
6636 operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of
6637 the message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.).
6641 For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon
6643 mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
6646 send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User <user@host>'</screen>
6648 which would execute the given command when sending mail to
6649 <emphasis>me@cs.hmc.edu</emphasis>.
6653 However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using
6655 full searching language. You can still specify a simple <emphasis>
6659 like the other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your
6660 pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by
6662 <link linkend="default-hook">default-hook</link> variable. The
6663 pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value
6665 <link linkend="default-hook">default-hook</link> that is in effect
6666 at that time will be used.
6677 <sect1 id="sidebar">
6678 <title>Using the sidebar </title>
6681 The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox
6683 which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail
6685 The sidebar lists all specified mailboxes, shows the number in each
6686 and highlights the ones with new email
6687 Use the following configuration commands:
6690 set sidebar_visible="yes"
6691 set sidebar_width=25</screen>
6696 If you want to specify the mailboxes you can do so with:
6708 You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using:
6711 color sidebar_new red black
6712 color sidebar white black</screen>
6717 The available functions are:
6720 <title>Default Sidebar Function Bindings</title>
6721 <tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
6725 <entry>Function</entry>
6726 <entry>Description</entry>
6730 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-scroll-up </code></entry><entry>Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page</entry></row>
6731 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-scroll-down </code></entry><entry>Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page</entry></row>
6732 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-next </code></entry><entry>Highlights the next mailbox</entry></row>
6733 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-next-new </code></entry><entry>Highlights the next mailbox with new mail</entry></row>
6734 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-previous </code></entry><entry>Highlights the previous mailbox</entry></row>
6735 <row><entry><code>none</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar-open </code></entry><entry>Opens the currently highlighted mailbox</entry></row>
6743 Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
6746 bind index \Cp sidebar-prev
6747 bind index \Cn sidebar-next
6748 bind index \Cb sidebar-open
6749 bind pager \Cp sidebar-prev
6750 bind pager \Cn sidebar-next
6751 bind pager \Cb sidebar-open
6753 macro index B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
6754 macro pager B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'</screen>
6759 You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and
6760 switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
6770 <title>External Address Queries </title>
6773 Mutt-ng supports connecting to external directory databases such as
6775 ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt
6776 using a simple interface. Using the <link linkend="query-command">
6779 variable, you specify the wrapper
6780 command to use. For example:
6786 set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'"</screen>
6791 The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It
6792 should return a one line message, then each matching response on a
6793 single line, each line containing a tab separated address then name
6794 thensome other optional information. On error, or if there are no
6796 addresses, return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message.
6800 An example multiple response output:
6803 Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching:
6804 me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude
6805 blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more
6806 roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp</screen>
6811 There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One
6812 is to do a query from the index menu using the query function (default:
6814 This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will
6815 list the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select
6816 addresses to create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple
6817 addressesto mail, start a new query, or have a new query appended to
6823 The other mechanism for accessing the query function is for address
6824 completion, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address
6825 entry, you can use the complete-query function (default: ˆT) to
6827 query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, mutt
6828 will look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If
6829 there is a single response for that query, mutt will expand the address
6830 in place. If there are multiple responses, mutt will activate the
6831 querymenu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to
6833 added to the prompt.
6843 <title>Mailbox Formats </title>
6846 Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
6847 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there
6848 is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating
6849 newmailboxes, Mutt-ng uses the default specified with the <link linkend="mbox-type">
6856 <emphasis role="bold">mbox</emphasis>. This is the most widely used
6857 mailbox format for UNIX. All
6858 messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the
6865 From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST</screen>
6870 to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the
6871 ``From_'' line).
6875 <emphasis role="bold">MMDF</emphasis>. This is a variant of the <emphasis>
6878 format. Each message is
6879 surrounded by lines containing ``ˆAˆAˆAˆA'' (four
6884 <emphasis role="bold">MH</emphasis>. A radical departure from <emphasis>
6887 and <emphasis>MMDF</emphasis>, a mailbox
6888 consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file.
6889 The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not
6890 correspond to the message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages
6891 arerenamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <emphasis role="bold">
6895 detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <literal>
6896 .mh_sequences
6898 or <literal>.xmhcache</literal> (needed to distinguish normal
6904 <emphasis role="bold">Maildir</emphasis>. The newest of the mailbox
6905 formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a
6906 replacement for sendmail). Similar to <emphasis>MH</emphasis>, except
6908 subdirectories of the mailbox: <emphasis>tmp</emphasis>, <emphasis>new</emphasis> and <emphasis>
6912 for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when
6913 twoprograms are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file
6924 <sect1 id="shortcuts">
6925 <title>Mailbox Shortcuts </title>
6928 There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific
6930 These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or
6941 ! -- refers to your <link linkend="spoolfile">spoolfile</link>
6948 > -- refers to your <link linkend="mbox">mbox</link> file
6954 < -- refers to your <link linkend="record">record</link> file
6960 ˆ -- refers to the current mailbox
6966 - or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
6972 ˜ -- refers to your home directory
6978 = or + -- refers to your <link linkend="folder">folder</link>
6985 @<emphasis>alias</emphasis> -- refers to the <link linkend="save-hook">
6988 as determined by the address of the alias
7002 <sect1 id="using-lists">
7003 <title>Handling Mailing Lists </title>
7006 Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
7007 amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt
7008 know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically
7009 this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most
7010 often used for), and what lists you are subscribed to. This is
7011 accomplished through the use of the <link linkend="lists">lists</link>
7012 commands in your muttrc.
7016 Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
7017 things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
7018 through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in
7019 the <emphasis>index</emphasis> menu display. This is useful to
7021 personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the <link linkend="index-format">
7024 variable, the escape ``%L''
7025 will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the
7026 ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc''
7027 field (otherwise it returns the name of the author).
7031 Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages
7032 tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the
7033 author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in
7034 two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply''
7035 function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the <emphasis>index</emphasis> menu
7036 and <emphasis>pager</emphasis>, helps reduce the clutter by only
7038 known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as
7039 specified by <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal>, see below).
7043 Mutt-ng also supports the <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal> header.
7045 a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several
7046 subscribed mailing lists, and if the <link linkend="followup-to">
7049 option is set, mutt will generate
7050 a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom
7051 you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that
7052 group-replies or list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this
7053 message should only be sent to the original recipients of the
7054 message, and not separately to you - you'll receive your copy through
7055 one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to.
7059 Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which
7060 has a <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal> header, mutt will respect
7062 the <link linkend="honor-followup-to">honor-followup-to</link>
7064 variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure
7065 that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified
7066 in the list of recipients in the <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal>.
7070 Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
7071 <literal>Mail-Followup-To</literal> header manually. Mutt-ng will only
7073 this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
7077 The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a
7078 ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather
7079 than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying
7080 to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients
7081 will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To''
7082 field. Mutt-ng uses the <link linkend="reply-to">reply-to</link>
7083 variable to help decide which address to use. If set to <emphasis>
7087 <emphasis>ask-no</emphasis>, you will be
7088 prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given
7089 inthe ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the
7090 ``From'' field. When set to <emphasis>yes</emphasis>, the ``Reply-To''
7091 field will be used when
7096 The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing
7097 lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages
7098 individually). The <link linkend="index-format">index-format</link>
7099 variable's ``%y'' and
7100 ``%Y'' escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the
7101 index, and Mutt-ng's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
7102 ``X-Label:'' fields with the ``˜y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is
7104 standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by
7105 procmailand other mail filtering agents.
7109 Lastly, Mutt-ng has the ability to <link linkend="sort">sort</link> the
7111 <link linkend="threads">threads</link>. A thread is a group of
7112 messages which all relate to the same
7113 subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a
7114 message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've
7116 used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes
7117 dealingwith large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily
7119 uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value.
7129 <title>Editing threads </title>
7132 Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are
7134 either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some
7135 correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these
7136 annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion.
7140 <title>Linking threads</title>
7143 Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
7144 "References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in
7146 discussions because Mutt-ng has not enough information to guess the
7149 You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent
7151 and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default).
7153 reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
7157 You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and
7159 tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
7165 <title>Breaking threads</title>
7168 On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
7169 discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and
7171 the subject to a totally unrelated one.
7172 You can fix such threads by using the ``break-thread'' function
7173 (boundby default to #), which will turn the subthread starting
7175 current message into a whole different thread.
7187 <title>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support </title>
7190 RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information
7191 about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of
7193 ``return receipts.''
7197 Users can make use of it in one of the following two ways:
7206 Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command line options
7207 in which the mail client can make requests as to what type of
7209 messages should be returned.
7215 The SMTP support via libESMTP supports it, too.
7224 To support this, there are two variables:
7233 <link linkend="dsn-notify">dsn-notify</link> is used
7234 to request receipts for different results (such as failed
7235 message,message delivered, etc.).
7242 <link linkend="dsn-return">dsn-return</link> requests
7243 how much of your message should be returned with the receipt
7244 (headers or full message).
7254 Please see the reference chapter for possible values.
7264 <title>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) </title>
7267 If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <emphasis>
7270 script with the <emphasis>--enable-pop</emphasis> flag), it has the
7272 with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local
7277 You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
7278 <literal>pop://popserver/</literal>.
7282 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server,
7284 <literal>pop://popserver:port/</literal>.
7288 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
7289 <literal>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</literal>.
7293 Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
7294 reason the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can
7297 <link linkend="pop-mail-check">pop-mail-check</link>
7298 variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds.
7302 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <emphasis>
7305 script with the <emphasis>--with-ssl</emphasis> flag), connections to
7307 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
7308 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should
7309 use pops: prefix, ie:
7310 <literal>pops://[username@]popserver[:port]/</literal>.
7314 Another way to access your POP3 mail is the <emphasis>fetch-mail</emphasis> function
7315 (default: G). It allows to connect to <link linkend="pop-host">
7318 ,fetch all your new mail and place it in the
7319 local <link linkend="spoolfile">spoolfile</link>. After this
7320 point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
7324 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> If you only need to fetch all
7325 messages to local mailbox
7326 you should consider using a specialized program, such as
7328 URL="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail">fetchmail</ulink>
7338 <title>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL) </title>
7341 If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <emphasis>
7344 script with the <emphasis>--enable-imap</emphasis> flag), it has the
7346 with folders located on a remote IMAP server.
7350 You can access the remote inbox by selecting the folder
7351 <literal>imap://imapserver/INBOX</literal>, where <literal>imapserver</literal> is the name of the
7352 IMAP server and <literal>INBOX</literal> is the special name for your
7354 the IMAP server. If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP
7355 server, you should use <literal>imap://imapserver/path/to/folder</literal> where
7356 <literal>path/to/folder</literal> is the path of the folder you want to
7361 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server,
7363 <literal>imap://imapserver:port/INBOX</literal>.
7367 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
7368 <literal>imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX</literal>.
7372 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <emphasis>
7375 script with the <emphasis>--with-ssl</emphasis> flag), connections to
7377 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
7378 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should
7379 use <literal>imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder</literal> as your
7384 Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e.
7385 <literal>{[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder</literal>
7389 Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt-ng
7391 correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and
7392 convertpaths accordingly.
7396 When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look
7397 at only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the
7398 <emphasis>toggle-subscribed</emphasis> command. See also the
7399 <link linkend="imap-list-subscribed">imap-list-subscribed</link>
7404 Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So,
7406 want to carefully tune the
7407 <link linkend="imap-mail-check">imap-mail-check</link>
7409 <link linkend="timeout">timeout</link>
7414 Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior
7415 tov12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if
7417 selects the same folder.
7421 <title>The Folder Browser</title>
7424 As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP
7425 server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the
7426 following differences:
7432 Instead of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
7433 possibly followed by the symbol "+", indicating
7434 that the entry contains both messages and subfolders. On
7435 Cyrus-like servers folders will often contain both messages and
7442 For the case where an entry can contain both messages and
7443 subfolders, the selection key (bound to <literal>enter</literal> by default)
7444 will choose to descend into the subfolder view. If you wish to
7446 the messages in that folder, you must use <literal>view-file</literal> instead
7447 (bound to <literal>space</literal> by default).
7453 You can create, delete and rename mailboxes with the
7454 <literal>create-mailbox</literal>, <literal>delete-mailbox</literal>, and
7455 <literal>rename-mailbox</literal> commands (default bindings: <literal>
7459 <literal>d</literal> and <literal>r</literal>, respectively).
7461 <literal>subscribe</literal> and <literal>unsubscribe</literal>
7462 to mailboxes (normally
7463 these are bound to <literal>s</literal> and <literal>u</literal>, respectively).
7474 <title>Authentication</title>
7477 Mutt-ng supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
7478 GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add
7479 NTLM authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has
7480 yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for
7481 the pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public
7482 IMAP server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make
7483 your username blank or "anonymous".
7487 SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several
7489 (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most
7491 method available on your host and the server. Using some of these
7493 (including DIGEST-MD5 and possibly GSSAPI), your entire session will
7495 encrypted and invisible to those teeming network snoops. It is the
7497 option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL
7498 libraryinstalled on your system and compile mutt with the <emphasis>
7505 Mutt-ng will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on
7507 in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
7511 There are a few variables which control authentication:
7517 <link linkend="imap-user">imap-user</link> - controls
7518 the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP
7520 for all authenticators. This is overridden by an explicit
7522 the mailbox path (i.e. by using a mailbox name of the form
7523 <literal>{user@host}</literal>).
7529 <link linkend="imap-pass">imap-pass</link> - a
7530 password which you may preset, used by all authentication
7532 a password is needed.
7538 <link linkend="imap-authenticators">imap-authenticators</link>
7539 - a colon-delimited list of IMAP
7540 authentication methods to try, in the order you wish to try
7542 specified, this overrides mutt's default (attempt everything,
7560 <sect1 id="reading-news">
7561 <title>NNTP Support (OPTIONAL) </title>
7564 If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt-ng can read news from
7565 a newsserver via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with the
7566 ``change-newsgroup'' function from the index/pager which is by default
7567 bound to <literal>i</literal>.
7571 The Default newsserver can be obtained from the
7572 <literal>$NNTPSERVER</literal> environment variable. Like other
7574 info about subscribed newsgroups is saved in a file as specified by the
7575 <link linkend="nntp-newsrc">nntp-newsrc</link> variable.
7576 Article headers are cached and can be loaded from a file when a
7577 newsgroup is entered instead loading from newsserver; currently, this
7578 caching mechanism still is different from the header caching for
7583 <title>Again: Scoring </title>
7586 Especially for Usenet, people often ask for advanced filtering
7587 and scoring functionality. Of course, mutt-ng has scoring and
7588 allows a killfile, too. How to use a killfile has been discussed
7589 in <link linkend="score-command">score-command</link>.
7593 What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in
7594 realname filter. For may newsreaders including those for
7595 ``advanced users'' like <emphasis>slrn</emphasis> or <emphasis>tin</emphasis>, there are frequent
7596 request for such functionality. The solutions offered often are
7597 complicated regular expressions.
7601 In mutt-ng this is as easy as
7607 score ~* =42</screen>
7612 This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose
7613 sender specified a valid realname and a valid email address. Using
7619 score !~* =42</screen>
7624 on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages <emphasis>not</emphasis>
7625 matching those criteria which are very strict:
7634 Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see
7636 URL="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt"><ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt>
7643 the name must consist of at least 2 fields whereby a field
7644 must not end in a dot. This means that ``Joe User'' and ``Joe
7645 A.User'' are valid while ``J. User'' and ``J. A. User'' aren't.
7652 it's assumed that users are interested in reading their
7653 own mail and mail from people who they have defined an alias
7654 forso that those 2 groups of messages are excluded from the
7678 <title>SMTP Support (OPTIONAL) </title>
7681 Mutt-ng can be built using a library called ``libESMTP'' which
7682 provides SMTP functionality. When <literal>configure</literal> was
7684 <literal>--with-libesmtp</literal> or the output <literal>muttng -v</literal> contains
7685 <literal>+USE_LIBESMTP</literal>, this will be or is the case
7687 support includes support for Delivery Status Notification (see <link linkend="dsn">
7691 handling the <literal>8BITMIME</literal> flag controlled via <link linkend="use-8bitmime">
7698 To enable sending mail directly via SMTP without an MTA such as
7699 Postfix or SSMTP and the like, simply set the <link linkend="smtp-host">
7702 variable pointing to your SMTP server.
7706 Authentication mechanisms are available via the <link linkend="smtp-user">
7709 and <link linkend="smtp-pass">smtp-pass</link> variables.
7713 Transport Encryption via the StartTLS command is also available. For
7714 this to work, first of all Mutt-ng must be built with SSL or GNUTLS.
7715 Secondly, the <link linkend="smtp-use-tls">smtp-use-tls</link> variable
7717 to ``enabled'' or ``required.'' In both cases, StartTLS will be used if
7718 the server supports it: for the second case, the connection will fail
7719 ifit doesn't while switching back to unencrypted communication for the
7724 Some mail providers require user's to set a particular envelope
7725 sender, i.e. they allow for only one value which may not be what the
7726 user wants to send as the <literal>From:</literal> header. In this
7728 <link linkend="smtp-envelope">smtp-envelope</link> may be used
7729 to set the envelope different from the <literal>From:</literal> header.
7734 <sect1 id="account-hook">
7735 <title>Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL) </title>
7738 If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers,
7739 you may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and
7740 error-prone. The account-hook command may help. This hook works like
7741 folder-hook but is invoked whenever you access a remote mailbox
7742 (including inside the folder browser), not just when you open the
7753 account-hook . 'unset imap_user; unset imap_pass; unset tunnel'
7754 account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo'
7755 account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'</screen>
7765 <sect1 id="urlview">
7766 <title>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL) </title>
7769 If a message contains URLs (<emphasis>unified resource locator</emphasis> = address in the
7770 WWW space like <emphasis>http://www.mutt.org/</emphasis>), it is
7772 a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This
7773 functionality is provided by the external urlview program which can be
7774 retrieved at <ulink URL="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/">ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/</ulink>
7776 and the configuration commands:
7779 macro index \cb |urlview\n
7780 macro pager \cb |urlview\n</screen>
7791 <title>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL) </title>
7794 If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
7795 <emphasis>configure</emphasis> script with the <emphasis>
7799 can open folders stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user
7800 has a script to convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
7804 The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with
7809 In addition, the user can provide a script that gets a folder in an
7810 accepted format and appends its context to the folder in the
7811 user-defined format, which may be faster than converting the entire
7812 folder to the accepted format, appending to it and converting back to
7813 the user-defined format.
7817 There are three hooks defined (<link linkend="open-hook">open-hook</link>,
7818 <link linkend="close-hook">close-hook</link> and <link linkend="append-hook">
7821 )which define commands to uncompress and compress
7822 a folder and to append messages to an existing compressed folder
7833 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
7834 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
7835 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f" </screen>
7840 You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit <link linkend="append-hook">
7843 ,the folder will be open and
7844 closed again each time you will add to it. If you omit <link linkend="close-hook">
7847 (or give empty command) , the
7848 folder will be open in the mode. If you specify <link linkend="append-hook">
7851 though you'll be able to append
7856 Note that Mutt-ng will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one
7858 the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt
7859 supposes it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the
7860 use of programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use
7861 "." as a regexp. But this may be surprising if your
7862 compressing script produces empty files. In this situation, unset <link linkend="save-empty">
7865 ,so that the compressed file
7866 will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
7869 <sect2 id="open-hook">
7870 <title>Open a compressed mailbox for reading</title>
7873 Usage: <literal>open-hook</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
7874 "<emphasis>command</emphasis>"
7878 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> is the command that can be used for
7880 folders whose names match <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>.
7884 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> string is the printf-like format
7886 should accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the
7887 (compressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the
7888 name of the temporary folder to which to write.
7892 %f and %t can be repeated any number of times in the
7893 command string, and all of the entries are replaced with the
7894 appropriate folder name. In addition, %% is replaced by
7895 %, as in printf, and any other %anything is left as is.
7899 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> should <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> remove the original compressed file.
7900 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> should return non-zero exit status
7902 mutt knows something's wrong.
7912 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
7918 If the <emphasis>command</emphasis> is empty, this operation is
7919 disabled for this file
7925 <sect2 id="close-hook">
7926 <title>Write a compressed mailbox</title>
7929 Usage: <literal>close-hook</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
7930 "<emphasis>command</emphasis>"
7934 This is used to close the folder that was open with the <link linkend="open-hook">
7937 command after some changes were made to it.
7941 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> string is the command that can be
7942 used for closing the
7943 folders whose names match <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>. It has the
7945 the <link linkend="open-hook">open-hook</link> command. Temporary
7947 in this case is the folder previously produced by the <<link linkend="open-hook">
7954 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> should <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> remove the decompressed file. The
7955 <emphasis>command</emphasis> should return non-zero exit status if it
7957 knows something's wrong.
7967 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"</screen>
7972 If the <emphasis>command</emphasis> is empty, this operation is
7973 disabled for this file
7974 type, and the file can only be open in the readonly mode.
7978 <link linkend="close-hook">close-hook</link> is not called when you
7980 from the folder if the folder was not changed.
7985 <sect2 id="append-hook">
7986 <title>Append a message to a compressed mailbox</title>
7989 Usage: <literal>append-hook</literal> <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
7990 "<emphasis>command</emphasis>"
7994 This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder.
7995 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> is the command that can be used for
7997 folders whose names match <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>. It has the
7999 the <link linkend="open-hook">open-hook</link> command.
8000 The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are
8005 The <emphasis>command</emphasis> should <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> remove the decompressed file. The
8006 <emphasis>command</emphasis> should return non-zero exit status if it
8008 knows something's wrong.
8018 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f" </screen>
8023 When <link linkend="append-hook">append-hook</link> is used, the
8025 not opened, which saves time, but this means that we can not find out
8026 what the folder type is. Thus the default (<link linkend="mbox-type">
8029 )type is always supposed (i.e.
8030 this is the format used for the temporary folder).
8034 If the file does not exist when you save to it, <link linkend="close-hook">
8037 is called, and not <link linkend="append-hook">append-hook</link>. <link linkend="append-hook">
8041 for appending to existing folders.
8045 If the <emphasis>command</emphasis> is empty, this operation is
8046 disabled for this file
8047 type. In this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using
8048 <link linkend="open-hook">open-hook</link> and <link linkend="close-hook">
8051 respectively) each time you will add to it.
8057 <title>Encrypted folders</title>
8060 The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
8061 folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to
8062 usethe following hooks:
8068 open-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -f < %f > %t"
8069 close-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -fe YourPgpUserIdOrKeyId < %t > %f"
8075 Please note, that PGP does not support appending to an encrypted
8076 folder, so there is no append-hook defined.
8080 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> the folder is temporary stored
8081 decrypted in the /tmp
8082 directory, where it can be read by your system administrator. So
8083 thinkabout the security aspects of this.
8101 <title>Mutt-ng's MIME Support </title>
8104 Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt-ng the premier text-mode
8105 MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
8106 the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
8107 wherever possible. When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two
8108 extratypes of configuration files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the
8109 <literal>mime.types</literal> file, which contains the mapping of file
8111 IANA MIME types. The other is the <literal>mailcap</literal> file, which
8113 the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
8117 <title>Using MIME in Mutt </title>
8120 There are three areas/menus in Mutt-ng which deal with MIME, they are
8122 pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
8127 <title>Viewing MIME messages in the pager</title>
8130 When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager,
8132 decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally
8134 a number of MIME types, including <literal>text/plain, text/enriched,
8135 message/rfc822, and message/news
8137 .In addition, the export
8138 controlled version of Mutt-ng recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
8139 including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
8143 Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
8144 These lines are of the form:
8147 [-- Attachment #1: Description --]
8148 [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]</screen>
8150 Where the <literal>Description</literal> is the description or
8151 filename given for the
8152 attachment, and the <literal>Encoding</literal> is one of
8153 <literal>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</literal>.
8157 If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message
8161 [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]</screen>
8167 <sect2 id="attach-menu">
8168 <title>The Attachment Menu</title>
8171 The default binding for <literal>view-attachments</literal> is `v',
8173 attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list
8174 ofthe attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can
8176 print, pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these
8177 operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the
8179 and by using the ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the
8180 current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or
8182 attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view
8183 attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer
8188 Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
8189 <link linkend="resend-message">resend-message</link>, and the reply
8190 and forward functions) to attachments of type <literal>message/rfc822</literal>.
8194 See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
8199 <sect2 id="compose-menu">
8200 <title>The Compose Menu</title>
8203 The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
8204 allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
8205 of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your
8206 message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print,
8208 filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a
8209 list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment
8210 information, notably the type, encoding and description.
8214 Attachments appear as follows:
8217 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
8218 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description></screen>
8223 The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or
8224 postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
8225 <literal>toggle-unlink</literal> command (default: u). The next
8227 content-type, and can be changed with the <literal>edit-type</literal> command
8228 (default: ˆT). The next field is the encoding for the
8230 which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit
8231 links. It can be changed with the <literal>edit-encoding</literal>
8233 (default: ˆE). The next field is the size of the attachment,
8234 rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename,
8235 which can be changed with the <literal>rename-file</literal> command
8237 The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
8238 changed with the <literal>edit-description</literal> command
8252 MIME Type configuration with <literal>mime.types</literal>
8256 When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your
8257 personal mime.types file at <literal>
8258 ${HOME}/.mime.types
8261 the system mime.types file at <literal>/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</literal> or
8262 <literal>/etc/mime.types</literal>
8266 The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
8267 separated list of extensions. For example:
8270 application/postscript ps eps
8272 audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff</screen>
8274 A sample <literal>mime.types</literal> file comes with the Mutt-ng
8276 should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
8280 If Mutt-ng can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file
8282 attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
8283 information, Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark
8285 as <literal>text/plain</literal>. If the file contains binary
8286 information, then Mutt-ng will
8287 mark it as <literal>application/octet-stream</literal>. You can change
8289 type that Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the <literal>
8292 command from the compose menu (default: ˆT). The MIME type is
8294 major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
8295 types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been
8297 after various internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of these if
8299 appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises
8301 major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
8302 molecular modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms
8304 various molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be
8306 if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such
8318 MIME Viewer configuration with <literal>mailcap</literal>
8322 Mutt-ng supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
8323 specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
8324 is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
8325 programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
8326 for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
8327 use this format include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
8331 In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt-ng can not handle
8332 internally, Mutt-ng parses a series of external configuration files to
8333 find an external handler. The default search string for these files
8334 is a colon delimited list set to
8337 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap</screen>
8339 where <literal>$HOME</literal> is your home directory.
8343 In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
8344 usually as <literal>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</literal>, which contains
8350 <title>The Basics of the mailcap file</title>
8353 A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments,
8359 A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you
8364 A blank line is blank.
8368 A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
8369 number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is
8370 dividedby a semicolon ';' character.
8374 The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype
8377 <literal>text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </literal>
8378 etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for
8379 wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the
8381 wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <literal>
8385 <literal>video,</literal> will match all image types and video types,
8390 The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified.
8392 are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
8393 the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
8394 this behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
8395 This will cause Mutt-ng to save the body of the MIME message to a
8397 file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
8398 the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt-ng will turn over
8400 terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time
8402 will remove the temporary file if it exists.
8406 So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
8407 external pager more on stdin:
8410 text/plain; more</screen>
8412 Or, you could send the message as a file:
8415 text/plain; more %s</screen>
8417 Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
8421 text/html; lynx %s</screen>
8423 In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you
8424 must use the %s syntax.
8425 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> <emphasis>Some older versions
8426 of lynx contain a bug where they
8427 will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will
8429 the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to
8431 spawn itself to view the object.
8436 On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively,
8437 youjust want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you
8442 text/html; lynx -dump %s | more</screen>
8447 Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on
8448 all other text formats, then you would use the following:
8452 text/*; more</screen>
8454 This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
8460 <title>Secure use of mailcap</title>
8463 The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME
8465 can lead to security problems in general. Mutt-ng tries to quote
8467 in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky
8469 substituting them, see the <link linkend="mailcap-sanitize">
8476 Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
8477 safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less
8479 of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
8483 <emphasis>Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting.</emphasis>
8484 Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt-ng does this for
8485 you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
8486 mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
8487 with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to
8489 broken behaviour with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no
8490 alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
8494 If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you
8496 quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable
8497 and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following
8498 example (using <literal>$charset</literal> inside the backtick
8500 since it is not itself subject to any further expansion):
8506 text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
8507 && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1</screen>
8514 <title>Advanced mailcap Usage</title>
8517 <title>Optional Fields</title>
8520 In addition to the required content-type and view command fields,
8522 can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other
8524 Mutt-ng recognizes the following optional fields:
8528 <term>copiousoutput</term>
8531 This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly
8533 text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager
8534 (either the internal
8535 pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable)
8537 of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt-ng assumes
8539 is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <literal>
8542 in the <literal>lynx -dump</literal> example in the Basic
8546 text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput</screen>
8548 This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as
8550 and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the
8556 <term>needsterminal</term>
8559 Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with <link linkend="auto-view">
8562 ,in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
8563 of the <link linkend="wait-key">wait-key</link> variable or
8564 not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive
8566 corresponding mailcap entry has a <emphasis>needsterminal</emphasis> flag, Mutt-ng will use
8567 <link linkend="wait-key">wait-key</link> and the exit
8568 statusof the program to decide if it will ask you to press
8570 external program has exited. In all other situations it
8577 <term>compose=<command></term>
8580 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new
8582 specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose
8588 <term>composetyped=<command></term>
8591 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new
8593 specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose
8595 that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data.
8597 used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for
8599 attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
8604 <term>print=<command></term>
8607 This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific
8609 Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose
8615 <term>edit=<command></term>
8618 This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific
8620 Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu, and also uses
8622 new attachments. Mutt-ng will default to the defined
8629 <term>nametemplate=<template></term>
8632 This field specifies the format for the file denoted by
8634 command fields. Certain programs will require a certain
8636 for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx
8638 interpret a file as <literal>text/html</literal> if the
8639 file ends in <literal>.html</literal>.
8640 So, you would specify lynx as a <literal>text/html</literal> viewer with a line in
8641 the mailcap file like:
8644 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html</screen>
8650 <term>test=<command></term>
8653 This field specifies a command to run to test whether this
8655 entry should be used. The command is defined with the
8657 rules defined in the next section. If the command returns
8659 test passed, and Mutt-ng uses this entry. If the command
8661 then the test failed, and Mutt-ng continues searching for
8663 <emphasis role="bold">Note:</emphasis> <emphasis>the
8664 content-type must match before Mutt-ng performs the test.
8669 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
8670 text/html; lynx %s</screen>
8672 In this example, Mutt-ng will run the program RunningX
8674 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it
8676 RunningX returns 0, then Mutt-ng will call netscape to
8678 text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then
8680 to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html
8691 <title>Search Order</title>
8694 When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng will
8696 the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
8697 attempting to print an <literal>image/gif</literal>, and you have
8699 entries in your mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for an entry with
8705 image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
8706 nametemplate=%s.gif</screen>
8708 Mutt-ng will skip the <literal>image/*</literal> entry and use the <literal>
8711 entry with the print command.
8715 In addition, you can use this with <link linkend="auto-view">
8718 to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed
8719 automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the
8721 menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine
8723 viewer to use interactively depending on your environment.
8726 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
8727 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
8728 text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput</screen>
8730 For <link linkend="auto-view">auto-view</link>, Mutt-ng will choose
8732 entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing,
8734 will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the
8736 entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt-ng will use the
8738 for interactive viewing.
8744 <title>Command Expansion</title>
8747 The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
8748 <literal>/bin/sh</literal> shell using the system() function.
8750 command is passed to <literal>/bin/sh -c</literal>, it is parsed to
8752 various special parameters with information from Mutt-ng. The
8754 Mutt-ng expands are:
8758 <term>%s</term>
8761 As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is
8763 to a filename specified by the calling program. This file
8765 the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the
8767 program should place the results of composition. In
8769 use of this keyword causes Mutt-ng to not pass the body of
8771 to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
8776 <term>%t</term>
8779 Mutt-ng will expand %t to the text representation of
8781 type of the message in the same form as the first parameter
8783 mailcap definition line, ie <literal>text/html</literal> or
8784 <literal>image/gif</literal>.
8789 <term>%{<parameter>}</term>
8792 Mutt-ng will expand this to the value of the specified
8794 from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For
8796 Your mail message contains:
8799 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1</screen>
8801 then Mutt-ng will expand %{charset} to
8802 iso-8859-1. The default metamail
8803 mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn
8805 using the right charset to view the message.
8810 <term>\%</term>
8813 This will be replaced by a %
8818 Mutt-ng does not currently support the %F and %n
8820 specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
8821 multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt-ng.
8829 <title>Example mailcap files</title>
8832 This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
8835 # I'm always running X :)
8836 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
8837 image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
8839 # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
8840 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'</screen>
8845 This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
8851 # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
8852 # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
8853 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
8855 # Send html to a running netscape by remote
8856 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape
8857 # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the
8859 text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX
8861 # Else use lynx to view it as text
8864 # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
8865 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
8867 # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
8868 text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
8870 # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
8871 image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
8873 # Use xv to view images if I'm running X
8874 # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
8876 image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; edit=xpaint %s
8878 # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
8879 image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
8880 pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
8882 # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
8883 application/ms-excel; open.pl %s</screen>
8895 <sect1 id="auto-view">
8896 <title>MIME Autoview </title>
8899 In addition to explicitly telling Mutt-ng to view an attachment with
8900 theMIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng has support for
8901 automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
8905 To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
8906 <literal>copiousoutput</literal> option to denote that it is
8908 Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text
8909 representation which you can view in the pager.
8913 You then use the <literal>auto_view</literal> muttrc command to
8915 content-types that you wish to view automatically.
8919 For instance, if you set auto_view to:
8922 auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript
8923 image/gif application/x-tar-gz</screen>
8928 Mutt-ng could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
8929 attachments of these types.
8932 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
8933 image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
8934 application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
8935 application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
8936 application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput</screen>
8941 ``unauto_view'' can be used to remove previous entries from the
8943 This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on size,
8945 ``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
8954 <sect1 id="alternative-order">
8955 <title>MIME Multipart/Alternative </title>
8958 Mutt-ng has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
8959 multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
8960 alternative_order list to determine if one of the available
8961 typesis preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a
8963 MIME types in order, including support for implicit and explicit
8964 wildcards, for example:
8967 alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text
8968 application/postscript image/*</screen>
8973 Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
8974 <link linkend="auto-view">auto-view</link>, and use that. Failing
8975 that, Mutt-ng will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt
8976 willlook for any type it knows how to handle.
8980 To remove a MIME type from the <literal>alternative_order</literal> list, use the
8981 <literal>unalternative_order</literal> command.
8990 <sect1 id="mime-lookup">
8991 <title>MIME Lookup </title>
8994 Mutt-ng's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that
8996 be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed
8997 todeal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an
8999 mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the
9001 be compared to the list of extensions in the mime.types file. The
9003 associated with this extension will then be used to process the
9005 according to the rules in the mailcap file and according to any other
9007 options (such as auto_view) specified. Common usage would be:
9010 mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript</screen>
9015 In addition, the unmime_lookup command may be used to disable
9017 for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a
9035 <title>Security Considerations </title>
9038 First of all, mutt-ng contains no security holes included by
9039 intention but may contain unknown security holes. As a consequence,
9040 please run mutt-ng only with as few permissions as possible.
9044 Please do not run mutt-ng as the super user.
9048 When configuring mutt-ng, there're some points to note about secure
9053 In practice, mutt-ng can be easily made as vulnerable as even the
9054 most insecure mail user agents (in their default configuration) just
9055 by changing mutt-ng's configuration files: it then can execute
9056 arbitrary programs and scripts attached to messages, send out private
9057 data on its own, etc. Although this is not believed to the common type
9058 of setup, please read this chapter carefully.
9062 <title>Passwords </title>
9065 Although mutt-ng can be told the various passwords for accounts,
9066 please never store passwords in configuration files. Besides the
9067 fact that the system's operator can always read them, you could
9068 forget to replace the actual password with asterisks when reporting
9069 a bug or asking for help via, for example, a mailing list so that
9070 your mail including your password could be archived by internet
9071 search engines, etc. Please never store passwords on disk.
9077 <title>Temporary Files </title>
9080 Mutt-ng uses many temporary files for viewing messages, verifying
9081 digital signatures, etc. The <link linkend="umask">umask</link>
9082 variable can be used to change the default permissions of these
9083 files. Please only change it if you really know what you are doing.
9084 Also, a different location for these files may be desired which can
9085 be changed via the <link linkend="tmpdir">tmpdir</link> variable.
9091 <title>Information Leaks </title>
9094 <title>Message-ID: headers </title>
9097 In the default configuration, mutt-ng will leak some information
9098 to the outside world when sending messages: the generation of
9099 <literal>Message-ID:</literal> headers includes a step counter which
9101 (and rotated) with every message sent. If you'd like to hide this
9102 information probably telling others how many mail you sent in which
9103 time, you at least need to remove the <literal>%P</literal>
9105 default setting of the <link linkend="msgid-format">msgid-format</link> variable. Please make sure that
9106 you really know how local parts of these <literal>Message-ID:</literal> headers
9113 <title>mailto:-style links </title>
9116 As mutt-ng be can be set up to be the mail client to handle
9117 <literal>mailto:</literal> style links in websites, there're security
9118 considerations, too. To keep the old behavior by default, mutt-ng
9119 will be strict in interpreting them which means that arbitrary
9120 header fields can be embedded in these links which could override
9121 existing header fields or attach arbitrary files. This may be
9122 problematic if the <link linkend="edit-headers">edit-headers</link>
9123 variable is <emphasis>unset</emphasis>, i.e. the
9124 user doesn't want to see header fields while editing the message.
9128 For example, following a link like
9134 mailto:joe@host?Attach=~/.gnupg/secring.gpg</screen>
9139 will send out the user's private gnupg keyring to <literal>joe@host</literal> if
9140 the user doesn't follow the information on screen carefully
9145 When <emphasis>unsetting</emphasis> the <link linkend="strict-mailto">
9148 variable, mutt-ng will
9157 be less strict when interpreting these links by
9158 prepending a <literal>X-Mailto-</literal> string to all header
9160 embedded in such a link <emphasis>and</emphasis>
9167 turn on the <link linkend="edit-headers">edit-headers</link>
9169 force to let the user see all the headers
9170 (because they still may leak information.)
9184 <title>External applications </title>
9187 Mutt-ng in many places has to rely on external applications or
9188 for convenience supports mechanisms involving external
9193 <title>mailcap </title>
9196 One of these is the <literal>mailcap</literal> mechanism as defined
9198 1524. Mutt-ng can be set up to <emphasis>automatically</emphasis>
9200 given utility as listed in one of the mailcap files (see the
9201 <link linkend="mailcap-path">mailcap-path</link>
9202 variable for details.)
9206 These utilities may have a variety of security vulnerabilities,
9207 including overwriting of arbitrary files, information leaks or
9208 other exploitable bugs. These vulnerabilities may go unnoticed by
9209 the user, especially when they are called automatically (and
9210 without interactive prompting) from the mailcap file(s). When
9211 using mutt-ng's autoview mechanism in combination with mailcap
9212 files, please be sure to...
9221 manually select trustworth applications with a reasonable
9229 periodically check the contents of mailcap files,
9230 especially after software installations or upgrades
9237 keep the software packages referenced in the mailcap file up to
9245 leave the <link linkend="mailcap-sanitize">mailcap-sanitize</link> variable in its default
9246 state to restrict mailcap expandos to a safe set of characters
9258 <title>Other </title>
9261 Besides the mailcap mechanism, mutt-ng uses a number of other
9262 external utilities for operation.
9266 The same security considerations apply for these as for tools
9267 involved via mailcap (for example, mutt-ng is vulnerable to Denial
9268 of Service Attacks with compressed folders support if the
9269 uncompressed mailbox is too large for the disk it is saved to.)
9273 As already noted, most of these problems are not built in but
9274 caused by wrong configuration, so please check your configuration.
9284 <title>Reference </title>
9286 <sect1 id="commandline">
9287 <title>Command line options </title>
9290 Running <literal>mutt</literal> with no arguments will make Mutt-ng
9291 attempt to read your spool
9292 mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and
9293 to send messages from the command line as well.
9299 <title>Mutt-NG Command Line Options</title>
9300 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
9303 <entry>Option</entry>
9304 <entry>Description</entry>
9308 <row><entry><code>-A </code></entry><entry>expand an alias</entry></row>
9309 <row><entry><code>-a </code></entry><entry>attach a file to a message</entry></row>
9310 <row><entry><code>-b </code></entry><entry>specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address</entry></row>
9311 <row><entry><code>-c </code></entry><entry>specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address</entry></row>
9312 <row><entry><code>-e </code></entry><entry>specify a config command to be run after initialization files are read</entry></row>
9313 <row><entry><code>-f </code></entry><entry>specify a mailbox to load</entry></row>
9314 <row><entry><code>-F </code></entry><entry>specify an alternate file to read initialization commands</entry></row>
9315 <row><entry><code>-h </code></entry><entry>print help on command line options</entry></row>
9316 <row><entry><code>-H </code></entry><entry>specify a draft file from which to read a header and body</entry></row>
9317 <row><entry><code>-i </code></entry><entry>specify a file to include in a message composition</entry></row>
9318 <row><entry><code>-m </code></entry><entry>specify a default mailbox type</entry></row>
9319 <row><entry><code>-n </code></entry><entry>do not read the system Muttngrc</entry></row>
9320 <row><entry><code>-p </code></entry><entry>recall a postponed message</entry></row>
9321 <row><entry><code>-Q </code></entry><entry>query a configuration variable</entry></row>
9322 <row><entry><code>-R </code></entry><entry>open mailbox in read-only mode</entry></row>
9323 <row><entry><code>-s </code></entry><entry>specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces)</entry></row>
9324 <row><entry><code>-t </code></entry><entry>dump the value of all variables to stdout</entry></row>
9325 <row><entry><code>-T </code></entry><entry>dump the value of all changed variables to stdout</entry></row>
9326 <row><entry><code>-v </code></entry><entry>show version number and compile-time definitions</entry></row>
9327 <row><entry><code>-x </code></entry><entry>simulate the mailx(1) compose mode</entry></row>
9328 <row><entry><code>-y </code></entry><entry>show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes command</entry></row>
9329 <row><entry><code>-z </code></entry><entry>exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox</entry></row>
9330 <row><entry><code>-Z </code></entry><entry>open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if none</entry></row>
9338 To read messages in a mailbox
9342 <literal>mutt</literal> [ -nz ] [ -F <emphasis>muttrc</emphasis> ] [ -m <emphasis>
9345 ] [ -f <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis> ]
9349 To compose a new message
9353 <literal>mutt</literal> [ -n ] [ -F <emphasis>muttrc</emphasis> ] [ -a <emphasis>
9356 ] [ -c <emphasis>address</emphasis> ] [ -i <emphasis>
9359 ] [ -s <emphasis>subject</emphasis> ] <emphasis>address</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
9366 Mutt-ng also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages.
9368 input from the file you wish to send. For example,
9372 <literal>mutt -s "data set for run #2"
9373 professor@bigschool.edu
9374 < ˜/run2.dat
9379 This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a
9381 of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the
9383 of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
9392 <sect1 id="patterns">
9393 <title>Patterns </title>
9398 <title>Patterns</title>
9399 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
9402 <entry>Pattern Modifier</entry>
9403 <entry>Argument</entry>
9404 <entry>Description</entry>
9408 <row><entry><code>~A </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>all messages</entry></row>
9409 <row><entry><code>~b </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the message body</entry></row>
9410 <row><entry><code>~B </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the whole message</entry></row>
9411 <row><entry><code>~c </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages carbon-copied to EXPR</entry></row>
9412 <row><entry><code>~C </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>message is either to: or cc: EXPR</entry></row>
9413 <row><entry><code>~D </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>deleted messages</entry></row>
9414 <row><entry><code>~d </code></entry><entry><code>[MIN]-[MAX] </code></entry><entry>messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range</entry></row>
9415 <row><entry><code>~E </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>expired messages</entry></row>
9416 <row><entry><code>~e </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field</entry></row>
9417 <row><entry><code>~F </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>flagged messages</entry></row>
9418 <row><entry><code>~f </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages originating from EXPR</entry></row>
9419 <row><entry><code>~g </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>cryptographically signed messages</entry></row>
9420 <row><entry><code>~G </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>cryptographically encrypted messages</entry></row>
9421 <row><entry><code>~H </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR</entry></row>
9422 <row><entry><code>~h </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the message header</entry></row>
9423 <row><entry><code>~k </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message contains PGP key material</entry></row>
9424 <row><entry><code>~i </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field</entry></row>
9425 <row><entry><code>~L </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>message is either originated or received by EXPR</entry></row>
9426 <row><entry><code>~l </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message is addressed to a known mailing list</entry></row>
9427 <row><entry><code>~m </code></entry><entry><code>[MIN]-[MAX] </code></entry><entry>message in the range MIN to MAX *)</entry></row>
9428 <row><entry><code>~M </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>multipart messages</entry></row>
9429 <row><entry><code>~n </code></entry><entry><code>[MIN]-[MAX] </code></entry><entry>messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)</entry></row>
9430 <row><entry><code>~N </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>new messages</entry></row>
9431 <row><entry><code>~O </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>old messages</entry></row>
9432 <row><entry><code>~p </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message is addressed to you (consults alternates)</entry></row>
9433 <row><entry><code>~P </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message is from you (consults alternates)</entry></row>
9434 <row><entry><code>~Q </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>messages which have been replied to</entry></row>
9435 <row><entry><code>~R </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>read messages</entry></row>
9436 <row><entry><code>~r </code></entry><entry><code>[MIN]-[MAX] </code></entry><entry>messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range</entry></row>
9437 <row><entry><code>~S </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>superseded messages</entry></row>
9438 <row><entry><code>~s </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages having EXPR in the ``Subject'' field.</entry></row>
9439 <row><entry><code>~T </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>tagged messages</entry></row>
9440 <row><entry><code>~t </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages addressed to EXPR</entry></row>
9441 <row><entry><code>~U </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>unread messages</entry></row>
9442 <row><entry><code>~u </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message is addressed to a subscribed mailing list</entry></row>
9443 <row><entry><code>~v </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>message is part of a collapsed thread.</entry></row>
9444 <row><entry><code>~V </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>cryptographically verified messages</entry></row>
9445 <row><entry><code>~w </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the `Newsgroups' field (if compiled with NNTP support)</entry></row>
9446 <row><entry><code>~x </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field</entry></row>
9447 <row><entry><code>~y </code></entry><entry><code>EXPR </code></entry><entry>messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field</entry></row>
9448 <row><entry><code>~z </code></entry><entry><code>[MIN]-[MAX] </code></entry><entry>messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)</entry></row>
9449 <row><entry><code>~= </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)</entry></row>
9450 <row><entry><code>~$ </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)</entry></row>
9451 <row><entry><code>~* </code></entry><entry><code></code></entry><entry>``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid address (excluded are addresses matching against alternates or any alias)</entry></row>
9459 <link linkend="regexp">regexp</link>. Special attention has to be
9460 made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
9461 Mutt-ng's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash
9463 which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
9464 backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two
9470 *) The forms <literal><[MAX]</literal>, <literal>
9474 <literal>[MIN]-</literal> and <literal>-[MAX]</literal>
9484 <sect1 id="commands">
9485 <title>Configuration Commands </title>
9488 The following are the commands understood by mutt.
9498 <link linkend="account-hook">account-hook</link>
9500 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9507 <link linkend="alias">alias</link>
9509 <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>address</emphasis> [ , <emphasis>
9519 <link linkend="alias">alias</link>
9521 [ * | <emphasis>key</emphasis> ... ]
9528 <link linkend="alternates">alternates</link>
9530 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
9538 <link linkend="alternates">alternates</link>
9540 [ * | <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> ... ]
9547 <link linkend="alternative-order">alternative-order</link>
9549 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9556 <link linkend="alternative-order">alternative-order</link>
9558 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9565 <link linkend="append-hook">append-hook</link>
9567 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9574 <link linkend="auto-view">auto-view</link>
9576 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9583 <link linkend="auto-view">auto-view</link>
9585 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9592 <link linkend="bind">bind</link>
9594 <emphasis>map</emphasis> <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
9603 <link linkend="charset-hook">charset-hook</link>
9605 <emphasis>alias</emphasis> <emphasis>charset</emphasis>
9612 <link linkend="close-hook">close-hook</link>
9614 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9621 <link linkend="color">color</link>
9623 <emphasis>object</emphasis> <emphasis>foreground</emphasis> <emphasis>
9626 [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> ]
9633 <link linkend="color">color</link>
9635 <emphasis>index</emphasis> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
9645 <link linkend="exec">exec</link>
9647 <emphasis>function</emphasis> [ <emphasis>function</emphasis> ... ]
9654 <link linkend="fcc-hook">fcc-hook</link>
9656 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis>
9663 <link linkend="fcc-save-hook">fcc-save-hook</link>
9665 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis>
9672 <link linkend="folder-hook">folder-hook</link>
9674 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9681 <link linkend="hdr-order">hdr-order</link>
9683 <emphasis>header</emphasis> [ <emphasis>header</emphasis>
9691 <link linkend="hdr-order">hdr-order</link>
9693 <emphasis>header</emphasis> [ <emphasis>header</emphasis>
9701 <link linkend="charset-hook">charset-hook</link>
9703 <emphasis>charset</emphasis> <emphasis>local-charset</emphasis>
9710 <link linkend="ignore">ignore</link>
9712 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
9720 <link linkend="ignore">ignore</link>
9722 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
9730 <link linkend="lists">lists</link>
9732 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
9740 <link linkend="lists">lists</link>
9742 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
9750 <link linkend="macro">macro</link>
9752 <emphasis>menu</emphasis> <emphasis>key</emphasis> <emphasis>
9755 [ <emphasis>description</emphasis> ]
9762 <link linkend="mailboxes">mailboxes</link>
9764 <emphasis>filename</emphasis> [ <emphasis>filename</emphasis> ... ]
9771 <link linkend="mbox-hook">mbox-hook</link>
9773 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>mailbox</emphasis>
9780 <link linkend="message-hook">message-hook</link>
9782 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9789 <link linkend="mime-lookup">mime-lookup</link>
9791 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9798 <link linkend="mime-lookup">mime-lookup</link>
9800 <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> [ <emphasis>mimetype</emphasis> ... ]
9807 <link linkend="color">color</link>
9809 <emphasis>object attribute</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> ]
9816 <link linkend="color">color</link>
9818 <emphasis>index</emphasis> <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>
9828 <link linkend="my-hdr">my-hdr</link>
9830 <emphasis>string</emphasis>
9837 <link linkend="my-hdr">my-hdr</link>
9839 <emphasis>field</emphasis> [ <emphasis>field</emphasis> ...
9847 <link linkend="open-hook">open-hook</link>
9849 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9856 <link linkend="crypt-hook">crypt-hook</link>
9858 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>key-id</emphasis>
9865 <link linkend="push">push</link>
9867 <emphasis>string</emphasis>
9874 <link linkend="set">set</link>
9876 <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>variable</emphasis>
9884 <link linkend="save-hook">save-hook</link>
9886 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>filename</emphasis>
9893 <link linkend="score-command">score-command</link>
9895 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>value</emphasis>
9902 <link linkend="score-command">score-command</link>
9904 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> [ <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
9912 <link linkend="send-hook">send-hook</link>
9914 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9921 <link linkend="reply-hook">reply-hook</link>
9923 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> <emphasis>command</emphasis>
9930 <link linkend="set">set</link>
9932 [no|inv]<emphasis>variable</emphasis>[=<emphasis>
9935 ] [ <emphasis>variable</emphasis> ... ]
9942 <link linkend="set">set</link>
9944 <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>variable</emphasis>
9952 <link linkend="source">source</link>
9954 <emphasis>filename</emphasis>
9961 <link linkend="spam">spam</link>
9963 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> <emphasis>format</emphasis>
9970 <link linkend="spam">spam</link>
9972 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>
9979 <link linkend="lists">lists</link>
9981 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
9989 <link linkend="lists">lists</link>
9991 <emphasis>regexp</emphasis> [ <emphasis>regexp</emphasis>
9999 <link linkend="set">set</link>
10001 <emphasis>variable</emphasis> [<emphasis>variable</emphasis>
10009 <link linkend="unhook">unhook</link>
10011 <emphasis>hook-type</emphasis>
10021 <sect1 id="variables">
10022 <title>Configuration variables</title>
10025 The following list contains all variables which, in the process of
10026 providing more consistency, have been renamed and are partially even
10027 removed already. The left column contains the old synonym variables,
10028 the right column the full/new name:
10032 <anchor id="sect-obsolete"/>
10035 <title>Obsolete Variables</title>
10036 <tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
10039 <entry>Old Name</entry>
10040 <entry>New Name</entry>
10044 <row><entry><code>edit_hdrs</code></entry><entry><code>edit_headers</code></entry></row>
10045 <row><entry><code>forw_decode</code></entry><entry><code>forward_decode</code></entry></row>
10046 <row><entry><code>forw_format</code></entry><entry><code>forward_format</code></entry></row>
10047 <row><entry><code>forw_quote</code></entry><entry><code>forward_quote</code></entry></row>
10048 <row><entry><code>hdr_format</code></entry><entry><code>index_format</code></entry></row>
10049 <row><entry><code>indent_str</code></entry><entry><code>indent_string</code></entry></row>
10050 <row><entry><code>mime_fwd</code></entry><entry><code>mime_forward</code></entry></row>
10051 <row><entry><code>msg_format</code></entry><entry><code>message_format</code></entry></row>
10052 <row><entry><code>pgp_autosign</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_autosign</code></entry></row>
10053 <row><entry><code>pgp_autoencrypt</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_autoencrypt</code></entry></row>
10054 <row><entry><code>pgp_replyencrypt</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_replyencrypt</code></entry></row>
10055 <row><entry><code>pgp_replysign</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_replysign</code></entry></row>
10056 <row><entry><code>pgp_replysignencrypted</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_replysignencrypted</code></entry></row>
10057 <row><entry><code>pgp_verify_sig</code></entry><entry><code>crypt_verify_sig</code></entry></row>
10058 <row><entry><code>pgp_create_traditional</code></entry><entry><code>pgp_autoinline</code></entry></row>
10059 <row><entry><code>pgp_auto_traditional</code></entry><entry><code>pgp_replyinline</code></entry></row>
10060 <row><entry><code>forw_decrypt</code></entry><entry><code>forward_decrypt</code></entry></row>
10061 <row><entry><code>smime_sign_as</code></entry><entry><code>smime_default_key</code></entry></row>
10062 <row><entry><code>post_indent_str</code></entry><entry><code>post_indent_string</code></entry></row>
10063 <row><entry><code>print_cmd</code></entry><entry><code>print_command</code></entry></row>
10064 <row><entry><code>shorten_hierarchy</code></entry><entry><code>sidebar_shorten_hierarchy</code></entry></row>
10065 <row><entry><code>ask_followup_to</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_ask_followup_to</code></entry></row>
10066 <row><entry><code>ask_x_comment_to</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_ask_x_comment_to</code></entry></row>
10067 <row><entry><code>catchup_newsgroup</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_catchup</code></entry></row>
10068 <row><entry><code>followup_to_poster</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_followup_to_poster</code></entry></row>
10069 <row><entry><code>group_index_format</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_group_index_format</code></entry></row>
10070 <row><entry><code>inews</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_inews</code></entry></row>
10071 <row><entry><code>mime_subject</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_mime_subject</code></entry></row>
10072 <row><entry><code>news_cache_dir</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_cache_dir</code></entry></row>
10073 <row><entry><code>news_server</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_host</code></entry></row>
10074 <row><entry><code>newsrc</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_newsrc</code></entry></row>
10075 <row><entry><code>nntp_poll</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_mail_check</code></entry></row>
10076 <row><entry><code>pop_checkinterval</code></entry><entry><code>pop_mail_check</code></entry></row>
10077 <row><entry><code>post_moderated</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_post_moderated</code></entry></row>
10078 <row><entry><code>save_unsubscribed</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_save_unsubscribed</code></entry></row>
10079 <row><entry><code>show_new_news</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_show_new_news</code></entry></row>
10080 <row><entry><code>show_only_unread</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_show_only_unread</code></entry></row>
10081 <row><entry><code>x_comment_to</code></entry><entry><code>nntp_x_comment_to</code></entry></row>
10082 <row><entry><code>smtp_auth_username</code></entry><entry><code>smtp_user</code></entry></row>
10083 <row><entry><code>smtp_auth_password</code></entry><entry><code>smtp_pass</code></entry></row>
10084 <row><entry><code>user_agent</code></entry><entry><code>agent_string</code></entry></row>
10092 The <literal>contrib</literal> subdirectory contains a script named
10093 <literal>update-config.pl</literal> which eases migration.
10097 A complete list of current variables follows.