<article>
-<title>The Mutt E-Mail Client
-<author>by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>">
+<title>The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client
+<author>by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>"> and others.
<date>version @VERSION@
<abstract>
``All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.'' -me, circa 1995
<sect>Introduction
<p>
-<bf/Mutt/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt is
+<bf/Mutt-ng/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng is
highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced
features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular
expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting
groups of messages.
-<p>This documentation additionaly contains documentation to <bf/Mutt-NG/, a
+<p>This documentation additionally contains documentation to <bf/Mutt-NG/, a
fork from Mutt with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the web, and to
add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng will be discussed in
an extra section. Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk about
Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt-ng features, plus many more.
-<sect1>Mutt Home Page
-<p>
-<htmlurl url="http://www.mutt.org/"
-name="http://www.mutt.org/">
<sect1>Mutt-ng Home Page
<p>
-<htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/"
-name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/">
+<htmlurl url="http://www.muttng.org/"
+name="http://www.muttng.org">
<sect1>Mailing Lists
<p>
pages. See the <htmlurl url="http://www.mutt.org/mutt/"
name="Mutt Page"> for more details.
-The keybindings described in this section are the defaults as distributed.
+The key bindings described in this section are the defaults as distributed.
Your local system administrator may have altered the defaults for your site.
You can always type ``?'' in any menu to display the current bindings.
= or Home first-entry jump to the first entry
* or End last-entry jump to the last entry
q quit exit the current menu
-? help list all keybindings for the current menu
+? help list all key bindings for the current menu
</verb></tscreen>
<sect1>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing">
n search for next match
S skip beyond quoted text
T toggle display of quoted text
-? show keybindings
+? show key bindings
/ search for a regular expression (pattern)
ESC / search backwards for a regular expression
\ toggle search pattern coloring
7 white
</verb></tscreen>
-Mutt uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they
+Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they
can also be used by an external <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">
script for highlighting purposes. <bf/Note:/ If you change the colors for your
display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for
name="$pipe_decode">, <ref id="pipe_split"
name="$pipe_split">, <ref id="pipe_sep"
name="$pipe_sep"> and <ref id="wait_key"
-name="$wait_key"> control the exact behaviour of this
+name="$wait_key"> control the exact behavior of this
function.
<bf/resend-message/<label id="resend-message"> (default: ESC e)<newline>
Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref
id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> can be used to control
-whether Mutt will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns
+whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns
(presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on
the return status of the named command.
in greater detail in the next chapter <ref id="forwarding_mail"
name="``Forwarding and Bouncing Mail''">.
-Mutt will then enter the <em/compose/ menu and prompt you for the
+Mutt-ng will then enter the <em/compose/ menu and prompt you for the
recipients to place on the ``To:'' header field. Next, it will ask
you for the ``Subject:'' field for the message, providing a default if
you are replying to or forwarding a message. See also <ref id="askcc"
multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the
middle of command names.
+Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a ``\''
+at the end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a command
+split over multiple lines with only one ``#''.
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+# folder-hook . \
+ set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+When testing your config files, beware the following caveat. The backslash
+at the end of the commented line extends the current line with the next line
+- then referred to as a ``continuation line''. As the first line is
+commented with a hash (#) all following continuation lines are also
+part of a comment and therefore are ignored, too. So take care of comments
+when continuation lines are involved within your setup files!
+
+Abstract example:
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+line1\
+line2a # line2b\
+line3\
+line4
+line5
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+line1 ``continues'' until line4. however, the part after the # is a
+comment which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own and
+thus is interpreted again.
+
It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in
backquotes (``). For example,
<itemize>
<item>attachment
<item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages)
-<item>bold (hiliting bold patterns in the body of messages)
+<item>bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
<item>error (error messages printed by Mutt)
<item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header)
<item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
<item>quoted (text matching <ref id="quote_regexp"
name="$quote_regexp"> in the body of a message)
<item>quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<bf/N/ (higher levels of quoting)
-<item>search (hiliting of words in the pager)
+<item>search (highlighting of words in the pager)
<item>signature
<item>status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message)
<item>tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
<item>tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
-<item>underline (hiliting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
+<item>underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
</itemize>
<em/foreground/ and <em/background/ can be one of the following:
Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt mailing list, you will receive mail
-addresssed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt that this is a
+addressed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt that this is a
mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it,
add ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead.
DCC report indicate the checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each
-spam pattern match supercedes the previous one. Instead of getting
+spam pattern match supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting
joined <em/format/ strings, you'll get only the last one to match.
The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use
considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
<tt>source ~/bin/myscript|</tt>).
+<sect1>Configuring features conditionally<label id="ifdef">
+<p>
+Usage: <tt/ifdef/ <em/item/ <em/command/
+Usage: <tt/ifndef/ <em/item/ <em/command/
+
+These command allows to test if a variable, function or certain feature
+is available or not respectively, before actually executing the command.
+<tt/ifdef/ (short for ``if defined) handles commands if upon
+availability while <tt/ifndef/ (short for ``if not defined'') does if
+not. The <em/command/ may be any valid fraction of a configuration file.
+
+All names of variables and functions may be tested. Additionally, the
+following compile-features may be tested when prefixed with 'feature_':
+ncurses, slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl,
+gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp,
+classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache.
+
+Examples follow.
+
+To only source a file with IMAP related settings only if IMAP support is
+compiled in, use:
+<tscreen><verb>
+ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/imap_setup'
+# or
+# ifdef imap_user 'source ~/.mutt-ng/imap_setup'
+# or
+# ...
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+To exit mutt-ng directly if no NNTP support is compiled in:
+<tscreen><verb>
+ifndef feature_nntp 'push q'
+# or
+# ifndef newsrc 'push q'
+# or
+# ...
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+To only set the <ref id="imap_mail_check"
+name="<$imap_mail_check"> when the system's SVN
+is recent enough to have it:
+<tscreen><verb>
+ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check=300'
+</verb></tscreen>
+
<sect1>Removing hooks<label id="unhook">
<p>
Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
</verb></tscreen>
Without the quotes, the parenthesis wouldn't end.
-This would be seperated to two OR'd patterns: <em/˜f me@(mutt\.org/
+This would be separated to two OR'd patterns: <em/˜f me@(mutt\.org/
and <em/cs\.hmc\.edu)/. They are never what you want.
<sect2>Searching by Date
<ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> that is in effect
at that time will be used.
-<sect1>Usingg the sidebar<label id="sidebar">
+<sect1>Using the sidebar<label id="sidebar">
<p>
The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing
which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients.
<tscreen><verb>
sidebar-scroll-up Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page
sidebar-scroll-down Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page
-sidebar-next Hilights the next mailbox
-sidebar-next-new Hilights the next mailbox with new mail
-sidebar-previous Hilights the previous mailbox
-sidebar-open Opens the currently hilighted mailbox
+sidebar-next Highlights the next mailbox
+sidebar-next-new Highlights the next mailbox with new mail
+sidebar-previous Highlights the previous mailbox
+sidebar-open Opens the currently highlighted mailbox
</verb></tscreen>
Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
<item>! -- refers to your <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile"> (incoming) mailbox
<item>> -- refers to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> file
<item>< -- refers to your <ref id="record" name="$record"> file
+<item>^ -- refers to the current mailbox
<item>- or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
<item>˜ -- refers to your home directory
<item>= or + -- refers to your <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> directory
<sect1>Editing threads
<p>
Mutt has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
-either by misconfigured software or bad behaviour from some
+either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some
correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these
annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion.
-If you want to use these functions with IMAP, you need to compile Mutt
-with the <em/--enable-imap-edit-threads/ configure flag.
-
<sect2>Linking threads
<p>
and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default). The
reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
-You can also connect multiple childs at once, tagging them and using the
+You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and using the
tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
<sect2>Breaking threads
You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
<tt>pop://popserver/</tt>.
-You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, ie:
+You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
<tt>pop://popserver:port/</tt>.
-You can also specify different username for each folder, ie:
+You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
<tt>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</tt>.
Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
server, you should use <tt>imap://imapserver/path/to/folder</tt> where
<tt>path/to/folder</tt> is the path of the folder you want to access.
-You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, ie:
+You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
<tt>imap://imapserver:port/INBOX</tt>.
-You can also specify different username for each folder, ie:
+You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
<tt>imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX</tt>.
If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
use <tt>imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder</tt> as your
folder path.
-Pine-compatible notation is also supported, ie
+Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e.
<tt>{[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder</tt>
Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt should
Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So, you'll
want to carefully tune the
-<ref id="mail_check" name="$mail_check">
+<ref id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">
and
<ref id="timeout" name="$timeout">
-variables. Personally I use
-<tscreen><verb>
-set mail_check=90
-set timeout=15
-</verb></tscreen>
-with relatively good results over my slow modem line.
+variables.
Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior to
v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client
server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the
following differences:
<itemize>
-<item>In lieu of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
+<item>Instead of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
possibly followed by the symbol "+", indicating
that the entry contains both messages and subfolders. On
Cyrus-like servers folders will often contain both messages and
<item><ref id="imap_user" name="$imap_user"> - controls
the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP server,
for all authenticators. This is overridden by an explicit username in
- the mailbox path (ie by using a mailbox name of the form
+ the mailbox path (i.e. by using a mailbox name of the form
<tt/{user@host}/).
<item><ref id="imap_pass" name="$imap_pass"> - a
password which you may preset, used by all authentication methods where
</verb>
The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending (or
-postponing, or cancelling) the message. It can be toggled with the
+postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
<tt/toggle-unlink/ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
content-type, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-type/ command
(default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment,
The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
-this behaviour by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
+this behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
This will cause Mutt to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary
file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will turn over the
<sect2>Secure use of mailcap
<p>
-The interpretion of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
+The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
can lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to quote parameters
in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
substituting them, see the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
alternative_order list to determine if one of the available types
is preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a number of
-mimetypes in order, including support for implicit and explicit
+MIME types in order, including support for implicit and explicit
wildcards, for example:
<tscreen><verb>
alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text application/postscript image/*
-a attach a file to a message
-b specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address
-c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address
--e specify a config command to be run after initilization files are read
+-e specify a config command to be run after initialization files are read
-f specify a mailbox to load
-F specify an alternate file to read initialization commands
-h print help on command line options
projects / apps / madmutt.git / blobdiff