+<!-- vim:ft=sgml
+-->
<!doctype linuxdoc system>
-<article>
+<book>
-<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 Next Generation E-Mail Client
+<author>by Andreas Krennmair <htmlurl url="mailto:ak@synflood.at" name="<ak@synflood.at>"> and others
+ originally based on <em>mutt</em> 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
+Michael Elinks on mutt, circa 1995: ``All mail clients suck.
+This one just sucks less.'' - Sven Guckes on mutt, ca. 2003: ``But it still sucks!''
</abstract>
<toc>
-<sect>Introduction
+<chapt>Introduction <!--{{{-->
+
+<sect>Overview <!--{{{-->
<p>
<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
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.
+Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many more.
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>Mutt-ng Home Page
+<sect>Mutt-ng Home Page <!--{{{-->
<p>
<htmlurl url="http://www.muttng.org/"
name="http://www.muttng.org">
-<sect1>Mailing Lists
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Mailing Lists <!--{{{-->
<p>
<itemize>
<item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-devel" name="mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de"> -- The development mailing list for mutt-ng
</itemize>
-<sect1>Software Distribution Sites
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Software Distribution Sites <!--{{{-->
<p>
So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download
daily snapshots from <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/" name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/">
-<!--
-<itemize>
-<item><htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/"
-name="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/">
-</itemize>
-<p>
-For a list of mirror sites, please refer to <htmlurl
-url="http://www.mutt.org/download.html"
-name="http://www.mutt.org/download.html">.
--->
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>IRC
+<sect>IRC <!--{{{-->
<p>
Visit channel <em/#muttng/ on <htmlurl
url="http://www.freenode.net/" name="irc.freenode.net
(www.freenode.net)"> to chat with other people interested in Mutt-ng.
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>Weblog
+<sect>Weblog <!--{{{-->
<p>
If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in Mutt-ng, and get informed
about stuff like interesting, Mutt-ng-related articles and packages for your favorite
distribution, you can read and/or subscribe to our
<htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.supersized.org/" name="Mutt-ng development weblog">.
-<sect1>Copyright
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Copyright <!--{{{-->
<p>
Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins
<me@cs.hmc.edu> and others
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
-<sect>Getting Started
-<p>
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Getting Started <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect>Basic Concepts <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special
+ purpose:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>The <em/index/ displays the contents of the currently opened
+ mailbox.
+
+ <item>The <em/pager/ is responsible for displaying messages, that
+ is, the header, the body and all attached parts.
+
+ <item>The <em/file browser/ offers operations on and displays
+ information of all folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
+
+ <item>The <em/sidebar/ offers a permanent view of which mailboxes
+ contain how many total, new and/or flagged mails.
+
+ <item>The <em/help screen/ lists for all currently available
+ commands how to invoke them as well as a short description.
+
+ <item>The <em/compose/ menu is a comfortable interface take last
+ actions before sending mail: change subjects, attach files, remove
+ attachements, etc.
+
+ <item>The <em/attachement/ menu gives a summary and the tree
+ structure of the attachements of the current message.
+
+ <item>The <em/alias/ menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases
+ a user has defined.
+
+ <item>The <em/key/ menu used in connection with encryption lets
+ users choose the right key to encrypt with.
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <p>When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open
+ the users default mailbox and display the index.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Configuration <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng does <em/not/ feature an internal configuration
+ interface or menu due to the simple fact that this would be too
+ complex to handle (currently there are several <em/hundred/
+ variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow
+ users to add comments or manage them via version control systems
+ to ease maintenance.
+
+ <p>Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named <tt/grml-muttng/
+ kindly contributed by users which really helps and eases the
+ creation of a user's configuration file. When downloading the
+ source code via a snapshot or via subversion, it can be found in
+ the <tt/contrib/ directory.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Functions <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions:
+ internally, every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named
+ ``function.'' Those functions are assigned to keys (or even key
+ sequences) and may be completely adjusted to user's needs. The
+ basic idea is that the impatient users get a very intuitive
+ interface to start off with and advanced users virtually get no
+ limits to adjustments.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Interaction <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
+
+ <enum>
+
+ <item>There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query
+ the user for input, issue any command, query variables and
+ display error and informational messages. As for every type of
+ user input, this requires manual action leading to the need of
+ input.
+
+ <item>The automatized interface for interaction are the so
+ called <em/hooks/. Hooks specify actions the user wants to be
+ performed at well-defined situations: what to do when entering
+ which folder, what to do when displaying or replying to what
+ kind of message, etc. These are optional, i.e. a user doesn't
+ need to specify them but can do so.
+
+ </enum>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many
+ features can be delegated to external tools to increase
+ flexibility: users can define programs to filter a message through
+ before displaying, users can use any program they want for
+ displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or PostScript)
+ for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be rendered
+ by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
+ mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for
+ nearly every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases
+ or just the list of locally known users.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Patterns <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is
+ as widely used as possible to present a consistent interface to
+ users. The same ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching,
+ scoring, message selection and much more.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>Screens and Menus <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Index <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The index is the screen that you usually see first when you
+ start mutt-ng. It gives an overview over your emails in the
+ currently opened mailbox. By default, this is your system mailbox.
+ The information you see in the index is a list of emails, each with
+ its number on the left, its flags (new email, important email,
+ email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...),
+ the date when email was sent, its sender, the email size, and the
+ subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread hierarchies:
+ when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you
+ can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
+ especially useful for personal email between a group of people or
+ when you've subscribed to mailing lists.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Pager <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the
+ top of the pager you have an overview over the most important email
+ headers like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more
+ information. How much information you actually see depends on your
+ configuration, which we'll describe below.
+
+ <p>Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains
+ the message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see
+ more information about them below the email body, or, if the
+ attachments are text files, you can view them directly in the
+ pager.
+
+ <p>To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure
+ mutt-ng to show different things in the pager with different
+ colors. Virtually everything that can be described with a regular
+ expression can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>File Browser <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The file browser is the interface to the local or remote
+ file system. When selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows
+ custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular
+ expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in
+ which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the
+ file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message, select
+ multiple files to attach and many more.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Sidebar <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The sidebar comes in handy to manage mails which are spread
+ over different folders. All folders users setup mutt-ng to watch
+ for new mail will be listed. The listing includes not only the
+ name but also the number of total messages, the number of new and
+ flagged messages. Items with new mail may be colored different
+ from those with flagged mail, items may be shortened or compress
+ if they're they to long to be printed in full form so that by
+ abbreviated names, user still now what the name stands for.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Help <!--{{{-->
-This section is intended as a brief overview of how to use Mutt. There are
-many other features which are described elsewhere in the manual. There
-is even more information available in the Mutt FAQ and various web
-pages. See the <htmlurl url="http://www.mutt.org/mutt/"
-name="Mutt Page"> for more details.
+ <p>The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It
+ lists the current configuration of key bindings and their
+ associated commands including a short description, and currently
+ unbound functions that still need to be associated with a key
+ binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the mutt-ng
+ command prompt).
-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.
+ <!--}}}-->
-The first thing you need to do is invoke mutt, simply by typing mutt
-at the command line. There are various command-line options, see
-either the mutt man page or the <ref id="commandline" name="reference">.
+ <sect1>Compose Menu <!--{{{-->
-<sect1>Moving Around in Menus
+ <p>The compose menu features a split screen containing the
+ information which really matter before actually sending a
+ message by mail or posting an article to a newsgroup: who gets
+ the message as what (recipient, newsgroup, who gets what kind of
+ copy). Additionally, users may set security options like
+ deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and encrypt a message
+ with/for what keys.
+
+ <p>Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to
+ a message, to re-edit any attachment including the message
+ itself.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Alias Menu <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The alias menu is used to help users finding the recipients
+ of messages. For users who need to contact many people, there's
+ no need to remember addresses or names completely because it
+ allows for searching, too. The alias mechanism and thus the
+ alias menu also features grouping several addresses by a shorter
+ nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select
+ each single recipient manually.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Attachment Menu <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>As will be later discussed in detail, mutt-ng features a good
+ and stable MIME implementation, that is, is greatly supports
+ sending and receiving messages of arbitrary type. The
+ attachment menu displays a message's structure in detail: what
+ content parts are attached to which parent part (which gives a
+ true tree structure), which type is of what type and what size.
+ Single parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and
+ easy access to message's internals.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Key Menu <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p><tt/FIXME/
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Moving Around in Menus <!--{{{-->
<p>
Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table
-showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt.
+showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng.
<tscreen><verb>
j or Down next-entry move to the next entry
? help list all key bindings for the current menu
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input
+Mutt-ng has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input
textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to move
around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
<Tab> complete complete filename or alias
^T complete-query complete address with query
^K kill-eol delete to the end of the line
-ESC d kill-eow delete to the end ot the word
+ESC d kill-eow delete to the end of the word
^W kill-word kill the word in front of the cursor
^U kill-line delete entire line
^V quote-char quote the next typed key
<tt/bind editor <delete> backspace/
-<sect1>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager <!--{{{-->
<p>
Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is
-read in Mutt. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is
-called the ``index'' in Mutt. The second mode is the display of the
+read in Mutt-ng. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is
+called the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display of the
message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
modes.
-<sect2>The Message Index
+<sect1>The Message Index
<p>
<tscreen><verb>
^T untag messages matching a pattern
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect3>Status Flags
+<sect2>Status Flags
<p>
In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of
<tag/L/ message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
</descrip>
-<sect2>The Pager
+<sect1>The Pager
<p>
-By default, Mutt uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages.
+By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages.
The pager is very similar to the Unix program <em/less/ though not nearly as
featureful.
one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences for
bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter,
backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace,
-``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt will attempt to display these
+``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt-ng will attempt to display these
in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If
not, you can use the bold and underline <ref id="color" name="color">
objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them.
Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for
-character attributes. Mutt translates them into the correct color and
-character settings. The sequences Mutt supports are:
+character attributes. Mutt-ng translates them into the correct color and
+character settings. The sequences Mutt-ng supports are:
<p>
<tscreen><verb>
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
your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green.
-<sect2>Threaded Mode<label id="threads">
+<sect1>Threaded Mode<label id="threads">
<p>
When the mailbox is <ref id="sort" name="sorted"> by <em/threads/, there are
a few additional functions available in the <em/index/ and <em/pager/ modes.
See also: <ref id="strict_threads" name="$strict_threads">.
-<sect2>Miscellaneous Functions
+<sect1>Miscellaneous Functions
<p><bf/create-alias/<label id="create-alias"> (default: a)<newline>
Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a
Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref
id="wait_key" name="$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.
This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come
after a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
-<sect1>Sending Mail
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Sending Mail <!--{{{-->
<p>
The following bindings are available in the <em/index/ for sending
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
-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"
-name="$askcc">, <ref id="askbcc" name="$askbcc">, <ref
-id="autoedit" name="$autoedit">, <ref id="bounce"
-name="$bounce">, and <ref id="fast_reply"
-name="$fast_reply"> for changing how Mutt asks these
-questions.
-
-Mutt will then automatically start your <ref id="editor"
-name="$editor"> on the message body. If the <ref id="edit_headers"
-name="$edit_headers"> variable is set, the headers will be at
-the top of the message in your editor. Any messages you are replying
-to will be added in sort order to the message, with appropriate <ref
-id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="indent_string"
-name="$indent_string"> and <ref id="post_indent_string"
-name="$post_indent_string">. When forwarding a
-message, if the <ref id="mime_forward" name="$mime_forward">
-variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If
-you have specified a <ref id="signature" name="$signature">, it
-will be appended to the message.
-
-Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
+<sect1>Composing new messages <!--{{{-->
+
+<p>When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press <tt/m/ on
+your keyboard. Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in
+the last line:
+
+<verb>
+To:
+</verb>
+
+<p>After you've finished entering the recipient(s), press return. If you
+want to send an email to more than one recipient, separate the email
+addresses using the comma "<tt/,/". Mutt-ng then asks you for the email
+subject. Again, press return after you've entered it. After that, mutt-ng
+got the most important information from you, and starts up an editor
+where you can then enter your email.
+
+<p>The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you
+can e.g. set it in the mutt-ng configuration:
+
+<verb>
+set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'"
+set editor = "nano"
+set editor = "emacs"
+</verb>
+
+<p>If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng
+first looks whether the environment variable <tt/$VISUAL/ is set, and if
+so, it takes its value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look
+at <tt/$EDITOR/ and takes its value if it is set. If no editor command
+can be found, mutt-ng simply assumes <tt/vi/ to be the default editor,
+since it's the most widespread editor in the Unix world and it's pretty
+safe to assume that it is installed and available.
+
+<p>When you've finished entering your message, save it and quit your
+editor. Mutt-ng will then present you with a summary screen, the compose menu.
+On the top, you see a summary of the most important available key commands.
+Below that, you see the sender, the recipient(s), Cc and/or Bcc
+recipient(s), the subject, the reply-to address, and optionally
+information where the sent email will be stored and whether it should
+be digitally signed and/or encrypted.
+
+<p>Below that, you see a list of "attachments". The mail you've just
+entered before is also an attachment, but due to its special type
+(it's plain text), it will be displayed as the normal message on
+the receiver's side.
+
+<p>At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing <tt/a/, you
+can edit the recipient addresses, pressing <tt/t/ for the "To:" field,
+<tt/c/ for the "Cc:" field, and <tt/b/ for the "Bcc: field. You can
+also edit the subject the subject by simply pressing <tt/s/ or the
+email message that you've entered before by pressing <tt/e/. You will
+then again return to the editor. You can even edit the sender, by pressing
+<tt/<esc>f/, but this shall only be used with caution.
+
+<p>Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the
+above settings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only
+need to add the following to your configuration:
+
+<verb>
+set edit_headers
+</verb>
+
+<p>Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
returned to the <em/compose/ menu. The following options are available:
<tscreen><verb>
id="status_format" name="$status_format"> will change to
a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
-<sect2>Editing the message header
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect1>Replying <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect2>Simple Replies <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index
+ menu and then press <tt/r/. Mutt-ng's behaviour is then similar to the
+ behaviour when you compose a message: first, you will be asked for
+ the recipient, then for the subject, and then, mutt-ng will start
+ the editor with the quote attribution and the quoted message. This
+ can e.g. look like the example below.
+
+ <verb>
+On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:02:12PM +0100, Michael Svensson wrote:
+> Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
+> Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
+> production server that we want to set up before our customer's
+> project will go live.
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>You can start editing the email message. It is strongly
+ recommended to put your answer <em/below/ the quoted text and to
+ only quote what is really necessary and that you refer to. Putting
+ your answer on top of the quoted message, is, although very
+ widespread, very often not considered to be a polite way to answer
+ emails.
+
+ <p>The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to
+ <verb>
+set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:"
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>It can also be set to something more compact, e.g.
+ <verb>
+set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:"
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>The example above results in the following attribution:
+ <verb>
+* Michael Svensson <svensson@foobar.com> [05-03-06 17:02]:
+> Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
+> Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
+> production server that we want to set up before our customer's
+> project will go live.
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet
+ information-rich. It is <em/not/ the right place for witty quotes,
+ long "attribution" novels or anything like that: the right place
+ for such things is - if at all - the email signature at the very
+ bottom of the message.
+
+ <p>When you're done with writing your message, save and quit the
+ editor. As before, you will return to the compose menu, which is
+ used in the same way as before.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect2>Group Replies <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>In the situation where a group of people uses email as a
+ discussion, most of the emails will have one or more recipients,
+ and probably several "Cc:" recipients. The group reply functionality
+ ensures that when you press <tt/g/ instead of <tt/r/ to do a reply,
+ each and every recipient that is contained in the original message
+ will receive a copy of the message, either as normal recipient or
+ as "Cc:" recipient.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect2>List Replies <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your
+ reply to a message only to the list instead of the list and the
+ original author. To make this easy to use, mutt-ng features list
+ replies.
+
+ <p>To do a list reply, simply press <tt/L/. If the email contains
+ a <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header, its value will be used as reply
+ address. Otherwise, mutt-ng searches through all mail addresses in
+ the original message and tries to match them a list of regular
+ expressions which can be specified using the <tt/lists/ command.
+ If any of the regular expression matches, a mailing
+ list address has been found, and it will be used as reply address.
+
+ <verb>
+lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a
+ <tt/Mail-Followup-To:/ header to their emails anyway, so setting
+ <tt/lists/ is hardly ever necessary in practice.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect1>Editing the message header <!--{{{-->
<p>
When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of
special features available.
If you specify<newline>
<tt/Fcc:/ <em/filename/<newline>
-Mutt will pick up <em/filename/
+Mutt-ng will pick up <em/filename/
just as if you had used the <em/edit-fcc/ function in the <em/compose/ menu.
You can also attach files to your message by specifying<newline>
optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
When replying to messages, if you remove the <em/In-Reply-To:/ field from
-the header field, Mutt will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which
+the header field, Mutt-ng will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which
allows you to create a new message thread.
Also see <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers">.
-<sect2>Using Mutt with PGP
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect1>Using Mutt-ng with PGP <!--{{{-->
<p>
If you want to use PGP, you can specify
If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you
through a key selection process when you try to send the message.
-Mutt will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
+Mutt-ng will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
certified user ID matching one of the message recipients' mail
addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are
several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching
means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (<bf/+/)
indicates complete validity.
-<sect2>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster.
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect1>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster <!--{{{-->
<p>
You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most
important, you cannot use the <tt/Cc/ and <tt/Bcc/ headers. To tell
-Mutt to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
+Mutt-ng to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
the mix function on the compose menu.
The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the
mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please
have a look at the mixmaster documentation.
-<sect1>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail<label id="forwarding_mail">
-<p>
+<!--}}}-->
-Bouncing and forwarding let you send an existing message to recipients
-that you specify. Bouncing a message uses the <ref id="sendmail"
-name="sendmail"> command to send a copy to alternative addresses as if
-they were the message's original recipients. Forwarding a message, on
-the other hand, allows you to modify the message before it is resent
-(for example, by adding your own comments).
+<!--}}}-->
-The following keys are bound by default:
+<sect>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail<label id="forwarding_mail"> <!--{{{-->
-<tscreen><verb>
-f forward forward message
-b bounce bounce (remail) message
-</verb></tscreen>
+<p>Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people.
+Therefore, mutt-ng supports forwarding messages in two different
+ways.
+
+<p>The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from
+other mail clients. You simply press <tt/f/, enter the recipient
+email address, the subject of the forwarded email, and then you can
+edit the message to be forwarded in the editor. The forwarded
+message is separated from the rest of the message via the two
+following markers:
+
+<verb>
+----- Forwarded message from Lucas User <luser@example.com> -----
-Forwarding can be done by including the original message in the new
-message's body (surrounded by indicating lines) or including it as a MIME
-attachment, depending on the value of the <ref id="mime_forward"
-name="$mime_forward"> variable. Decoding of attachments,
-like in the pager, can be controlled by the <ref id="forward_decode"
-name="$forward_decode"> and <ref id="mime_forward_decode"
-name="$mime_forward_decode"> variables,
-respectively. The desired forwarding format may depend on the content,
-therefore <em/$mime_forward/ is a quadoption which, for
-example, can be set to ``ask-no''.
+From: Lucas User <luser@example.com>
+Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100
+To: Michael Random <mrandom@example.com>
+Subject: Re: blackmail
-The inclusion of headers is controlled by the current setting of the
-<ref id="weed" name="$weed"> variable, unless <ref
-id="mime_forward" name="mime_forward"> is set.
+Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die
+a horrible death.
-Editing the message to forward follows the same procedure as sending or
-replying to a message does.
-<sect1>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail">
+----- End forwarded message -----</verb>
+
+<p>When you're done with editing the mail, save and quit the editor,
+and you will return to the compose menu, the same menu you also
+encounter when composing or replying to mails.
+
+<p>The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the
+so-called <em/bouncing/: when you bounce an email to another
+address, it will be sent in practically the same format you send it
+(except for headers that are created during transporting the
+message). To bounce a message, press <tt/b/ and enter the recipient
+email address. By default, you are then asked whether you really
+want to bounce the message to the specified recipient. If you answer
+with yes, the message will then be bounced.
+
+<p>To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it
+like a regular email where he was <tt/Bcc:/ recipient. The only
+possibility to find out whether it was a bounced email is to
+carefully study the email headers and to find out which host really
+sent the email.
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have
used in the <em/compose/ menu, the body of your message and attachments
are stored in the mailbox specified by the <ref id="postponed"
name="$postponed"> variable. This means that you can recall the
-message even if you exit Mutt and then restart it at a later time.
+message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later time.
Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the
command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <em/compose/ a new
See also the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> quad-option.
-<sect1>Reading news via NNTP<label id="reading_news">
-<p>
+<!--}}}-->
-If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt can read news from newsserver
-via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with function ``change-newsgroup''
-(default: i). Default newsserver can be obtained from <em/NNTPSERVER/
-environment variable. Like other news readers, info about subscribed
-newsgroups is saved in file by <ref id="newsrc" name="$newsrc">
-variable. Article headers are cached and can be loaded from file when
-newsgroup entered instead loading from newsserver.
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect>Configuration
-<p>
+<chapt>Configuration <!--{{{-->
-While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable right out
-of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt to suit your own tastes. When
+<sect>Locations of Configuration Files <!--{{{-->
+<p>While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable right out
+of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt-ng to suit your own tastes. When
Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configuration
file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the ``-n'' <ref
id="commandline" name="command line"> option is specified. This file is
mutt try to load a file named <tt>.muttng/muttngrc</tt>.
<tt>.muttrc</tt> (or <tt>.muttngrc</tt> for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will
-usually place your <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt.
+usually place your <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt-ng.
-In addition, mutt supports version specific configuration files that are
-parsed instead of the default files as explained above. For instance, if
-your system has a <tt/Muttrc-0.88/ file in the system configuration
-directory, and you are running version 0.88 of mutt, this file will be
-sourced instead of the <tt/Muttrc/ file. The same is true of the user
-configuration file, if you have a file <tt/.muttrc-0.88.6/ in your home
-directory, when you run mutt version 0.88.6, it will source this file
-instead of the default <tt/.muttrc/ file. The version number is the
-same which is visible using the ``-v'' <ref id="commandline"
-name="command line"> switch or using the <tt/show-version/ key (default:
-V) from the index menu.
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>Syntax of Initialization Files<label id="muttrc-syntax">
+<sect>Syntax of Initialization Files<label id="muttrc-syntax"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
An initialization file consists of a series of <ref id="commands"
name="commands">. Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (;).
<tscreen><verb>
-set realname='Mutt user' ; ignore x-
+set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x-
</verb></tscreen>
The hash mark, or pound sign
(``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to
The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs.
For a complete list, see the <ref id="commands" name="command reference">.
-<sect1>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/alias/ <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone
-you are communicating with. Mutt allows you to create ``aliases'' which map
+you are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create ``aliases'' which map
a short string to a full address.
<bf/Note:/ if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than
alias theguys manny, moe, jack
</verb></tscreen>
-Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined
+Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined
in a special file. The <tt/alias/ command can appear anywhere in
a configuration file, as long as this file is <ref id="source"
name="sourced">. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or
function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <ref
id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable (which is
<tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> by default). This file is not special either,
-in the sense that Mutt will happily append aliases to any file, but in
+in the sense that Mutt-ng will happily append aliases to any file, but in
order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly <ref
id="source" name="source"> this file too.
For example:
<tscreen><verb>
-source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases
+source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases
source ~/.mail_aliases
set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases
</verb></tscreen>
<em/select-entry/ key (default: RET), and use the <em/exit/ key
(default: q) to return to the address prompt.
-<sect1>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/bind/ <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
<tag/generic/
This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of the other
menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not defined in
-another menu, Mutt will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows
+another menu, Mutt-ng will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows
you to bind a key to a certain function in multiple menus instead of having
multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task.
<tag/alias/
<tscreen><verb>
\t tab
<tab> tab
+<backtab> backtab / shift-tab
\r carriage return
\n newline
\e escape
name="reference">. The special function <tt/noop/ unbinds the specified key
sequence.
-<sect1>Defining aliases for character sets <label id="charset-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Defining aliases for character sets <label id="charset-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/charset-hook/ <em/alias/ <em/charset/<newline>
Usage: <tt/iconv-hook/ <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names
for character sets.
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook">
+<sect>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/folder-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/command/
folder-hook . set sort=date-sent
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Keyboard macros<label id="macro">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Keyboard macros<label id="macro"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/macro/ <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of
-actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt will behave as if
+actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt-ng will behave as if
you had typed <em/sequence/. So if you have a common sequence of commands
you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single
key.
work regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent on
the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more robust
and portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used by more
-than one user (eg. the system Muttrc).
+than one user (eg. the system Muttngrc).
Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after <em/sequence/,
which is shown in the help screens.
<bf/Note:/ Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are
silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
-<sect1>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/color/ <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
Usage: <tt/color/ index <em/foreground/ <em/background/ <em/pattern/<newline>
Usage: <tt/uncolor/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
-If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt by creating your own
+If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt-ng by creating your own
color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information), you
must specify both a foreground color <bf/and/ a background color (it is not
possible to only specify one or the other).
<item>attachment
<item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages)
<item>bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
-<item>error (error messages printed by Mutt)
+<item>error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng)
<item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header)
<item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
<item>index (match <em/pattern/ in the message index)
If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <em/default/ can be
used as a transparent color. The value <em/brightdefault/ is also valid.
-If Mutt is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set
+If Mutt-ng is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set
the <em/COLORFGBG/ environment variable to the default colors of your
terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*'' is
a special token which means to clear the color index list of all entries.
-Mutt also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …,
+Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …,
<em/color/<bf/N-1/ (<bf/N/ being the number of colors supported
by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your
display (for example by changing the color associated with <em/color2/
<item>standout
</itemize>
-<sect1>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/[un]ignore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore'' command.
-The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt display headers with the given pattern.
+The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with the given pattern.
For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x-mailer''.
``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
unignore posted-to:
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Alternative addresses<label id="alternates">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Alternative addresses<label id="alternates"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/[un]alternates/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
entry will be removed. If the <em/regexp/ for <tt/unalternates/
is ``*'', <em/all entries/ on <tt/alternates/ will be removed.
-<sect1>Mailing lists<label id="lists">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Format = Flowed <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Introduction <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng contains support for so-called <tt/format=flowed/ messages.
+ In the beginning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and
+ it was enough for displaying them on fixed-size terminals. But times
+ changed, and nowadays hardly anybody still uses fixed-size terminals:
+ more people nowaydays use graphical user interfaces, with dynamically
+ resizable windows. This led to the demand of a new email format that
+ makes it possible for the email client to make the email look nice
+ in a resizable window without breaking quoting levels and creating
+ an incompatible email format that can also be displayed nicely on
+ old fixed-size terminals.
+
+ <p>For introductory information on <tt/format=flowed/ messages, see
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html"
+ name="<http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html>">.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Receiving: Display Setup <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>When you receive emails that are marked as <tt/format=flowed/
+ messages, and is formatted correctly, mutt-ng will try to reformat
+ the message to optimally fit on your terminal. If you want a fixed
+ margin on the right side of your terminal, you can set the
+ following:
+
+ <verb>
+ set wrapmargin = 10
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right
+ side of the terminal.
+
+ <p>If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long,
+ you can also set a maximum line length:
+
+ <verb>
+ set max_line_length = 120
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>The example above will give you lines not longer than 120
+ characters.
+
+ <p>When you view at <tt/format=flowed/ messages, you will often see
+ the quoting hierarchy like in the following example:
+
+ <verb>
+ >Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
+ >Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
+ >production server that we want to set up before our customer's
+ >project will go live.
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very
+ hard to differentiate between text and quoting character. The
+ solution is to configure mutt-ng to "stuff" the quoting:
+
+ <verb>
+ set stuff_quoted
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read:
+
+ <verb>
+ > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
+ > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
+ > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
+ > project will go live.
+ </verb>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Sending <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>If you want mutt-ng to send emails with <tt/format=flowed/ set, you
+ need to explicitly set it:
+
+ <verb>
+ set text_flowed
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing
+ <tt/format=flowed/-conforming emails. For vim, this is done by
+ adding <tt/w/ to the formatoptions (see <tt/:h formatoptions/ and
+ <tt/:h fo-table/) when writing emails.
+
+ <p>Also note that <em/format=flowed/ knows about ``space-stuffing'',
+ that is, when sending messages, some kinds of lines have to be
+ indented with a single space on the sending side. On the receiving
+ side, the first space (if any) is removed. As a consequence and in
+ addition to the above simple setting, please keep this in mind when
+ making manual formattings within the editor. Also note that mutt-ng
+ currently violates the standard (RfC 3676) as it does not
+ space-stuff lines starting with:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item><tt/>/ This is <em/not/ the quote character but a right
+ angle used for other reasons
+
+ <item><tt/From/ with a trailing space.
+
+ <item>just a space for formatting reasons
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ Please make sure that you manually prepend a space to each of them.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Additional Notes <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p> For completeness, the <ref id="delete_space"
+ name="$delete_space"> variable provides the mechanism
+ to generate a <tt/DelSp=yes/ parameter on <em/outgoing/ messages.
+ According to the standard, clients receiving a <tt/format=flowed/
+ messages should delete the last space of a flowed line but still
+ interpret the line as flowed. Because flowed lines usually contain
+ only one space at the end, this parameter would make the receiving
+ client concatenate the last word of the previous with the first of
+ the current line <em/without/ a space. This makes ordinary text
+ unreadable and is intended for languages rarely using spaces. So
+ please use this setting only if you're sure what you're doing.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Mailing lists<label id="lists"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/[un]lists/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
Usage: <tt/[un]subscribe/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
-Mutt has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling
+Mutt-ng has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling
mailing lists">. In order to take advantage of them, you must
specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing
lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done this, the <ref
of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the <ref id="followup_to"
name="$followup_to"> configuration variable.
-More precisely, Mutt maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
+More precisely, Mutt-ng maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing
list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists''
command. To mark it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
give a portion of the list's e-mail address.
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
-addressed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt that this is a
+example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will receive mail
+addressed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt-ng 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.
To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists,
but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
-<sect1>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/mbox-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single
mailbox).
-<sect1>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/[un]mailboxes/ [!]<em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
<p>
Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files
specified by the <tt/mailboxes/ command, and indicate which contain new
-messages. Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
+messages. Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
command line with the <tt/-y/ option.
The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list
<p>
<bf/Note:/ new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to
the last access time. Utilities like <tt/biff/ or <tt/frm/ or any other
-program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt to never detect new mail
+program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt-ng to never detect new mail
for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup
tools are another common reason for updated access times.
<p>
name="$folder"> and <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile">)
should be executed before the <tt/mailboxes/ command.
-<sect1>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage:<newline>
<tt/my_hdr/ <em/string/<newline>
<bf/Note:/ space characters are <em/not/ allowed between the keyword and
the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that
-space is illegal there, so Mutt enforces the rule.
+space is illegal there, so Mutt-ng enforces the rule.
If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
either set the <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers"> variable,
unmy_hdr to cc
</quote>
-<sect1>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/hdr_order/ <em/header1/ <em/header2/ <em/header3/
hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/filename/
Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
-<sect1>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/fcc-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than
-<ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt searches the initial list of
+<ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt-ng searches the initial list of
message recipients for the first matching <em/regexp/ and uses <em/mailbox/
as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved
to <ref id="record" name="$record"> mailbox.
the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook"
name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
-<sect1>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once<label
-id="fcc-save-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once<label id="fcc-save-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/fcc-save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
and a <ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"> with its arguments.
-<sect1>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"><label id="reply-hook"><label id="send2-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"><label id="reply-hook"><label id="send2-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/reply-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
Usage: <tt/send-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed
from a send-hook.
-<sect1>Change settings before formatting a message<label id="message-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Change settings before formatting a message<label id="message-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/message-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""'
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient<label id="crypt-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient<label id="crypt-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/crypt-hook/ <em/pattern/ <em/keyid/
When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a certain
key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address,
-or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt would
+or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt-ng would
normally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can
specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to
a certain recipient.
can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even
just a real name.
-<sect1>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/push/ <em/string/
automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering
certain folders.
-<sect1>Executing functions<label id="exec">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Executing functions<label id="exec"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/exec/ <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
-<sect1>Message Scoring<label id="score-command">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Message Scoring<label id="score-command"> <!--{{{-->
+
<p>
Usage: <tt/score/ <em/pattern/ <em/value/<newline>
Usage: <tt/unscore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
-The <tt/score/ commands adds <em/value/ to a message's score if <em/pattern/
-matches it. <em/pattern/ is a string in the format described in the <ref
-id="patterns" name="patterns"> section (note: For efficiency reasons, patterns
-which scan information not available in the index, such as <tt>˜b</tt>,
-<tt>˜B</tt> or <tt>˜h</tt>, may not be used). <em/value/ is a
-positive or negative integer. A message's final score is the sum total of all
-matching <tt/score/ entries. However, you may optionally prefix <em/value/ with
-an equal sign (=) to cause evaluation to stop at a particular entry if there is
-a match. Negative final scores are rounded up to 0.
+<p>
+In situations where you have to cope with a lot of emails, e.g.
+when you read many different mailing lists, and take part in
+discussions, it is always useful to have the important messages
+marked and the annoying messages or the ones that you aren't
+interested in deleted. For this purpose, mutt-ng features a
+mechanism called ``scoring''.
+
+<p>
+When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You
+can then use the <tt/score/ command to define patterns and a
+positive or negative value associated with it. When a pattern
+matches a message, the message's score will be raised or lowered by
+the amount of the value associated with the pattern.
+
+<verb>
+score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50
+score "~f @sco\.com" -100</verb>
+
+<p>If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score
+value of the current message to a certain value and then stop
+evaluation:
+
+<verb>
+score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666</verb>
+
+<p>What is important to note is that negative score values will be
+rounded up to 0.
+
+<p>To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in
+some way. That's what the <em/score thresholds/ are for. Currently,
+there are three score thresholds:
+
+<itemize>
+
+ <item>flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher
+ than the flag threshold, it will be flagged.
+
+ <item>read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower
+ than the read threshold, it will be marked as read.
+
+ <item>delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or
+ lower than the delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted.
+
+</itemize>
+
+<p>These three thresholds can be set via the variables <ref
+id="score_threshold_flag"
+name="$score_threshold_flag">, <ref
+id="score_threshold_read"
+name="$score_threshold_read">, <ref
+id="score_threshold_delete"
+name="$score_threshold_delete"> and. By
+default, <ref id="score_threshold_read"
+name="$score_threshold_read"> and <ref
+id="score_threshold_delete"
+name="$score_threshold_delete"> are set to
+<tt/-1/, which means that in the default threshold configuration no
+message will ever get marked as read or deleted.
+
+<p>Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the <tt/color/ command
+and the <tt>˜n</tt> pattern:
+
+<verb>
+color black yellow "~n 10-"
+color red yellow "~n 100-"</verb>
-The <tt/unscore/ command removes score entries from the list. You <bf/must/
-specify the same pattern specified in the <tt/score/ command for it to be
-removed. The pattern ``*'' is a special token which means to clear the list
-of all score entries.
+<p>The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99
+with black and yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal
+100 with red and yellow. This might be unusual to you if you're used
+to e.g. slrn's scoring mechanism, but it is more flexible, as it
+visually marks different scores.
-<sect1>Spam detection<label id="spam">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Spam detection<label id="spam"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/spam/ <em/pattern/ <em/format/<newline>
Usage: <tt/nospam/ <em/pattern/
-Mutt has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
+Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
By defining your spam patterns with the <tt/spam/ and <tt/nospam/
commands, you can <em/limit/, <em/search/, and <em/sort/ your
mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external
spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"
</verb></tscreen>
+<!--}}}-->
-<sect1>Setting variables<label id="set">
+<sect>Setting variables<label id="set"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/set/ [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
Usage: <tt/toggle/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
With the <tt/reset/ command there exists the special variable ``all'',
which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
-<sect1>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
Usage: <tt/source/ <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
<tt>source ~/bin/myscript|</tt>).
-<sect1>Configuring features conditionally<label id="ifdef">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Removing hooks<label id="unhook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Usage: <tt/ifdef/ <em/item/ <em/command/
-Usage: <tt/ifndef/ <em/item/ <em/command/
+Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
-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.
+This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
+You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
+argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
+something like <tt/unhook send-hook/.
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>Sharing Setups<label id="sect:sharingsetups"> <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Character Sets <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration
+ must be maintained because it's likely that people want to use the
+ setup everywhere they use mutt-ng. And mutt-ng tries to help where it
+ can.
+
+ <p>To not produce conflicts with different character sets, mutt-ng
+ allows users to specify in which character set their configuration
+ files are encoded. Please note that while reading the configuration
+ files, this is only respected after the corresponding declaration
+ appears. It's advised to put the following at the very beginning of a
+ users muttngrc:
+
+ <verb>
+set config_charset = "..."</verb>
+
+ <p>and replacing the dots with the actual character set. To avoid
+ problems while maintaining the setup, vim user's may want to use
+ modelines as show in:
+
+ <verb>
+# vim:fileencoding=...:</verb>
+
+ <p>while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This
+ tells vim as which character set to read and save the file.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Modularization <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>``Modularization'' means to divide the setup into several files
+ while sorting the options or commands by topic. Especially for
+ longer setups (e.g. with many hooks), this helps maintaining it
+ and solving trouble.
-All names of variables and functions may be tested. Additionally, the
-following compile-features may be tested when prefixed with 'feature_':
+ <p>When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in
+ fractions, shared over different systems.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Conditional parts <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>When using a configuration on different systems, the user may not
+ always have influence on how mutt-ng is installed and which features
+ it includes.
+
+ <p>To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef''
+ patch written for mutt. Its basic syntax is:
+
+ <verb>
+ifdef <item> <command>
+ifndef <item> <command></verb>
+
+ <p>...whereby <tt/<item>/ can be one of:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>a function name
+
+ <item>a variable name
+
+ <item>a menu name
+
+ <item>a feature name
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <p>All available functions, variables and menus are documented
+ elsewhere in this manual but ``features'' is specific to these two
+ commands. To test for one, prefix one of the following keywords with
+ <tt/feature_/:
+
+ <verb>
ncurses, slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl,
gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp,
-classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache.
+classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache</verb>
-Examples follow.
+ <p>As an example, one can use the following in
+ <tt>˜/.muttngrc</tt>:
-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>
+ <verb>
+ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap'
+ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop'
+ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp'</verb>
-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>
+ <p>...to only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-imap</tt> if IMAP
+ support is built in, only source <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-pop</tt>
+ if POP support is built in and only source
+ <tt>˜/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp</tt> if NNTP support is built in.
-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>
+ <p>An example for testing for variable names can be used if users
+ use different revisions of mutt-ng whereby the older one may not
+ have a certain variable. To test for the availability of <ref
+ id="imap_mail_check" name="$imap_mail_check">,
+ use:
-<sect1>Removing hooks<label id="unhook">
-<p>
-Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
+ <verb>
+ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300'</verb>
-This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
-You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
-argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
-something like <tt/unhook send-hook/.
+ <p>Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set <ref
+ id="pager_index_lines"
+ name="$pager_index_lines"> only if the pager
+ menu is available, use:
+
+ <verb>
+ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10'</verb>
+
+ <p>For completeness, too, the opposite of <tt/ifdef/ is provided:
+ <tt/ifndef/ which only executes the command if the test fails. For
+ example, the following two examples are equivalent:
+
+ <verb>
+ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
+ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'</verb>
+
+ <p>...and...
+
+ <verb>
+ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
+ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'</verb>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
-<sect>Advanced Usage
-<sect1>Regular Expressions<label id="regexp">
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Obsolete Variables <!--{{{-->
+
+<p>In the process of ensuring and creating more consistency, many
+variables have been renamed and some of the old names were already
+removed. Please see <ref id="sect_obsolete" name="Obsolete Variables">
+for a complete list.
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Advanced Usage <!--{{{-->
+
+<sect>Regular Expressions<label id="regexp"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-All string patterns in Mutt including those in more complex
+All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex
<ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> must be specified
using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax (which
is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your
list. For example, the regular expression <bf/[0123456789]/
matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified
by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen
-``‐''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
+``-''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the list.
Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first.
-Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``‐'' place it last.
+Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last.
Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''.
precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
parentheses to override these precedence rules.
-<bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the
+<bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt-ng with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the
following operators may also be used in regular expressions:
<descrip>
Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so
they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
-<sect1>Patterns<label id="patterns">
-<p>
-Many of Mutt's commands allow you to specify a pattern to match
-(limit, tag-pattern, delete-pattern, etc.). There are several ways to select
-messages:
+<!--}}}-->
-<tscreen><verb>
-~A all messages
-~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body
-~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
-~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER
-~C EXPR message is either to: or cc: EXPR
-~D deleted messages
-~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
-~E expired messages
-~e EXPR message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
-~F flagged messages
-~f USER messages originating from USER
-~g cryptographically signed messages
-~G cryptographically encrypted messages
-~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR
-~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
-~k message contains PGP key material
-~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
-~L EXPR message is either originated or received by EXPR
-~l message is addressed to a known mailing list
-~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX *)
-~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
-~N new messages
-~O old messages
-~p message is addressed to you (consults alternates)
-~P message is from you (consults alternates)
-~Q messages which have been replied to
-~R read messages
-~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
-~S superseded messages
-~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
-~T tagged messages
-~t USER messages addressed to USER
-~U unread messages
-~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
-~V cryptographically verified messages
-~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
-~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
-~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)
-~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
-~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)
-~* ``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid
- address (excluded are addresses matching against
- alternates or any alias)
-</verb></tscreen>
+<sect>Patterns <!--{{{-->
-Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are
-<ref id="regexp" name="regular expressions">. Special attention has to be
-made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
-Mutt's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (\),
-which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
-backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes
-instead (\\).
+<p>Mutt-ng's pattern language provides a simple yet effective way to
+set up rules to match messages, e.g. for operations like tagging and
+scoring. A pattern consists of one or more sub-pattern, which can be
+logically grouped, ORed, and negated. For a complete listing of
+these patterns, please refer to table <ref id="patterns"
+name="Patterns"> in the Reference chapter.
-*) The forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>[MIN]/,
-<tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
-are allowed, too.
+<p>It must be noted that in this table, <tt/EXPR/, <tt/USER/,
+<tt/ID/ and <tt/SUBJECT/ are regular expressions. For ranges, the
+forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>>[MIN]/, <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
+are also possible.
-<sect2>Pattern Modifier
-<p>
+<sect1>Complex Patterns
-Note that patterns matching 'lists' of addresses (notably c,C,p,P and t)
-match if there is at least one match in the whole list. If you want to
-make sure that all elements of that list match, you need to prefix your
-pattern with ^.
-This example matches all mails which only has recipients from Germany.
+<p>It is possible to combine several sub-patterns to a more complex
+pattern. The most simple possibility is to logically AND several
+patterns by stringing them together:
-<tscreen><verb>
-^~C \.de$
-</verb></tscreen>
+<verb>
+~s 'SPAM' ~U</verb>
-<sect2>Complex Patterns
-<p>
+<p>The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in
+the subject and are unread.
-Logical AND is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For
-example:
+<p>To logical OR patterns, simply use the <tt/|/ operator. This one
+especially useful when using local groups:
-<tscreen><verb>
-~t mutt ~f elkins
-</verb></tscreen>
+<verb>
+~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org")
+(~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng)
+!~x '@synflood\.at'</verb>
+
+<p>The first pattern matches all messages that were sent by one of
+the mutt-ng maintainers, while the seconds pattern matches all
+messages that contain ``mutt-ng'' in the message body or ``Mutt-ng''
+in the subject. The third pattern matches all messages that do not
+contain ``@synflood\.at'' in the <tt/References:/ header, i.e.
+messages that are not an (indirect) reply to one of my messages. A
+pattern can be logicall negated using the <tt/!/ operator.
+
+<sect1>Patterns and Dates
+
+<p>When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a
+special format, i.e. <tt>DD/MM/YYYY</tt>. If you don't specify
+month or year, they default to the current month or year. When using
+date ranges, and you specify only the minimum or the maximum, the
+specified date will be excluded, e.g. <tt>01/06/2005-</tt> matches
+against all messages <em/after/ Juni 1st, 2005.
+
+<p>It is also possible to use so-called ``error margins'' when
+specifying date ranges. You simply specify a date, and then the
+error margin. This margin needs to contain the information whether
+it goes ``forth'' or ``back'' in time, by using <tt/+/ and <tt/-/.
+Then follows a number and a unit, i.e. <tt/y/ for years, <tt/m/ for
+months, <tt/w/ for weeks and <tt/d/ for days. If you use the special
+<tt/*/ sign, it means that the error margin goes to both
+``directions'' in time.
-would select messages which contain the word ``mutt'' in the list of
-recipients <bf/and/ that have the word ``elkins'' in the ``From'' header
-field.
+<verb>
+~d 01/01/2005+1y
+~d 18/10/2004-2w
+~d 28/12/2004*1d</verb>
-Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search
-patterns:
+<p>The first pattern matches all dates between January 1st, 2005 and
+January 1st 2006. The second pattern matches all dates between
+October 18th, 2004 and October 4th 2004 (2 weeks before 18/10/2004),
+while the third pattern matches all dates 1 day around December
+28th, 2004 (i.e. Dec 27th, 28th and 29th).
-<itemize>
-<item>! -- logical NOT operator
-<item>| -- logical OR operator
-<item>() -- logical grouping operator
-</itemize>
+<p>Relative dates are also very important, as they make it possible
+to specify date ranges between a fixed number of units and the
+current date. How this works can be seen in the following example:
-Here is an example illustrating a complex search pattern. This pattern will
-select all messages which do not contain ``mutt'' in the ``To'' or ``Cc''
-field and which are from ``elkins''.
+<verb>
+~d >2w # messages older than two weeks
+~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days
+~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old</verb>
-<tscreen><verb>
-!(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins
-</verb></tscreen>
+<!--}}}-->
-Here is an example using white space in the regular expression (note
-the ' and &dquot; delimiters). For this to match, the mail's subject must
-match the ``^Junk +From +Me$'' and it must be from either ``Jim +Somebody''
-or ``Ed +SomeoneElse'':
+ <sect>Format Strings <!--{{{-->
-<tscreen><verb>
- '~s "^Junk +From +Me$" ~f ("Jim +Somebody"|"Ed +SomeoneElse")'
-</verb></tscreen>
+ <sect1>Introduction <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>The so called <em/Format Strings/ offer great flexibility when
+ configuring mutt-ng. In short, they describe what items to print
+ out how in menus and status messages.
-Note that if a regular expression contains parenthesis, or a veritical bar
-("|"), you <bf/must/ enclose the expression in double or single quotes since
-those characters are also used to separate different parts of Mutt's
-pattern language. For example,
+ <p>Basically, they work as this: for different menus and bars,
+ there's a variable specifying the layout. For every item
+ available, there is a so called <em/expando/.
+
+ <p>For example, when running mutt-ng on different machines or
+ different versions for testing purposes, it may be interesting to
+ have the following information always printed on screen when one
+ is in the index:
-<tscreen><verb>
-~f "me@(mutt\.org|cs\.hmc\.edu)"
-</verb></tscreen>
+ <itemize>
-Without the quotes, the parenthesis wouldn't end.
-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.
+ <item>the current hostname
-<sect2>Searching by Date
-<p>
-Mutt supports two types of dates, <em/absolute/ and <em/relative/.
+ <item>the current mutt-ng version number
-<bf/Absolute/. Dates <bf/must/ be in DD/MM/YY format (month and year are
-optional, defaulting to the current month and year). An example of a valid
-range of dates is:
+ </itemize>
-<tscreen><verb>
-Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10
-</verb></tscreen>
+ <p>The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the
+ <ref id="status_format" name="$status_format">
+ variable. For the hostname and version string, there's an expando
+ for <tt>$status_format</tt>: <tt/%h/ expands to the
+ hostname and <tt/%v/ to the version string. When just configuring:
-If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify ``-DD/MM/YY'', all
-messages <em/before/ the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum
-(second) date, and specify ``DD/MM/YY-'', all messages <em/after/ the given
-date will be selected. If you specify a single date with no dash (``-''),
-only messages sent on the given date will be selected.
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: ..."</verb>
-<bf/Error Margins/. You can add error margins to absolute dates.
-An error margin is a sign (+ or -), followed by a digit, followed by
-one of the following units:
-<verb>
-y years
-m months
-w weeks
-d days
-</verb>
-As a special case, you can replace the sign by a ``*'' character,
-which is equivalent to giving identical plus and minus error margins.
+ <p>mutt-ng will replace the sequence <tt/%v/ with the version string
+ and <tt/%h/ with the host's name. When you are, for example, running
+ mutt-ng version <tt/1.5.9i/ on host <tt/mailhost/, you'll see the
+ following when you're in the index:
-Example: To select any messages two weeks around January 15, 2001,
-you'd use the following pattern:
-<tscreen><verb>
-Limit to messages matching: ~d 15/1/2001*2w
-</verb></tscreen>
+ <verb>
+Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ...</verb>
+ <p>In the index, there're more useful information one could want to
+ see:
-<bf/Relative/. This type of date is relative to the current date, and may
-be specified as:
-<itemize>
-<item>><em/offset/ (messages older than <em/offset/ units)
-<item><<em/offset/ (messages newer than <em/offset/ units)
-<item>=<em/offset/ (messages exactly <em/offset/ units old)
-</itemize>
+ <itemize>
-<em/offset/ is specified as a positive number with one of the following
-units:
-<verb>
-y years
-m months
-w weeks
-d days
-</verb>
+ <item>which mailbox is open
-Example: to select messages less than 1 month old, you would use
-<tscreen><verb>
-Limit to messages matching: ~d <1m
-</verb></tscreen>
+ <item>how man new, flagged or postponed messages
+ <item>...
+ </itemize>
-<bf/Note:/ all dates used when searching are relative to the
-<bf/local/ time zone, so unless you change the setting of your <ref
-id="index_format" name="$index_format"> to include a
-<tt/%[...]/ format, these are <bf/not/ the dates shown
-in the main index.
+ <p>To include the mailbox' name is as easy as:
-<sect1>Using Tags
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ...</verb>
+
+ <p>When the currently opened mailbox is <tt/Inbox/, this will be expanded
+ to:
+
+ <verb>
+Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ...</verb>
+
+ <p>For the number of certain types of messages, one more feature of the format
+ strings is extremely useful. If there aren't messages of a certain type, it
+ may not be desired to print just that there aren't any but instead only
+ print something if there are any.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Conditional Expansion <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in
+ the current mailbox, further extend
+ <tt/$status_format/ to:
+
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ...</verb>
+
+ <p>This feature is called <em/nonzero-printing/ and works as this:
+ some expandos may be optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion
+ of the format string is only evaluated if the value of the expando
+ is different from zero. The basic syntax is:
+
+ <verb>
+%?<item>?<string if nonzero>?</verb>
+
+ <p>which tells mutt-ng to only look at <tt><string if
+ nonzero></tt> if the value of the <tt>%<item%gt;</tt>
+ expando is different from zero. In our example, we used <tt/n/ as
+ the expando to check for and <tt/%n new/ as the optional nonzero
+ string.
+
+ <p>But this is not all: this feature only offers one alternative:
+ ``print something if not zero.'' Mutt-ng does, as you might guess,
+ also provide a logically complete version: ``if zero, print
+ something and else print something else.'' This is achieved by the
+ following syntax for those expandos which may be printed nonzero:
+
+ <verb>
+%?<item>?<string if nonzero>&<string if zero>?</verb>
+
+ <p>Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item> make it print ``<em/n/ new messages'' whereby <em/n/ is the
+ count but only if there new ones
+
+ <item> and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <p>The corresponding configuration is:
+
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ...</verb>
+
+ <p>This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get
+ always printed. Thus, it can be shortened to:
+
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ...</verb>
+
+ <p>As you might see from this rather simple example, one can create
+ very complex but fancy status messages. Please see the reference
+ chapter for expandos and those which may be printed nonzero.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Modifications and Padding <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of
+ format strings:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>When specifying <tt>%_<item></tt> instead of
+ just <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all
+ characters in the expansion of <tt><item></tt> to
+ lowercase.
+
+ <item>When specifying <tt>%:<item></tt> instead of just
+ <tt>%<item></tt>, mutt-ng will convert all dots in the
+ expansion of <tt><item></tt> to underscores
+ (<tt>_</tt>).
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <p>Also, there's a feature called <em/Padding/ supplied by the
+ following two expandos: <tt/%|X/ and <tt/%>X/.
+
+ <descrip>
+
+ <tag><tt>%|X</tt></tag> When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the
+ rest of the line with the character <tt/X/. In our example,
+ filling the rest of the line with dashes is done by setting:
+
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-"</verb>
+
+ <tag><tt>%>X</tt></tag> Since the previous expando stops at
+ the end of line, there must be a way to fill the gap between
+ two items via the <tt>%>X</tt> expando: it puts as many
+ characters <tt>X</tt> in between two items so that the rest of
+ the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the
+ version string and hostname of our example on the left but on
+ the right and fill the gap with spaces, one might use (note
+ the space after <tt>%></tt>):
+
+ <verb>
+set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)"</verb>
+
+ </descrip>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Using Tags <!--{{{-->
<p>
Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of
matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to
``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by
hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by
-default. See <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> for Mutt's pattern
+default. See <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> for Mutt-ng's pattern
matching syntax.
Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the
In <ref id="macro" name="macros"> or <ref id="push" name="push"> commands,
you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator. If there are no tagged
messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's execution.
-Mutt will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the ``end-cond''
+Mutt-ng will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the ``end-cond''
operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed as
normal.
-<sect1>Using Hooks<label id="hooks">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Using Hooks<label id="hooks"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
A <em/hook/ is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor which allows you to
execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For example,
you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you are
-reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt world, a <em/hook/
+reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a <em/hook/
consists of a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> or
<ref id="patterns" name="pattern"> along with a
configuration option/command. See
send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect2>Message Matching in Hooks<label id="pattern_hook">
+<sect1>Message Matching in Hooks<label id="pattern_hook">
<p>
Hooks that act upon messages (<tt/send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook,
message-hook/) are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other
needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match
different criteria.
-Mutt allows the use of the <ref id="patterns" name="search pattern">
+Mutt-ng allows the use of the <ref id="patterns" name="search pattern">
language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in
exactly the same way as it would when <em/limiting/ or
<em/searching/ the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those
For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending
mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
<tscreen><verb>
-send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt User <user@host>'
+send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User <user@host>'
</verb></tscreen>
which would execute the given command when sending mail to
<em/me@cs.hmc.edu/.
However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the
full searching language. You can still specify a simple <em/regular
-expression/ like the other hooks, in which case Mutt will translate your
+expression/ like the other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your
pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by the
<ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> variable. The
pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value of
<ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> that is in effect
at that time will be used.
-<sect1>Using the sidebar<label id="sidebar">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Using the sidebar<label id="sidebar"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing
which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients.
You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and
switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
-<sect1>External Address Queries<label id="query">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>External Address Queries<label id="query"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
+Mutt-ng supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt
using a simple interface. Using the <ref id="query_command"
name="$query_command"> variable, you specify the wrapper
menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be
added to the prompt.
-<sect1>Mailbox Formats
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Mailbox Formats <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
+Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there
is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new
-mailboxes, Mutt uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type"
+mailboxes, Mutt-ng uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type"
name="$mbox_type"> variable.
<bf/mbox/. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All
<bf/MH/. A radical departure from <em/mbox/ and <em/MMDF/, a mailbox
consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file.
The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not
-correspond to the message number Mutt displays). Deleted messages are
+correspond to the message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages are
renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <bf/Note:/ Mutt
detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <tt/.mh_sequences/
or <tt/.xmhcache/ (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH
programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking
is needed.
-<sect1>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes.
These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox
name="default save folder"> as determined by the address of the alias
</itemize>
-<sect1>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
+Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt
know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically
this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most
accomplished through the use of the <ref id="lists"
name="lists and subscribe"> commands in your muttrc.
-Now that Mutt knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
+Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in
the <em/index/ menu display. This is useful to distinguish between
known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as
specified by <tt/Mail-Followup-To/, see below).
-Mutt also supports the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header. When you send
+Mutt-ng also supports the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header. When you send
a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several
subscribed mailing lists, and if the <ref id="followup_to"
name="$followup_to"> option is set, mutt will generate
in the list of recipients in the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/.
Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
-<tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header manually. Mutt will only auto-generate
+<tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header manually. Mutt-ng will only auto-generate
this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying
to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients
will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To''
-field. Mutt uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">
+field. Mutt-ng uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">
variable to help decide which address to use. If set to <em/ask-yes/ or
<em/ask-no/, you will be
prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in
individually). The <ref id="index_format"
name="$index_format"> variable's ``%y'' and
``%Y'' escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the
-index, and Mutt's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
-``X-Label:'' fields with the ``~y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a
+index, and Mutt-ng's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
+``X-Label:'' fields with the ``˜y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a
standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by procmail
and other mail filtering agents.
-Lastly, Mutt has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into
+Lastly, Mutt-ng has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into
<ref id="threads" name="threads">. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same
subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a
message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever
with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete
uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value.
-<sect1>Editing threads
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Editing threads <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
+Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
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.
-<sect2>Linking threads
+<sect1>Linking threads
<p>
Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
"References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken
-discussions because Mutt has not enough information to guess the correct
+discussions because Mutt-ng has not enough information to guess the correct
threading.
You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent message
and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default). 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
+<sect1>Breaking threads
<p>
On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the
current message into a whole different thread.
-<sect1>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support<label id="dsn"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information
about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as
-``return receipts.'' Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command
-line options in which the mail client can make requests as to what type
-of status messages should be returned.
+``return receipts.''
+
+Users can make use of it in one of the following two ways:
+
+<itemize>
+ <item>Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command line options
+ in which the mail client can make requests as to what type of status
+ messages should be returned.
+ <item>The SMTP support via libESMTP supports it, too.
+</itemize>
+
+To support this, there are two variables:
+
+<itemize>
-To support this, there are two variables. <ref id="dsn_notify"
-name="$dsn_notify"> is used to request receipts for
-different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.).
-<ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests how much
-of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full
-message). Refer to the man page on sendmail for more details on DSN.
+ <item><ref id="dsn_notify" name="$dsn_notify"> is used
+ to request receipts for different results (such as failed message,
+ message delivered, etc.).
-<sect1>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL)
+ <item><ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests
+ how much of your message should be returned with the receipt
+ (headers or full message).
+
+</itemize>
+
+Please see the reference chapter for possible values.
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
<p>
-If Mutt was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/
+If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/
script with the <em/--enable-pop/ flag), it has the ability to work
with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local
browsing.
<tt>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</tt>.
Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
-reason the frequency at which Mutt will check for mail remotely can be
+reason the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can be
controlled by the
-<ref id="pop_checkinterval" name="$pop_checkinterval">
+<ref id="pop_mail_check" name="$pop_mail_check">
variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds.
-If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
+If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to POP3 servers
can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should
(default: G). It allows to connect to <ref id="pop_host"
name="pop_host">, fetch all your new mail and place it in the
local <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile">. After this
-point, Mutt runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
+point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
<bf/Note:/ If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox
you should consider using a specialized program, such as <htmlurl
url="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail" name="fetchmail">
-<sect1>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL)
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
<p>
-If Mutt was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <em/configure/
+If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <em/configure/
script with the <em/--enable-imap/ flag), it has the ability to work
with folders located on a remote IMAP server.
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/
+If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to IMAP servers
can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should
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
+Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt-ng should
correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and convert
paths accordingly.
v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client
selects the same folder.
-<sect2>The Folder Browser
+<sect1>The Folder Browser
<p>
As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP
these are bound to <tt>s</tt> and <tt>u</tt>, respectively).
</itemize>
-<sect2>Authentication
+<sect1>Authentication
<p>
-Mutt supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
+Mutt-ng supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add
NTLM authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has
yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for
option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL library
installed on your system and compile mutt with the <em/--with-sasl/ flag.
<p>
-Mutt will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server,
+Mutt-ng will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server,
in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
There are a few variables which control authentication:
listed above).
</itemize>
-<sect1>Managing multiple IMAP/POP accounts (OPTIONAL)<label id="account-hook">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)<label id="reading_news"> <!--{{{-->
+
+<p>If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt-ng can read news from
+a newsserver via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with the
+``change-newsgroup'' function from the index/pager which is by default
+bound to <tt/i/.
+
+<p>The Default newsserver can be obtained from the
+<tt/$NNTPSERVER/ environment variable. Like other news readers,
+info about subscribed newsgroups is saved in a file as specified by the
+<ref id="nntp_newsrc" name="$nntp_newsrc"> variable.
+Article headers are cached and can be loaded from a file when a
+newsgroup is entered instead loading from newsserver; currently, this
+caching mechanism still is different from the header caching for
+maildir/IMAP.
+
+<sect1>Again: Scoring <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Especially for Usenet, people often ask for advanced filtering
+ and scoring functionality. Of course, mutt-ng has scoring and
+ allows a killfile, too. How to use a killfile has been discussed
+ in <ref id="score-command" name="Message scoring">.
+
+ <p>What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in
+ realname filter. For may newsreaders including those for
+ ``advanced users'' like <em/slrn/ or <em/tin/, there are frequent
+ request for such functionality. The solutions offered often are
+ complicated regular expressions.
+
+ <p>In mutt-ng this is as easy as
+
+ <verb>
+score ~* =42
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose
+ sender specified a valid realname and a valid email address. Using
+
+ <verb>
+score !~* =42
+ </verb>
+
+ <p>on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages <em/not/
+ matching those criteria which are very strict:
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see
+ <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt"
+ name="<ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt>">
+
+ <item>the name must consist of at least 2 fields whereby a field
+ must not end in a dot. This means that ``Joe User'' and ``Joe A.
+ User'' are valid while ``J. User'' and ``J. A. User'' aren't.
+
+ <item>it's assumed that users are interested in reading their
+ own mail and mail from people who they have defined an alias for
+ so that those 2 groups of messages are excluded from the strict
+ rules.
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>SMTP Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
+
+<p>Mutt-ng can be built using a library called ``libESMTP'' which
+provides SMTP functionality. When <tt/configure/ was called with
+<tt/--with-libesmtp/ or the output <tt>muttng -v</tt> contains
+<tt>+USE_LIBESMTP</tt>, this will be or is the case already. The SMTP
+support includes support for Delivery Status Notification (see <ref
+id="dsn" name="Delivery Status Notification"> section) as well as
+handling the <tt/8BITMIME/ flag controlled via <ref id="use_8bitmime"
+name="$use_8bitmime">.
+
+<p>To enable sending mail directly via SMTP without an MTA such as
+Postfix or SSMTP and the like, simply set the <ref id="smtp_host"
+name="$smtp_host"> variable pointing to your SMTP server.
+
+<p>Authentication mechanisms are available via the <ref id="smtp_user"
+name="$smtp_user"> and <ref id="smtp_pass"
+name="$smtp_pass"> variables.
+
+<p>Transport Encryption via the StartTLS command is also available. For
+this to work, first of all Mutt-ng must be built with SSL or GNUTLS.
+Secondly, the <ref id="smtp_use_tls"
+name="$smtp_use_tls"> variable must be either set
+to ``enabled'' or ``required.'' In both cases, StartTLS will be used if
+the server supports it: for the second case, the connection will fail if
+it doesn't while switching back to unencrypted communication for the
+first one.
+
+<p>Some mail providers require user's to set a particular envelope
+sender, i.e. they allow for only one value which may not be what the
+user wants to send as the <tt/From:/ header. In this case, the variable
+<ref id="smtp_envelope" name="$smtp_envelope"> may be used
+to set the envelope different from the <tt/From:/ header.
+
+<!-- }}} -->
+
+<sect>Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)<label id="account-hook"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers,
account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)<label id="urlview">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)<label id="urlview"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
If a message contains URLs (<em/unified resource locator/ = address in the
WWW space like <em>http://www.mutt.org/</em>), it is efficient to get
macro pager \cb |urlview\n
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect1>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL)
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL) <!--{{{-->
<p>
-If Mutt was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
+If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
<em/configure/ script with the <em/--enable-compressed/ flag), Mutt
can open folders stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user
has a script to convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> though you'll be able to append
to the folder.
-Note that Mutt will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
+Note that Mutt-ng will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt
supposes it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the
use of programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use
id="save_empty" name="$save_empty">, so that the compressed file
will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
-<sect2>Open a compressed mailbox for reading<label id="open-hook">
+<sect1>Open a compressed mailbox for reading<label id="open-hook">
<p>
Usage: <tt/open-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
type.
-<sect2>Write a compressed mailbox<label id="close-hook">
+<sect1>Write a compressed mailbox<label id="close-hook">
<p>
Usage: <tt/close-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
<ref id="close-hook" name ="close-hook"> is not called when you exit
from the folder if the folder was not changed.
-<sect2>Append a message to a compressed mailbox<label id="append-hook">
+<sect1>Append a message to a compressed mailbox<label id="append-hook">
<p>
Usage: <tt/append-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
<ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> and <ref id="close-hook"
name="close-hook">respectively) each time you will add to it.
-<sect2>Encrypted folders
+<sect1>Encrypted folders
<p>
The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to use
directory, where it can be read by your system administrator. So think
about the security aspects of this.
-<sect>Mutt's MIME Support
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Mutt-ng's MIME Support <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt the premier text-mode
+Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt-ng the premier text-mode
MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
-wherever possible. When configuring Mutt for MIME, there are two extra
-types of configuration files which Mutt uses. One is the
+wherever possible. When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two extra
+types of configuration files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the
<tt/mime.types/ file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to
IANA MIME types. The other is the <tt/mailcap/ file, which specifies
the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
-<sect1>Using MIME in Mutt
+<sect>Using MIME in Mutt <!--{{{-->
<p>
-There are three areas/menus in Mutt which deal with MIME, they are the
+There are three areas/menus in Mutt-ng which deal with MIME, they are the
pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
menu.
-<sect2>Viewing MIME messages in the pager
+<sect1>Viewing MIME messages in the pager
<p>
When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
-decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt internally supports
+decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally supports
a number of MIME types, including <tt>text/plain, text/enriched,
message/rfc822, and message/news</tt>. In addition, the export
-controlled version of Mutt recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
+controlled version of Mutt-ng recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
-Mutt will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
+Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
These lines are of the form:
<tscreen><verb>
[-- Attachment #1: Description --]
attachment, and the <tt/Encoding/ is one of
<tt>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</tt>.
-If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
+If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
<tscreen><verb>
[-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect2>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu">
+<sect1>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu">
<p>
The default binding for <tt/view-attachments/ is `v', which displays the
attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of
See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
-<sect2>The Compose Menu<label id="compose_menu">
+<sect1>The Compose Menu<label id="compose_menu">
<p>
The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
</verb>
-The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending (or
+The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or
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
The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
changed with the <tt/edit-description/ command (default: d).
-<sect1>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/ <!--{{{-->
<p>
-When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your
+When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your
personal mime.types file at <tt>${HOME}/.mime.types</tt>, and then
the system mime.types file at <tt>/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</tt> or
<tt>/etc/mime.types</tt>
application/pgp pgp
audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
</verb></tscreen>
-A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt distribution, and
+A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt-ng distribution, and
should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
-If Mutt can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
+If Mutt-ng can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
-information, Mutt will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
-as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will
+information, Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
+as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt-ng will
mark it as <tt>application/octet-stream</tt>. You can change the MIME
-type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/
+type that Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/
command from the compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a
major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved
-after various internet discussions. Mutt recognises all of these if the
+after various internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of these if the
appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises other
major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
molecular modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms to
various molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used
if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
-<sect1>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/ <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
+Mutt-ng supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
use this format include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
-In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt can not handle
-internally, Mutt parses a series of external configuration files to
+In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt-ng can not handle
+internally, Mutt-ng parses a series of external configuration files to
find an external handler. The default search string for these files
is a colon delimited list set to
<tscreen><verb>
usually as <tt>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</tt>, which contains some baseline
entries.
-<sect2>The Basics of the mailcap file
+<sect1>The Basics of the mailcap file
<p>
A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank,
or definitions.
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 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
+This will cause Mutt-ng 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
+the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt-ng will turn over the
terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt
will remove the temporary file if it exists.
</verb></tscreen>
This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
-<sect2>Secure use of mailcap
+<sect1>Secure use of mailcap
<p>
The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
-can lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to quote parameters
+can lead to security problems in general. Mutt-ng tries to quote parameters
in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
substituting them, see the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
name="mailcap_sanitize"> variable.
of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
<em/Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting./
-Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt does this for
+Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt-ng does this for
you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix
&& test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
</verb></tscreen>
-<sect2>Advanced mailcap Usage
+<sect1>Advanced mailcap Usage
<p>
-<sect3>Optional Fields
+<sect2>Optional Fields
<p>
In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you
can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
-Mutt recognizes the following optional fields:
+Mutt-ng recognizes the following optional fields:
<descrip>
<tag/copiousoutput/
-This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts of
-text on stdout. This causes Mutt to invoke a pager (either the internal
+This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly large amounts of
+text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager (either the internal
pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output
-of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes that the command
+of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt-ng assumes that the command
is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <tt>more</tt>
in the <tt>lynx -dump</tt> example in the Basic section:
<tscreen><verb>
text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
</verb></tscreen>
This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
-and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results.
+and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the results.
<tag/needsterminal/
-Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view"
+Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view"
name="autoview">, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
of the <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> variable or
not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the
-corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt will use
+corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt-ng will use
<ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> and the exit status
of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the
external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt
you for a key.
<tag>compose=<command></tag>
This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
-specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
+specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
<tag>composetyped=<command></tag>
This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in
that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be
used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new
-attachment. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
+attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu.
<tag>print=<command></tag>
This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type.
-Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
+Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
<tag>edit=<command></tag>
This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type.
-Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
-new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined editor for text
+Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
+new attachments. Mutt-ng will default to the defined editor for text
attachments.
<tag>nametemplate=<template></tag>
This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion
rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the
-test passed, and Mutt uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
-then the test failed, and Mutt continues searching for the right entry.
-<bf/Note:/ <em>the content-type must match before Mutt performs the test.</em>
+test passed, and Mutt-ng uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
+then the test failed, and Mutt-ng continues searching for the right entry.
+<bf/Note:/ <em>the content-type must match before Mutt-ng performs the test.</em>
For example:
<tscreen><verb>
text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
text/html; lynx %s
</verb></tscreen>
-In this example, Mutt will run the program RunningX which will return 0
+In this example, Mutt-ng will run the program RunningX which will return 0
if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If
-RunningX returns 0, then Mutt will call netscape to display the
-text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt will go on
+RunningX returns 0, then Mutt-ng will call netscape to display the
+text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt-ng will go on
to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html object.
</descrip>
-<sect3>Search Order
+<sect2>Search Order
<p>
-When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt will search for
+When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for
the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
attempting to print an <tt>image/gif</tt>, and you have the following
-entries in your mailcap file, Mutt will search for an entry with the
+entries in your mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for an entry with the
print command:
<tscreen><verb>
image/*; xv %s
image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
nametemplate=%s.gif
</verb></tscreen>
-Mutt will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt>
+Mutt-ng will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt>
entry with the print command.
In addition, you can use this with <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">
text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
</verb></tscreen>
-For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt will choose the third
+For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt-ng will choose the third
entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt
will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first
-entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt will use the second entry
+entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt-ng will use the second entry
for interactive viewing.
-<sect3>Command Expansion
+<sect2>Command Expansion
<p>
The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
<tt>/bin/sh</tt> shell using the system() function. Before the
command is passed to <tt>/bin/sh -c</tt>, it is parsed to expand
-various special parameters with information from Mutt. The keywords
-Mutt expands are:
+various special parameters with information from Mutt-ng. The keywords
+Mutt-ng expands are:
<descrip>
<tag/%s/
As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded
to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
-use of this keyword causes Mutt to not pass the body of the message
+use of this keyword causes Mutt-ng to not pass the body of the message
to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
<tag/%t/
-Mutt will expand %t to the text representation of the content
+Mutt-ng will expand %t to the text representation of the content
type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
mailcap definition line, ie <tt>text/html</tt> or
<tt>image/gif</tt>.
<tag>%{<parameter>}</tag>
-Mutt will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
+Mutt-ng will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
Your mail message contains:
<tscreen><verb>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
</verb></tscreen>
-then Mutt will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
+then Mutt-ng will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm
using the right charset to view the message.
<tag>\%</tag>
This will be replaced by a %
</descrip>
-Mutt does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
+Mutt-ng does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
-multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt.
+multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt-ng.
-<sect2>Example mailcap files
+<sect1>Example mailcap files
<p>
This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
<code>
application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
</code>
-<sect1>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-In addition to explicitly telling Mutt to view an attachment with the
-MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt has support for
+In addition to explicitly telling Mutt-ng to view an attachment with the
+MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng has support for
automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz
</verb></tscreen>
-Mutt could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
+Mutt-ng could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
attachments of these types.
<tscreen><verb>
text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on size, etc.
``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
-<sect1>MIME Multipart/Alternative<label id="alternative_order">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>MIME Multipart/Alternative<label id="alternative_order"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
+Mutt-ng has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
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
Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
<ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view">, and use that. Failing
-that, Mutt will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt will
+that, Mutt-ng will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt will
look for any type it knows how to handle.
To remove a MIME type from the <tt/alternative_order/ list, use the
<tt/unalternative_order/ command.
-<sect1>MIME Lookup<label id="mime_lookup">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>MIME Lookup<label id="mime_lookup"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Mutt's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
+Mutt-ng's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed to
deal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an attachment's
mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the filename will
for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a global
muttrc.
-<sect>Reference
-<sect1>Command line options<label id="commandline">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Security Considerations <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>First of all, mutt-ng contains no security holes included by
+ intention but may contain unknown security holes. As a consequence,
+ please run mutt-ng only with as few permissions as possible.
+
+ <p>Please do not run mutt-ng as the super user.
+
+ <p>When configuring mutt-ng, there're some points to note about secure
+ setups.
+
+ <p>In practice, mutt-ng can be easily made as vulnerable as even the
+ most insecure mail user agents (in their default configuration) just
+ by changing mutt-ng's configuration files: it then can execute
+ arbitrary programs and scripts attached to messages, send out private
+ data on its own, etc. Although this is not believed to the common type
+ of setup, please read this chapter carefully.
+
+ <sect>Passwords <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Although mutt-ng can be told the various passwords for accounts,
+ please never store passwords in configuration files. Besides the
+ fact that the system's operator can always read them, you could
+ forget to replace the actual password with asterisks when reporting
+ a bug or asking for help via, for example, a mailing list so that
+ your mail including your password could be archived by internet
+ search engines, etc. Please never store passwords on disk.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>Temporary Files <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng uses many temporary files for viewing messages, verifying
+ digital signatures, etc. The <ref id="umask" name="$umask">
+ variable can be used to change the default permissions of these
+ files. Please only change it if you really know what you are doing.
+ Also, a different location for these files may be desired which can
+ be changed via the <ref id="tmpdir" name="$tmpdir"> variable.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>Information Leaks <!--{{{-->
+
+ <sect1>Message-ID: headers <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>In the default configuration, mutt-ng will leak some information
+ to the outside world when sending messages: the generation of
+ <tt/Message-ID:/ headers includes a step counter which is increased
+ (and rotated) with every message sent. If you'd like to hide this
+ information probably telling others how many mail you sent in which
+ time, you at least need to remove the <tt/%P/ expando from the
+ default setting of the <ref id="msgid_format"
+ name="$msgid_format"> variable. Please make sure that
+ you really know how local parts of these <tt/Message-ID:/ headers
+ are composed.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>mailto:-style links <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>As mutt-ng be can be set up to be the mail client to handle
+ <tt/mailto:/ style links in websites, there're security
+ considerations, too. To keep the old behavior by default, mutt-ng
+ will be strict in interpreting them which means that arbitrary
+ header fields can be embedded in these links which could override
+ existing header fields or attach arbitrary files. This may be
+ problematic if the <ref id="edit_headers"
+ name="$edit_headers"> variable is <em/unset/, i.e. the
+ user doesn't want to see header fields while editing the message.
+
+ <p>For example, following a link like
+
+ <verb>
+mailto:joe@host?Attach=~/.gnupg/secring.gpg</verb>
+
+ will send out the user's private gnupg keyring to <tt/joe@host/ if
+ the user doesn't follow the information on screen carefully
+ enough.
+
+ <p>When <em/unsetting/ the <ref id="strict_mailto"
+ name="$strict_mailto"> variable, mutt-ng will
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>be less strict when interpreting these links by
+ prepending a <tt/X-Mailto-/ string to all header fields
+ embedded in such a link <em/and/
+
+ <item>turn on the <ref id="edit_headers"
+ name="$edit_headers"> variable by
+ force to let the user see all the headers
+ (because they still may leak information.)
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect>External applications <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Mutt-ng in many places has to rely on external applications or
+ for convenience supports mechanisms involving external
+ applications.
+
+ <sect1>mailcap <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>One of these is the <tt/mailcap/ mechanism as defined by RfC
+ 1524. Mutt-ng can be set up to <em/automatically/ execute any
+ given utility as listed in one of the mailcap files (see the
+ <ref id="mailcap_path" name="$mailcap_path">
+ variable for details.)
+
+ These utilities may have a variety of security vulnerabilities,
+ including overwriting of arbitrary files, information leaks or
+ other exploitable bugs. These vulnerabilities may go unnoticed by
+ the user, especially when they are called automatically (and
+ without interactive prompting) from the mailcap file(s). When
+ using mutt-ng's autoview mechanism in combination with mailcap
+ files, please be sure to...
+
+ <itemize>
+
+ <item>manually select trustworth applications with a reasonable
+ calling sequence
+
+ <item>periodically check the contents of mailcap files,
+ especially after software installations or upgrades
+
+ <item>keep the software packages referenced in the mailcap file up to date
+
+ <item>leave the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
+ name="$mailcap_sanitize"> variable in its default
+ state to restrict mailcap expandos to a safe set of characters
+
+ </itemize>
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <sect1>Other <!--{{{-->
+
+ <p>Besides the mailcap mechanism, mutt-ng uses a number of other
+ external utilities for operation.
+
+ <p>The same security considerations apply for these as for tools
+ involved via mailcap (for example, mutt-ng is vulnerable to Denial
+ of Service Attacks with compressed folders support if the
+ uncompressed mailbox is too large for the disk it is saved to.)
+
+ <p>As already noted, most of these problems are not built in but
+ caused by wrong configuration, so please check your configuration.
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+ <!--}}}-->
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<chapt>Reference <!--{{{-->
+
+<sect>Command line options<label id="commandline"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
-Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt attempt to read your spool
+Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt-ng attempt to read your spool
mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and
to send messages from the command line as well.
<tscreen><verb>
--A expand an alias
+-A expand an alias
-a attach a file to a message
-b specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address
-c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address
+-D print the value of all variables on stdout
-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 specify a draft file from which to read a header and body
-i specify a file to include in a message composition
-m specify a default mailbox type
--n do not read the system Muttrc
+-n do not read the system Muttngrc
-p recall a postponed message
-Q query a configuration variable
-R open mailbox in read-only mode
<tt/mutt/ [ -n ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -a <em/file/ ] [ -c <em/address/ ] [ -i <em/filename/ ] [ -s <em/subject/ ] <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ]
-Mutt also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect
+Mutt-ng also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect
input from the file you wish to send. For example,
<tt>mutt -s &dquot;data set for run #2&dquot; professor@bigschool.edu
of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the contents
of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
-<sect1>Configuration Commands<label id="commands">
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Patterns<label id="patterns"> <!--{{{-->
+
+<p>
+<tscreen><verb>
+~A all messages
+~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body
+~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
+~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER
+~C EXPR message is either to: or cc: EXPR
+~D deleted messages
+~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
+~E expired messages
+~e EXPR message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
+~F flagged messages
+~f USER messages originating from USER
+~g cryptographically signed messages
+~G cryptographically encrypted messages
+~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR
+~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
+~k message contains PGP key material
+~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
+~L EXPR message is either originated or received by EXPR
+~l message is addressed to a known mailing list
+~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX *)
+~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
+~N new messages
+~O old messages
+~p message is addressed to you (consults alternates)
+~P message is from you (consults alternates)
+~Q messages which have been replied to
+~R read messages
+~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
+~S superseded messages
+~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
+~T tagged messages
+~t USER messages addressed to USER
+~U unread messages
+~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
+~V cryptographically verified messages
+~w EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `Newsgroups' field
+ (if compiled with NNTP support)
+~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
+~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
+~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)
+~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
+~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)
+~* ``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid
+ address (excluded are addresses matching against
+ alternates or any alias)
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are
+<ref id="regexp" name="regular expressions">. Special attention has to be
+made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
+Mutt-ng's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (\),
+which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
+backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes
+instead (\\).
+
+*) The forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>[MIN]/,
+<tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
+are allowed, too.
+
+<!--}}}-->
+
+<sect>Configuration Commands<label id="commands"> <!--{{{-->
<p>
The following are the commands understood by mutt.
<tt><ref id="unhook" name="unhook"></tt> <em/hook-type/
</itemize>
-<sect1>Configuration variables<label id="variables">
+<sect>Configuration variables<label id="variables">
+
+<p>The following list contains all variables which, in the process of
+providing more consistency, have been renamed and are partially even
+removed already. The left column contains the old synonym variables,
+the right column the full/new name:
+
+<label id="sect_obsolete">
+<tscreen><verb>
+edit_hdrs edit_headers
+forw_decode forward_decode
+forw_format forward_format
+forw_quote forward_quote
+hdr_format index_format
+indent_str indent_string
+mime_fwd mime_forward
+msg_format message_format
+pgp_autosign crypt_autosign
+pgp_autoencrypt crypt_autoencrypt
+pgp_replyencrypt crypt_replyencrypt
+pgp_replysign crypt_replysign
+pgp_replysignencrypted crypt_replysignencrypted
+pgp_verify_sig crypt_verify_sig
+pgp_create_traditional pgp_autoinline
+pgp_auto_traditional pgp_replyinline
+forw_decrypt forward_decrypt
+smime_sign_as smime_default_key
+post_indent_str post_indent_string
+print_cmd print_command
+shorten_hierarchy sidebar_shorten_hierarchy
+ask_followup_to nntp_ask_followup_to
+ask_x_comment_to nntp_ask_x_comment_to
+catchup_newsgroup nntp_catchup
+followup_to_poster nntp_followup_to_poster
+group_index_format nntp_group_index_format
+inews nntp_inews
+mime_subject nntp_mime_subject
+news_cache_dir nntp_cache_dir
+news_server nntp_host
+newsrc nntp_newsrc
+nntp_poll nntp_mail_check
+pop_checkinterval pop_mail_check
+post_moderated nntp_post_moderated
+save_unsubscribed nntp_save_unsubscribed
+show_new_news nntp_show_new_news
+show_only_unread nntp_show_only_unread
+x_comment_to nntp_x_comment_to
+smtp_auth_username smtp_user
+smtp_auth_password smtp_pass
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+The <tt/contrib/ subdirectory contains a script named
+<tt/update-config.pl/ which eases migration.
+
+A complete list of current variables follows.
+
<p>
projects / apps / madmutt.git / blobdiff