X-Git-Url: http://git.madism.org/?p=apps%2Fmadmutt.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fmanual.txt;h=9e59608d27c52afdce8c30e588365a65496a1f30;hp=c127ae9e7a40b9a14646ea342b0c2c51f499d531;hb=7132fe3b1612c153f3638d1f9664ba9eab9063d6;hpb=68e9c3fe5664c1e13093e24dd15415ac000af70c diff --git a/doc/manual.txt b/doc/manual.txt index c127ae9..9e59608 100644 --- a/doc/manual.txt +++ b/doc/manual.txt @@ -1,16 +1,20 @@ - TThhee MMuutttt--nngg EE--MMaaiill CClliieenntt + TThhee MMuutttt NNeexxtt GGeenneerraattiioonn EE--MMaaiill CClliieenntt - by Michael Elkins and others. + by Andreas Krennmair and others + originally based on _m_u_t_t by Michael Elkins and others - version 1.5.9 + version devel-r471 AAbbssttrraacctt - ``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!'' _1_. _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_i_o_n + _1_._1 _O_v_e_r_v_i_e_w + MMuutttt--nngg is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng is highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular expression @@ -24,39 +28,39 @@ Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk about Mutt and not Mutt- ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many more. - _1_._1 _M_u_t_t_-_n_g _H_o_m_e _P_a_g_e + _1_._2 _M_u_t_t_-_n_g _H_o_m_e _P_a_g_e http://www.muttng.org - _1_._2 _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _L_i_s_t_s + _1_._3 _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _L_i_s_t_s +o mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de -- This is where the mutt-ng user support happens. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 1 + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 2 + +o mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de -- The development mailing list for mutt-ng - _1_._3 _S_o_f_t_w_a_r_e _D_i_s_t_r_i_b_u_t_i_o_n _S_i_t_e_s + _1_._4 _S_o_f_t_w_a_r_e _D_i_s_t_r_i_b_u_t_i_o_n _S_i_t_e_s So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download daily snapshots from http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/ - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 1 - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 2 - - _1_._4 _I_R_C + _1_._5 _I_R_C Visit channel _#_m_u_t_t_n_g on irc.freenode.net (www.freenode.net) to chat with other people interested in Mutt-ng. - _1_._5 _W_e_b_l_o_g + _1_._6 _W_e_b_l_o_g 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 Mutt-ng development weblog. - _1_._6 _C_o_p_y_r_i_g_h_t + _1_._7 _C_o_p_y_r_i_g_h_t Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins and others @@ -75,28 +79,204 @@ _2_. _G_e_t_t_i_n_g _S_t_a_r_t_e_d - This section is intended as a brief overview of how to use Mutt-ng. 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 - Mutt Page for more details. --> + _2_._1 _B_a_s_i_c _C_o_n_c_e_p_t_s + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 3 + + _2_._1_._1 _S_c_r_e_e_n_s _a_n_d _M_e_n_u_s + + mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special purpose: + + +o The _i_n_d_e_x displays the contents of the currently opened mailbox. + + +o The _p_a_g_e_r is responsible for displaying messages, that is, the header, the + body and all attached parts. + + +o The _f_i_l_e _b_r_o_w_s_e_r offers operations on and displays information of all + folders mutt-ng should watch for mail. + + +o The _s_i_d_e_b_a_r offers a permanent view of which mailboxes contain how many + total, new and/or flagged mails. + + +o The _h_e_l_p _s_c_r_e_e_n lists for all currently available commands how to invoke + them as well as a short description. + + +o The _c_o_m_p_o_s_e menu is a comfortable interface take last actions before send- + ing mail: change subjects, attach files, remove attachements, etc. + + +o The _a_t_t_a_c_h_e_m_e_n_t menu gives a summary and the tree structure of the + attachements of the current message. + + +o The _a_l_i_a_s menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases a user has defined. + + +o The _k_e_y menu used in connection with encryption lets users choose the + right key to encrypt with. + + When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open the users + default mailbox and display the index. + + _2_._1_._2 _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n + + Mutt-ng does _n_o_t feature an internal configuration interface or menu due to the + simple fact that this would be too complex to handle (currently there are sev- + eral _h_u_n_d_r_e_d variables which fine-tune the behaviour.) + + Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow users to add com- + ments or manage them via version control systems to ease maintenance. + + Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named 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 contrib directory. + + _2_._1_._3 _F_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s + + 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 + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 4 + + 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. + + _2_._1_._4 _I_n_t_e_r_a_c_t_i_o_n + + Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction: + + 1. There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query the user for + input, issue any command, query variables and display error and informa- + tional messages. As for every type of user input, this requires manual + action leading to the need of input. + + 2. The automatized interface for interaction are the so called _h_o_o_k_s. Hooks + specify actions the user wants to be performed at well-defined situa- + tions: 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. + + _2_._1_._5 _M_o_d_u_l_a_r_i_z_a_t_i_o_n + + Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many features can be dele- + gated 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. - 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. + _2_._1_._6 _P_a_t_t_e_r_n_s - The first thing you need to do is invoke mutt-ng simply by typing muttng at the - command line. There are various command-line options, see either the muttng - man page or the _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 6.1 , page 62). + 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. - If you have used mutt in the past the easiest thing to have a proper configura- - tion file is to source /.muttrc in /.muttngrc. + _2_._2 _S_c_r_e_e_n_s _a_n_d _M_e_n_u_s - _2_._1 _M_o_v_i_n_g _A_r_o_u_n_d _i_n _M_e_n_u_s + _2_._2_._1 _I_n_d_e_x - Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table show- - ing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt. + 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 - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 3 + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 5 + + 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. Addi- + tionally, 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. + + _2_._2_._2 _P_a_g_e_r + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + _2_._2_._3 _F_i_l_e _B_r_o_w_s_e_r + + 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, limit- + ing 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. + + _2_._2_._4 _S_i_d_e_b_a_r + + 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 dif- + ferent 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. + + _2_._2_._5 _H_e_l_p + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 6 + + The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It lists the cur- + rent configuration of key bindings and their associated commands including a + short description, and currently unbound functions that still need to be asso- + ciated with a key binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the mutt-ng + command prompt). + + _2_._2_._6 _C_o_m_p_o_s_e _M_e_n_u + + 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. + + Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to a message, to re- + edit any attachment including the message itself. + + _2_._2_._7 _A_l_i_a_s _M_e_n_u + + 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 nick- + name, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select each single recipi- + ent manually. + + _2_._2_._8 _A_t_t_a_c_h_m_e_n_t _M_e_n_u + + 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. + + _2_._2_._9 _K_e_y _M_e_n_u + + FIXME + + _2_._3 _M_o_v_i_n_g _A_r_o_u_n_d _i_n _M_e_n_u_s + + Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 7 + + showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng. j or Down next-entry move to the next entry k or Up previous-entry move to the previous entry @@ -107,7 +287,7 @@ q quit exit the current menu ? help list all key bindings for the current menu - _2_._2 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _I_n_p_u_t _F_i_e_l_d_s + _2_._4 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _I_n_p_u_t _F_i_e_l_d_s 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 @@ -123,7 +303,7 @@ 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 @@ -136,24 +316,24 @@ ^G n/a abort n/a finish editing - You can remap the _e_d_i_t_o_r functions using the _b_i_n_d (section 3.3 , page 17) com- + You can remap the _e_d_i_t_o_r functions using the _b_i_n_d (section 3.5 , page 27) com- mand. For example, to make the _D_e_l_e_t_e key delete the character in front of the cursor rather than under, you could use bind editor backspace - _2_._3 _R_e_a_d_i_n_g _M_a_i_l _- _T_h_e _I_n_d_e_x _a_n_d _P_a_g_e_r + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 8 + + _2_._5 _R_e_a_d_i_n_g _M_a_i_l _- _T_h_e _I_n_d_e_x _a_n_d _P_a_g_e_r Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is read in Mutt-ng. 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 message contents. - This is called the ``pager.'' - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 4 + the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display of the message con- + tents. This is called the ``pager.'' The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these modes. - _2_._3_._1 _T_h_e _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _I_n_d_e_x + _2_._5_._1 _T_h_e _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _I_n_d_e_x c change to a different mailbox ESC c change to a folder in read-only mode @@ -185,7 +365,7 @@ ^L clear and redraw the screen ^T untag messages matching a pattern - _2_._3_._1_._1 _S_t_a_t_u_s _F_l_a_g_s + _2_._5_._1_._1 _S_t_a_t_u_s _F_l_a_g_s In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number. Zero or more @@ -197,14 +377,14 @@ d message have attachments marked for deletion + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 9 + K contains a PGP public key N message is new - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 5 - O message is old @@ -233,7 +413,7 @@ +o cclleeaarr--ffllaagg (default: W) Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed to. They - can be customized with the _$_t_o___c_h_a_r_s (section 6.3.313 , page 141) variable. + can be customized with the _$_t_o___c_h_a_r_s (section 7.4.339 , page 172) variable. + message is to you and you only @@ -250,14 +430,15 @@ L message is sent to a subscribed mailing list - _2_._3_._2 _T_h_e _P_a_g_e_r + _2_._5_._2 _T_h_e _P_a_g_e_r By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 10 + The pager is very similar to the Unix program _l_e_s_s though not nearly as fea- tureful. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 6 - go down one line display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message) - go back to the previous page @@ -280,7 +461,7 @@ letter again for bold or the letter, backspace, ``_'' 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 _c_o_l_o_r - (section 3.7 , page 21) objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them. + (section 3.9 , page 31) objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them. Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for charac- ter attributes. Mutt-ng translates them into the correct color and character @@ -306,18 +487,17 @@ 6 cyan 7 white - Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they can - also be used by an external _a_u_t_o_v_i_e_w (section 5.4 , page 60) script for high- - lighting purposes. NNoottee:: If you change the colors for your display, for - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 7 + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 11 - example by changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm, then that + Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they can + also be used by an external _a_u_t_o_v_i_e_w (section 5.4 , page 79) script for high- + lighting purposes. NNoottee:: If you change the colors for your display, for exam- + ple by changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green. - _2_._3_._3 _T_h_r_e_a_d_e_d _M_o_d_e + _2_._5_._3 _T_h_r_e_a_d_e_d _M_o_d_e - When the mailbox is _s_o_r_t_e_d (section 6.3.285 , page 133) by _t_h_r_e_a_d_s, there are + When the mailbox is _s_o_r_t_e_d (section 7.4.307 , page 163) by _t_h_r_e_a_d_s, there are a few additional functions available in the _i_n_d_e_x and _p_a_g_e_r modes. ^D delete-thread delete all messages in the current thread @@ -338,40 +518,41 @@ NNoottee:: Collapsing a thread displays only the first message in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads on the screen. See %M in _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (sec- - tion 6.3.112 , page 91). For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in - _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.112 , page 91) to optionally display the number of + tion 7.4.116 , page 116). For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in + _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.116 , page 116) to optionally display the number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed. - See also: _$_s_t_r_i_c_t___t_h_r_e_a_d_s (section 6.3.302 , page 139). + See also: _$_s_t_r_i_c_t___t_h_r_e_a_d_s (section 7.4.328 , page 170). - _2_._3_._4 _M_i_s_c_e_l_l_a_n_e_o_u_s _F_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s + _2_._5_._4 _M_i_s_c_e_l_l_a_n_e_o_u_s _F_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s ccrreeaattee--aalliiaass (default: a) Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a new one). - Once editing is complete, an _a_l_i_a_s (section 3.2 , page 16) command is added to - the file specified by the _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 6.3.3 , page 65) variable for - future use. NNoottee:: Specifying an _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 6.3.3 , page 65) does not - add the aliases specified there-in, you must also _s_o_u_r_c_e (section 3.26 , page - 32) the file. + Once editing is complete, an _a_l_i_a_s (section 3.4 , page 26) command is added to + the file specified by the _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 7.4.5 , page 90) variable for + future use. NNoottee:: Specifying an _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 7.4.5 , page 90) does not + add the aliases specified there-in, you must also _s_o_u_r_c_e (section 3.29 , page + 46) the file. cchheecckk--ttrraaddiittiioonnaall--ppggpp (default: ESC P) This function will search the current message for content signed or encrypted - with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper MIME tagging. Techni- - cally, this function will temporarily change the MIME content types of the body - parts containing PGP data; this is similar to the _e_d_i_t_-_t_y_p_e (section 2.3.4 , - page 8) function's effect. + with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper MIME tagging. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 12 - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 8 + Technically, this function will temporarily change the MIME content types of + the body parts containing PGP data; this is similar to the _e_d_i_t_-_t_y_p_e (section + 2.5.4 , page 12) function's effect. ddiissppllaayy--ttooggggllee--wweeeedd (default: h) Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by _i_g_n_o_r_e (section - 3.8 , page 23) commands. + 3.10 , page 33) commands. eeddiitt (default: e) @@ -389,12 +570,12 @@ This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content type to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the opportunity to edit the top-level attachment's - content type. On the _a_t_t_a_c_h_m_e_n_t _m_e_n_u (section 5.1.2 , page 53), you can + content type. On the _a_t_t_a_c_h_m_e_n_t _m_e_n_u (section 5.1.2 , page 71), you can change any attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get lost upon changing folders. Note that this command is also available on the _c_o_m_p_o_s_e _m_e_n_u (section 5.1.3 , - page 53). There, it's used to fine-tune the properties of attachments you are + page 72). There, it's used to fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send. eenntteerr--ccoommmmaanndd @@ -402,7 +583,7 @@ This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a config- uration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or in con- - junction with _m_a_c_r_o_s (section 3.6 , page 20) to change settings on the fly. + junction with _m_a_c_r_o_s (section 3.8 , page 30) to change settings on the fly. eexxttrraacctt--kkeeyyss (default: ^K) @@ -416,16 +597,15 @@ This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if you mis- spelled the passphrase. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 13 + lliisstt--rreeppllyy (default: L) Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 9 - - match the regular expressions given by the _l_i_s_t_s _o_r _s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e (section 3.10 , - page 24) commands, but also honor any Mail-Followup-To header(s) if the - _$_h_o_n_o_r___f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 6.3.91 , page 86) configuration variable is set. + match the regular expressions given by the _l_i_s_t_s _o_r _s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e (section 3.13 , + page 36) commands, but also honor any Mail-Followup-To header(s) if the + _$_h_o_n_o_r___f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 7.4.94 , page 111) configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted to mailing lists helps avoid dupli- cate copies being sent to the author of the message you are replying to. @@ -433,9 +613,9 @@ (default: |) Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or tagged message(s) to - it. The variables _$_p_i_p_e___d_e_c_o_d_e (section 6.3.192 , page 112), _$_p_i_p_e___s_p_l_i_t - (section 6.3.194 , page 112), _$_p_i_p_e___s_e_p (section 6.3.193 , page 112) and - _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 6.3.325 , page 144) control the exact behavior of this + it. The variables _$_p_i_p_e___d_e_c_o_d_e (section 7.4.216 , page 142), _$_p_i_p_e___s_p_l_i_t + (section 7.4.218 , page 142), _$_p_i_p_e___s_e_p (section 7.4.217 , page 142) and + _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 7.4.350 , page 174) control the exact behavior of this function. rreesseenndd--mmeessssaaggee @@ -445,7 +625,7 @@ message. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while preserving the orig- inal mail structure. Note that the amount of headers included here depends on - the value of the _$_w_e_e_d (section 6.3.326 , page 144) variable. + the value of the _$_w_e_e_d (section 7.4.351 , page 175) variable. This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message as a mes- @@ -455,14 +635,14 @@ (default: !) Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section - 6.3.325 , page 144) can be used to control whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key + 7.4.350 , page 174) can be used to control 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. ttooggggllee--qquuootteedd (default: T) - The _p_a_g_e_r uses the _$_q_u_o_t_e___r_e_g_e_x_p (section 6.3.218 , page 118) variable to + The _p_a_g_e_r uses the _$_q_u_o_t_e___r_e_g_e_x_p (section 7.4.241 , page 147) variable to detect quoted text when displaying the body of the message. This function tog- gles the display of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of @@ -474,11 +654,11 @@ This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come after a line of quoted text in the internal pager. - _2_._4 _S_e_n_d_i_n_g _M_a_i_l + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 14 - The following bindings are available in the _i_n_d_e_x for sending messages. + _2_._6 _S_e_n_d_i_n_g _M_a_i_l - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 10 + The following bindings are available in the _i_n_d_e_x for sending messages. m compose compose a new message r reply reply to sender @@ -491,32 +671,65 @@ Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you specify. For- warding a message allows you to add comments or modify the message you are for- warding. These items are discussed in greater detail in the next chapter - _`_`_F_o_r_w_a_r_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _B_o_u_n_c_i_n_g _M_a_i_l_'_' (section 2.5 , page 13). - - Mutt-ng will then enter the _c_o_m_p_o_s_e 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 _$_a_s_k_c_c (section 6.3.12 , page 67), _$_a_s_k_b_c_c (section - 6.3.11 , page 67), _$_a_u_t_o_e_d_i_t (section 6.3.19 , page 69), _$_b_o_u_n_c_e (section - 6.3.22 , page 70), and _$_f_a_s_t___r_e_p_l_y (section 6.3.61 , page 78) for changing - how Mutt asks these questions. - - Mutt will then automatically start your _$_e_d_i_t_o_r (section 6.3.57 , page 77) on - the message body. If the _$_e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s (section 6.3.56 , page 77) variable is - set, the headers will be at the top of the message in your editor. Any mes- - sages you are replying to will be added in sort order to the message, with - appropriate _$_a_t_t_r_i_b_u_t_i_o_n (section 6.3.17 , page 69), _$_i_n_d_e_n_t___s_t_r_i_n_g (section - 6.3.111 , page 90) and _$_p_o_s_t___i_n_d_e_n_t___s_t_r_i_n_g (section 6.3.204 , page 115). - When forwarding a message, if the _$_m_i_m_e___f_o_r_w_a_r_d (section 6.3.139 , page 98) - variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If you - have specified a _$_s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e (section 6.3.255 , page 126), it will be appended - to the message. + _`_`_F_o_r_w_a_r_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _B_o_u_n_c_i_n_g _M_a_i_l_'_' (section 2.7 , page 20). + + _2_._6_._1 _C_o_m_p_o_s_i_n_g _n_e_w _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s + + When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press m on your keyboard. + Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in the last line: + + To: + + 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 ",". 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. + + The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you can e.g. set it + in the mutt-ng configuration: + + set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'" + set editor = "nano" + set editor = "emacs" + + If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng first + looks whether the environment variable $VISUAL is set, and if so, it takes its + value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look at $EDITOR and takes its + value if it is set. If no editor command can be found, mutt-ng simply assumes + 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. + + 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 Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 15 + + the reply-to address, and optionally information where the sent email will be + stored and whether it should be digitally signed and/or encrypted. + + 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. + + At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing a, you can edit the + recipient addresses, pressing t for the "To:" field, c for the "Cc:" field, and + b for the "Bcc: field. You can also edit the subject the subject by simply + pressing s or the email message that you've entered before by pressing e. You + will then again return to the editor. You can even edit the sender, by pressing + f, but this shall only be used with caution. + + Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the above set- + tings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only need to add the fol- + lowing to your configuration: + + set edit_headers Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are returned to the _c_o_m_p_o_s_e menu. The following options are available: - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 11 - a attach-file attach a file A attach-message attach message(s) to the message ESC k attach-key attach a PGP public key @@ -542,10 +755,90 @@ sages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and they will be attached to the message you are sending. Note that certain operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are not permitted when you are in that - folder. The %r in _$_s_t_a_t_u_s___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.299 , page 137) will change to a + folder. The %r in _$_s_t_a_t_u_s___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.324 , page 167) will change to a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode. - _2_._4_._1 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _t_h_e _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _h_e_a_d_e_r + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 16 + + _2_._6_._2 _R_e_p_l_y_i_n_g + + _2_._6_._2_._1 _S_i_m_p_l_e _R_e_p_l_i_e_s + + When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index menu and + then press 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. + + 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. + + You can start editing the email message. It is strongly recommended to put your + answer _b_e_l_o_w 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. + + The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to + + set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:" + + It can also be set to something more compact, e.g. + + set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:" + + The example above results in the following attribution: + + * Michael Svensson [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. + + Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet information-rich. It is _n_o_t + 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. + + 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 + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 17 + + before. + + _2_._6_._2_._2 _G_r_o_u_p _R_e_p_l_i_e_s + + 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:" recipi- + ents. The group reply functionality ensures that when you press g instead of r + to do a reply, each and every recipient that is contained in the original mes- + sage will receive a copy of the message, either as normal recipient or as "Cc:" + recipient. + + _2_._6_._2_._3 _L_i_s_t _R_e_p_l_i_e_s + + When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your reply to a mes- + sage only to the list instead of the list and the original author. To make this + easy to use, mutt-ng features list replies. + + To do a list reply, simply press L. If the email contains a 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 lists command. If + any of the regular expression matches, a mailing list address has been found, + and it will be used as reply address. + + lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@ + + Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a Mail-Followup-To: + header to their emails anyway, so setting lists is hardly ever necessary in + practice. + + _2_._6_._3 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _t_h_e _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _h_e_a_d_e_r When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of special features available. @@ -554,39 +847,39 @@ Fcc: _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e - Mutt will pick up _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e just as if you had used the _e_d_i_t_-_f_c_c function in the - _c_o_m_p_o_s_e menu. + Mutt-ng will pick up _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e just as if you had used the _e_d_i_t_-_f_c_c function in + the _c_o_m_p_o_s_e menu. You can also attach files to your message by specifying + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 18 + Attach: _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e [ _d_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n ] where _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e is the file to attach and _d_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n is an optional string to use as the description of the attached file. When replying to messages, if you remove the _I_n_-_R_e_p_l_y_-_T_o_: field from the header - field, Mutt will not generate a _R_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e_s_: field, which allows you to create a - new message thread. + field, Mutt-ng will not generate a _R_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e_s_: field, which allows you to cre- + ate a new message thread. - Also see _e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s (section 6.3.56 , page 77). + Also see _e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s (section 7.4.59 , page 103). - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 12 - - _2_._4_._2 _U_s_i_n_g _M_u_t_t _w_i_t_h _P_G_P + _2_._6_._4 _U_s_i_n_g _M_u_t_t_-_n_g _w_i_t_h _P_G_P If you want to use PGP, you can specify Pgp: [ E | S | S_<_i_d_> ] ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and ``S'' signs with the given key, setting - _$_p_g_p___s_i_g_n___a_s (section 6.3.184 , page 110) permanently. + _$_p_g_p___s_i_g_n___a_s (section 7.4.208 , page 140) permanently. If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you through a key - selection process when you try to send the message. Mutt will not ask you any - questions about keys which have a certified user ID matching one of the message - recipients' mail addresses. However, there may be situations in which there - are several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching keys - can be found. + selection process when you try to send the message. Mutt-ng will not ask you + any questions about keys which have a certified user ID matching one of the + message recipients' mail addresses. However, there may be situations in which + there are several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching + keys can be found. In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't find any matching keys, @@ -597,7 +890,7 @@ encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out. Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also _$_p_g_p___e_n_t_r_y___f_o_r_- - _m_a_t (section 6.3.171 , page 107)) have obvious meanings. But some explana- + _m_a_t (section 7.4.195 , page 137)) have obvious meanings. But some explana- tions on the capabilities, flags, and validity fields are in order. The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following flags: @@ -612,6 +905,9 @@ key's capabilities. The first character gives the key's encryption capabili- ties: A minus sign (--) means that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (..) means that it's marked as a signature key in one of the user IDs, but may + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 19 + also be used for encryption. The letter ee indicates that this key can be used for encryption. @@ -625,9 +921,7 @@ untrusted association, a space character means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (++) indicates complete validity. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 13 - - _2_._4_._3 _S_e_n_d_i_n_g _a_n_o_n_y_m_o_u_s _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s _v_i_a _m_i_x_m_a_s_t_e_r_. + _2_._6_._5 _S_e_n_d_i_n_g _a_n_o_n_y_m_o_u_s _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s _v_i_a _m_i_x_m_a_s_t_e_r You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages anonymously using a @@ -637,7 +931,7 @@ called 2.9b23. To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most important, you can- - not use the Cc and Bcc headers. To tell Mutt to use mixmaster, you have to + not use the Cc and Bcc headers. To tell 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 (larger) upper @@ -653,56 +947,69 @@ leave the menu, or accept them pressing (by default) the Return key. Note that different remailers do have different capabilities, indicated in the - %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see _$_m_i_x___e_n_t_r_y___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.143 , - page 99)). Most important is the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a cap- - ital ``M'': This means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the + %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see _$_m_i_x___e_n_t_r_y___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.146 , + page 125)). Most important is the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a + capital ``M'': This means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please have a look at the mixmaster documentation. - _2_._5 _F_o_r_w_a_r_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _B_o_u_n_c_i_n_g _M_a_i_l + _2_._7 _F_o_r_w_a_r_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _B_o_u_n_c_i_n_g _M_a_i_l - Bouncing and forwarding let you send an existing message to recipients that you - specify. Bouncing a message uses the _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l (section 6.3.241 , page 123) - 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 com- - ments). + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 20 - The following keys are bound by default: + Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people. Therefore, mutt-ng + supports forwarding messages in two different ways. - f forward forward message - b bounce bounce (remail) message + The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from other mail + clients. You simply press 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: + + ----- Forwarded message from Lucas User ----- + + From: Lucas User + Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100 + To: Michael Random + Subject: Re: blackmail - 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 _$_m_i_m_e___f_o_r_w_a_r_d (section 6.3.139 , page 98) vari- - able. Decoding of attachments, like in the pager, can be controlled by the - _$_f_o_r_w_a_r_d___d_e_c_o_d_e (section 6.3.71 , page 81) and _$_m_i_m_e___f_o_r_w_a_r_d___d_e_c_o_d_e (section + Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die + a horrible death. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 14 + ----- End forwarded message ----- - 6.3.140 , page 99) variables, respectively. The desired forwarding format may - depend on the content, therefore _$_m_i_m_e___f_o_r_w_a_r_d is a quadoption which, for exam- - ple, can be set to ``ask-no''. + 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. - The inclusion of headers is controlled by the current setting of the _$_w_e_e_d - (section 6.3.326 , page 144) variable, unless _m_i_m_e___f_o_r_w_a_r_d (section 6.3.139 , - page 98) is set. + The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the so-called _b_o_u_n_c_i_n_g: + when you bounce an email to another address, it will be sent in practically the + same format you send it (except for headers that are created during transport- + ing the message). To bounce a message, press b and enter the recipient email + address. By default, you are then asked whether you really want to bounce the + message to the specified recipient. If you answer with yes, the message will + then be bounced. - Editing the message to forward follows the same procedure as sending or reply- - ing to a message does. + To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it like a regular + email where he was Bcc: recipient. The only possibility to find out whether it + was a bounced email is to carefully study the email headers and to find out + which host really sent the email. - _2_._6 _P_o_s_t_p_o_n_i_n_g _M_a_i_l + _2_._8 _P_o_s_t_p_o_n_i_n_g _M_a_i_l At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have already begun to compose. When the _p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e_-_m_e_s_s_a_g_e function is used in the _c_o_m_p_o_s_e menu, the body of your message and attachments are stored in the mailbox specified by - the _$_p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e_d (section 6.3.207 , page 115) variable. This means that you can - recall the message even if you exit Mutt and then restart it at a later time. + the _$_p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e_d (section 7.4.230 , page 145) variable. This means that you can + recall the message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later + time. Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you _c_o_m_p_o_s_e a new message + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 21 + from the _i_n_d_e_x or _p_a_g_e_r you will be prompted if postponed messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the _p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e_d menu will pop up and you can select which message you would like to resume. @@ -712,54 +1019,33 @@ be in the same folder with the message you replied to for the status of the message to be updated. - See also the _$_p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e (section 6.3.206 , page 115) quad-option. - - _2_._7 _R_e_a_d_i_n_g _n_e_w_s _v_i_a _N_N_T_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 _N_N_T_P_S_E_R_V_E_R environment - variable. Like other news readers, info about subscribed newsgroups is saved - in file by _$_n_e_w_s_r_c (section 6.3.150 , page 102) variable. Article headers are - cached and can be loaded from file when newsgroup entered instead loading from - newsserver. + See also the _$_p_o_s_t_p_o_n_e (section 7.4.229 , page 145) quad-option. _3_. _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n + _3_._1 _L_o_c_a_t_i_o_n_s _o_f _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _F_i_l_e_s + 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 Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configu- - ration file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the - ``-n'' _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _l_i_n_e (section 6.1 , page 62) option is specified. This file is - typically /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc or /etc/Muttngrc, Mutt-ng users will - find this file in /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc or /etc/Muttngrc. Mutt will - next look for a file named .muttrc in your home directory, Mutt-ng will look - for .muttngrc. If this file does not exist and your home directory has a + 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'' _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _l_i_n_e (section 7.1 , page 83) option is specified. This + file is typically /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc or /etc/Muttngrc, Mutt-ng + users will find this file in /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc or /etc/Muttngrc. + Mutt will next look for a file named .muttrc in your home directory, Mutt-ng + will look for .muttngrc. If this file does not exist and your home directory + has a subdirectory named .mutt, mutt try to load a file named .muttng/muttngrc. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 15 + .muttrc (or .muttngrc for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will usually place + your _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s (section 7.3 , page 86) to configure Mutt-ng. - subdirectory named .mutt, mutt try to load a file named .muttng/muttngrc. + _3_._2 _B_a_s_i_c _S_y_n_t_a_x _o_f _I_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _F_i_l_e_s - .muttrc (or .muttngrc for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will usually place - your _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s (section 6.2 , page 62) to configure Mutt. - - 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 Muttrc-0.88 file in the system configuration directory, and you are run- - ning version 0.88 of mutt, this file will be sourced instead of the Muttrc - file. The same is true of the user configuration file, if you have a file - .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 .muttrc file. The version number - is the same which is visible using the ``-v'' _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _l_i_n_e (section 6.1 , page - 62) switch or using the show-version key (default: V) from the index menu. - - _3_._1 _S_y_n_t_a_x _o_f _I_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _F_i_l_e_s - - An initialization file consists of a series of _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s (section 6.2 , page - 62). Each line of the file may contain one or more commands. When multiple + An initialization file consists of a series of _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s (section 7.3 , page + 86). Each line of the file may contain one or more commands. When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (;). - set realname='Mutt user' ; ignore x- + set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x- The hash mark, or pound sign (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment @@ -767,13 +1053,16 @@ my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment - Single quotes (') and double quotes (') can be used to quote strings which con- - tain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two types - of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs, namely that a sin- - gle quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not interpreted for - shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next paragraph]), while double - quotes indicate a string for which should be evaluated. For example, backtics - are evaluated inside of double quotes, but nnoott for single quotes. + Single quotes (') and double quotes (') can be used to quote strings which + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 22 + + contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two + types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs, namely that + a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not interpreted + for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next paragraph]), while + double quotes indicate a string for which should be evaluated. For example, + backtics are evaluated inside of double quotes, but nnoott for single quotes. \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For exam- ple, if want to put quotes ``''' inside of a string, you can use ``\'' to force @@ -788,9 +1077,6 @@ provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of command names. Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a ``\'' at the - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 16 - end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a command split over multiple lines with only one ``#''. @@ -816,33 +1102,192 @@ which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own and thus is interpreted again. - It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an initial- - ization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in backquotes - (``). For example, + The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs. For a + complete list, see the _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 7.3 , page 86). + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 23 + + _3_._3 _E_x_p_a_n_s_i_o_n _w_i_t_h_i_n _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + + Besides just assign static content to variables, there's plenty of ways of + adding external and more or less dynamic content. + + _3_._3_._1 _C_o_m_m_a_n_d_s_' _O_u_t_p_u_t + + It is possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an initialization + file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in backquotes (``) as in, + for example: my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a` The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted before the line - is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented, only the + is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented, only the first line of output from the Unix command will be substituted. + _3_._3_._2 _E_n_v_i_r_o_n_m_e_n_t _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in shells like sh and - bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a ``$''. For example, + bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a ``$'' sign. For example, set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME - The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs. For a - complete list, see the _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 6.2 , page 62). + sets the _$_r_e_c_o_r_d (section 7.4.246 , page 148) variable to the string _+_s_e_n_t___o_n__ + and appends the value of the evironment variable $HOSTNAME. - _3_._2 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g_/_U_s_i_n_g _a_l_i_a_s_e_s + NNoottee:: There will be no warning if an environment variable is not defined. The + result will of the expansion will then be empty. - Usage: alias _k_e_y _a_d_d_r_e_s_s [ , _a_d_d_r_e_s_s, ... ] + _3_._3_._3 _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s - It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone you + As for environment variables, the values of all configuration variables as + string can be used in the same way, too. For example, + + set imap_home_namespace = $folder + + would set the value of _$_i_m_a_p___h_o_m_e___n_a_m_e_s_p_a_c_e (section 7.4.101 , page 113) to + the value to which _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 7.4.70 , page 105) is _c_u_r_r_e_n_t_l_y set to. + + NNoottee:: There're no logical links established in such cases so that the the value + for _$_i_m_a_p___h_o_m_e___n_a_m_e_s_p_a_c_e (section 7.4.101 , page 113) won't change even if + _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 7.4.70 , page 105) gets changed. + + NNoottee:: There will be no warning if a configuration variable is not defined or is + empty. The result will of the expansion will then be empty. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 24 + + _3_._3_._4 _S_e_l_f_-_D_e_f_i_n_e_d _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + + Mutt-ng flexibly allows users to define their own variables. To avoid conflicts + with the standard set and to prevent misleading error messages, there's a + reserved namespace for them: all user-defined variables must be prefixed with + user_ and can be used just like any ordinary configuration or environment vari- + able. + + For example, to view the manual, users can either define two macros like the + following + + macro generic "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual" + macro pager "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual" + + for generic, pager and index. The alternative is to define a custom variable + like so: + + set user_manualcmd = "!less -r /path/to_manual" + macro generic "$user_manualcmd" "Show manual" + macro pager "$user_manualcmd" "Show manual" + macro index "$user_manualcmd" "Show manual" + + to re-use the command sequence as in: + + macro index "$user_manualcmd | grep '\^[ ]\\+~. '" "Show Patterns" + + Using this feature, arbitrary sequences can be defined once and recalled and + reused where necessary. More advanced scenarios could include to save a vari- + able's value at the beginning of macro sequence and restore it at end. + + When the variable is first defined, the first value it gets assigned is also + the initial value to which it can be reset using the reset command. + + The complete removal is done via the unset keyword. + + After the following sequence: + + set user_foo = 42 + set user_foo = 666 + + the variable $user_foo has a current value of 666 and an initial of 42. The + query + + set ?user_foo + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 25 + + will show 666. After doing the reset via + + reset user_foo + + a following query will give 42 as the result. After unsetting it via + + unset user_foo + + any query or operation (except the noted expansion within other statements) + will lead to an error message. + + _3_._3_._5 _P_r_e_-_D_e_f_i_n_e_d _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + + In order to allow users to share one setup over a number of different machines + without having to change its contents, there's a number of pre-defined vari- + ables. These are prefixed with muttng_ and are read-only, i.e. they cannot be + set, unset or reset. The reference chapter lists all available variables. + + _P_l_e_a_s_e _c_o_n_s_u_l_t _t_h_e _l_o_c_a_l _c_o_p_y _o_f _y_o_u_r _m_a_n_u_a_l _f_o_r _t_h_e_i_r _v_a_l_u_e_s _a_s _t_h_e_y _m_a_y _d_i_f_- + _f_e_r _f_r_o_m _d_i_f_f_e_r_e_n_t _m_a_n_u_a_l _s_o_u_r_c_e_s_. Where the manual is installed in can be + queried (already using such a variable) by running: + + muttng -Q muttng_docdir + + To extend the example for viewing the manual via self-defined variables, it can + be made more readable and more portable by changing the real path in: + + set user_manualcmd = '!less -r /path/to_manual' + + to: + + set user_manualcmd = "!less -r $muttng_docdir/manual.txt" + + which works everywhere if a manual is installed. + + Please note that by the type of quoting, muttng determines when to expand these + values: when it finds double quotes, the value will be expanded during reading + the setup files but when it finds single quotes, it'll expand it at runtime as + needed. + + For example, the statement + + folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name" + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 26 + + will be already be translated to the following when reading the startup files: + + folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = some_folder" + + with some_folder being the name of the first folder muttng opens. On the con- + trary, + + folder-hook . 'set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name' + + will be executed at runtime because of the single quotes so that user_cur- + rent_folder will always have the value of the currently opened folder. + + A more practical example is: + + folder-hook . 'source ~/.mutt/score-$muttng_folder_name' + + which can be used to source files containing score commands depending on the + folder the user enters. + + _3_._3_._6 _T_y_p_e _C_o_n_v_e_r_s_i_o_n_s + + A note about variable's types during conversion: internally values are stored + in internal types but for any dump/query or set operation they're converted to + and from string. That means that there's no need to worry about types when ref- + erencing any variable. As an example, the following can be used without harm + (besides makeing muttng very likely behave strange): + + set read_inc = 100 + set folder = $read_inc + set read_inc = $folder + set user_magic_number = 42 + set folder = $user_magic_number - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 17 + _3_._4 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g_/_U_s_i_n_g _a_l_i_a_s_e_s - are communicating with. Mutt allows you to create ``aliases'' which map a + Usage: alias _k_e_y _a_d_d_r_e_s_s [ , _a_d_d_r_e_s_s, ... ] + + It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone you + are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create ``aliases'' which map a short string to a full address. NNoottee:: if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than one @@ -850,33 +1295,35 @@ To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases): + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 27 + unalias [ * | _k_e_y _._._. ] alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins) alias theguys manny, moe, jack - Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined in a special - file. The alias command can appear anywhere in a configuration file, as long - as this file is _s_o_u_r_c_e_d (section 3.26 , page 32). Consequently, you can have - multiple alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc. + Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined in a spe- + cial file. The alias command can appear anywhere in a configuration file, as + long as this file is _s_o_u_r_c_e_d (section 3.29 , page 46). Consequently, you can + have multiple alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc. - On the other hand, the _c_r_e_a_t_e_-_a_l_i_a_s (section 2.3.4 , page 7) function can use - only one file, the one pointed to by the _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 6.3.3 , page 65) + On the other hand, the _c_r_e_a_t_e_-_a_l_i_a_s (section 2.5.4 , page 11) function can use + only one file, the one pointed to by the _$_a_l_i_a_s___f_i_l_e (section 7.4.5 , page 90) variable (which is ~/.muttrc by default). This file is not special either, in - the sense that Mutt will happily append aliases to any file, but in order for - the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly _s_o_u_r_c_e (section 3.26 , - page 32) this file too. + the sense that Mutt-ng will happily append aliases to any file, but in order + for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly _s_o_u_r_c_e (section + 3.29 , page 46) this file too. For example: - source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases + source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases source ~/.mail_aliases set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt prompts for addresses, such as the _T_o_: or _C_c_: prompt. You can also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the _$_e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s - (section 6.3.56 , page 77) variable set. + (section 7.4.59 , page 103) variable set. In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches, mutt @@ -888,12 +1335,10 @@ _e_n_t_r_y key (default: RET), and use the _e_x_i_t key (default: q) to return to the address prompt. - _3_._3 _C_h_a_n_g_i_n_g _t_h_e _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _k_e_y _b_i_n_d_i_n_g_s + _3_._5 _C_h_a_n_g_i_n_g _t_h_e _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _k_e_y _b_i_n_d_i_n_g_s Usage: bind _m_a_p _k_e_y _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 18 - This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation invoked when pressing a key). @@ -901,10 +1346,12 @@ fied by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace is allowed). The currently defined maps are: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 28 + 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 + defined in 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 accom- plish the same task. @@ -946,17 +1393,17 @@ _k_e_y is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a control char- acter, use the sequence _\_C_x, where _x is the letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use ``\Ca''). Note that the case of _x as - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 19 - well as _\_C is ignored, so that _\_C_A, _\_C_a, _\_c_A and _\_c_a are all equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example _\_1_7_7 is equivalent to _\_c_?). In addition, _k_e_y may consist of: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 29 + \t tab tab + backtab / shift-tab \r carriage return \n newline \e escape @@ -981,10 +1428,10 @@ _k_e_y does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a space (`` ''). _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n specifies which action to take when _k_e_y is pressed. For a complete - list of functions, see the _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 6.4 , page 146). The special + list of functions, see the _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 7.5 , page 177). The special function noop unbinds the specified key sequence. - _3_._4 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _a_l_i_a_s_e_s _f_o_r _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r _s_e_t_s + _3_._6 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _a_l_i_a_s_e_s _f_o_r _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r _s_e_t_s Usage: charset-hook _a_l_i_a_s _c_h_a_r_s_e_t @@ -998,20 +1445,21 @@ This is helpful when your systems character conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names for character sets. - _3_._5 _S_e_t_t_i_n_g _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s _b_a_s_e_d _u_p_o_n _m_a_i_l_b_o_x + _3_._7 _S_e_t_t_i_n_g _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s _b_a_s_e_d _u_p_o_n _m_a_i_l_b_o_x Usage: folder-hook [!]_r_e_g_e_x_p _c_o_m_m_a_n_d - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 20 + It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 30 - It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are read- - ing. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute any - configuration command. _r_e_g_e_x_p is a regular expression specifying in which + reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute + any configuration command. _r_e_g_e_x_p is a regular expression specifying in which mailboxes to execute _c_o_m_m_a_n_d before loading. If a mailbox matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the muttrc. - NNoottee:: if you use the ``!'' shortcut for _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 6.3.291 , page - 135) at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it inside of double or + NNoottee:: if you use the ``!'' shortcut for _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 7.4.313 , page + 165) at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the logical _n_o_t operator for the expression. @@ -1026,36 +1474,37 @@ folder-hook . set sort=date-sent - _3_._6 _K_e_y_b_o_a_r_d _m_a_c_r_o_s + _3_._8 _K_e_y_b_o_a_r_d _m_a_c_r_o_s Usage: macro _m_e_n_u _k_e_y _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e [ _d_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n ] Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of - actions. When you press _k_e_y in menu _m_e_n_u, Mutt will behave as if you had typed - _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e. So if you have a common sequence of commands you type, you can cre- - ate a macro to execute those commands with a single key. + actions. When you press _k_e_y in menu _m_e_n_u, Mutt-ng will behave as if you had + typed _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e. So if you have a common sequence of commands you type, you can + create a macro to execute those commands with a single key. - _m_e_n_u is the _m_a_p (section 3.3 , page 17) which the macro will be bound. Multi- + _m_e_n_u is the _m_a_p (section 3.5 , page 28) which the macro will be bound. Multi- ple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments by commas. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and the commas sepa- rating them. _k_e_y and _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e are expanded by the same rules as the _k_e_y _b_i_n_d_i_n_g_s (section - 3.3 , page 17). There are some additions however. The first is that control + 3.5 , page 27). There are some additions however. The first is that control characters in _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e can also be specified as _^_x. In order to get a caret (`^'') you need to use _^_^. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as _u_p or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format _<_k_e_y _n_a_m_e_> and _<_f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _n_a_m_e_>. For a listing of key names see the section on _k_e_y _b_i_n_d_i_n_g_s (section - 3.3 , page 17). Functions are listed in the _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section - 6.4 , page 146). + 3.5 , page 27). Functions are listed in the _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section + 7.5 , page 177). The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros will 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). - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 21 + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 31 + + (eg. the system Muttngrc). Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e, which is shown in the help screens. @@ -1063,7 +1512,7 @@ NNoottee:: Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped. - _3_._7 _U_s_i_n_g _c_o_l_o_r _a_n_d _m_o_n_o _v_i_d_e_o _a_t_t_r_i_b_u_t_e_s + _3_._9 _U_s_i_n_g _c_o_l_o_r _a_n_d _m_o_n_o _v_i_d_e_o _a_t_t_r_i_b_u_t_e_s Usage: color _o_b_j_e_c_t _f_o_r_e_g_r_o_u_n_d _b_a_c_k_g_r_o_u_n_d [ _r_e_g_e_x_p ] @@ -1071,7 +1520,7 @@ Usage: uncolor index _p_a_t_t_e_r_n [ _p_a_t_t_e_r_n ... ] - 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 aanndd a background color (it is not possible to only specify one or the other). @@ -1084,7 +1533,7 @@ +o bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages) - +o error (error messages printed by Mutt) + +o error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng) +o header (match _r_e_g_e_x_p in the message header) @@ -1100,19 +1549,19 @@ +o normal - +o quoted (text matching _$_q_u_o_t_e___r_e_g_e_x_p (section 6.3.218 , page 118) in the + +o quoted (text matching _$_q_u_o_t_e___r_e_g_e_x_p (section 7.4.241 , page 147) in the body of a message) +o quoted1, quoted2, ..., quotedNN (higher levels of quoting) +o search (highlighting of words in the pager) + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 32 + +o signature +o status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message) - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 22 - +o tilde (the ``~'' used to pad blank lines in the pager) +o tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu) @@ -1145,10 +1594,10 @@ ground color boldfaced (e.g., brightred). If your terminal supports it, the special keyword _d_e_f_a_u_l_t can be used as a - transparent color. The value _b_r_i_g_h_t_d_e_f_a_u_l_t is also valid. If Mutt is linked - against the _S_-_L_a_n_g library, you also need to set the _C_O_L_O_R_F_G_B_G environment - variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to work; for example - (for Bourne-like shells): + transparent color. The value _b_r_i_g_h_t_d_e_f_a_u_l_t is also valid. If Mutt-ng is + linked against the _S_-_L_a_n_g library, you also need to set the _C_O_L_O_R_F_G_B_G environ- + ment variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to work; for + example (for Bourne-like shells): set COLORFGBG="green;black" export COLORFGBG @@ -1161,13 +1610,13 @@ 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 _c_o_l_o_r_0, _c_o_l_o_r_1, ..., _c_o_l_o_rNN--11 (NN being the + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 33 + + Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords _c_o_l_o_r_0, _c_o_l_o_r_1, ..., _c_o_l_o_rNN--11 (NN 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 _c_o_l_o_r_2 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 23 - If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the video attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command: @@ -1189,7 +1638,7 @@ +o standout - _3_._8 _I_g_n_o_r_i_n_g _(_w_e_e_d_i_n_g_) _u_n_w_a_n_t_e_d _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _h_e_a_d_e_r_s + _3_._1_0 _I_g_n_o_r_i_n_g _(_w_e_e_d_i_n_g_) _u_n_w_a_n_t_e_d _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _h_e_a_d_e_r_s Usage: [un]ignore _p_a_t_t_e_r_n [ _p_a_t_t_e_r_n ... ] @@ -1202,8 +1651,9 @@ tent-''. ``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. - For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x-mailer''. + The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with the given pat- + tern. For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x- + mailer''. ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list. @@ -1215,19 +1665,18 @@ unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list: unignore posted-to: - _3_._9 _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_v_e _a_d_d_r_e_s_s_e_s + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 34 + + _3_._1_1 _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_v_e _a_d_d_r_e_s_s_e_s Usage: [un]alternates _r_e_g_e_x_p [ _r_e_g_e_x_p ... ] With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently, depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from someone else. For - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 24 - instance, when replying to a message that you sent to a different party, mutt will automatically suggest to send the response to the original message's recipients -- responding to yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See - _$_r_e_p_l_y___t_o (section 6.3.226 , page 119).) + _$_r_e_p_l_y___t_o (section 7.4.249 , page 149).) Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To fully use mutt's features here, the program must be able to recognize what e-mail @@ -1246,28 +1695,132 @@ be removed. If the _r_e_g_e_x_p for unalternates is ``*'', _a_l_l _e_n_t_r_i_e_s on alternates will be removed. - _3_._1_0 _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _l_i_s_t_s + _3_._1_2 _F_o_r_m_a_t _= _F_l_o_w_e_d + + _3_._1_2_._1 _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_i_o_n + + Mutt-ng contains support for so-called format=flowed messages. In the begin- + ning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and it was enough for dis- + playing 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 cre- + ating an incompatible email format that can also be displayed nicely on old + fixed-size terminals. + + For introductory information on format=flowed messages, see + . + + _3_._1_2_._2 _R_e_c_e_i_v_i_n_g_: _D_i_s_p_l_a_y _S_e_t_u_p + + When you receive emails that are marked as format=flowed messages, and is for- + matted 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: + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 35 + + set wrapmargin = 10 + + The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right side of the + terminal. + + If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long, you can + also set a maximum line length: + + set max_line_length = 120 + + The example above will give you lines not longer than 120 characters. + + When you view at format=flowed messages, you will often see the quoting hierar- + chy like in the following example: + + >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. + + This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very hard to differenti- + ate between text and quoting character. The solution is to configure mutt-ng to + "stuff" the quoting: + + set stuff_quoted + + This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read: + + > 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. + + _3_._1_2_._3 _S_e_n_d_i_n_g + + If you want mutt-ng to send emails with format=flowed set, you need to explic- + itly set it: + + set text_flowed + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 36 + + Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing format=flowed- + conforming emails. For vim, this is done by adding w to the formatoptions (see + :h formatoptions and :h fo-table) when writing emails. + + Also note that _f_o_r_m_a_t_=_f_l_o_w_e_d 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: + + +o > This is _n_o_t the quote character but a right angle used for other reasons + + +o From with a trailing space. + + +o just a space for formatting reasons + + Please make sure that you manually prepend a space to each of them. + + _3_._1_2_._4 _A_d_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l _N_o_t_e_s + + " + + For completeness, the _$_d_e_l_e_t_e___s_p_a_c_e (section 7.4.51 , page 101) variable pro- + vides the mechanism to generate a DelSp=yes parameter on _o_u_t_g_o_i_n_g messages. + According to the standard, clients receiving a format=flowed messages should + delete the last space of a flowed line but still interpret the line as flowed. + Because flowed lines usually contain only one space at the end, this parameter + would make the receiving client concatenate the last word of the previous with + the first of the current line _w_i_t_h_o_u_t a space. This makes ordinary text unread- + able and is intended for languages rarely using spaces. So please use this set- + ting only if you're sure what you're doing. + + _3_._1_3 _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _l_i_s_t_s Usage: [un]lists _r_e_g_e_x_p [ _r_e_g_e_x_p ... ] Usage: [un]subscribe _r_e_g_e_x_p [ _r_e_g_e_x_p ... ] - Mutt has a few nice features for _h_a_n_d_l_i_n_g _m_a_i_l_i_n_g _l_i_s_t_s (section 4.9 , page - 44). In order to take advantage of them, you must specify which addresses + Mutt-ng has a few nice features for _h_a_n_d_l_i_n_g _m_a_i_l_i_n_g _l_i_s_t_s (section 4.10 , + page 61). In order to take advantage of them, you must specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing lists you are subscribed to. Once - you have done this, the _l_i_s_t_-_r_e_p_l_y (section 2.3.4 , page 8) function will work - for all known lists. Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed - list, mutt will add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user - agents not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that the - Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not supported by - all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against receiving personal - CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation of the Mail-Followup-To - header is controlled by the _$_f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 6.3.67 , page 80) configura- - tion variable. - - More precisely, Mutt 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, + you have done this, the _l_i_s_t_-_r_e_p_l_y (section 2.5.4 , page 12) function will + work for all known lists. Additionally, when you send a message to a sub- + scribed list, mutt will add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail + user agents not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that + the Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not supported + by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against receiving per- + sonal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation of the Mail-Fol- + lowup-To header is controlled by the _$_f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 7.4.72 , page 106) + configuration variable. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 37 + + 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''. You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all messages sent @@ -1276,11 +1829,8 @@ sufficient to just give a portion of the list's e-mail address. Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For exam- - ple, if you've subscribed to the Mutt mailing list, you will receive mail - addressed to _m_u_t_t_-_u_s_e_r_s_@_m_u_t_t_._o_r_g. So, to tell Mutt that this is a mailing - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 25 - + ple, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will receive mail + addressed to _m_u_t_t_-_u_s_e_r_s_@_m_u_t_t_._o_r_g. 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 ini- tialization file instead. If you also happen to get mail from someone whose @@ -1294,7 +1844,7 @@ To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists, but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''. - _3_._1_1 _U_s_i_n_g _M_u_l_t_i_p_l_e _s_p_o_o_l _m_a_i_l_b_o_x_e_s + _3_._1_4 _U_s_i_n_g _M_u_l_t_i_p_l_e _s_p_o_o_l _m_a_i_l_b_o_x_e_s Usage: mbox-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _m_a_i_l_b_o_x @@ -1306,7 +1856,7 @@ Unlike some of the other _h_o_o_k commands, only the _f_i_r_s_t matching pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single mailbox). - _3_._1_2 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _m_a_i_l_b_o_x_e_s _w_h_i_c_h _r_e_c_e_i_v_e _m_a_i_l + _3_._1_5 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _m_a_i_l_b_o_x_e_s _w_h_i_c_h _r_e_c_e_i_v_e _m_a_i_l Usage: [un]mailboxes [!]_f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e [ _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e ... ] @@ -1318,27 +1868,28 @@ Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files specified by the mailboxes command, and indicate which contain new messages. - Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the command line with - the -y option. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 38 + + Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the command line + with the -y option. The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list of folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all tokens. NNoottee:: new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to the last access time. Utilities like biff or frm or any other program which accesses - the mailbox might cause Mutt 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. + 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. NNoottee:: the filenames in the mailboxes command are resolved when the command is - executed, so if these names contain _s_h_o_r_t_c_u_t _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r_s (section 4.8 , page - 44) (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable definition that affect these char- - acters (like _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 6.3.65 , page 79) and _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section - 6.3.291 , page 135)) should be executed before the mailboxes command. - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 26 + executed, so if these names contain _s_h_o_r_t_c_u_t _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r_s (section 4.9 , page + 61) (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable definition that affect these char- + acters (like _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 7.4.70 , page 105) and _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section + 7.4.313 , page 165)) should be executed before the mailboxes command. - _3_._1_3 _U_s_e_r _d_e_f_i_n_e_d _h_e_a_d_e_r_s + _3_._1_6 _U_s_e_r _d_e_f_i_n_e_d _h_e_a_d_e_r_s Usage: @@ -1358,10 +1909,10 @@ NNoottee:: space characters are _n_o_t allowed between the keyword and the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that space is illegal - there, so Mutt enforces the rule. + 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 _e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s (section 6.3.56 , page 77) variable, or use the _e_d_i_t_- + set the _e_d_i_t___h_e_a_d_e_r_s (section 7.4.59 , page 103) variable, or use the _e_d_i_t_- _h_e_a_d_e_r_s function (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so that you can edit the header of your message along with the body. @@ -1370,9 +1921,11 @@ remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and ``Cc'' header fields, you could use: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 39 + unmy_hdr to cc - _3_._1_4 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _t_h_e _o_r_d_e_r _o_f _h_e_a_d_e_r_s _w_h_e_n _v_i_e_w_i_n_g _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s + _3_._1_7 _D_e_f_i_n_i_n_g _t_h_e _o_r_d_e_r _o_f _h_e_a_d_e_r_s _w_h_e_n _v_i_e_w_i_n_g _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s Usage: hdr_order _h_e_a_d_e_r_1 _h_e_a_d_e_r_2 _h_e_a_d_e_r_3 @@ -1384,9 +1937,7 @@ hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject: - _3_._1_5 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 27 + _3_._1_8 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e Usage: save-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e @@ -1395,7 +1946,7 @@ an address matching _r_e_g_e_x_p or if you are the author and the message is addressed _t_o_: something matching _r_e_g_e_x_p. - See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.4.1 , page 41) for information on the + See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.5.1 , page 58) for information on the exact format of _p_a_t_t_e_r_n. Examples: @@ -1403,35 +1954,37 @@ save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam - Also see the _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.17 , page 27) command. + Also see the _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.20 , page 40) command. - _3_._1_6 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _F_c_c_: _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _w_h_e_n _c_o_m_p_o_s_i_n_g + _3_._1_9 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _F_c_c_: _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _w_h_e_n _c_o_m_p_o_s_i_n_g Usage: fcc-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _m_a_i_l_b_o_x This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than _$_r_e_c_o_r_d - (section 6.3.223 , page 119). Mutt searches the initial list of message + (section 7.4.246 , page 148). Mutt-ng searches the initial list of message recipients for the first matching _r_e_g_e_x_p and uses _m_a_i_l_b_o_x as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved to _$_r_e_c_o_r_d (section - 6.3.223 , page 119) mailbox. + 7.4.246 , page 148) mailbox. - See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.4.1 , page 41) for information on the + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 40 + + See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.5.1 , page 58) for information on the exact format of _p_a_t_t_e_r_n. Example: fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to the - `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.17 , - page 27) command. + `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.20 , + page 40) command. - _3_._1_7 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e _a_n_d _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _F_c_c_: _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _a_t _o_n_c_e + _3_._2_0 _S_p_e_c_i_f_y _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e _a_n_d _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _F_c_c_: _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _a_t _o_n_c_e Usage: fcc-save-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _m_a_i_l_b_o_x This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a _f_c_c_-_h_o_o_k (section - 3.16 , page 27) and a _s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.15 , page 26) with its arguments. + 3.19 , page 39) and a _s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.18 , page 39) with its arguments. - _3_._1_8 _C_h_a_n_g_e _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_s _b_a_s_e_d _u_p_o_n _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _r_e_c_i_p_i_e_n_t_s + _3_._2_1 _C_h_a_n_g_e _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_s _b_a_s_e_d _u_p_o_n _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _r_e_c_i_p_i_e_n_t_s Usage: reply-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _c_o_m_m_a_n_d @@ -1440,9 +1993,6 @@ Usage: send2-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _c_o_m_m_a_n_d These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 28 - upon recipients of the message. _p_a_t_t_e_r_n is a regular expression matching the desired address. _c_o_m_m_a_n_d is executed when _r_e_g_e_x_p matches recipients of the message. @@ -1455,22 +2005,25 @@ send2-hook is matched every time a message is changed, either by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients or subject. send2-hook is executed after send-hook, and can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the - _$_s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l (section 6.3.241 , page 123) variable depending on the message's + _$_s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l (section 7.4.263 , page 152) variable depending on the message's sender address. For each type of send-hook or reply-hook, when multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc (for that type of hook). - See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.4.1 , page 41) for information on the + See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.5.1 , page 58) for information on the exact format of _p_a_t_t_e_r_n. Example: send-hook mutt 'set mime_forward signature=''' - Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the _$_a_t_t_r_i_b_u_- - _t_i_o_n (section 6.3.17 , page 69), _$_s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e (section 6.3.255 , page 126) and - _$_l_o_c_a_l_e (section 6.3.117 , page 94) variables in order to change the language - of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients. + Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 41 + + _$_a_t_t_r_i_b_u_t_i_o_n (section 7.4.18 , page 94), _$_s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e (section 7.4.275 , page + 155) and _$_l_o_c_a_l_e (section 7.4.120 , page 120) variables in order to change the + language of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients. NNoottee:: the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the message will NOT @@ -1478,7 +2031,7 @@ ify recipient headers, or the message's subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed from a send-hook. - _3_._1_9 _C_h_a_n_g_e _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_s _b_e_f_o_r_e _f_o_r_m_a_t_t_i_n_g _a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e + _3_._2_2 _C_h_a_n_g_e _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_s _b_e_f_o_r_e _f_o_r_m_a_t_t_i_n_g _a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e Usage: message-hook [!]_p_a_t_t_e_r_n _c_o_m_m_a_n_d @@ -1488,7 +2041,7 @@ tiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc. - See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.4.1 , page 41) for information on the + See _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s (section 4.5.1 , page 58) for information on the exact format of _p_a_t_t_e_r_n. Example: @@ -1496,71 +2049,112 @@ message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin' message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""' - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 29 - - _3_._2_0 _C_h_o_o_s_i_n_g _t_h_e _c_r_y_p_t_o_g_r_a_p_h_i_c _k_e_y _o_f _t_h_e _r_e_c_i_p_i_e_n_t + _3_._2_3 _C_h_o_o_s_i_n_g _t_h_e _c_r_y_p_t_o_g_r_a_p_h_i_c _k_e_y _o_f _t_h_e _r_e_c_i_p_i_e_n_t Usage: crypt-hook _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _k_e_y_i_d When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a cer- tain key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the recipi- ent's public key can't be deduced from the destination address, or because, for - some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt 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. + 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. The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even just a real name. - _3_._2_1 _A_d_d_i_n_g _k_e_y _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e_s _t_o _t_h_e _k_e_y_b_o_a_r_d _b_u_f_f_e_r + _3_._2_4 _A_d_d_i_n_g _k_e_y _s_e_q_u_e_n_c_e_s _t_o _t_h_e _k_e_y_b_o_a_r_d _b_u_f_f_e_r Usage: push _s_t_r_i_n_g - This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may con- - tain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence string - in the _m_a_c_r_o (section 3.6 , page 20) command. You may use it to automatically - run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering certain folders. + This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 42 + + contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence + string in the _m_a_c_r_o (section 3.8 , page 30) command. You may use it to auto- + matically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering certain fold- + ers. - _3_._2_2 _E_x_e_c_u_t_i_n_g _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s + _3_._2_5 _E_x_e_c_u_t_i_n_g _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s Usage: exec _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n [ _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n ... ] This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are listed in the - _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 6.4 , page 146). ``exec function'' is equivalent + _f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e (section 7.5 , page 177). ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push ''. - _3_._2_3 _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _S_c_o_r_i_n_g + _3_._2_6 _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _S_c_o_r_i_n_g Usage: score _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _v_a_l_u_e Usage: unscore _p_a_t_t_e_r_n [ _p_a_t_t_e_r_n ... ] - The score commands adds _v_a_l_u_e to a message's score if _p_a_t_t_e_r_n matches it. _p_a_t_- - _t_e_r_n is a string in the format described in the _p_a_t_t_e_r_n_s (section 4.2 , page - 36) section (note: For efficiency reasons, patterns which scan information not - available in the index, such as ~b, ~B or ~h, may not be used). _v_a_l_u_e is a - positive or negative integer. A message's final score is the sum total of all - matching score entries. However, you may optionally prefix _v_a_l_u_e 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. + 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''. - The unscore command removes score entries from the list. You mmuusstt specify the - same pattern specified in the score command for it to be removed. The pattern - ``*'' is a special token which means to clear the list of all score entries. + When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You can then use the + 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. - _3_._2_4 _S_p_a_m _d_e_t_e_c_t_i_o_n + score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50 + score "~f @sco\.com" -100 - Usage: spam _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _f_o_r_m_a_t + If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score value of the cur- + rent message to a certain value and then stop evaluation: + + score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666 + + What is important to note is that negative score values will be rounded up to + 0. + + To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in some way. That's + what the _s_c_o_r_e _t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d_s are for. Currently, there are three score thresholds: + + +o flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher than the + flag threshold, it will be flagged. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 43 + + +o read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower than the + read threshold, it will be marked as read. + + +o delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower than the + delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 30 + These three thresholds can be set via the variables _$_s_c_o_r_e___t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d___f_l_a_g (sec- + tion 7.4.260 , page 152), _$_s_c_o_r_e___t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d___r_e_a_d (section 7.4.261 , page 152), + _$_s_c_o_r_e___t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d___d_e_l_e_t_e (section 7.4.259 , page 152) and. By default, + _$_s_c_o_r_e___t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d___r_e_a_d (section 7.4.261 , page 152) and _$_s_c_o_r_e___t_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d___d_e_l_e_t_e + (section 7.4.259 , page 152) are set to -1, which means that in the default + threshold configuration no message will ever get marked as read or deleted. + + Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the color command and + the ~n pattern: + + color index black yellow "~n 10-" + color index red yellow "~n 100-" + + The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99 with black and + yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal 100 with red and yellow. + This might be unusual to you if you're used to e.g. slrn's scoring mechanism, + but it is more flexible, as it visually marks different scores. + + _3_._2_7 _S_p_a_m _d_e_t_e_c_t_i_o_n + + Usage: spam _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _f_o_r_m_a_t Usage: nospam _p_a_t_t_e_r_n - Mutt has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters. By defining + Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters. By defining your spam patterns with the spam and nospam commands, you can _l_i_m_i_t, _s_e_a_r_c_h, and _s_o_r_t your mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index display using - the %H selector in the _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.112 , page 91) variable. + the %H selector in the _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.116 , page 116) variable. (Tip: try %?H?[%H] ? to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.) @@ -1576,6 +2170,9 @@ with the second, etc. If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than one spam- + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 44 + related header. You can define spam patterns for each filter you use. If a mes- sage matches two or more of these patterns, and the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the message's spam tag will consist of all the _f_o_r_m_a_t @@ -1608,8 +2205,6 @@ have only one spam filter. The simpler your configuration, the more effective mutt can be, especially when it comes to sorting. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 31 - Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort _l_e_x_i_c_a_l_l_y -- that is, by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag begins with a number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically only when two numbers are equal @@ -1631,6 +2226,9 @@ instead of adding an exception. Likewise, if the _p_a_t_t_e_r_n for a spam command matches an entry on the nospam list, that nospam entry will be removed. If the _p_a_t_t_e_r_n for nospam is ``*'', _a_l_l _e_n_t_r_i_e_s _o_n _b_o_t_h _l_i_s_t_s will be removed. This + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 45 + might be the default action if you use spam and nospam in conjunction with a folder-hook. @@ -1640,7 +2238,7 @@ spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999" - _3_._2_5 _S_e_t_t_i_n_g _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + _3_._2_8 _S_e_t_t_i_n_g _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s Usage: set [no|inv]_v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e[=_v_a_l_u_e] [ _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e ... ] @@ -1650,8 +2248,8 @@ Usage: reset _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e [_v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e ... ] - This command is used to set (and unset) _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s (section 6.3 , - page 64). There are four basic types of variables: boolean, number, string and + This command is used to set (and unset) _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s (section 7.4 , + page 88). There are four basic types of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. _b_o_o_l_e_a_n variables can be _s_e_t (true) or _u_n_s_e_t (false). _n_u_m_b_e_r variables can be assigned a positive integer value. @@ -1661,12 +2259,9 @@ _q_u_a_d_o_p_t_i_o_n variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for cer- tain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of _y_e_s will cause the - action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 32 - - question. Similarly, a value of _n_o will cause the the action to be carried out - as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of _a_s_k_-_y_e_s will cause a prompt with a + action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the ques- + tion. Similarly, a value of _n_o will cause the the action to be carried out as + if you had answered ``no.'' A value of _a_s_k_-_y_e_s will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and _a_s_k_-_n_o will provide a default answer of ``no.'' Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: set noaskbcc. @@ -1684,6 +2279,8 @@ Using the enter-command function in the _i_n_d_e_x menu, you can query the value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question mark: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 46 + set ?allow_8bit The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption vari- @@ -1696,7 +2293,7 @@ With the reset command there exists the special variable ``all'', which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults. - _3_._2_6 _R_e_a_d_i_n_g _i_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s _f_r_o_m _a_n_o_t_h_e_r _f_i_l_e + _3_._2_9 _R_e_a_d_i_n_g _i_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s _f_r_o_m _a_n_o_t_h_e_r _f_i_l_e Usage: source _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e [ _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e ... ] @@ -1710,68 +2307,134 @@ If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e is considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg. source ~/bin/myscript|). - _3_._2_7 _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_i_n_g _f_e_a_t_u_r_e_s _c_o_n_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l_l_y + _3_._3_0 _R_e_m_o_v_i_n_g _h_o_o_k_s - Usage: ifdef _i_t_e_m _c_o_m_m_a_n_d Usage: ifndef _i_t_e_m _c_o_m_m_a_n_d + Usage: unhook [ * | _h_o_o_k_-_t_y_p_e ] - These command allows to test if a variable, function or certain feature is - available or not respectively, before actually executing the command. ifdef - (short for ``if defined) handles commands if upon availability while ifndef + 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 unhook send- + hook. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 33 + _3_._3_1 _S_h_a_r_i_n_g _S_e_t_u_p_s - (short for ``if not defined'') does if not. The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d may be any valid frac- - tion of a configuration file. + _3_._3_1_._1 _C_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r _S_e_t_s - All names of variables and functions may be tested. Additionally, the following - compile-features may be tested when prefixed with 'feature_': ncurses, slang, - iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl, gnutls, sasl, sasl2, - libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp, classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache. + As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration must be main- + tained 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. - Examples follow. + 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 - To only source a file with IMAP related settings only if IMAP support is com- - piled in, use: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 47 - ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/imap_setup' - # or - # ifdef imap_user 'source ~/.mutt-ng/imap_setup' - # or - # ... + very beginning of a users muttngrc: - To exit mutt-ng directly if no NNTP support is compiled in: + set config_charset = "..." - ifndef feature_nntp 'push q' - # or - # ifndef newsrc 'push q' - # or - # ... + 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: - To only set the _<_$_i_m_a_p___m_a_i_l___c_h_e_c_k (section 6.3.101 , page 88) when the sys- - tem's SVN is recent enough to have it: + # vim:fileencoding=...: - ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check=300' + while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This tells vim as + which character set to read and save the file. - _3_._2_8 _R_e_m_o_v_i_n_g _h_o_o_k_s + _3_._3_1_._2 _M_o_d_u_l_a_r_i_z_a_t_i_o_n - Usage: unhook [ * | _h_o_o_k_-_t_y_p_e ] + ``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. - 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 unhook send- - hook. + When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in fractions, shared over + different systems. + + _3_._3_1_._3 _C_o_n_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l _p_a_r_t_s + + 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. + + To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef'' patch written + for mutt. Its basic syntax is: + + ifdef + ifndef + + ...whereby can be one of: + + +o a function name + + +o a variable name + + +o a menu name + + +o a feature name + + All available functions, variables and menus are documented elsewhere in this + manual but ``features'' is specific to these two commands. To test for one, + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 48 + + prefix one of the following keywords with feature_: + + ncurses, slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl, + gnutls, sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp, + classic_smime, gpgme, header_cache + + As an example, one can use the following in ~/.muttngrc: + + ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap' + ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop' + ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp' + + ...to only source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap if IMAP support is built in, only + source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop if POP support is built in and only source ~/.mutt- + ng/setup-nntp if NNTP support is built in. + + 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 _$_i_m_a_p___m_a_i_l___c_h_e_c_k (section 7.4.105 , page 114), + use: + + ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300' + + Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set _$_p_a_g_e_r___i_n_d_e_x___l_i_n_e_s + (section 7.4.185 , page 134) only if the pager menu is available, use: + + ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10' + + For completeness, too, the opposite of ifdef is provided: ifndef which only + executes the command if the test fails. For example, the following two examples + are equivalent: + + ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses' + ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang' + + ...and... + + ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang' + ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses' + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 49 + + _3_._3_2 _O_b_s_o_l_e_t_e _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s + + 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 _O_b_s_o_- + _l_e_t_e _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s (section 7.4 , page 88) for a complete list. _4_. _A_d_v_a_n_c_e_d _U_s_a_g_e _4_._1 _R_e_g_u_l_a_r _E_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n_s - All string patterns in Mutt including those in more complex _p_a_t_t_e_r_n_s (section - 4.2 , page 36) 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 convenience, we have included below a brief description of - this syntax. - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 34 + All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex _p_a_t_t_e_r_n_s (sec- + tion 7.2 , page 84) 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 convenience, we have included below a brief description + of this syntax. The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\'' must be quoted if used @@ -1783,7 +2446,7 @@ Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either ' or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space character. - See _S_y_n_t_a_x _o_f _I_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _F_i_l_e_s (section 3.1 , page 14) for more informa- + See _S_y_n_t_a_x _o_f _I_n_i_t_i_a_l_i_z_a_t_i_o_n _F_i_l_e_s (section 3.2 , page 21) for more informa- tion on ' and ' delimiter processing. To match a literal ' or ' you must pref- ace it with \ (backslash). @@ -1806,6 +2469,8 @@ place it anywhere but first. Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 50 + Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''. The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard: @@ -1826,11 +2491,8 @@ Numeric characters. [:graph:] - Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 35 - - printable, but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.) + Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is print- + able, but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.) [:lower:] Lower-case alphabetic characters. @@ -1863,6 +2525,9 @@ Collating Symbols A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 51 + in ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating ele- ment, then [[[[..cchh..]]]] is a regexp that matches this collating ele- ment, while [[cchh]] is a regexp that matches either ``c'' or ``h''. @@ -1883,8 +2548,6 @@ * The preceding item will be matched zero or more times. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 36 - + The preceding item will be matched one or more times. @@ -1912,13 +2575,15 @@ over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in parentheses to override these precedence rules. - NNoottee:: If you compile Mutt with the GNU _r_x package, the following operators may - also be used in regular expressions: + NNoottee:: If you compile Mutt-ng with the GNU _r_x package, the following operators + may also be used in regular expressions: \\y Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 52 + \\B Matches the empty string within a word. @@ -1938,8 +2603,6 @@ \\` Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string). - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 37 - \\' Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer. @@ -1948,180 +2611,213 @@ _4_._2 _P_a_t_t_e_r_n_s - 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: + 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 con- + sists 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 _P_a_t_- + _t_e_r_n_s (section 7.2 , page 84) in the Reference chapter. - ~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 + It must be noted that in this table, EXPR, USER, ID and SUBJECT are regular + expressions. For ranges, the forms <[MAX], >>[MIN], [MIN]- and -[MAX] are also + possible. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 38 + _4_._2_._1 _C_o_m_p_l_e_x _P_a_t_t_e_r_n_s - alternates or any alias) + 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: - Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are _r_e_g_u_l_a_r _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n_s (section 4.1 , page - 33). 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 back- - slashes instead (\\). + ~s 'SPAM' ~U - *) The forms <[MAX], >[MIN], [MIN]- and -[MAX] are allowed, too. + The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in the subject and + are unread. + + To logical OR patterns, simply use the | operator. This one especially useful + when using local groups: + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 53 + + ~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org") + (~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng) + !~x '@synflood\.at' + + 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 pat- + tern matches all messages that do not contain ``@synflood\.at'' in the Refer- + ences: header, i.e. messages that are not an (indirect) reply to one of my + messages. A pattern can be logicall negated using the ! operator. + + _4_._2_._2 _P_a_t_t_e_r_n_s _a_n_d _D_a_t_e_s + + When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a special format, + i.e. DD/MM/YYYY. If you don't specify month or year, they default to the cur- + rent month or year. When using date ranges, and you specify only the minimum or + the maximum, the specified date will be excluded, e.g. 01/06/2005- matches + against all messages _a_f_t_e_r Juni 1st, 2005. - _4_._2_._1 _P_a_t_t_e_r_n _M_o_d_i_f_i_e_r + 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 + and -. Then follows a number and a unit, i.e. y for years, m for + months, w for weeks and d for days. If you use the special * sign, it means + that the error margin goes to both ``directions'' in time. - 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. + ~d 01/01/2005+1y + ~d 18/10/2004-2w + ~d 28/12/2004*1d - ^~C \.de$ + 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). - _4_._2_._2 _C_o_m_p_l_e_x _P_a_t_t_e_r_n_s + 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: - Logical AND is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For example: + ~d >2w # messages older than two weeks + ~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days + ~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old - ~t mutt ~f elkins + _4_._3 _F_o_r_m_a_t _S_t_r_i_n_g_s - would select messages which contain the word ``mutt'' in the list of recipients - aanndd that have the word ``elkins'' in the ``From'' header field. + _4_._3_._1 _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_i_o_n - Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search pat- - terns: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 54 - +o ! -- logical NOT operator + The so called _F_o_r_m_a_t _S_t_r_i_n_g_s offer great flexibility when configuring mutt-ng. + In short, they describe what items to print out how in menus and status mes- + sages. + + 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 _e_x_p_a_n_d_o. + + 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: + + +o the current hostname + + +o the current mutt-ng version number + + The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the _$_s_t_a_t_u_s___f_o_r_- + _m_a_t (section 7.4.324 , page 167) variable. For the hostname and version + string, there's an expando for $status_format: %h expands to the hostname and + %v to the version string. When just configuring: + + set status_format = "%v on %h: ..." + + mutt-ng will replace the sequence %v with the version string and %h with the + host's name. When you are, for example, running mutt-ng version 1.5.9i on host + mailhost, you'll see the following when you're in the index: - +o | -- logical OR operator + Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ... - +o () -- logical grouping operator + In the index, there're more useful information one could want to see: - Here is an example illustrating a complex search pattern. This pattern will - select all messages which do not contain ``mutt'' in the ``To'' or ``Cc'' field - and which are from ``elkins''. + +o which mailbox is open - !(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins + +o how man new, flagged or postponed messages - Here is an example using white space in the regular expression (note the ' and - ' delimiters). For this to match, the mail's subject must match the ``^Junk - +From +Me$'' and it must be from either ``Jim +Somebody'' or ``Ed + +o ... - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 39 + To include the mailbox' name is as easy as: - +SomeoneElse'': + set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ... - '~s "^Junk +From +Me$" ~f ("Jim +Somebody"|"Ed +SomeoneElse")' + When the currently opened mailbox is Inbox, this will be expanded to: - Note that if a regular expression contains parenthesis, or a veritical bar - ("|"), you mmuusstt enclose the expression in double or single quotes since those - characters are also used to separate different parts of Mutt's pattern lan- - guage. For example, + Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ... - ~f "me@(mutt\.org|cs\.hmc\.edu)" + 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 - Without the quotes, the parenthesis wouldn't end. This would be separated to - two OR'd patterns: _~_f _m_e_@_(_m_u_t_t_\_._o_r_g and _c_s_\_._h_m_c_\_._e_d_u_). They are never what you - want. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 55 - _4_._2_._3 _S_e_a_r_c_h_i_n_g _b_y _D_a_t_e + not be desired to print just that there aren't any but instead only print some- + thing if there are any. - Mutt supports two types of dates, _a_b_s_o_l_u_t_e and _r_e_l_a_t_i_v_e. + _4_._3_._2 _C_o_n_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l _E_x_p_a_n_s_i_o_n - AAbbssoolluuttee. Dates mmuusstt 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: + To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in the current + mailbox, further extend $status_format to: - Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10 + set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ... - If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify ``-DD/MM/YY'', all mes- - sages _b_e_f_o_r_e the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum (second) - date, and specify ``DD/MM/YY-'', all messages _a_f_t_e_r 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. + This feature is called _n_o_n_z_e_r_o_-_p_r_i_n_t_i_n_g and works as this: some expandos may be + optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion of the format string is only evalu- + ated if the value of the expando is different from zero. The basic syntax is: - EErrrroorr MMaarrggiinnss. 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: + %??? - y years - m months - w weeks - d days + which tells mutt-ng to only look at if the value of the + %?&? - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 40 + Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following: - Limit to messages matching: ~d 15/1/2001*2w + +o make it print ``_n new messages'' whereby _n is the count but only if there + new ones - RReellaattiivvee. This type of date is relative to the current date, and may be speci- - fied as: + +o and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any - +o >_o_f_f_s_e_t (messages older than _o_f_f_s_e_t units) + The corresponding configuration is: - +o <_o_f_f_s_e_t (messages newer than _o_f_f_s_e_t units) + set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ... - +o =_o_f_f_s_e_t (messages exactly _o_f_f_s_e_t units old) + This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get always + printed. Thus, it can be shortened to: - _o_f_f_s_e_t is specified as a positive number with one of the following units: + set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ... - y years - m months - w weeks - d days + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 56 + + 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. + + _4_._3_._3 _M_o_d_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n_s _a_n_d _P_a_d_d_i_n_g + + Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of format + strings: + + +o When specifying %_ instead of just %, mutt-ng will convert all + characters in the expansion of to lowercase. + + +o When specifying %: instead of just %, mutt-ng will convert all + dots in the expansion of to underscores (_). + + Also, there's a feature called _P_a_d_d_i_n_g supplied by the following two expandos: + %|X and %>X. + + %|X + When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the rest of the line with the + character X. In our example, filling the rest of the line with + dashes is done by setting: - Example: to select messages less than 1 month old, you would use + set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-" - Limit to messages matching: ~d <1m + %>X + Since the previous expando stops at the end of line, there must be + a way to fill the gap between two items via the %>X expando: it + puts as many characters X in between two items so that the rest of + the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the ver- + sion 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 %>): - NNoottee:: all dates used when searching are relative to the llooccaall time zone, so - unless you change the setting of your _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.112 , page - 91) to include a %[...] format, these are nnoott the dates shown in the main - index. + set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)" - _4_._3 _U_s_i_n_g _T_a_g_s + _4_._4 _U_s_i_n_g _T_a_g_s Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be to save messages to a @@ -2129,46 +2825,47 @@ ject. To tag all messages matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual mes- sages by hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by - default. See _p_a_t_t_e_r_n_s (section 4.2 , page 36) for Mutt's pattern matching + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 57 + + default. See _p_a_t_t_e_r_n_s (section 7.2 , page 84) for Mutt-ng's pattern matching syntax. Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the ``tag-prefix'' oper- ator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default. When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the nneexxtt operation will be applied to all tagged messages if - that operation can be used in that manner. If the _$_a_u_t_o___t_a_g (section 6.3.18 , - page 69) variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages + that operation can be used in that manner. If the _$_a_u_t_o___t_a_g (section 7.4.19 , + page 94) variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''. - In _m_a_c_r_o_s (section 3.6 , page 20) or _p_u_s_h (section 3.21 , page 29) commands, + In _m_a_c_r_o_s (section 3.8 , page 30) or _p_u_s_h (section 3.24 , page 41) 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'' operator; after this - operator the rest of the macro will be executed as normal. - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 41 + mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's execution. 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. - _4_._4 _U_s_i_n_g _H_o_o_k_s + _4_._5 _U_s_i_n_g _H_o_o_k_s A _h_o_o_k 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 _h_o_o_k consists of a _r_e_g_u_l_a_r - _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n (section 4.1 , page 33) or _p_a_t_t_e_r_n (section 4.2 , page 36) along + whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a _h_o_o_k consists of a _r_e_g_u_l_a_r + _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n (section 4.1 , page 49) or _p_a_t_t_e_r_n (section 7.2 , page 84) along with a configuration option/command. See - +o _f_o_l_d_e_r_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.5 , page 19) + +o _f_o_l_d_e_r_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.7 , page 29) - +o _s_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.18 , page 27) + +o _s_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.21 , page 40) - +o _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.19 , page 28) + +o _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.22 , page 41) - +o _s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.15 , page 26) + +o _s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.18 , page 39) - +o _m_b_o_x_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.11 , page 25) + +o _m_b_o_x_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.14 , page 37) - +o _f_c_c_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.16 , page 27) + +o _f_c_c_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.19 , page 39) - +o _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.17 , page 27) + +o _f_c_c_-_s_a_v_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 3.20 , page 40) for specific details on each type of _h_o_o_k available. @@ -2180,38 +2877,38 @@ send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:' send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c - _4_._4_._1 _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 58 + + _4_._5_._1 _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _M_a_t_c_h_i_n_g _i_n _H_o_o_k_s Hooks that act upon messages (send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook, message-hook) are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other types of hooks, a _r_e_g_- - _u_l_a_r _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n (section 4.1 , page 33) is sufficient. But in dealing with + _u_l_a_r _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n (section 4.1 , page 49) is sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match different criteria. - Mutt allows the use of the _s_e_a_r_c_h _p_a_t_t_e_r_n (section 4.2 , page 36) language for - matching messages in hook commands. This works in exactly the same way as it - would when _l_i_m_i_t_i_n_g or _s_e_a_r_c_h_i_n_g the mailbox, except that you are restricted to - those operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of the + Mutt-ng allows the use of the _s_e_a_r_c_h _p_a_t_t_e_r_n (section 7.2 , page 84) language + for matching messages in hook commands. This works in exactly the same way as + it would when _l_i_m_i_t_i_n_g or _s_e_a_r_c_h_i_n_g the mailbox, except that you are restricted + to those operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of the message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.). For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending mail to a specific address, you could do something like: - send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt User ' - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 42 + send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User ' which would execute the given command when sending mail to _m_e_@_c_s_._h_m_c_._e_d_u. However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the full searching language. You can still specify a simple _r_e_g_u_l_a_r _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n like the - other hooks, in which case Mutt will translate your pattern into the full lan- - guage, using the translation specified by the _$_d_e_f_a_u_l_t___h_o_o_k (section 6.3.47 , - page 75) variable. The pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, - so the value of _$_d_e_f_a_u_l_t___h_o_o_k (section 6.3.47 , page 75) that is in effect at - that time will be used. + other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your pattern into the full + language, using the translation specified by the _$_d_e_f_a_u_l_t___h_o_o_k (section + 7.4.49 , page 101) variable. The pattern is translated at the time the hook + is declared, so the value of _$_d_e_f_a_u_l_t___h_o_o_k (section 7.4.49 , page 101) that is + in effect at that time will be used. - _4_._5 _U_s_i_n_g _t_h_e _s_i_d_e_b_a_r + _4_._6 _U_s_i_n_g _t_h_e _s_i_d_e_b_a_r The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients. @@ -2231,6 +2928,8 @@ You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 59 + color sidebar_new red black color sidebar white black @@ -2245,8 +2944,6 @@ Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this: - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 43 - bind index \Cp sidebar-prev bind index \Cn sidebar-next bind index \Cb sidebar-open @@ -2260,12 +2957,12 @@ You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'. - _4_._6 _E_x_t_e_r_n_a_l _A_d_d_r_e_s_s _Q_u_e_r_i_e_s + _4_._7 _E_x_t_e_r_n_a_l _A_d_d_r_e_s_s _Q_u_e_r_i_e_s - Mutt supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP, ph/qi, - bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt using a simple - interface. Using the _$_q_u_e_r_y___c_o_m_m_a_n_d (section 6.3.214 , page 117) variable, - you specify the wrapper command to use. For example: + 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 _$_q_u_e_r_y___c_o_m_m_a_n_d (section 7.4.237 , page 146) vari- + able, you specify the wrapper command to use. For example: set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'" @@ -2280,6 +2977,9 @@ Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching: me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 60 + roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One is to @@ -2298,15 +2998,13 @@ will activate the query menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be added to the prompt. - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 44 + _4_._8 _M_a_i_l_b_o_x _F_o_r_m_a_t_s - _4_._7 _M_a_i_l_b_o_x _F_o_r_m_a_t_s - - Mutt supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats: mbox, + Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats: mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there is no need to - use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new mailboxes, Mutt uses - the default specified with the _$_m_b_o_x___t_y_p_e (section 6.3.128 , page 96) vari- - able. + use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new mailboxes, Mutt-ng + uses the default specified with the _$_m_b_o_x___t_y_p_e (section 7.4.132 , page 122) + variable. mmbbooxx. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form: @@ -2321,7 +3019,7 @@ MMHH. A radical departure from _m_b_o_x and _M_M_D_F, a mailbox consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file. The filename indicates the mes- - sage number (however, this is may not correspond to the message number Mutt + sage number (however, this is may not correspond to the message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages are renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the file- name. NNoottee:: Mutt detects this type of mailbox by looking for either .mh_sequences or .xmhcache (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH @@ -2331,20 +3029,23 @@ ment for sendmail). Similar to _M_H, except that it adds three subdirectories of the mailbox: _t_m_p, _n_e_w and _c_u_r. Filenames for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 61 + which means that no file locking is needed. - _4_._8 _M_a_i_l_b_o_x _S_h_o_r_t_c_u_t_s + _4_._9 _M_a_i_l_b_o_x _S_h_o_r_t_c_u_t_s There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes. These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox path. - +o ! -- refers to your _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 6.3.291 , page 135) (incoming) + +o ! -- refers to your _$_s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 7.4.313 , page 165) (incoming) mailbox - +o > -- refers to your _$_m_b_o_x (section 6.3.127 , page 96) file + +o > -- refers to your _$_m_b_o_x (section 7.4.131 , page 122) file - +o < -- refers to your _$_r_e_c_o_r_d (section 6.3.223 , page 119) file + +o < -- refers to your _$_r_e_c_o_r_d (section 7.4.246 , page 148) file +o ^ -- refers to the current mailbox @@ -2352,27 +3053,25 @@ +o ~ -- refers to your home directory - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 45 - - +o = or + -- refers to your _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 6.3.65 , page 79) directory + +o = or + -- refers to your _$_f_o_l_d_e_r (section 7.4.70 , page 105) directory - +o @_a_l_i_a_s -- refers to the _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_o_l_d_e_r (section 3.15 , page 26) as + +o @_a_l_i_a_s -- refers to the _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _s_a_v_e _f_o_l_d_e_r (section 3.18 , page 39) as determined by the address of the alias - _4_._9 _H_a_n_d_l_i_n_g _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _L_i_s_t_s + _4_._1_0 _H_a_n_d_l_i_n_g _M_a_i_l_i_n_g _L_i_s_t_s - Mutt has a few configuration options that make dealing with large amounts of + Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically this does not have to be a mail- ing list, but that is what it is most often used for), and what lists you are subscribed to. This is accomplished through the use of the _l_i_s_t_s _a_n_d _s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e - (section 3.10 , page 24) commands in your muttrc. + (section 3.13 , page 36) commands in your muttrc. - Now that Mutt knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several things, the - first of which is the ability to show the name of a list through which you + Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several things, + the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in the _i_n_d_e_x menu display. This is useful to distinguish between personal and list mail in the same mail- - box. In the _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.112 , page 91) variable, the escape + box. In the _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.116 , page 116) variable, the escape ``%L'' will return the string ``To '' when ``list'' appears in the ``To'' field, and ``Cc '' when it appears in the ``Cc'' field (otherwise it returns the name of the author). @@ -2383,36 +3082,37 @@ person. The ``list-reply'' function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the _i_n_d_e_x menu and _p_a_g_e_r, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as specified by Mail- + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 62 + Followup-To, see below). - Mutt also supports the Mail-Followup-To header. When you send a message to a - list of recipients which includes one or several subscribed mailing lists, and - if the _$_f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 6.3.67 , page 80) option is set, mutt will gener- - ate a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom you - send this message, but not your address. This indicates that group-replies or - list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this message should only be sent - to the original recipients of the message, and not separately to you - you'll - receive your copy through one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to. + Mutt-ng also supports the 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 _$_f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o (section 7.4.72 , page 106) option is set, mutt will + generate a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom + you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that group-replies + or list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this message should only be + sent to the original recipients of the message, and not separately to you - + you'll receive your copy through one of the mailing lists you are subscribed + to. Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which has a Mail- Followup-To header, mutt will respect this header if the _$_h_o_n_o_r___f_o_l_l_o_w_u_p___t_o - (section 6.3.91 , page 86) configuration variable is set. Using list-reply + (section 7.4.94 , page 111) configuration variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified in the list of recipients in the Mail-Followup-To. Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a Mail-Followup-To - header manually. Mutt will only auto-generate this header if it doesn't exist - when you send the message. + header manually. Mutt-ng will only auto-generate this header if it doesn't + exist when you send the message. The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather 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 - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 46 - - address given in the ``Reply-To'' field. Mutt uses the _$_r_e_p_l_y___t_o (section - 6.3.226 , page 119) variable to help decide which address to use. If set to + address given in the ``Reply-To'' field. Mutt-ng uses the _$_r_e_p_l_y___t_o (section + 7.4.249 , page 149) variable to help decide which address to use. If set to _a_s_k_-_y_e_s or _a_s_k_-_n_o, you will be prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in the ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the ``From'' field. When set to _y_e_s, the ``Reply-To'' field @@ -2420,32 +3120,35 @@ The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages individually). The - _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 6.3.112 , page 91) variable's ``%y'' and ``%Y'' escapes - can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the index, and Mutt's pattern- - matcher can match regular expressions to ``X-Label:'' fields with the `` y'' - selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a standard message header field, but it can eas- - ily be inserted by procmail and other mail filtering agents. + _$_i_n_d_e_x___f_o_r_m_a_t (section 7.4.116 , page 116) variable's ``%y'' and ``%Y'' + escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the 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-ng has the ability to _s_o_r_t (section 7.4.307 , page 163) the mail- + box into _t_h_r_e_a_d_s (section 2.5.3 , page 11). 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 graphi- + cally. If you've ever used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. + It makes dealing with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily + delete uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value. - Lastly, Mutt has the ability to _s_o_r_t (section 6.3.285 , page 133) the mailbox - into _t_h_r_e_a_d_s (section 2.3.3 , page 7). 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 used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes - dealing with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete - uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value. + _4_._1_1 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s - _4_._1_0 _E_d_i_t_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s + Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken - Mutt 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. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 63 - _4_._1_0_._1 _L_i_n_k_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s + 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. + + _4_._1_1_._1 _L_i_n_k_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and "Refer- ences:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken discussions - because Mutt has not enough information to guess the correct threading. You + 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 reply will then be connected to this "parent" message. @@ -2453,7 +3156,7 @@ You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and using the tag- prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option. - _4_._1_0_._2 _B_r_e_a_k_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s + _4_._1_1_._2 _B_r_e_a_k_i_n_g _t_h_r_e_a_d_s On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and changing the subject to a @@ -2461,26 +3164,35 @@ function (bound by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the current message into a whole different thread. - _4_._1_1 _D_e_l_i_v_e_r_y _S_t_a_t_u_s _N_o_t_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n _(_D_S_N_) _S_u_p_p_o_r_t + _4_._1_2 _D_e_l_i_v_e_r_y _S_t_a_t_u_s _N_o_t_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n _(_D_S_N_) _S_u_p_p_o_r_t 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.'' + + Users can make use of it in one of the following two ways: - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 47 + +o 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. - 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. + +o The SMTP support via libESMTP supports it, too. - To support this, there are two variables. _$_d_s_n___n_o_t_i_f_y (section 6.3.53 , page - 76) is used to request receipts for different results (such as failed message, - message delivered, etc.). _$_d_s_n___r_e_t_u_r_n (section 6.3.54 , page 77) requests how - much of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full mes- - sage). Refer to the man page on sendmail for more details on DSN. + To support this, there are two variables: - _4_._1_2 _P_O_P_3 _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + +o _$_d_s_n___n_o_t_i_f_y (section 7.4.56 , page 102) is used to request receipts for + different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.). - If Mutt was compiled with POP3 support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with + +o _$_d_s_n___r_e_t_u_r_n (section 7.4.57 , page 103) requests how much of your message + should be returned with the receipt (headers or full message). + + Please see the reference chapter for possible values. + + _4_._1_3 _P_O_P_3 _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 64 + + If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with the _-_-_e_n_a_b_l_e_-_p_o_p flag), it has the ability to work with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local browsing. @@ -2494,27 +3206,27 @@ name@popserver[:port]/. 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 controlled by - the _$_p_o_p___c_h_e_c_k_i_n_t_e_r_v_a_l (section 6.3.197 , page 113) variable, which defaults + the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can be controlled + by the _$_p_o_p___m_a_i_l___c_h_e_c_k (section 7.4.224 , page 144) variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds. - If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with the - _-_-_w_i_t_h_-_s_s_l 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 use pops: prefix, ie: pops://[user- + If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with + the _-_-_w_i_t_h_-_s_s_l flag), connections to POP3 servers can be encrypted. This natu- + rally requires that the server supports SSL encrypted connections. To access a + folder with POP3/SSL, you should use pops: prefix, ie: pops://[user- name@]popserver[:port]/. Another way to access your POP3 mail is the _f_e_t_c_h_-_m_a_i_l function (default: G). - It allows to connect to _p_o_p___h_o_s_t (section 6.3.199 , page 113), fetch all your - new mail and place it in the local _s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 6.3.291 , page 135). - After this point, Mutt runs exactly as if the mail had always been local. + It allows to connect to _p_o_p___h_o_s_t (section 7.4.222 , page 143), fetch all your + new mail and place it in the local _s_p_o_o_l_f_i_l_e (section 7.4.313 , page 165). + After this point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the mail had always been local. NNoottee:: If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox you should con- sider using a specialized program, such as fetchmail - _4_._1_3 _I_M_A_P _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + _4_._1_4 _I_M_A_P _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) - If Mutt was compiled with IMAP support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with + If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with the _-_-_e_n_a_b_l_e_-_i_m_a_p flag), it has the ability to work with folders located on a remote IMAP server. @@ -2522,9 +3234,6 @@ imap://imapserver/INBOX, where imapserver is the name of the IMAP server and INBOX is the special name for your spool mailbox on the IMAP server. If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP server, you should use - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 48 - imap://imapserver/path/to/folder where path/to/folder is the path of the folder you want to access. @@ -2534,33 +3243,36 @@ You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.: imap://user- name@imapserver[:port]/INBOX. - If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with the - _-_-_w_i_t_h_-_s_s_l 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 use imaps://[user- + If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e script with + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 65 + + the _-_-_w_i_t_h_-_s_s_l flag), connections to IMAP servers can be encrypted. This natu- + rally requires that the server supports SSL encrypted connections. To access a + folder with IMAP/SSL, you should use imaps://[user- name@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder as your folder path. Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e. {[user- name@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder - Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt should cor- - rectly notice which separator is being used by the server and convert paths + 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. When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look at only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the _t_o_g_g_l_e_-_s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e_d - command. See also the _$_i_m_a_p___l_i_s_t___s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e_d (section 6.3.100 , page 88) vari- - able. + command. See also the _$_i_m_a_p___l_i_s_t___s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e_d (section 7.4.103 , page 114) + variable. Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So, you'll - want to carefully tune the _$_i_m_a_p___m_a_i_l___c_h_e_c_k (section 6.3.101 , page 88) and - _$_t_i_m_e_o_u_t (section 6.3.311 , page 141) variables. + want to carefully tune the _$_i_m_a_p___m_a_i_l___c_h_e_c_k (section 7.4.105 , page 114) and + _$_t_i_m_e_o_u_t (section 7.4.337 , page 172) variables. Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior to v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client selects the same folder. - _4_._1_3_._1 _T_h_e _F_o_l_d_e_r _B_r_o_w_s_e_r + _4_._1_4_._1 _T_h_e _F_o_l_d_e_r _B_r_o_w_s_e_r As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the following differences: @@ -2580,17 +3292,17 @@ respectively). You may also subscribe and unsubscribe to mailboxes (nor- mally these are bound to s and u, respectively). - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 49 + _4_._1_4_._2 _A_u_t_h_e_n_t_i_c_a_t_i_o_n - _4_._1_3_._2 _A_u_t_h_e_n_t_i_c_a_t_i_o_n - - Mutt supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL, GSSAPI, + 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 authentica- tion for you poor exchange users out there, but it has yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for the pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public IMAP server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make your username blank or "anonymous". + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 66 + SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several protocols (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most secure method available on your host and the server. Using some of these methods (including @@ -2599,25 +3311,106 @@ it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL library installed on your system and compile mutt with the _-_-_w_i_t_h_-_s_a_s_l flag. - Mutt will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server, in - the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN. + 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: - +o _$_i_m_a_p___u_s_e_r (section 6.3.107 , page 90) - controls the username under + +o _$_i_m_a_p___u_s_e_r (section 7.4.111 , page 115) - controls the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP server, for all authentica- tors. This is overridden by an explicit username in the mailbox path (i.e. by using a mailbox name of the form {user@host}). - +o _$_i_m_a_p___p_a_s_s (section 6.3.102 , page 88) - a password which you may preset, - used by all authentication methods where a password is needed. + +o _$_i_m_a_p___p_a_s_s (section 7.4.106 , page 114) - a password which you may pre- + set, used by all authentication methods where a password is needed. - +o _$_i_m_a_p___a_u_t_h_e_n_t_i_c_a_t_o_r_s (section 6.3.94 , page 86) - a colon-delimited list + +o _$_i_m_a_p___a_u_t_h_e_n_t_i_c_a_t_o_r_s (section 7.4.97 , page 112) - a colon-delimited list of IMAP authentication methods to try, in the order you wish to try them. If specified, this overrides mutt's default (attempt everything, in the order listed above). - _4_._1_4 _M_a_n_a_g_i_n_g _m_u_l_t_i_p_l_e _I_M_A_P_/_P_O_P _a_c_c_o_u_n_t_s _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + _4_._1_5 _N_N_T_P _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + + 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 i. + + The Default newsserver can be obtained from the $NNTPSERVER environment vari- + able. Like other news readers, info about subscribed newsgroups is saved in a + file as specified by the _$_n_n_t_p___n_e_w_s_r_c (section 7.4.172 , page 131) 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. + + _4_._1_5_._1 _A_g_a_i_n_: _S_c_o_r_i_n_g + + 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 _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _s_c_o_r_i_n_g (section 3.26 , page + 42). + + What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in realname filter. + For may newsreaders including those for ``advanced users'' like _s_l_r_n or _t_i_n, + there are frequent request for such functionality. The solutions offered often + are complicated regular expressions. + + In mutt-ng this is as easy as + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 67 + + score ~* =42 + + This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose sender speci- + fied a valid realname and a valid email address. Using + + score !~* =42 + + on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages _n_o_t matching those crite- + ria which are very strict: + + +o Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see + + +o 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. + + +o 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. + + _4_._1_6 _S_M_T_P _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + + Mutt-ng can be built using a library called ``libESMTP'' which provides SMTP + functionality. When configure was called with --with-libesmtp or the output + muttng -v contains +USE_LIBESMTP, this will be or is the case already. The SMTP + support includes support for Delivery Status Notification (see _D_e_l_i_v_e_r_y _S_t_a_t_u_s + _N_o_t_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n (section 4.12 , page 63) section) as well as handling the 8BIT- + MIME flag controlled via _$_u_s_e___8_b_i_t_m_i_m_e (section 7.4.344 , page 173). + + To enable sending mail directly via SMTP without an MTA such as Postfix or + SSMTP and the like, simply set the _$_s_m_t_p___h_o_s_t (section 7.4.302 , page 161) + variable pointing to your SMTP server. + + Authentication mechanisms are available via the _$_s_m_t_p___u_s_e_r (section 7.4.306 , + page 162) and _$_s_m_t_p___p_a_s_s (section 7.4.303 , page 162) variables. + + 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 + _$_s_m_t_p___u_s_e___t_l_s (section 7.4.305 , page 162) variable must be either set to + ``enabled'' or ``required.'' In both cases, StartTLS will be used if the server + supports it: for the second case, the connection will fail if it doesn't while + switching back to unencrypted communication for the first one. + + Some mail providers require user's to set a particular envelope sender, i.e. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 68 + + they allow for only one value which may not be what the user wants to send as + the From: header. In this case, the variable _$_s_m_t_p___e_n_v_e_l_o_p_e (section 7.4.301 , + page 161) may be used to set the envelope different from the From: header. + + _4_._1_7 _M_a_n_a_g_i_n_g _m_u_l_t_i_p_l_e _I_M_A_P_/_P_O_P_/_N_N_T_P _a_c_c_o_u_n_t_s _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers, you may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and error-prone. @@ -2631,12 +3424,9 @@ account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo' account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"' - _4_._1_5 _S_t_a_r_t _a _W_W_W _B_r_o_w_s_e_r _o_n _U_R_L_s _(_E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L_) + _4_._1_8 _S_t_a_r_t _a _W_W_W _B_r_o_w_s_e_r _o_n _U_R_L_s _(_E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L_) If a message contains URLs (_u_n_i_f_i_e_d _r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e _l_o_c_a_t_o_r = address in the WWW space - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 50 - like _h_t_t_p_:_/_/_w_w_w_._m_u_t_t_._o_r_g_/), it is efficient to get a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This functionality is provided by the external urlview program which can be retrieved at ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/con- @@ -2645,12 +3435,12 @@ macro index \cb |urlview\n macro pager \cb |urlview\n - _4_._1_6 _C_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _f_o_l_d_e_r_s _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) + _4_._1_9 _C_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _f_o_l_d_e_r_s _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _(_O_P_T_I_O_N_A_L_) - If Mutt was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_e - script with the _-_-_e_n_a_b_l_e_-_c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d 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. + If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the _c_o_n_f_i_g_- + _u_r_e script with the _-_-_e_n_a_b_l_e_-_c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d 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. The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with gzip. @@ -2659,11 +3449,13 @@ may be faster than converting the entire folder to the accepted format, append- ing to it and converting back to the user-defined format. - There are three hooks defined (_o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.1 , page 50), _c_l_o_s_e_- - _h_o_o_k (section 4.16.2 , page 51) and _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.3 , page 51)) + There are three hooks defined (_o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.1 , page 69), _c_l_o_s_e_- + _h_o_o_k (section 4.19.2 , page 69) and _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.3 , page 70)) which define commands to uncompress and compress a folder and to append mes- sages to an existing compressed folder respectively. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 69 + For example: open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t" @@ -2671,25 +3463,23 @@ append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f" You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (sec- - tion 4.16.3 , page 51), the folder will be open and closed again each time you - will add to it. If you omit _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.2 , page 51) (or give + tion 4.19.3 , page 70), the folder will be open and closed again each time you + will add to it. If you omit _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.2 , page 69) (or give empty command) , the folder will be open in the mode. If you specify _a_p_p_e_n_d_- - _h_o_o_k (section 4.16.3 , page 51) though you'll be able to append to the folder. + _h_o_o_k (section 4.19.3 , page 70) 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 the + 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 '.' as a regexp. But this may be sur- prising if your compressing script produces empty files. In this situation, - unset _$_s_a_v_e___e_m_p_t_y (section 6.3.233 , page 121), so that the compressed file + unset _$_s_a_v_e___e_m_p_t_y (section 7.4.256 , page 151), so that the compressed file will be removed if you delete all of the messages. - _4_._1_6_._1 _O_p_e_n _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _f_o_r _r_e_a_d_i_n_g + _4_._1_9_._1 _O_p_e_n _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x _f_o_r _r_e_a_d_i_n_g Usage: open-hook _r_e_g_e_x_p '_c_o_m_m_a_n_d' - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 51 - The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d is the command that can be used for opening the folders whose names match _r_e_g_e_x_p. @@ -2710,17 +3500,19 @@ If the _c_o_m_m_a_n_d is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type. - _4_._1_6_._2 _W_r_i_t_e _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x + _4_._1_9_._2 _W_r_i_t_e _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x Usage: close-hook _r_e_g_e_x_p '_c_o_m_m_a_n_d' This is used to close the folder that was open with the _o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section - 4.16.1 , page 50) command after some changes were made to it. + 4.19.1 , page 69) command after some changes were made to it. + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 70 The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d string is the command that can be used for closing the folders whose names match _r_e_g_e_x_p. It has the same format as in the _o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section - 4.16.1 , page 50) command. Temporary folder in this case is the folder previ- - ously produced by the <_o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.1 , page 50) command. + 4.19.1 , page 69) command. Temporary folder in this case is the folder previ- + ously produced by the <_o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.1 , page 69) command. The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d should nnoott remove the decompressed file. The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt knows something's wrong. @@ -2732,19 +3524,16 @@ If the _c_o_m_m_a_n_d is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type, and the file can only be open in the readonly mode. - _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.2 , page 51) is not called when you exit from the + _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.2 , page 69) is not called when you exit from the folder if the folder was not changed. - _4_._1_6_._3 _A_p_p_e_n_d _a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _t_o _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x + _4_._1_9_._3 _A_p_p_e_n_d _a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _t_o _a _c_o_m_p_r_e_s_s_e_d _m_a_i_l_b_o_x Usage: append-hook _r_e_g_e_x_p '_c_o_m_m_a_n_d' This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder. The _c_o_m_m_a_n_d - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 52 - is the command that can be used for appending to the folders whose names match - _r_e_g_e_x_p. It has the same format as in the _o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.1 , page 50) + _r_e_g_e_x_p. It has the same format as in the _o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.1 , page 69) command. The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are being appended. @@ -2755,21 +3544,23 @@ append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f" - When _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.3 , page 51) is used, the folder is not opened, + When _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.3 , page 70) is used, the folder is not opened, which saves time, but this means that we can not find out what the folder type - is. Thus the default (_$_m_b_o_x___t_y_p_e (section 6.3.128 , page 96)) type is always + is. Thus the default (_$_m_b_o_x___t_y_p_e (section 7.4.132 , page 122)) type is always supposed (i.e. this is the format used for the temporary folder). - If the file does not exist when you save to it, _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.2 , - page 51) is called, and not _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.3 , page 51). _a_p_p_e_n_d_- - _h_o_o_k (section 4.16.3 , page 51) is only for appending to existing folders. + If the file does not exist when you save to it, _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.2 , + page 69) is called, and not _a_p_p_e_n_d_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.3 , page 70). _a_p_p_e_n_d_- + _h_o_o_k (section 4.19.3 , page 70) is only for appending to existing folders. If the _c_o_m_m_a_n_d is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type. In this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using _o_p_e_n_-_h_o_o_k (section - 4.16.1 , page 50) and _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.16.2 , page 51)respectively) each + 4.19.1 , page 69) and _c_l_o_s_e_-_h_o_o_k (section 4.19.2 , page 69)respectively) each time you will add to it. - _4_._1_6_._4 _E_n_c_r_y_p_t_e_d _f_o_l_d_e_r_s + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 71 + + _4_._1_9_._4 _E_n_c_r_y_p_t_e_d _f_o_l_d_e_r_s 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 the following hooks: @@ -2784,34 +3575,31 @@ can be read by your system administrator. So think about the security aspects of this. - _5_. _M_u_t_t_'_s _M_I_M_E _S_u_p_p_o_r_t + _5_. _M_u_t_t_-_n_g_'_s _M_I_M_E _S_u_p_p_o_r_t - Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt the premier text-mode MIME + 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 discern- ing 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 mime.types file, which contains the mapping - of file extensions to IANA MIME types. The other is the mailcap file, which - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 53 - - specifies the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types. + When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two extra types of configuration + files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the mime.types file, which contains the map- + ping of file extensions to IANA MIME types. The other is the mailcap file, + which specifies the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types. _5_._1 _U_s_i_n_g _M_I_M_E _i_n _M_u_t_t - There are three areas/menus in Mutt which deal with MIME, they are the pager + 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. _5_._1_._1 _V_i_e_w_i_n_g _M_I_M_E _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s _i_n _t_h_e _p_a_g_e_r 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 a number of + the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally supports a number of MIME types, including text/plain, text/enriched, message/rfc822, and mes- - sage/news. In addition, the export controlled version of Mutt recognizes a + sage/news. In addition, the export 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. These lines - are of the form: + Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them. These + lines are of the form: [-- Attachment #1: Description --] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --] @@ -2819,7 +3607,9 @@ Where the Description is the description or filename given for the attachment, and the Encoding is one of 7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary. - If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 72 + + If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like: [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --] @@ -2835,7 +3625,7 @@ view attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition. Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like _r_e_s_e_n_d_-_m_e_s_s_a_g_e - (section 2.3.4 , page 9), and the reply and forward functions) to attachments + (section 2.5.4 , page 13), and the reply and forward functions) to attachments of type message/rfc822. See the help on the attachment menu for more information. @@ -2847,9 +3637,6 @@ also contains a list of the attachments of your message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy, filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a list of tagged attachments. You can also - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 54 - modifying the attachment information, notably the type, encoding and descrip- tion. @@ -2858,8 +3645,8 @@ - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz - The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending (or postponing, or - canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the toggle-unlink command + The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or postponing, + or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the toggle-unlink command (default: u). The next field is the MIME content-type, and can be changed with the edit-type command (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment, which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on @@ -2871,7 +3658,10 @@ _5_._2 _M_I_M_E _T_y_p_e _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _w_i_t_h _m_i_m_e_._t_y_p_e_s - When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your personal + When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your personal + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 73 + mime.types file at ${HOME}/.mime.types, and then the system mime.types file at /usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types or /etc/mime.types @@ -2882,38 +3672,37 @@ application/pgp pgp audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff - A sample mime.types file comes with the Mutt distribution, and should contain - most of the MIME types you are likely to use. + A sample mime.types file comes with the Mutt-ng distribution, and should con- + tain 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 text/plain. If - the file contains binary information, then Mutt will mark it as applica- - tion/octet-stream. You can change the MIME type that Mutt assigns to an + Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it as text/plain. If + the file contains binary information, then Mutt-ng will mark it as applica- + tion/octet-stream. You can change the MIME type that Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the 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 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 vari- - ous molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used if the + been approved after various internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of + these if the appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recog- + nises 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. _5_._3 _M_I_M_E _V_i_e_w_e_r _c_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _w_i_t_h _m_a_i_l_c_a_p - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 55 + 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. - Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix specific for- - mat 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 find an external handler. - The default search string for these files is a colon delimited list set 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 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap @@ -2922,6 +3711,8 @@ In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file, usually as /usr/local/etc/mailcap, which contains some baseline entries. + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 74 + _5_._3_._1 _T_h_e _B_a_s_i_c_s _o_f _t_h_e _m_a_i_l_c_a_p _f_i_l_e A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank, or def- @@ -2945,19 +3736,17 @@ The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change this behavior by using - %s as a parameter to your view command. This will cause Mutt to save the body - of the MIME message to a temporary file, and then call the view command with - the %s replaced by the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will - turn over the terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which - time Mutt will remove the temporary file if it exists. + %s as a parameter to your view command. 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-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. So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the external pager more on stdin: text/plain; more - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 56 - Or, you could send the message as a file: text/plain; more %s @@ -2975,6 +3764,8 @@ On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can use: + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 75 + text/html; lynx -dump %s | more Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on all other @@ -2988,17 +3779,17 @@ _5_._3_._2 _S_e_c_u_r_e _u_s_e _o_f _m_a_i_l_c_a_p The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters can - lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to quote parameters in expan- - sion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by substituting them, - see the _m_a_i_l_c_a_p___s_a_n_i_t_i_z_e (section 6.3.120 , page 95) variable. + 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 _m_a_i_l_c_a_p___s_a_n_i_t_i_z_e (section 7.4.123 , page 120) variable. Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules: _K_e_e_p _t_h_e _%_-_e_x_p_a_n_d_o_s _a_w_a_y _f_r_o_m _s_h_e_l_l _q_u_o_t_i_n_g_. Don't quote them with single or - double quotes. Mutt does this for you, the right way, as should any other pro- - gram which interprets mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be + 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 broken behaviour with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no alterna- tive to correct quoting in the first place. @@ -3009,8 +3800,6 @@ inside the backtick expansion is safe, since it is not itself subject to any further expansion): - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 57 - text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \ && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1 @@ -3019,56 +3808,59 @@ _5_._3_._3_._1 _O_p_t_i_o_n_a_l _F_i_e_l_d_s In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you can add - semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options. Mutt recog- + semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options. Mutt-ng recog- nizes the following optional fields: copiousoutput - This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts - of text on stdout. This causes Mutt to invoke a pager (either the - internal pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) - on the output of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes - that the command is interactive. One could use this to replace the - pipe to more in the lynx -dump example in the Basic section: + This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly large + amounts of text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager + (either the internal pager or the external pager defined by the + pager variable) on the output of the view command. Without this + + The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client 76 + + flag, Mutt-ng assumes that the command is interactive. One could + use this to replace the pipe to more in the lynx -dump example in + the Basic section: text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain - and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results. + and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the results. needsterminal - Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with _a_u_t_o_v_i_e_w (section - 5.4 , page 60), in order to decide whether it should honor the - setting of the _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 6.3.325 , page 144) variable or - not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, - and the corresponding mailcap entry has a _n_e_e_d_s_t_e_r_m_i_n_a_l flag, Mutt - will use _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 6.3.325 , page 144) and the exit sta- - tus of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key + Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with _a_u_t_o_v_i_e_w (sec- + tion 5.4 , page 79), in order to decide whether it should honor + the setting of the _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 7.4.350 , page 174) variable + or not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, + and the corresponding mailcap entry has a _n_e_e_d_s_t_e_r_m_i_n_a_l flag, Mutt- + ng will use _$_w_a_i_t___k_e_y (section 7.4.350 , page 174) 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. compose= This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment - of a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu. + of a specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose + menu. composetyped= 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. + for a new attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose + menu. print= This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME - type. Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus. + type. Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose menus. edit= This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME - - The Mutt-ng E-Mail Client 58 - - type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it - to compose new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined edi- - tor for text attachments. + type. 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. nametemplate=