1NMH(7)                 Miscellaneous Information Manual                 NMH(7)
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NAME

6       nmh - overview of the new MH message system
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DESCRIPTION

9       nmh is the name of a powerful message handling system.  Rather than be‐
10       ing a single comprehensive program, nmh consists  of  a  collection  of
11       fairly  simple single-purpose programs to send, retrieve, save, and ma‐
12       nipulate messages.
13
14       Unlike most mail clients in Unix, nmh is not a closed system which must
15       be  explicitly  run,  then exited when you wish to return to the shell.
16       You may freely intersperse nmh commands with other shell commands,  al‐
17       lowing  you to read and answer your mail while you have (for example) a
18       compilation running, or search for a file or run programs as needed  to
19       find the answer to someone's question before answering their mail.
20
21       The  rest of this manual entry is a quick tutorial which will teach you
22       the basics of nmh.  You should read the manual entries for the individ‐
23       ual  programs  for  complete documentation (see the section on COMMANDS
24       below).
25
26       To get started using nmh, put the directory “/usr/bin” in  your  $PATH.
27       Run  the  install-mh command.  If you've never used nmh before, it will
28       create the necessary default files and directories after asking you  if
29       you wish it to do so.
30
31       inc  moves  mail  from  your  system  mail  drop into your nmh “+inbox”
32       folder, breaking it up into separate files and  converting  it  to  nmh
33       format.   It  prints one line for each message it processes, containing
34       the from field, the subject field and as much of the first line of  the
35       message  as will fit.  It leaves the first message it processes as your
36       current message.  You'll need to run inc each time you wish to incorpo‐
37       rate new mail into your nmh file.
38
39       scan prints a list of the messages in your current folder.
40
41       The  commands  show,  next, and prev are used to read specific messages
42       from the current folder.  show displays the current message, or a  spe‐
43       cific  message  specified by its number which is passed as an argument.
44       next and prev display, respectively, the message numerically  after  or
45       before  the  current  message.  In all cases, the message displayed be‐
46       comes the current message.  If there is no current message, show may be
47       called  with  an  argument, or next may be used to advance to the first
48       message.
49
50       rmm (remove message) deletes the current message.  It  may  be  called,
51       with message numbers passed as arguments, to delete specific messages.
52
53       repl is used to respond to the current message (by default).  It places
54       you in the editor with a prototype response form.  While you're in  the
55       editor,  you  may  peruse  the item you're responding to by reading the
56       file @.  After completing your response, type “l” to list (review)  it,
57       or “s” to send it.
58
59       comp  allows you to compose a message by putting you in the editor on a
60       prototype message form, and then lets you send it via the whatnow  com‐
61       mand.  whatnow also supports easy-to-use management of MIME attachments
62       via its attach and related responses, as described in its man page.
63
64       nmh command arguments are usually called switches.  Some switches  have
65       a corresponding “-no” switch, which negates all previous occurrences of
66       that switch on the command line.  This allows a  user  to  conveniently
67       override, on the command line, a switch in their profile.  Switches may
68       be abbreviated as long as there is no ambiguity with another switch  of
69       the  same  command.   To  avoid ambiguity with any switches that may be
70       added in the future, it is recommended that full switch names  be  used
71       in durable code such as shell scripts, functions, and aliases.
72
73       Each  nmh command may be run with the single switch -help, which causes
74       it to print its available switches, along with any  profile  components
75       that apply, and then exit.
76
77       All  the nmh commands may be run with the single switch -version, which
78       causes them to print the version number of the  nmh  distribution,  and
79       then exit.
80
81       Commands  which take a message number as an argument (scan, show, repl,
82       ...)  also take one of the words “first”,  “prev”,  “cur”,  “next”,  or
83       “last”  to  indicate (respectively) the first, previous, current, next,
84       or last message in the current folder (assuming they are defined).   As
85       a shorthand, “.” is equivalent to “cur”.
86
87       Commands  which  take a range of message numbers (rmm, scan, show, ...)
88       also take any of the abbreviations:
89
90       <num1>-<num2>   Indicates all messages in the range <num1>  to  <num2>,
91                       inclusive.  The range must be nonempty.
92
93       all             Indicates all messages, i.e., first-last.
94
95       <num>:+N
96       <num>:-N        Up  to  N,  where N must be a positive number, messages
97                       beginning with (or ending with) message num.   Num  may
98                       be  any  of  the  pre-defined symbols first, prev, cur,
99                       next or last.  The + can be omitted.
100
101       first:N
102       prev:N
103       next:N
104       last:N          As many of the first, previous, next, or  last  N  mes‐
105                       sages  that  exist.  As above, N can be preceded with -
106                       to end the listing at the specified message, or with an
107                       optional +.
108
109       Commands  that  take  a folder name (inc, refile, scan, ...) accept the
110       folder name in two formats:  “+folder” or “@folder”.   In  both  cases,
111       “folder” can be a “/”-separated path, e.g. “foo/bar”.  “+folder” speci‐
112       fies a directory path to a folder.  If “folder” starts  with  “/”  then
113       it's  an  absolute path from the root directory.  If it is “.” or “..”,
114       or starts with “./” or “../”, then it's relative to the current working
115       directory.   Otherwise it's relative to mh-profile(5)'s “Path”, i.e. as
116       given by `mhpath +`.  “@folder” is a shorthand for “+curfolder/folder”;
117       it's  a relative path from the current folder.  “curfolder” is given by
118       `mhpath`.  For example, assuming a Path profile component of Mail,
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120       scan +inbox     scans $HOME/Mail/inbox
121       scan +work/todo scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo
122       scan @todo      scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo, if current folder is +work
123       refile @../done refiles to $HOME/Mail/work/done, if the current  folder
124                       is +work/todo
125       scan +/tmp      scans /tmp
126       scan +.         scans the current directory
127       refile @.       refiles current message to end of current folder.
128
129       There  are  many  other possibilities such as creating multiple folders
130       for different topics, and automatically refiling messages according  to
131       subject,  source,  destination, or content.  These are beyond the scope
132       of this manual entry.
133

COMMANDS

135       Following is a list of all the nmh commands, grouped loosely  according
136       to their role.
137
138   Sending
139       comp(1)         compose a message
140       forw(1)         forward messages
141       repl(1)         reply to a message
142       whatnow(1)      prompting front-end for send
143
144       Note that although whatnow provides much of the primary nmh user inter‐
145       face for sending mail, it is almost never invoked manually, but  rather
146       is  invoked  indirectly by one of the above commands, after you've com‐
147       posed a message in your editor, and before you've decided to  send  it.
148       Here  you can add attachments, check the recipient list, decide to quit
149       and send it later, etc.
150
151       Related utilities:
152
153       ali(1)          list mail aliases
154       anno(1)         annotate messages
155       whom(1)         report to whom a message would go
156       dist(1)         redistribute a message to additional addresses
157
158       Advanced commands, only sometimes invoked directly:
159
160       mhbuild(1)      translate MIME composition draft
161       send(1)         send a message
162       sendfiles(1)    send multiple files in a MIME message
163
164   Incorporating
165       inc(1)          incorporate new mail
166
167       Related utilities:
168
169       burst(1)        explode digests into messages
170       msgchk(1)       check for messages
171       rcvdist(1)      asynchronously redistribute new mail
172       rcvpack(1)      append message to file
173       rcvstore(1)     asynchronously incorporate new mail
174       slocal(1)       asynchronously filter and deliver new mail
175
176   Viewing
177       next(1)         show the next message
178       prev(1)         show the previous message
179       show(1)         show (display) messages
180       scan(1)         produce a one line per message scan listing
181       fnext(1)        select the next folder with new messages
182       fprev(1)        select the previous folder with new messages
183
184       Related utilities, only sometimes invoked directly:
185
186       mhl(1)          produce formatted listings of nmh messages
187       mhlist(1)       list information about content of MIME messages
188       mhn(1)          display/list/store MIME messages
189       mhshow(1)       display MIME messages
190       mhstore(1)      store contents of MIME messages into files
191
192   Searching
193       Within a folder:
194
195       pick(1)         select messages by content
196
197       Across folders:
198
199       new(1)          list folders with new messages
200       unseen(1)       list new messages in a given set of folders
201       flist(1)        list folders with messages in given sequence(s)
202       flists(1)       list all folders with messages in given sequence(s)
203       folder(1)       set/list current folder/message
204       folders(1)      list all folders
205
206   Organizing
207       mark(1)         mark messages
208       refile(1)       file messages in other folders
209       rmf(1)          remove folder
210       rmm(1)          remove messages
211       sortm(1)        sort messages
212
213   Convenience Wrappers
214       mhmail(1)       send or read mail
215
216   Utilities
217       mhfixmsg(1)     rewrite MIME messages with various transformations
218       mhparam(1)      print nmh profile components
219       mhpath(1)       print full pathnames of nmh messages and folders
220       packf(1)        compress a folder into a single file
221       prompter(1)     prompting editor front end
222       rcvtty(1)       report new mail
223
224   Indirectly Invoked Commands
225       ap(8)           parse addresses RFC 822-style
226       dp(8)           parse dates RFC 822-style
227       fmtdump(8)      decode mh-format(5) files
228       install-mh(8)   initialize the nmh environment
229       post(8)         deliver a message
230
231   Files Used by nmh Commands
232       mh-alias(5)     alias file for nmh message system
233       mh-format(5)    format file for nmh message system
234       mh-profile(5)   user customization for nmh message system
235       mh-tailor(5)    mail transport customization for nmh message system
236
237   Formats
238       mh-draft(5)     draft folder facility
239       mh-folders(5)   nmh message storage format specification
240       mh-mail(5)      message format for nmh message system
241       mh-sequence(5)  sequence specification for nmh message system
242

FILES

244       /usr/bin
245              contains nmh commands
246
247       /etc/nmh
248              contains nmh format files
249
250       /usr/libexec/nmh
251              contains nmh library commands
252
253       $HOME/.mh_profile
254              The user's nmh profile
255

SEE ALSO

257       install-mh(1), mh-profile(5), mh-chart(7), mh-mime(7)
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BUGS

260       Send bug reports, questions,  suggestions,  and  patches  to  nmh-work‐
261       ers@nongnu.org.   That  mailing list is relatively quiet, so user ques‐
262       tions are encouraged.  Users are also encouraged to subscribe, and view
263       the archives, at https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers .
264
265       If  problems  are  encountered  with an nmh program, they should be re‐
266       ported to the local maintainers of nmh, if any, or to the mailing  list
267       noted  above.   When  doing this, the name of the program should be re‐
268       ported, along with the version information for the program.
269
270       To find out what version of an nmh program is  being  run,  invoke  the
271       program  with the -version switch.  This prints the version of nmh, the
272       host it was compiled on, and the date the program was linked.
273
274       New releases, and other information  of  potential  interest,  are  an‐
275       nounced at http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/
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279nmh-1.8                           2016-09-26                            NMH(7)
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