NMH(1)
NAME
nmh - new MH message system
SYNOPSIS
any nmh command
DESCRIPTION
nmh is the name of a powerful message handling system.
Rather than being a single comprehensive program, nmh con-
sists of a collection of fairly simple single-purpose pro-
grams to send, retrieve, save, and manipulate messages.
Unlike most mail clients in UNIX, nmh is not a closed sys-
tem which must be explicitly run, then exited when you
wish to return to the shell. You may freely intersperse
nmh commands with other shell commands, allowing you to
read and answer your mail while you have (for example) a
compilation running, or search for a file or run programs
as needed to find the answer to someone's question before
answering their mail.
The rest of this manual entry is a quick tutorial which
will teach you the basics of nmh. You should read the
manual entries for the individual programs for complete
documentation.
To get started using nmh, put the directory /usr/bin on
your $PATH. This is best done in one of the files: .pro-
file, .login, or .cshrc in your home directory. (Check
the manual entry for the shell you use, in case you don't
know how to do this.) Run the inc command. If you've
never used nmh before, it will create the necessary
default files and directories after asking you if you wish
it to do so.
inc moves mail from your system maildrop into your nmh
`+inbox' folder, breaking it up into separate files and
converting it to nmh format as it goes. It prints one
line for each message it processes, containing the from
field, the subject field and as much of the first line of
the message as will fit. It leaves the first message it
processes as your current message. You'll need to run inc
each time you wish to incorporate new mail into your nmh
file.
scan prints a list of the messages in your current folder.
The commands: show, next, and prev are used to read spe-
cific messages from the current folder. show displays the
current message, or a specific message, which may be spec-
ified by its number, which you pass as an argument to
show. next and prev display, respectively, the message
numerically after or before the current message. In all
cases, the message displayed becomes the current message.
If there is no current message, show may be called with an
argument, or next may be used to advance to the first mes-
sage.
rmm (remove message) deletes the current message. It may
be called with message numbers passed as arguments, to
delete specific messages.
repl is used to respond to the current message (by
default). It places you in the editor with a prototype
response form. While you're in the editor, you may peruse
the item you're responding to by reading the file @.
After completing your response, type l to list (review)
it, or s to send it.
comp allows you to compose a message by putting you in the
editor on a prototype message form, and then lets you send
it.
All the nmh commands may be run with the single argument:
`-help', which causes them to print a list of the argu-
ments they may be invoked with and then exit.
All the nmh commands may be run with the single argument:
`-version', which cause them to print the version number
of the nmh distribution, and then exit.
Commands which take a message number as an argument (scan,
show, repl, ...) also take one of the words: first, prev,
cur, next, or last to indicate (respectively) the first,
previous, current, next, or last message in the current
folder (assuming they are defined).
Commands which take a range of message numbers (rmm, scan,
show, ...) also take any of the abbreviations:
<num1>-<num2> - Indicates all messages in the range
<num1> to <num2>, inclusive. The range must be
nonempty.
<num>:+N
<num>:-N - Up to N messages beginning with (or ending
with) message num. Num may be any of the pre-defined
symbols: first, prev, cur, next or last.
first:N
prev:N
next:N
last:N - The first, previous, next or last N messages,
if they exist.
There are many other possibilities such as creating multi-
ple folders for different topics, and automatically refil-
ing messages according to subject, source, destination, or
content. These are beyond the scope of this manual entry.
Following is a list of all the nmh commands:
ali (1) - list mail aliases
anno (1) - annotate messages
burst (1) - explode digests into messages
comp (1) - compose a message
dist (1) - redistribute a message to additional addresses
flist (1) - list folders that contain messages in given sequence
flists (1) - list all folders that contain messages in given sequence
folder (1) - set/list current folder/message
folders (1) - list all folders
forw (1) - forward messages
inc (1) - incorporate new mail
mark (1) - mark messages
mhbuild (1) - translate MIME composition draft
mhl (1) - produce formatted listings of nmh messages
mhmail (1) - send or read mail
mhn (1) - display/list/store/cache MIME messages
mhparam (1) - print nmh profile components
mhpath (1) - print full pathnames of nmh messages and folders
msgchk (1) - check for messages
msh (1) - nmh shell (and BBoard reader)
next (1) - show the next message
packf (1) - compress a folder into a single file
pick (1) - select messages by content
prev (1) - show the previous message
prompter (1) - prompting editor front end
rcvdist (1) - asynchronously redistribute new mail
rcvpack (1) - append message to file
rcvstore (1) - asynchronously incorporate new mail
rcvtty (1) - report new mail
refile (1) - file messages in other folders
repl (1) - reply to a message
rmf (1) - remove folder
rmm (1) - remove messages
scan (1) - produce a one line per message scan listing
send (1) - send a message
show (1) - show (display) messages
slocal (1) - asynchronously filter and deliver new mail
sortm (1) - sort messages
whatnow (1) - prompting front-end for send
whom (1) - report to whom a message would go
mh-alias (5) - alias file for nmh message system
mh-draft (5) - draft folder facility
mh-format (5) - format file for nmh message system
mh-mail (5) - message format for nmh message system
mh-profile (5) - user customization for nmh message system
mh-sequence (5)- sequence specification for nmh message system
ap (8) - parse addresses 822-style
conflict (8) - search for alias/password conflicts
dp (8) - parse dates 822-style
fmtdump (8) - decode nmh format files
install-mh (8) - initialize the nmh environment
post (8) - deliver a message
FILES
/usr/bin directory containing nmh commands
/etc/nmh directory containing nmh format files
/usr/lib/nmh nmh library commands
BUGS
If problems are encountered with an nmh program, the prob-
lems should be reported to the local maintainers of nmh.
When doing this, the name of the program should be
reported, along with the version information for the pro-
gram.
To find out what version of an nmh program is being run,
invoke the program with the `-version' switch. This
information includes the version of nmh, the host it was
generated on, and the date the program was loaded.
Send bug reports and suggestions to nmh-workers@math.gat-
ech.edu.
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile
PROFILE COMPONENTS
Path: To determine the user's nmh directory