Re: [Nmh-workers] The attach feature

[Paul Fox]

ken wrote:
 > >I don't remember all the places I looked and things I tried, nor do I 
 > >remember the order in which I did them. But here are some of the things I 
 > >tried:
 > >
 > >    man attach
 > >    man -k attach
 > >    man whatnow (It told me the feature existed, but not much more)
 > >    man nmh (to see if there was a relevant man page)
 > >    man send (lots of hits for "attach" but nothing about the attach 
 > > command)
 > 
 > So I guess this is partially the fault of the way nmh works; whatnow does
 > some things (and implements the "attach" command) but the real mechanics
 > are handled by "send".  Sure, once you KNOW that what attach does is add
 > a special header, the information in the send man page makes more sense.
 > 
 > >In my humble (but correct :-) opinion there should be an attach
 > >man page. It would, at the very least give the basic idea, (attach
 > >generates certain headers which send understands), the syntax of the
 > >command, and pointers to other man pages.
 > 
 > See, I'm not so sure about that.  It's not a new command that happens
 > at the shell prompt; I think more information about it belongs in the
 > whatnow man page.  I know there's a man page for "send", but that's because
 > it's a command.
 > 
 > But I do appreciate the feedback; let me offer a counter-suggestion.  How
 > about some expansion of the "attach" command in whatnow(1) and a pointer
 > to send(1), and a back-pointer in send(1) to whatnow(1).  And maybe
 > some clarification in send(1) as well.

attachments probably a mention in nmh.1 as well.

there's probably also room for a paragraph, somewhere, about where
and how MIME is dealt with, and where and how character sets are dealt
with.

either nmh.1 or mh-chart.1 could be expanded to have some notion of
command topics.  i just did the following quickly (based on the
contents of nmh.1), and i feel like i've never used half the commands
mentioned, so i'm sure it can be improved.  but you get the idea -- i
think something like this could replace the existing bare list in
nmh.1.

[btw, i just noticed that new/fnext/fprev/unseen are missing from
nmh.1.  nmh.1 might also make bolder reference to mh-chart.1 -- i only
found mh-chart a few months ago, and now use it all the time as a
quick reference.]


    Sending:

        The three principle commands for sending mail are:

            comp(1)        - compose a message
            forw(1)        - forward messages
            repl(1)        - reply to a message

            whatnow(1)     - prompting front-end for send

            whatnow is usually not invoked manually.  it's invoked for
            you by one of the above commands, after you've composed a
            message in your editor, and before you've decided to send
            it.  Here you can add attachments, check the recipient
            list, decide to quit and send it later, etc.

        Related utilities:

            ali(1)         - list mail aliases
            anno(1)        - annotate messages
            whom(1)        - report to whom a message would go
            dist(1)        - redistribute a message to additional addresses

        Advanced commands:

            mhbuild(1)     - translate MIME composition draft
            send(1)        - send a message
            sendfiles(1)   - send multiple files and directories in MIME message

    Receiving:

        The primary command for receiving mail:

            inc(1)         - incorporate new mail

        Related utilities:

            burst(1)       - explode digests into messages
            msgchk(1)      - check for messages
            rcvdist(1)     - asynchronously redistribute new mail
            rcvpack(1)     - append message to file
            rcvstore(1)    - asynchronously incorporate new mail
            slocal(1)      - asynchronously filter and deliver new mail

    Displaying:

        The primary commands for viewing mail are:

            next(1)        - show the next message
            prev(1)        - show the previous message
            show(1)        - show(display) messages
            scan(1)        - produce a one line per message scan listing

        Related utilities, only sometimes invoked directly:

            mhl(1)         - produce formatted listings of nmh messages
            mhlist(1)      - list information about content of MIME messages
            mhn(1)         - display/list/store/cache MIME messages
            mhshow(1)      - display MIME messages
            mhstore(1)     - store contents of MIME messages into files

    Searching:

        Within a folder:
            pick(1)        - select messages by content

        Across folders:
            new(1)         - report on folders with new messages
            flist(1)       - list folders with messages in given sequence(s)
            flists(1)      - list all folders with messages in given sequence(s)
            folder(1)      - set/list current folder/message
            folders(1)     - list all folders

            For doing full-text indexed searches of a large MH mailstore,
            consider the mairix command, which is not part of MH.

    Organizing:

            mark(1)        - mark messages
            refile(1)      - file messages in other folders
            rmf(1)         - remove folder
            rmm(1)         - remove messages
            sortm(1)       - sort messages

    Convenience wrappers:
            mhmail(1)      - send or read mail
            msh(1)         - nmh shell(and BBoard reader)

    Utility:
            mhparam(1)     - print nmh profile components
            mhpath(1)      - print full pathnames of nmh messages and folders
            packf(1)       - compress a folder into a single file
            prompter(1)    - prompting editor front end
            rcvtty(1)      - report new mail


 > 
 > --Ken
 > 
 > _______________________________________________
 > Nmh-workers mailing list
 > address@hidden
 > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers

=---------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 52.0 degrees)