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Re: [Nmh-workers] The attach feature

2012-09-11 08:51:39
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

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=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf(_at_)foxharp(_dot_)boston(_dot_)ma(_dot_)us (arlington, ma, 
where it's 52.0 degrees)

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