NAME¶

xmh - send and read mail with an X interface to MH

SYNOPSIS¶

xmh [-path mailpath] [-initial foldername] [-flag] [-toolkitoption ...]

DESCRIPTION¶

The xmh program provides a graphical user interface to the MH Message Handling System. To actually do things with your mail, it makes calls to the MH package. Electronic mail messages may be composed, sent, received, replied to, forwarded, sorted, and stored in folders. xmh provides extensive mechanism for customization of the user interface.

This document introduces many aspects of the Athena Widget Set.

OPTIONS¶

-path directory

This option specifies an alternate collection of mail folders in which to process mail. The directory is specified as an absolute pathname. The default mail path is the value of the Path component in the MH profile, which is determined by the MH environment variable and defaults to $HOME/.mh_profile. $HOME/Mail will be used as the path if the MH Path is not given in the profile.

-initial folder

This option specifies an alternate folder which may receive new mail and is initially opened by xmh. The default initial folder is ``inbox''.

-flag

This option will cause xmh to change the appearance of appropriate folder buttons and to request the window manager to change the appearance of the xmh icon when new mail has arrived. By default, xmh will change the appearance of the ``inbox'' folder button when new mail is waiting. The application-specific resource checkNewMail can be used to turn off this notification, and the -flag option will still override it.

These three options have corresponding application-specific resources, MailPath, InitialFolder, and MailWaitingFlag, which can be specified in a resource file.

The standard toolkit command line options are given in X(7).

-help

This option indicates that xmh should print a usage message and exit.

-version

This option indicates that xmh should print version info and exit.

INSTALLATION¶

xmh requires that the user is already set up to use MH, version 6. To do so, see if there is a file called .mh_profile in your home directory. If it exists, check to see if it contains a line that starts with ``Current-Folder''. If it does, you've been using version 4 or earlier of MH; to convert to version 6, you must remove that line. (Failure to do so causes spurious output to stderr, which can hang xmh depending on your setup.)

If you do not already have a .mh_profile, you can create one (and everything else you need) by typing ``inc'' to the shell. You should do this before using xmh to incorporate new mail.

For more information, refer to the mh(1) documentation.

Much of the user interface of xmh is configured in the Xmh application class defaults file; if this file was not installed properly a warning message will appear when xmh is used. xmh is backwards compatible with the R4 application class defaults file.

The default value of the SendBreakWidth resource has changed since R4.

BASIC SCREEN LAYOUT¶

xmh starts out with a single window, divided into four major areas:

-

Six buttons with pull-down command menus.

-

A collection of buttons, one for each top level folder. New users of MH will have two folders, ``drafts'' and ``inbox''.

-

A listing, or Table of Contents, of the messages in the open folder. Initially, this will show the messages in ``inbox''.

-

A view of one of your messages. Initially this is blank.

XMH AND THE ATHENA WIDGET SET¶

xmh uses the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget Set. Many of the features described below (scrollbars, buttonboxes, etc.) are actually part of the Athena Widget Set, and are described here only for completeness. For more information, see the Athena Widget Set documentation.

PROCESSING YOUR MAIL¶

This section will define the concepts of the selected folder, current folder, selected message(s), current message, selected sequence, and current sequence. Each xmh command is introduced.

For use in customization, action procedures corresponding to each command are given; these action procedures can be used to customize the user interface, particularly the keyboard accelerators and the functionality of the buttons in the optional button box created by the application resource CommandButtonCount.

OPTIONS¶

The Options menu contains one entry.

Read in Reverse

When selected, a check mark appears in the margin of this menu entry. Read in Reverse will switch the meaning of the next and previous messages, and will increment to the current message marker in the opposite direction. This is useful if you want to read your messages in the order of most recent first. The option acts as a toggle; select it from the menu a second time to undo the effect. The check mark appears when the option is selected.

COMPOSITION WINDOWS¶

Composition windows are created by selecting Compose Message from the Message command menu, or by selecting Reply or Forward or Use as Composition from the Message or View command menu. These are used to compose mail messages. Aside from the normal text editing functions, there are six command buttons associated with composition windows:

Close Window

Close this composition window. If changes have been made since the most recent Save or Send, you will be asked to confirm losing them. The corresponding action is XmhCloseView().

Send

Send this composition. The corresponding action is XmhSend().

New Headers

Replace the current composition with an empty message. If changes have been made since the most recent Send or Save, you will be asked to confirm losing them. The corresponding action is XmhResetCompose().

Compose Message

Bring up another new composition window. The corresponding action is XmhComposeMessage().

Save Message

Save this composition in your drafts folder. Then you can safely close the composition. At some future date, you can continue working on the composition by opening the drafts folder, selecting the message, and using the ``Use as Composition'' command. The corresponding action is XmhSave().

Insert

Insert a related message into the composition. If the composition window was created with a ``Reply'' command, the related message is the message being replied to, otherwise no related message is defined and this button is insensitive. The message may be filtered before being inserted; see ReplyInsertFilter under APPLICATION RESOURCES for more information. The corresponding action is XmhInsert().

ACCELERATORS¶

Accelerators are shortcuts. They allow you to invoke commands without using the menus, either from the keyboard or by using the pointer.

xmh defines pointer accelerators for common actions: To select and view a message with a single click, use pointer button 2 on the message's entry in the table of contents. To select and open a folder or a sequence in a single action, make the folder or sequence selection with pointer button 2.

To mark the highlighted messages, or current message if none have been highlighted, to be moved to a folder in a single action, use pointer button 3 to select the target folder and simultaneously mark the messages. Similarly, selecting a sequence with pointer button 3 will add the highlighted or current message(s) to that sequence. In both of these operations, the selected folder or sequence and the viewed folder or sequence are not changed.

xmh defines the following keyboard accelerators over the surface of the main window, except in the view area while editing a message:

TEXT EDITING COMMANDS¶

All of the text editing commands are actually defined by the Text widget in the Athena Widget Set. The commands may be bound to different keys than the defaults described below through the X Toolkit Intrinsics key re-binding mechanisms. See the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget Set documentation for more details.

Whenever you are asked to enter any text, you will be using a standard text editing interface. Various control and meta keystroke combinations are bound to a somewhat Emacs-like set of commands. In addition, the pointer buttons may be used to select a portion of text or to move the insertion point in the text. Pressing pointer button 1 causes the insertion point to move to the pointer. Double-clicking button 1 selects a word, triple-clicking selects a line, quadruple-clicking selects a paragraph, and clicking rapidly five times selects everything. Any selection may be extended in either direction by using pointer button 3.

In the following, a line refers to one displayed row of characters in the window. A paragraph refers to the text between carriage returns. Text within a paragraph is broken into lines for display based on the current width of the window. When a message is sent, text is broken into lines based upon the values of the SendBreakWidth and SendWidth application-specific resources.

The following keystroke combinations are defined:

In addition, the pointer may be used to copy and paste text:

CONFIRMATION DIALOG BOXES¶

Whenever you press a button that may cause you to lose some work or is otherwise dangerous, a popup dialog box will appear asking you to confirm the action. This window will contain an ``Abort'' or ``No'' button and a ``Confirm'' or ``Yes'' button. Pressing the ``No'' button cancels the operation, and pressing the ``Yes'' will proceed with the operation.

When xmh is run under a Release 6 session manager it will prompt the user for confirmation during a checkpoint operation. The dialog box asks whether any current changes should be committed (saved) during the checkpoint. Responding ``Yes'' will have the same effect as pressing the ``Commit Changes'' or ``Save Message'' buttons in the respective folder and view windows. Responding ``No'' will cause the checkpoint to continue successfully to completion without actually saving any pending changes. If the session manager disallows user interaction during the checkpoint a ``Yes'' response is assumed; i.e. all changes will be committed during the checkpoint.

Some dialog boxes contain messages from MH. Occasionally when the message is more than one line long, not all of the text will be visible. Clicking on the message field will cause the dialog box to resize so that you can read the entire message.

MESSAGE-SEQUENCES¶

An MH message sequence is just a set of messages associated with some name. They are local to a particular folder; two different folders can have sequences with the same name. The sequence named ``all'' is predefined in every folder; it consists of the set of all messages in that folder. As many as nine sequences may be defined for each folder, including the predefined ``all'' sequence. (The sequence ``cur'' is also usually defined for every folder; it consists of only the current message. xmh hides ``cur'' from the user, instead placing a ``+'' by the current message. Also, xmh does not support MH's``unseen'' sequence, so that one is also hidden from the user.)

The message sequences for a folder (including one for ``all'') are displayed in the ``Sequence'' menu, below the sequence commands. The table of contents (also known as the ``toc'') is at any one time displaying one message sequence. This is called the ``viewed sequence'', and its name will be displayed in the toc title bar after the folder name. Also, at any time one of the sequences in the menu will have a check mark next to it. This is called the ``selected sequence''. Note that the viewed sequence and the selected sequence are not necessarily the same. (This all pretty much corresponds to the way folders work.)

The Open Sequence, Add to Sequence, Remove from Sequence, and Delete Sequence commands are active only if the viewed folder contains message-sequences other than ``all'' sequence.

Note that none of the above actually affect whether a message is in the folder. Remember that a sequence is a set of messages within the folder; the above operations just affect what messages are in that set.

To create a new sequence, select the ``Pick'' menu entry. A new window will appear, with lots of places to enter text. Basically, you can describe the sequence's initial set of messages based on characteristics of the message. Thus, you can define a sequence to be all the messages that were from a particular person, or with a particular subject, and so on. You can also connect things up with boolean operators, so you can select all things from ``weissman'' with a subject containing ``xmh''.

The layout should be fairly obvious. The simplest cases are the easiest: just point to the proper field and type. If you enter in more than one field, it will only select messages which match all non-empty fields.

The more complicated cases arise when you want things that match one field or another one, but not necessarily both. That's what all the ``or'' buttons are for. If you want all things with subjects that include ``xmh'' or ``xterm'', just press the ``or'' button next to the ``Subject:'' field. Another box will appear where you can enter another subject.

If you want all things either from ``weissman'' or with subject ``xmh'', but not necessarily both, select the ``-Or-'' button. This will essentially double the size of the form. You can then enter ``weissman'' in a from: box on the top half, and ``xmh'' in a subject: box on the lower part.

If you select the ``Skip'' button, then only those messages that don't match the fields on that row are included.

Finally, in the bottom part of the window will appear several more boxes. One is the name of the sequence you're defining. (It defaults to the name of the selected sequence when ``Pick'' was pressed, or to ``temp'' if ``all'' was the selected sequence.) Another box defines which sequence to look through for potential members of this sequence; it defaults to the viewed sequence when ``Pick'' was pressed.

Two more boxes define a date range; only messages within that date range will be considered. These dates must be entered in RFC 822-style format: each date is of the form ``dd mmm yy hh:mm:ss zzz'', where dd is a one or two digit day of the month, mmm is the three-letter abbreviation for a month, and yy is a year. The remaining fields are optional: hh, mm, and ss specify a time of day, and zzz selects a time zone. Note that if the time is left out, it defaults to midnight; thus if you select a range of ``7 nov 86'' - ``8 nov 86'', you will only get messages from the 7th, as all messages on the 8th will have arrived after midnight.

``Date field'' specifies which field in the header to look at for this date range; it defaults to ``Date''. If the sequence you're defining already exists, you can optionally merge the old set with the new; that's what the ``Yes'' and ``No'' buttons are all about. Finally, you can ``OK'' the whole thing, or ``Cancel'' it.

In general, most people will rarely use these features. However, it's nice to occasionally use ``Pick'' to find some messages, look through them, and then hit ``Delete Sequence'' to put things back in their original state.

WIDGET HIERARCHY¶

In order to specify resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy of widgets which compose xmh. In the notation below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The widget class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name. The application class name is Xmh.

The hierarchy of the main toc and view window is identical for additional toc and view windows, except that a TopLevelShell widget is inserted in the hierarchy between the application shell and the Paned widget.

Xmh xmh


        Paned xmh


                SimpleMenu  folderMenu


                        SmeBSB  open


                        SmeBSB  openInNew


                        SmeBSB  create


                        SmeBSB  delete


                        SmeLine  line


                        SmeBSB  close


                SimpleMenu  tocMenu


                        SmeBSB  inc


                        SmeBSB  commit


                        SmeBSB  pack


                        SmeBSB  sort


                        SmeBSB  rescan


                SimpleMenu  messageMenu


                        SmeBSB  compose


                        SmeBSB  next


                        SmeBSB  prev


                        SmeBSB  delete


                        SmeBSB  move


                        SmeBSB  copy


                        SmeBSB  unmark


                        SmeBSB  viewNew


                        SmeBSB  reply


                        SmeBSB  forward


                        SmeBSB  useAsComp


                        SmeBSB  print


                SimpleMenu  sequenceMenu


                        SmeBSB  pick


                        SmeBSB  openSeq


                        SmeBSB  addToSeq


                        SmeBSB  removeFromSeq


                        SmeBSB  deleteSeq


                        SmeLine  line


                        SmeBSB  all


                SimpleMenu  viewMenu


                        SmeBSB  reply


                        SmeBSB  forward


                        SmeBSB  useAsComp


                        SmeBSB  edit


                        SmeBSB  save


                        SmeBSB  print


                SimpleMenu  optionMenu


                        SmeBSB  reverse


                Viewport.Core  menuBox.clip


                        Box  menuBox


                                MenuButton  folderButton


                                MenuButton  tocButton


                                MenuButton  messageButton


                                MenuButton  sequenceButton


                                MenuButton  viewButton


                                MenuButton  optionButton


                Grip  grip


                Label folderTitlebar


                Grip  grip


                Viewport.Core  folders.clip


                        Box  folders


                                MenuButton  inbox


                                MenuButton  drafts


                                        SimpleMenu  menu


                                                SmeBSB <folder_name>


                                                        .


                                                        .


                                                        .


                Grip  grip


                Label  tocTitlebar


                Grip  grip


                Text toc


                        Scrollbar  vScrollbar


                Grip  grip


                Label  viewTitlebar


                Grip  grip


                Text  view


                        Scrollbar  vScrollbar


                        Scrollbar  hScrollbar

The hierarchy of the Create Folder popup dialog box:

        TransientShell  prompt


                Dialog  dialog


                        Label  label


                        Text  value


                        Command  okay


                        Command  cancel

The hierarchy of the Notice dialog box, which reports messages from MH:

        TransientShell  notice


                Dialog  dialog


                        Label  label


                        Text  value


                        Command  confirm

The hierarchy of the Confirmation dialog box:

        TransientShell  confirm


                Dialog  dialog


                        Label  label


                        Command  yes


                        Command  no

The hierarchy of the dialog box which reports errors:

        TransientShell  error


                Dialog  dialog


                        Label  label


                        Command  OK

The hierarchy of the composition window:

        TopLevelShell  xmh


                Paned  xmh


                        Label  composeTitlebar


                        Text  comp


                        Viewport.Core  compButtons.clip


                                Box  compButtons


                                        Command  close


                                        Command  send


                                        Command  reset


                                        Command  compose


                                        Command  save


                                        Command  insert

The hierarchy of the view window:

        TopLevelShell  xmh


                Paned  xmh


                        Label  viewTitlebar


                        Text  view


                        Viewport.Core  viewButtons.clip


                                Box  viewButtons


                                        Command  close


                                        Command  reply


                                        Command  forward


                                        Command  useAsComp


                                        Command  edit


                                        Command  save


                                        Command  print


                                        Command  delete

The hierarchy of the pick window: (Unnamed widgets have no name.)

        TopLevelShell  xmh


                Paned  xmh


                        Label  pickTitlebar


                        Viewport.Core  pick.clip


                                Form  form


                                        Form  groupform
The first 6 rows of the pick window have identical structure:


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Toggle


                                                        Toggle


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                        Command


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Toggle


                                                        Toggle


                                                        Text


                                                        Text


                                                        Command


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Command


                        Viewport.core  pick.clip


                                Form  form


                                        From  groupform


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                        Label


                                                        Text


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Label


                                                        Toggle


                                                        Toggle


                                                Form  rowform


                                                        Command


                                                        Command

APPLICATION-SPECIFIC RESOURCES¶

The application class name is Xmh. Application-specific resources are listed below by name. Application-specific resource class names always begin with an upper case character, but unless noted, are otherwise identical to the instance names given below.

Any of these options may also be specified on the command line by using the X Toolkit Intrinsics resource specification mechanism. Thus, to run xmh showing all message headers,
% xmh -xrm '*HideBoringHeaders:off'

If TocGeometry, ViewGeometry, CompGeometry, or PickGeometry are not specified, then the value of Geometry is used instead. If the resulting height is not specified (e.g., "", "=500", "+0-0"), then the default height of windows is calculated from fonts and line counts. If the width is not specified (e.g., "", "=x300", "-0+0"), then half of the display width is used. If unspecified, the height of a pick window defaults to half the height of the display.

The following resources are defined:

banner

A short string that is the default label of the folder, Table of Contents, and view. The default shows the program name, vendor, and release.

blockEventsOnBusy

Whether to disallow user input and show a busy cursor while xmh is busy processing a command. If false, the user can `mouse ahead' and type ahead; if true, user input is discarded when processing lengthy mh commands. The default is true.

busyCursor

The name of the symbol used to represent the position of the pointer, displayed if blockEventsOnBusy is true, when xmh is processing a time-consuming command. The default is "watch".

busyPointerColor

The foreground color of the busy cursor. Default is XtDefaultForeground.

checkFrequency

How often to check for new mail, make checkpoints, and rescan the Table of Contents, in minutes. If checkNewMail is true, xmh checks to see if you have new mail each interval. If makeCheckpoints is true, checkpoints are made every fifth interval. Also every fifth interval, the Table of Contents is checked for inconsistencies with the file system, and rescanned if out of date. To prevent all of these checks from occurring, set CheckFrequency to 0. The default is 1. This resource is retained for backward compatibility with user resource files; see also checkpointInterval, mailInterval, and rescanInterval.

checkNewMail

If true, xmh will check at regular intervals to see if new mail has arrived for any of the top level folders and any opened subfolders. A visual indication will be given if new mail is waiting to be incorporated into a top level folder. Default is true. The interval can be adjusted with mailInterval.

checkpointInterval (class Interval)

Specifies in minutes how often to make checkpoints of volatile state, if makeCheckpoints is true. The default is 5 times the value of checkFrequency.

checkpointNameFormat

Specifies how checkpointed files are to be named. The value of this resource will be used to compose a file name by inserting the message number as a string in place of the required single occurrence of `%d'. If the value of the resource is the empty string, or if no `%d' occurs in the string, or if "%d" is the value of the resource, the default will be used instead. The default is "%d.CKP". Checkpointing is done in the folder of origin unless an absolute pathname is given. xmh does not assist the user in recovering checkpoints, nor does it provide for removal of the checkpoint files.

commandButtonCount

The number of command buttons to create in a button box in between the toc and the view areas of the main window. xmh will create these buttons with the names button1, button2 and so on, in a box with the name commandBox. The default is 0. xmh users can specify labels and actions for the buttons in a private resource file; see the section ACTIONS AND INTERFACE CUSTOMIZATION.

compGeometry

Initial geometry for windows containing compositions.

cursor

The name of the symbol used to represent the pointer. Default is ``left_ptr''.

debug

Whether or not to print information to stderr as xmh runs. Default is false.

draftsFolder

The folder used for message drafts. Default is ``drafts''.

geometry

Default geometry to use. Default is none.

hideBoringHeaders

If ``on'', then xmh will attempt to skip uninteresting header lines within messages by scrolling them off the top of the view. Default is ``on''.

initialFolder

Which folder to display on startup. May also be set with the command-line option -initial. Default is ``inbox''.

initialIncFile

The absolute path name of your incoming mail drop file. In some installations, for example those using the Post Office Protocol, no file is appropriate. In this case, initialIncFile should not be specified, or may be specified as the empty string, and inc will be invoked without a -file argument. By default, this resource has no value. This resource is ignored if xmh finds an .xmhcheck file; see the section on multiple mail drops.

mailInterval (class Interval)

Specifies the interval in minutes at which the mail should be checked, if mailWaitingFlag or checkNewMail is true. The default is the value of checkFrequency.

mailPath

The full path prefix for locating your mail folders. May also be set with the command line option, -path. The default is the Path component in the MH profile, or ``$HOME/Mail'' if none.

mailWaitingFlag

If true, xmh will attempt to set an indication in its icon when new mail is waiting to be retrieved. If mailWaitingFlag is true, then checkNewMail is assumed to be true as well. The -flag command line option is a quick way to turn on this resource.

makeCheckpoints

If true, xmh will attempt to save checkpoints of volatile edits. The default is false. The frequency of checkpointing is controlled by the resource checkpointInterval. For the location of checkpointing, see checkpointNameFormat.

mhPath

What directory in which to find the MH commands. If a command isn't found in the user's path, then the path specified here is used. Default is ``/usr/local/mh6''.

newMailBitmap (class NewMailBitmap)

The bitmap to show in the folder button when a folder has new mail. The default is ``black6''.

newMailIconBitmap (class NewMailBitmap)

The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the icon when any folder has new mail. The default is ``flagup''.

noMailBitmap (class NoMailBitmap)

The bitmap to show in the folder button when a folder has no new mail. The default is ``box6''.

noMailIconBitmap (class NoMailBitmap)

The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the icon when no folders have new mail. The default is ``flagdown''.

pickGeometry

Initial geometry for pick windows.

pointerColor

The foreground color of the pointer. Default is XtDefaultForeground.

prefixWmAndIconName

Whether to prefix the window and icon name with "xmh: ". Default is true.

printCommand

An sh command to execute to print a message. Note that stdout and stderr must be specifically redirected. If a message or range of messages is selected for printing, the full file paths of each message file are appended to the specified print command. The default is ``enscript >/dev/null 2>/dev/null''.

replyInsertFilter

An sh command to be executed when the Insert button is activated in a composition window. The full path and filename of the source message is appended to the command before being passed to sh(1). The default filter is cat; i.e. it inserts the entire message into the composition. Interesting filters are: sed 's/^/> /' or awk -e '{print " " $0}' or <mh directory>/lib/mhl -form mhl.body.

rescanInterval (class Interval)

How often to check the Table of Contents of currently viewed folders and of folders with messages currently being viewed, and to update the Table of Contents if xmh sees inconsistencies with the file system in these folders. The default is 5 times the value of checkFrequency.

reverseReadOrder

When true, the next message will be the message prior to the current message in the table of contents, and the previous message will be the message after the current message in the table of contents. The default is false.

sendBreakWidth

When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer than this value will be split into multiple lines, each of which is no longer than SendWidth. This value may be overridden for a single message by inserting an additional line in the message header of the form SendBreakWidth: value. This line will be removed from the header before the message is sent. The default is 2000 (to allow for sending mail containing source patches).

sendWidth

When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer than SendBreakWidth characters will be split into multiple lines, each of which is no longer than this value. This value may be overridden for a single message by inserting an additional line in the message header of the form SendWidth: value. This line will be removed from the header before the message is sent. The default is 72.

showOnInc

Whether to automatically show the current message after incorporating new mail. Default is true.

skipCopied

Whether to skip over messages marked for copying when using ``View Next Message'' and ``View Previous Message''. Default is true.

skipDeleted

Whether to skip over messages marked for deletion when using ``View Next Message'' and ``View Previous Message''. Default is true.

skipMoved

Whether to skip over messages marked for moving to other folders when using ``View Next Message'' and ``View Previous Message''. Default is true.

stickyMenu

If true, when popup command menus are used, the most recently selected entry will be under the cursor when the menu pops up. Default is false. See the file clients/xmh/Xmh.sample for an example of how to specify resources for popup command menus.

tempDir

Directory for xmh to store temporary files. For privacy, a user might want to change this to a private directory. Default is ``/tmp''.

tocGeometry

Initial geometry for main xmh toc and view windows.

tocPercentage

The percentage of the main window that is used to display the Table of Contents. Default is 33.

tocWidth

How many characters to generate for each message in a folder's table of contents. Default is 100. Use less if the geometry of the main xmh window results in the listing being clipped at the right hand boundary, or if you plan to use mhl a lot, because it will be faster, and the extra characters may not be useful.

viewGeometry

Initial geometry for windows showing a view of a message.

MULTIPLE MAIL DROPS¶

Users may need to incorporate mail from multiple spool files or mail drops. If incoming mail is forwarded to the MH slocal program, it can be sorted as specified by the user into multiple incoming mail drops. Refer to the MH man page for slocal to learn how to specify forwarding and the automatic sorting of incoming mail in a .maildelivery file.

To inform xmh about the various mail drops, create a file in your home directory called .xmhcheck. In this file, a mapping between existing folder names and mail drops is created by giving a folder name followed by the absolute pathname of the mail drop site, with some white space separating them, one mapping per line. xmh will read this file whether or not resources are set for notification of new mail arrival, and will allow incorporation of new mail into any folder with a mail drop. xmh will invoke inc with the -file argument, and if xmh has been requested to check for new mail, it will check directly, instead of using msgchk.

An example of .xmhcheck file format, for the folders ``inbox'' and ``xpert'':

inbox	/usr/spool/mail/converse
xpert	/users/converse/maildrops/xpert

ACTIONS AND INTERFACE CUSTOMIZATION¶

Because xmh provides action procedures which correspond to command functionality and installs accelerators, users can customize accelerators and new button functionality in a private resource file. For examples of specifying customized resources, see the file mit/clients/xmh/Xmh.sample. To understand the syntax, see the Appendix of the X Toolkit Intrinsics specification on Translation Table Syntax, and any general explanation of using and specifying X resources. Unpredictable results can occur if actions are bound to events or widgets for which they were not designed.

Here's an example of how to bind actions to your own xmh buttons, and how to redefine the default accelerators so that the Meta key is not required, in case you don't have access to the sample file mentioned above.

! To create buttons in the middle of the main window and give them semantics:
Xmh*CommandButtonCount:         5
Xmh*commandBox.button1.label:   Inc
Xmh*commandBox.button1.translations: #override\


        <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhIncorporateNewMail() unset()
Xmh*commandBox.button2.label:   Compose
Xmh*commandBox.button2.translations: #override\


        <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhComposeMessage() unset()
Xmh*commandBox.button3.label:   Next
Xmh*commandBox.button3.translations: #override\


        <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhViewNextMessage() unset()
Xmh*commandBox.button4.label:   Delete
Xmh*commandBox.button4.translations: #override\


        <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhMarkDelete() unset()
Xmh*commandBox.button5.label:   Commit
Xmh*commandBox.button5.translations: #override\


        <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhCommitChanges() unset()
! To redefine the accelerator bindings to exclude modifier keys,
! and add your own keyboard accelerator for Compose Message:
Xmh*tocMenu.accelerators: #override\n\


        !:<Key>I:       XmhIncorporateNewMail()\n\


        !:<Key>C:       XmhCommitChanges()\n\


        !:<Key>R:       XmhForceRescan()\n\


        !:<Key>P:       XmhPackFolder()\n\


        !:<Key>S:       XmhSortFolder()\n
Xmh*messageMenu.accelerators: #override\n\


        !:<Key>E:       XmhComposeMessage()\n\


        !<Key>space:    XmhViewNextMessage()\n\


        !:<Key>c:       XmhMarkCopy()\n\


        !:<Key>d:       XmhMarkDelete()\n\


        !:<Key>f:       XmhForward()\n\


        !:<Key>m:       XmhMarkMove()\n\


        !:<Key>n:       XmhViewNextMessage()\n\


        !:<Key>p:       XmhViewPreviousMessage()\n\


        !:<Key>r:       XmhReply()\n\


        !:<Key>u:       XmhUnmark()\n

xmh provides action procedures which correspond to entries in the command menus; these are given in the sections describing menu commands, not here. In addition to the actions corresponding to commands in the menus, these action routines are defined:

XmhPushFolder([foldername, ...])

This action pushes each of its argument(s) onto a stack of foldernames. If no arguments are given, the selected folder is pushed onto the stack.

XmhPopFolder()

This action pops one foldername from the stack and sets the selected folder.

XmhPopupFolderMenu()

This action should always be taken when the user selects a folder button. A folder button represents a folder and zero or more subfolders. The menu of subfolders is built upon the first reference, by this routine. If there are no subfolders, this routine will mark the folder as having no subfolders, and no menu will be built. In that case the menu button emulates a toggle button. When subfolders exist, the menu will popup, using the menu button action PopupMenu().

XmhSetCurrentFolder()

This action allows menu buttons to emulate toggle buttons in the function of selecting a folder. This action is for menu button widgets only, and sets the selected folder.

XmhLeaveFolderButton()

This action ensures that the menu button behaves properly when the user moves the pointer out of the menu button window.

XmhPushSequence([sequencename, ...])

This action pushes each of its arguments onto the stack of sequence names. If no arguments are given, the selected sequence is pushed onto the stack.

XmhPopSequence()

This action pops one sequence name from the stack of sequence names, which then becomes the selected sequence.

XmhPromptOkayAction()

This action is equivalent to pressing the okay button in the Create Folder popup.

XmhReloadSeqLists()

This action rescans the contents of the public MH sequences for the currently opened folder and updates the sequence menu if necessary.

XmhShellCommand( parameter [, parameter])

At least one parameter must be specified. The parameters will be concatenated with a space character separator, into a single string, and the list of selected messages, or if no messages are selected, the current message, will be appended to the string of parameters. The string will be executed as a shell command. The messages are always given as absolute pathnames. It is an error to cause this action to execute when there are no selected messages and no current message.

XmhCheckForNewMail()

This action will check all mail drops known to xmh. If no mail drops have been specified by the user either through the .xmhcheck file or by the initialIncFile resource, the MH command msgchk is used to check for new mail, otherwise, xmh checks directly.

XmhWMProtocols([wm_delete_window] [wm_save_yourself])

This action is responsible for participation in window manager communication protocols. It responds to delete window and save yourself messages. The user can cause xmh to respond to one or both of these protocols, exactly as if the window manager had made the request, by invoking the action with the appropriate parameters. The action is insensitive to the case of the string parameters. If the event received is a ClientMessage event and parameters are present, at least one of the parameters must correspond to the protocol requested by the event for the request to be honored by xmh.

CUSTOMIZATION USING MH¶

The initial text displayed in a composition window is generated by executing the corresponding MH command; i.e. comp, repl, or forw, and therefore message components may be customized as specified for those commands. comp is executed only once per invocation of xmh and the message template is re-used for every successive new composition.

xmh uses MH commands, including inc, msgchk, comp, send, repl, forw, refile, rmm, pick, pack, sort, and scan. Some flags for these commands can be specified in the MH profile; xmh may override them. The application resource debug can be set to true to see how xmh uses MH commands.

ENVIRONMENT¶

HOME - users's home directory
MH - to get the location of the MH profile file

FILES¶

~/.mh_profile - MH profile, used if the MH environment variable is not set
~/Mail - directory of folders, used if the MH profile cannot be found
~/.xmhcheck - optional, for multiple mail drops in cooperation with slocal.
/usr/local/mh6 - MH commands, as a last resort, see mhPath.
~/Mail/<folder>/.xmhcache - scan output in each folder
~/Mail/<folder>/.mh_sequences - sequence definitions, in each folder
/tmp - temporary files, see tempDir.

SEE ALSO¶

X(7), xrdb(1), X Toolkit Intrinsics, Athena Widget Set, mh(1), enscript(1)
At least one book has been published about MH and xmh.

BUGS¶

- When the user closes a window, all windows which are transient for that window should also be closed by xmh.
- When XmhUseAsComposition and XmhViewUseAsComposition operate on messages in the DraftsFolder, xmh disallows editing of the composition if the same message is also being viewed in another window.
- Occasionally after committing changes, the table of contents will appear to be completely blank when there are actually messages present. When this happens, refreshing the display, or typing Control-L in the table of contents, will often cause the correct listing to appear. If this doesn't work, force a rescan of the folder.
- Should recognize and use the ``unseen'' message-sequence.
- Should determine by itself if the user hasn't used MH before, and offer to create the .mh_profile, instead of hanging on inc.
- A few commands are missing (rename folder, resend message).
- WM_DELETE_WINDOW protocol doesn't work right when requesting deletion of the first toc and view, while trying to keep other xmh windows around.
- Doesn't support annotations when replying to messages.
- Doesn't allow folders to be shared without write permission.
- Doesn't recognize private sequences.
- MH will report that the .mh_sequences file is poorly formatted if any sequence definition in a particular folder contains more than BUFSIZ characters. xmh tries to capture these messages and display them when they occur, but it cannot correct the problem.
- Should save a temporary checkpoint file rather than requiring changes to be committed in the non-shutdown case.

AUTHOR¶

Terry Weissman, formerly of Digital Western Research Laboratory
Donna Converse, MIT X Consortium