The Elm Reference Guide A comprehensive list of all commands, options and such to the Elm mail system The Elm Mail System (Version 2.5) Bill Pemberton, Elm Coordinator University of Virginia - ITC PO Box 9029 Charlottesville, VA 22906 email: flash@virginia.edu Copyright 1986,1987 by Dave Taylor Copyright 1988-1996 by The USENET Community Trust 9 The Elm Reference Guide 9 (The Elm Mail System, Version 2.5) Sept 1, 1996 Bill Pemberton, Elm Coordinator University of Virginia - ITC PO Box 9029 Charlottesville, VA 22906 email: flash@virginia.edu Derived from "The Elm Mail System, Version 2.0" by Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California email: taylor@intuitive.com or limbo!taylor 1.... Introduction There are many parts to a complex software system and The Elm Mail System is no different. This document describes fully all the options available in the mailer, including the command line options, the commands (in considerably more detail than in The Elm Users Guide) and the .elm/elmrc file. To be more explicit, this document covers: a discussion of the .elm/elmrc file, command line options of Elm, outgoing mail pro- cessing, responses of various commands, mail archive folders, the Alias system, system aliases etc, more on the Elm utilities, and a section for expert mail users. Without any further ado, then, let's get this show on the road!! Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 2.... The ....elm////elmrc File Elm, like lots of other software on the UNIX(R) system, has the ability to automatically read in a configuration file at each in- vocation. The file must be called elmrc and reside in the .elm directory located in your home directory. It can have any of the entries below, in any order. If you are missing any entries, or if you don't have an .elm/elmrc file, the default values (listed below for each option) or those values specified by your systems administrator in a system wide elm.rc file are used. Note that those options below designated with '*' can be altered using Elm via the options screen, while those designated with a '+' can be placed on the options screen using the configoptions variable. Also note that when you save a new .elm/elmrc file via the '>' command of the options screen, it is (re)created including only those options that you have changed via your original .elm/elmrc file or via the options screen. The format for each line of the .elm/elmrc file is: variable = value String Variables aliassortby* You can have your alias display sorted by any of the following ways: alias Sorts according to aliasname for each address. name Sorts according to username for each ad- dress. text Presents the aliases in the order found in the aliases.text file. Each of these fields can also optionally be prepended with the sequence "reverse-" to reverse the order of the sort. This doesn't imply anything about the order of the message in the aliases.text file itself and af- fects only their order on the display screen. The de- fault is name order. alteditor+ The editor to use when mailing to a message that al- ready includes text, as the builtin editor cannot __________ (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX Systems Laboratories. Sept 1, 1996 Page 2 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 handle that situation. Messages that already include text are forwarded messages and replies where the ori- ginal message is included in the reply. This value is not needed if the editor variable is not set to "buil- tin". alternatives This is a list of other machine/username combinations that you receive mail from (forwarded). This is used when the group reply feature is invoked to ensure that you don't send yourself a copy of the outbound message. The default is a list of no alternatives. attribution When you forward a message or reply to it, you can op- tionally attribute the quoted text to its original au- thor. Defining the attribution string here allows you to indicate the form that the attribution should take. The following sequences in the attribution will expand to a value (all values relate to message being replied to/forwarded). %F From address (same as %s in previous ver- sions) %D Date the message was created %S Subject of the message %I Message ID %% A percent sign. As a special case, %F can be modified as follows: %)F Name of the sender %>F Address of the sender \n A newline character \t A tab character. \c The literal charac- ter ``c''. Examples are: attribution = According to %F: attribution = %F writes: attribution = %)F <%>F> writes: attribution = On %D %F wrote: calendar* This is used in conjunction with the '<' scan message for calendar entries command, as the file to append any found calendar entries to. The default is calendar in your home directory. Sept 1, 1996 Page 3 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 charset This value is used only if the MIME (Multipurpose In- ternet Mail Extension) support is enabled. This speci- fies what international character set you use, if any, when composing outbound mail messages. If Elm detects that you are sending a message with any 8-bit national characters, then it will mark your message as being in this character set. If not (that is, your message con- tains just standard 7-bit characters) then Elm will mark your message as "us-ascii". The default depends upon your site's installation. "iso-8859-1" is a com- mon value. compatcharsets This is the list of character sets which are more or less a superset of US-ASCII. This enables Elm to display messages with charset=US-ASCII with the builtin pager, or your preferred pager, instead of calling metamail. compatcharsets is only recognized if MIME support is configured. The ISO-8859-X character sets are defaulted. configoptions This is a list of letters that indicate which of the run-time configurable options you desire placed on the options screen (see section 7, Commands, for the op---- tions command). There are 22 run-time configurable op- tions, but only room for 15 on a 24-line screen. The default list is ^_cdefsopyv_am_un. Two additional characters can be specified for formatting. Those are '_', which adds a blank line, and '^', which places the title message on that line instead of the bottom of the screen. The letters 'i', 'q', and 'x' are reserved for "return to index", "quit", and "exit", respectively, and are not listed as part of the configoptions list. The options controlled by each letter are: a A)rrow cursor (arrow) b B)order on copy (prefix) c C)alendar file (calendar) d D)isplay mail using (pager) e E)ditor (primary) (editor) f F)older directory (maildir) h H)old sent message (copy) j J) reply editor (alteditor) k K) pause after pager (promptafter) l A(l)ias Sorting (aliassortby) m M)enu display (menu) n N)ames only (names) o O)utbound mail saved (sentmail) p P)rint mail using (print) r R)eply copies msg (replycopy) s S)orting criteria (sortby) Sept 1, 1996 Page 4 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 t T)ext editor (~e) (easyeditor) u U)ser level (userlevel) v V)isual Editor (~v) (visualeditor) w W)ant Cc: prompt (askcc) y Y)our full name (fullname) z Z) signature dashes (sigdashes) displaycharset This is the character set which is supported by your terminal. The default depends on your site's installa- tion but is usually US-ASCII. For sites with X Window System(tm) support, ISO-8859-1 is a reasonable default. easyeditor+ The editor to be used by the "~e" escape within the builtin editor. The default value is the value of the configuration variable emacs_editor (see The Elm Confi_- guration Guide). editor* The editor to use when typing in new mail. If you select "none" or "builtin" you'll get a Berkeley Mail style interface for all mail that doesn't already have text in the buffer (e.g. a reply, mail with a "signa- ture", etc.) There are two possible formats for it, either a command that can have a filename appended to it before being executed, or a string that contains the metasequence "%s" which is replaced by the name of the file before being executed. Examples of each are: editor = emacs -nw editor = emacs -nw %s -f text-mode -f turn-on-auto-fill The default is to use the value of $EDITOR in your current environment, and if not set, an editor selected by the person who configured Elm for your system. escape The character used with the builtin editor (see editor above) to escape from text entry to input a command. When a line begins with this character, the builtin ed- itor interprets it as a command rather than as text to add. The default is '~' (tilde). fullname* This is the name the mailer uses in messages you send. It is highly recommended that you use your full name and nothing strange or unusual, as that can appear __________ (tm)X Window System is a trademark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sept 1, 1996 Page 5 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 extremely rude to people receiving your mail. The de- fault is to use the "gcos" field from the /etc/passwd file on systems that use this field to store full names, and to use the contents of the .fullname file in your home directory on other systems. Note that many mail transport agents create this line for you, in these cases this option has no effect. fwdattribution This variable further refines how forwarded messages are presented. If undefined or set to an empty value, an attribution string is placed before the message. Further, if you choose to initially edit the message, the prefix will be prepended to each line. This is the default behavior. If this variable is set, the forwarding behavior is changed so that the beginning and end of the forwarded message are marked, and the prefix is never added. The beginning and end markers are derived from this vari- able, and its value is subject to the same expansions as the attribution value, with one addition: %[left|right] For the opening attribution (at the top of the forwarded message), the left string is displayed. For the closing attribution (at the bottom of the forwarded message), the right string is displayed. Any attribution sequences, including ``%'' escapes (but ex- cepting another ``%[...]''), may be used here. If, for example, this variable is defined as: fwdattribution = --- %[begin|end] forwarded mes- sage from %F --- then the message will appear as: --- begin forwarded message from Joe User --- . . (forwarded message appears here) . . --- end forwarded message from Joe User --- hostdomain This is the domain name of your system. This variable is only valid in the system-wide elm.rc file. It is Sept 1, 1996 Page 6 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 only necessary if the value returned by the getdomain_- name system call is incorrect for your mail use or if that system call is unavailable on your system. If this variable is specified, then the hostfullname vari- able must also be specified. hostfullname This is the "fully qualified domain name" of your sys- tem. This variable is only valid in the system-wide elm.rc file. It is only necessary if the value re- turned by the getdomainname and gethostname system calls are incorrect for your mail use or if those sys- tem calls are unavailable on your system. It is re- quired if either the hostdomain or the hostname vari- ables are used within the system-wide elm.rc file. hostname This is the local node-name of your system. This vari- able is only valid in the system wide elm.rc file. It is only necessary if the value returned by the gethost_- name system call is incorrect for your mail use or if that system call is unavailable on your system. If this variable is specified, then the hostfullname vari- able must also be specified. incomingfolders This is a list of files that should be treated as if they were spool files. The folders listed here will be opened as if the -M flag were used. localsignature See signature. maildir* This is your folder directory. When you specify a folder name beginning with the '=' metacharacter,819 it stands for this directory name. That is, if you save a message to folder =stuff the '=' is expanded to the current value of maildir. The default is the directory Mail in your home directory. pager* This is the program to be used to display messages. You can specify "builtin" or the name of any standard pager. If you use "builtin+", each screenfull of displayed message is "paged" from the top of your screen with a title line, while "builtin" simply __________ 1. Note that '%' and '+' are synonymous with '=' throughout Elm. Sept 1, 1996 Page 7 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 "scrolls up" subsequent screenfulls once it has "paged" the first screenfull. The default is to use the value of $PAGER in your current environment, and if not set, a pager selected by the person who configured Elm for your system, quite likely "builtin+". precedences Some mail transports look at a "Precedence" header in outbound mail messages to determine how to deliver the message. The Elm header editing menu allows you to place a precedence on your mail messages. By default, Elm allows any value to be specified as the message precedence. This option may be used to restrict the allowed precedences to a particular list. For example, you might say: precedences = special-delivery air-mail first-class bulk junk Exactly what precedences your mail transport supports and what they do (if anything at all!) will vary from site to site. The distinction between the "Precedence" and "Priority" headers is subtle: the precedence tells the mail sys- tem how to handle the message and the priority tells the recipient how important the message is. Although these are quite different things, they are often relat- ed. This option will also allow you to associate mes- sage priorities with precedences. For example, you might say: precedences = special-delivery:urgent air-mail:urgent first-class bulk junk In this example, if you select an "air-mail" precedence then the message priority defaults to "urgent". If you select a "first-class" precedence then no special priority is implied. The priorities given in this field are used only if you have not already assigned a priority to your message, and even if one is assigned via precedences you can always go back and change it. prefix+ When you reply to a message or forward a message to another person, you can optionally include the original message. Defining the prefix value here allows you to indicate what the prefix of each included line should be. The default is "> " (specified as ">_" - under- score is interpreted as space) and is standard in the UNIX community. print* This is the command used for printing mail messages. If the command contains "%s" then it is replaced with Sept 1, 1996 Page 8 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 the name of a temporary file that contains the message(s) to print. Otherwise, the message(s) are piped into the printing command. printhdrs When printing messages, certain headers are "weeded" out and only the selected headers are printed. This allows you to specify exactly which headers should be selected when printing. It is a list of header names, such as: printhdrs = From: To: Cc: Subject: Date: See the readmsg(1) manual page for additional informa- tion on how to specify header weeding lists. receivedmail This is the folder to which incoming mail is saved after you've read it. When you answer no to "Keep un- read messages in your incoming mailbox?" or yes to "Store read messages in your "received" folder?", this is where the messages go. The default is "=received", that is, a folder called received in your maildir directory. remotesignature See signature. sentmail* This is the folder to which a copy of outgoing mail is automatically saved. This is only done if the copy boolean variable is set ON. Also note that if the savebyname and/or savebyalias boolean variable is en- abled then this folder may be ignored since the program may save to a folder that has the same name as the lo- gin of the person you're sending to. Whether or not a copy is saved, and to what folder, can be changed just prior to sending a message (see the copy command of the mail command sub-menu in section 7, Commands). The de- fault is "=sent", that is, a folder called sent in your maildir directory. shell This defines the shell to use when doing '!' escapes and such. The default is to use the value of $SHELL in your current environment, and if not set, a shell selected by the person who configured Elm for your sys- tem. Note that the '!' escape is optional and may not be enabled in your version of Elm. Sept 1, 1996 Page 9 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 signature This defines the file that is automatically appended to all outbound mail before the editor is invoked. Furth- ermore, if you'd like a different signature file for "local" mail and "remote" mail (remote being via other hosts), you can alternatively define two variables, lo---- calsignature and remotesignature, to have the same functionality. The default is to not have signatures appended to your messages. sortby* You can have your folder sorted in any of the following ways: from Sorts according to whom each message is from. lines Sorts shortest to longest by message. mailbox Leaves the messages in the order found in the folder. received Sorts least recently received to most recently received. sent Sorts least recently sent to most re_- cently sent. status Sorts by priority, action, new, tagged, then deleted. subject Sorts according to the subject of each message. Each of these fields can optionally be prepended with the sequence "reverse-" to reverse the order of the sort. This doesn't imply anything about the order of the messages in the folder itself and affects only their order on the index screen. The default is mail_- box order. tmpdir Use this if you want to define your own directory for the temporary file Elm creates while running. This is only necessary if using the system temporary directory could cause problems, such as when not all NFS clients mount the common temporary directory, or when the tem- porary directory is prone to being cleared periodical- ly. The default entry of the system temporary directo- ry is normally OK. visualeditor+ The editor to be used by the "~v" escape within the builtin editor. The default value is the value of the Sept 1, 1996 Page 10 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 configuration variable vi_editor (see The Elm Confi_- guration Guide). weedout When specifying this option, you can list headers that you don't want to see when you are displaying a mes- sage. This list can continue for as many lines as desired, as long as the continued lines all have lead- ing indentation. All headers in this entry append to the default weedout list. There are two special header flags. The first, "*clear-weed-list*", clears the de- fault list. The second, "*end-of-user-headers*", ter- minates the entry, in case the following lines look like they might be more headers for the list. The de- fault weedout list includes the following header strings: >From Apparently-To: Content-Length Content-Transfer-Encoding Content-Type: From In-Reply-To: MIME-Version Message-Id: Newsgroups: Received: References: Status: X-Mailer: Note that the "From" entry weeds out both "From:" and the "From " headers. If you just want to weed out "From ", for example, put a "*clear-weed-list*" at the start of the list followed by "From_" or "From ". Numeric Variables bounceback This is a hop count threshold value and allows you to set up the mailer so that when you send mail more than n machines away, it'll automatically include a "Cc:" to you through the remote machine. In practice this should be very rarely used. Note that this refuses to bounce mail off an Internet address. The default is to have it set to zero, which disables the function. builtinlines This is used to determine if the builtin pager should be used on some messages even if you would usually use an external pager program. There are two ways of Sept 1, 1996 Page 11 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 determining whether the builtin pager should be used. If you want any message that is shorter than n lines to use the internal pager, set this variable to n. If you want the builtin pager to be used if the message is m lines shorter than the number of lines on your screen, set this variable to -m. Setting this variable to zero will result in the message always being sent through your external pager. This variable is used only if the pager is not set to the builtin pager. The default is -3. readmsginc This variable modifies the display of the message "Reading in foldername, message: #", which is displayed when reading a new folder. The message count is nor- mally updated as each message in the folder is read. If you are on a slow terminal and are reading a folder with a large number of messages, the time it takes to redraw the message count can significantly exceed the time it takes to simply read the folder. The readmsginc variable controls the frequency with which the message count is updated. If this parameter is set to 50, the message count will be updated after every 50 messages (i.e., at 50, 100, 150, and so forth). The default value for this parameter is 1. If a value of less than 1 is specified for this parameter, the value is ignored, and the default value is used in- stead. sleepmsg This variable modifies the time Elm waits after displaying a transient message before erasing it and continuing. It can be set to zero to suppress the wait entirely. It is in units of whole seconds. timeout On more advanced systems, it's nice to start up the mailer in a window and let it sit in background until new mail arrives (see wnewmail for another window based program), at which point it can be brought up to the forefront of the system and read. In this case, it would be quite convenient to have the mailer internally resynchronize every so often. This option specifies the number of seconds that this occurs. This is also useful for non-windowing terminals. For example, you can leave Elm running at night (I usually do) and when you come in in the morning it'll be all ready to read your mail! The default is a 300 second (5 minute) timeout period. Sept 1, 1996 Page 12 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 userlevel* This is what the program uses to determine the relative level of sophistication of the user. The values are '0' for a new user (the default), '1' for someone fami- liar with Elm, and '2' for experts. Some advanced features are hidden from novice users, while experts get less verbose prompt messages. The default is '0'. Boolean Variables The value assigned to boolean variables can be "ON" or "OFF" only. allow_setuid The default value is OFF, and you almost certainly should not change it. This variable is valid only in the system-wide elm.rc file. Normally, when Elm starts up, it verifies that it has not been installed with "setuid" privileges. If the check fails, it displays an error and terminates. This check is performed be- cause many people, when encountering configuration or installation problems (particularly locking problems), simply install Elm "setuid=root" rather than fixing the problem. This can create a significant security ha- zard. If you insist on running Elm in this configura- tion, you may bypass the check by turning this setting ON. (But then don't say we didn't warn you.) alwaysdelete Set ON to set the default answer to the "Delete mes- sages?" prompt to yes (see the quit command in section 7, Commands, and the ask and askdelete variables below). This default answer also applies to deletions from the alias system. The default for alwaysdelete is OFF. alwayskeep Set ON to set the default answer to the "Keep unread mail in incoming mailbox?" prompt to yes. However, if you set alwaysstore OFF or answer no to the "Store read mail in "received" folder?" prompt, it is presumed that you also want to keep your unread mail in the incoming mailbox, so the value of alwayskeep is ignored in those cases. See the quit command in section 7, Commands, and the ask, askkeep, and alwaysstore variables below for more details. The default for alwayskeep is ON. alwaysstore Set ON to set the default answer to the "Store read mail in "received" folder?" prompt to yes (see the quit Sept 1, 1996 Page 13 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 command in section 7, Commands, and the ask and ask---- store variables below). The default for alwaysstore is OFF. arrow* Sometimes you are forced to use a slow or "dumb" termi- nal. Set ON to make the current message pointer the "->" sequence rather than the inverse bar. Note that this is overridden by the "-a" command line option (see section 3, Command Line Options). The default is OFF. ask Set OFF to tell Elm that you'd rather not be asked "Delete messages?" and such each time you quit, resyn- chronize, change folders, or return from the alias sys- tem; but that it should just use the values of always---- delete, alwayskeep, and alwaysstore without prompting. (Ask does this by setting the values of askdelete, ask---- keep, and askstore--so when you save your elmrc, ask will be replaced by those three variables.) Note that when you quit Elm, if you use 'Q' instead of 'q', you will never be questioned, regardless of how you have ask set. See the quit commands in section 7, Commands, and the alwaysdelete, askdelete, alwayskeep, askkeep, alwaysstore, and askstore variables above for more de- tails. The default for ask is ON. askcc+ Set OFF to allow sending mail without being presented the "Copies to:" prompt for each message. This still allows you to explicitly include addresses in the "Cc:" list via either the header editor or "~c" in the buil- tin editor (see section 9, Using Elm with """"editor ==== none""""). The default is ON. askdelete Set OFF to tell Elm that you'd rather not be asked "Delete messages?" each time you quit, resynchronize, change folders, or return from the alias system; but that it should just use the value of alwaysdelete without prompting. Note that when you quit Elm, if you use 'Q' instead of 'q', you will never be questioned, regardless of how you have askdelete set. See the quit command in section 7, Commands, and the alwaysdelete variable above for more details. The default for ask---- delete is ON. askkeep Set OFF to tell Elm that you'd rather not be asked "Keep unread messages in incoming mailbox?" each time you quit, resynchronize, change folders, or return from the alias system; but that it should just use the value of alwayskeep without prompting. Note that when you quit Elm, if you use 'Q' instead of 'q', you will never Sept 1, 1996 Page 14 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 be questioned, regardless of how you have askstore set. See the quit command in section 7, Commands, and the alwayskeep variable above for more details. The de- fault for askkeep is ON. askstore Set OFF to tell Elm that you'd rather not be asked "Move read messages to received folder?" each time you quit, resynchronize, or change folders; but that it should just use the value of alwaysstore without prompting. Note that when you quit Elm, if you use 'Q' instead of 'q', you will never be questioned, regard- less of how you have askstore set. See the quit com- mand in section 7, Commands, and the alwaysstore vari- able above for more details. The default for askstore is ON. askreplycopy Set ON for Elm to ask whether to copy the text of each message replied to into the edit buffer. Otherwise Elm will automatically use the value of replycopy. The de- fault for askreplycopy is ON. autocopy+ Set ON for Elm to automatically copy the text of each message replied to into the edit buffer. Otherwise you may be prompted as to whether you want the message in- cluded in your reply; see the askreplycopy and re---- plycopy variables for more details; see also the prefix variable under String Variables in section 2 for how copied text is marked. Autocopy works by setting re---- plycopy to ON and askreplycopy to OFF, so autocopy will not appear in a .elm/elmrc saved by Elm. confirmappend Set ON to make Elm ask for permission to append mes- sages to the end of any file that already exists. Whether the file is a mail folder in the user's mail directory or an ordinary file makes no difference. The default is OFF. confirmcreate Set ON to make Elm ask for permission before it creates a new file to store messages in. It makes no differ- ence whether the new file would be a mail folder in the user's mail directory or an ordinary file. The default is OFF. confirmfiles This allows you to have some last resort control over Sept 1, 1996 Page 15 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 Elm when a message would be appended (by copy, save, or auto-cc) to an existing file which is not a folder in your mail directory (see the maildir variable under String Variables in section 2). Set ON to make Elm ask for permission to append a message to the end of an or- dinary file, otherwise it silently adds the message to the end of the specified file whether it is a folder or not. The default is OFF. confirmfolders Set ON to make Elm ask before creating new mail folders in your mail directory (see the maildir variable under String Variables in section 2), otherwise it silently creates new mail folders whenever a copy of a message is going to be stored in a folder that does not already exist. See the copy, savebyname, savebyalias, and for---- cename variables below for additional information about copying messages. The default for confirmfolders is OFF. confirmtagsave Set ON to make Elm ask before saving or copying tagged messages to a folder when the cursor is on an untagged message. The default for confirmtagsave is ON. copy+ Set ON to have silent copies made of all outgoing mail. Where the copy of the message is saved is determined by the maildir and sentmail string variables and the save---- byname, savebyalias, and forcename boolean variables. Whether a copy is saved and to which folder can also be set prior to sending a message - see the copy command of the mail command sub-menu in section 7, Commands, for details. The default for copy is OFF. editflush Set ON to have Elm flush the keyboard input buffer after exiting an external editor and before displaying the post-edit/pre-send menu. This can be especially important when running Elm under the X Window System, where accidental keystrokes in the Elm window can make things messy. The default for editflush is ON. forcename Set ON to force creation of folders for copies of out- bound mail by the recipient name. For complete details of how to enable automatic copying of outbound mes- sages, see the copy, savebyname, and savebyalias boole- an variables. The default is OFF. Sept 1, 1996 Page 16 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 forms Set ON to enable the generation of "forms" type mes- sages. See the Elm Forms Mode Guide for further infor- mation about mail forms. keepempty The mail system has a habit of deleting folders when you've removed everything from them. Set ON to preserve empty folders as zero-length files. Note that this option does not apply to your incoming mailbox. The default is OFF. menu* Set OFF to inhibit the menu display on all screen displays within Elm. Note that this is overridden by the "-m" command line option (see section 3, Command Line Options). The default is ON. metoo Set ON to get a copy of mail you send to a mailing list you are on, otherwise you do not get a copy of such messages. The default is OFF. movepage Set ON to enable commands that move through the folder by pages (see the '+', '-', , and keys in section 7, Commands) to move the current message pointer to the top of that page of messages. Set OFF to not alter the current message pointer location when moving through pages. The default is OFF. names* Set OFF to display the primary recipients' addresses on your screen with their full names when you send a mes- sage. Set ON to display only the full names. The de- fault is ON. noheader Set ON to not include the headers of messages when copying a message into the edit buffer for replying or forwarding (see the autocopy, askreplycopy, and re---- plycopy variables above.) The default is ON. pointnew Set ON to cause the current message pointer to point to the first new message in your incoming mailbox when started, instead of at message #1 of the index. This has no effect for other folders since they are not ex- pected to have "new" mail. The default is ON. promptafter+ Set ON to display a command prompt rather than the in- dex screen when exiting from an external pager. This variable has no effect on the builtin pager. See the Sept 1, 1996 Page 17 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 pager variable under String Variables in section 2 to specify which pager to use to read messages. If your external pager immediately exits when it reaches the end of the message, you should set promp---- tafter ON so that the last screen of the displayed mes- sage is not immediately replaced by the index screen. If your external pager doesn't exit until you command it to, you have a choice. If you usually want to see the index screen before issuing a command, setting this variable OFF eliminates the extra keystroke needed to return to the index screen. If you usually don't need to see the index screen before issuing the next com- mand, setting it ON allows you to enter your next com- mand without waiting for the index screen to be redrawn. The default is ON. replycopy Set ON to have Elm copy each message being replied to into the edit buffer by default. If askreplycopy is ON, Elm will prompt you each time you reply to a mes- sage; if askreplycopy is OFF, Elm will automatically use the value of replycopy. The default is ON. resolve Set ON to move the current message pointer to the next message on the index when a mail message is "dealt with" through deleting, undeleting, saving, forwarding, etc. or set OFF to leave the current message pointer unchanged. The default is ON. savebyalias, One of the problems with electronic mail systems is that one tends to get very large, one-dimensional (flat) files that contain lots of completely unrelated mail. Elm can use a more intelligent algorithm: for incoming mail, when you save or copy it (see section 7, Commands), the default folder is the login name of the person who sent you the message or the name of an alias you have created for that person (changed by pressing anything other than of course). Similarly, when sending mail, instead of just blindly saving it to the sentmail folder, Elm can save it to a folder that is the login name of the recipient of the mail, or their alias.829 Set savebyname ON to enable saving by the login name. Set savebyalias ON to enable saving by the name of an alias of the login name, if one exists. If forcename is OFF (see above), the copy is saved to __________ 2. When sending to a group, it's saved to the login name or alias of the first person in the list only. Sept 1, 1996 Page 18 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 that folder only if the folder already exists. In practice, this means that important people that you communicate with (those that you tend to save mail from) have folders that are actually a recorded log of the discussion in both directions and others (random mailings) are all stuffed in the sentmail folder for easy perusal and removal (see the sentmail variable under String Variables in section 2). If you always want to save copies of outgoing messages in separate folders by recipient login name, you'll want to set forcename ON. The default for savebyname and savebyalias is ON. showmlists If this is on, the mailing list mode of the display will automatically be turned on. For more information on this, see the M command. The default is OFF. showreply If this is on, messages that you have replied to will have r for their status. sigdashes+ Set ON to tell Elm that you wish to follow the conven- tion of prefixing your signature with "newline dash dash blank newline". This is placed in your message before your signature file (see the signature, local---- signature, and remotesignature variables under String Variables in section 2). If OFF, the signature file, if any, is placed at the end of the message without any prefix. The default is ON. softkeys Set ON to tell Elm that you have an HP terminal with the HP 2622 function key protocol and that you'd like to have the function keys available while in the pro- gram. The default is OFF. titles Set ON to have the first line of a message titled with: Message N_/M from username date at time where all the information is extracted from the mes- sage. This is especially useful if you weed out all the headers of each message with a large weedout list (see the weedout variable under String Variables in section 2). The default is ON. Sept 1, 1996 Page 19 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 usetite Set ON to enable use of the termcap/terminfo ti////te capabilities. Many terminal emulators require it (not the least of which is the OpenLook cmdtool). Some ter- minal emulators clear the screen on te (some xterms). Set OFF to disable use of ti////te. Note that this is overridden by the "-t" command line option (see section 3, Command Line Options). The default is ON. weed Set ON to have Elm "weed out" certain headers from displayed messages, that is, not display them. The weedout variable under String Variables in section 2 allows you to custom define the set of headers you would like to not have displayed while reading mes- sages. The default for the weed variable is ON. For a better idea of how this all works, here's a sample .elm/elmrc file. While looking through it, notice that you can have lots of comments and blank lines for readability and that you can also use "shell variables" and the '~' (tilde) metachar- acter for your home directory, and they are expanded accordingly when read in by the mailer. Note that this was automatically saved by the Elm program on the fly from the options screen. # # .elm/elmrc - options file for the ELM mail system # # Saved automatically by ELM 2.5 for Elm Development Group # # This file allows you to tailor Elm. # # The lines beginning with "#" (like this one!) are comments. # # Some of the option settings are commented out with "###". This means # that you do NOT have a value set for the option, and the system default # will be used. (The value shown is the default at the time this file # was created.) If you wish to enable one of these options, you MUST # delete the "###" to de-comment the entry. # # For the yes/no settings, say ON for yes and OFF for no. # # For more detailed description of these settings, see the Elm Reference Guide. # # --- Table of Contents --- # # 1. General Program Configuration Options # 2. Main Message Selection Screen Options # 3. Message Display/Pager Options # 4. Editor Options # 5. Message Composition Options # 6. Signature Options # 7. Program Termination/Folder Cleanup Options # 8. Folder Handling Options Sept 1, 1996 Page 20 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 # 9. MIME and Character Set Options # #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 1: General Program Configuration Options # # Are we good at it? 0=beginner, 1=intermediate, 2 and above=expert. # Lower levels give more verbose prompts. Higher levels make advanced # options available. userlevel = 2 # After displaying a transient message, Elm will pause this many seconds # before erasing it. Can be 0 or a positive integer. sleepmsg = 2 # After this many seconds of inactivity, Elm will re-check the mailbox # for new messages. timeout = 60 # Enable AT&T Mail forms support? forms = OFF # Want to use HP 2622 terminal softkeys? # You had better be running on that sort of terminal if you turn this on! softkeys = OFF # Would you like to use termcap/terminfo ti/te (screen switch) entries? usetite = ON # When initially reading in a mail folder, the status display is updated # whenever this many more messages are processed. A large number helps # avoid lots of output on slow terminal connecitons. readmsginc = 5 # Command to print a message. print = lpr -Plw2 # Command to use for shell escapes. shell = /bin/zsh # Directory to use for temporary files. tmpdir = /home/wfp5p/.elm/tmp/ # Pathname to the saved calendar entries file. calendar = ~/.Agenda # Space-delimited list of alternative addresses that appear in your # mail messages (such as your addresses on other machines). This allows # Elm to recognize which messages are to and from you. Stuff like # "user@*.dom.ain" works here. alternatives = wfp5p@*virginia.edu flash@virginia.edu Sept 1, 1996 Page 21 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 2: Main Message Selection Screen Options # # Mark selected message with "->" rather than the inverse video bar? arrow = OFF # Display the three-line "mini-menu" of commands? menu = ON # How to sort the display of messages in a folder. "Reverse Sent" by default. sortby = Reverse-Received # Should mailing list info be displayed for messages at startup? # The "M" command toggles this on and off. showmlists = OFF # When "showmlists" is off, a single-character mark is displayed # to indicate who the message is to. This four-character string # defines the values to use for the mark. The four characters are: # - Mark for mail to you and nobody else. # - Mark for mail to you and other recipients. # - Mark for mail to multiple recipients, and you are on the CC list. # - Mark for mail not addressed directly to you (e.g. mailing lists) # An underscore "_" in this list will display as a blank. tochars = ___* # Should messages to which you've replied be shown with an "r" mark? showreply = ON # Start up by pointing to the first new message received, if possible? pointnew = ON # When moving to next or previous page of messages, should the current # message pointer also move onto that page? movepage = ON # Increment the message pointer only after the message has been fully # disposed (saved or deleted)? If OFF, then the message pointer is # incremented after you do anything that touches the message. resolve = ON #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 3: Message Display/Pager Options # # Program to use for displaying messages. "builtin" is recommended. pager = builtin+ # Display message title when displaying pages of message? titles = ON Sept 1, 1996 Page 22 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 # Prompt for a command after the external pager exits? promptafter = ON # Enable use of the "weedout" list defined below? weed = ON # What headers I DON'T want to see, ever. weedout = "Path:" "Via:" "Sent:" "Date" "Status:" "Original" "Phase" "Subject:" "Fruit" "Sun" "Lat" "Buzzword" "Return" "Posted" "Telephone" "Postal-Address" "Origin" "X-Sent-By-Nmail-V" "Resent" "X-Location" "Source" "Mood" "Neuron" "Libido" "To:" "X-Mailer:" "Full-Name:" "X-HPMAIL" "Cc:" "cc:" "Mmdf" "Network-" "Really-" "Sender:" "Post" "Message-" "Relay-" "Article-" "Lines:" "Approved:" "Xref:" "Organization:" "*end-of-user-headers*" #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 4: Editor Options # # Name of editor to use for composing messages. "none" or "builtin" # uses the simple built-in editor. editor = none # Name of editor to use for replies that have text. alteditor = jed # The character to use in the built-in editor for entering commands. escape = ~ #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 5: Message Composition Options # # The full user name for outbound mail. NOTE: Many mail systems add # From: lines on their own and this setting has no effect!!! If your # system is one of those, you might want to try things such as the # "chfn" command or setting the NAME environment parameter. fullname = Bill Pemberton # Would you like to be asked for Carbon-Copy addresses when sending a message? askcc = ON # When you send a message to an alias that contains you, would you # like to receive a copy of the message? metoo = OFF # When replying to a message, ask "Copy message?" into editing buffer? # If OFF, then the "replycopy" action is taken without asking. askreplycopy = ON # Should the default for the "Copy message?" question be "yes"? Sept 1, 1996 Page 23 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 replycopy = OFF # When messages are copied into the outbound buffer, don't include headers? # If OFF, just the message body with no headers is copied. noheader = ON # Prefix to mark included message text. Use "_" for a space. prefix = >_ # Attribution string for replies. "%F" is the author of original message. attribution = %s writes: # List of delivery precedences allowed, or empty to allow anything. # Precedence may be followed by optional ":priority" setting. precedences = special-delivery:urgent air-mail:urgent first-class bulk junk # When showing To: addresses, just display the recipient name? # If OFF, show entire recipient address. names = OFF #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 6: Signature Options # # Local ".signature" file to append to appropriate messages. localsignature = localsig # Remote ".signature" file to append to appropriate messages. remotesignature = remotesig # Place dashes line above signatures? (Usenet compatibility and convention) sigdashes = ON #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 7: Program Termination/Folder Cleanup Options # # Should the "Delete messages?" question be asked when you exit, resync, # or change folders? If OFF, then the "alwaysdelete" action is taken # without asking. askdelete = OFF # Should the "Keep unread messages in incoming mailbox?" question be # asked when you exit, resync, or change folders? If OFF, then the # "alwayskeep" action is taken without asking. askkeep = OFF # Should the "Move read messages to received folder?" question be asked # when you exit, resync, or change folders? If OFF, then the "alwaysstore" # action is taken without asking. Sept 1, 1996 Page 24 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 askstore = OFF # Should the default for the "Delete messages?" question be "yes"? alwaysdelete = ON # Should the default for the "Keep unread messages in incoming mailbox?" # question be "yes"? alwayskeep = ON # Should the default for the "Move read messages to received folder?" # question be "yes"? alwaysstore = OFF # Should we keep folders from which all messages are deleted? # If OFF then the empty folder files are deleted. keepempty = OFF #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 8: Folder Handling Options # # Where to save my mail to. maildir = /home/wfp5p/.Mail # Save a copy of all outgoing messages I send? copy = ON # Name of folder in which copies of outgoing messages are saved. sentmail = /home/wfp5p/.Mail/sentmail # Name of folder in which received messages are saved. receivedmail = /home/wfp5p/.Mail/oldmail # Save messages, incoming and outbound, by login name of sender/recipient? savename = ON # Save outbound messages by login name of sender/recipient even if the # associated folder doesn't already exist? forcename = OFF # List of folders which are incoming folders. Incoming folders are # handled like your spool mailbox. Folders in this list will be # opened with "magic mode" incomingfolders= "=pepband" "=elmbox" "=procmail-list" "=wuftpd" "=amdlist" "=bugtraq-list" "=zsh-list" "*end-of-incoming-folders*" #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Section 9: MIME and Character Set Options # Sept 1, 1996 Page 25 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 # Name of character set which the display supports. displaycharset = iso-8859-1 # List of character sets, which are (more or less) a superset of US-ASCII. # When "displaycharset" is one of these, we can avoid spawning "metamail" # to handle a US-ASCII message. compatcharsets = ISO-8859-1 ISO-8859-2 ISO-8859-3 ISO-8859-4 ISO-8859-5 ISO-8859-7 ISO-8859-8 ISO-8859-9 # The character set used for messages you write that contain 8-bit # national characters. (This becomes the "charset" parameter in the # "Content-Type" header of your outbound message.) If the message # contains solely 7-bit charcters, then this setting is ignored and # US-ASCII is selected. A common choice here is "ISO-8859-1". charset = iso-8859-1 # # end of Elm configuration settings # #----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.... Command Line Options There are a number of command line options to the Elm program, with only one that needs to be remembered: "-?"or "-h" for help. The options are: -a This allows you to have the "->" arrow pointer rather than the inverse bar. This can also be set in the .elm/elmrc file with the boolean variable arrow. -c Check only. This is useful for expanding aliases without sending any mail. The invocation is similar to invoking Elm in send-only mode: elm -c list-of-aliases -d n Set debug level to n. Useful for debugging the Elm pro- gram, this option will create a file in your home direc- tory called ELM:debug.info containing a running log of what is going on with the program. Level n can be 1 through 11, where the higher numbers generate more out- put. This option might be disabled by the the person who configured Elm for your system. -f folder Read the specified folder rather than the default Sept 1, 1996 Page 26 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 incoming mailbox. Note that you can use the same meta- characters (e.g. '=') as when you change folders from within the program. You can also use the same abbrevia- tory symbols ('!', '>' and '<'), but remember to "single quote" them in case they have special meaning in the shell you use. -h or -? Help message. Gives a short list of all these options and exits. -i file Include a prepared file in the edit buffer before send- ing. This facilitates using Elm with other programs that interface with mail (like news readers, for exam- ple). There is an example of how to set up the rn news reading program to use Elm in The Elm Users Guide. The file specified is copied into the temporary file just before the signature file. -k Keypad enable. This option lets the Elm program know that you're on an HP terminal, and it can then interpret the , and /- keys ac- cordingly. If you are not on an HP terminal, it is recommended that you do NOT use this option. See also the keypad variable, described under Boolean Variables in section 2. -K Keypad + softkeys enable. The Elm mailer can use the HP softkeys as an alternative form of input. If you speci- fy this option be sure that you're on an HP terminal that can accept the standard 2622 terminal escape se- quences! See also the softkeys variable, described under Boolean Variables in section 2. -M Lock all folders instead of just the main spool folder. This will also force elm to disply the status for fold- ers other then the spool folder. -m Inhibit display of the 3-line menu when using the mailer. This, of course, gives you three more message headers per page instead. See also the menu variable, described under Boolean Variables in section 2. -s subject In send-only and batch mode, this is how to indicate the subject of the resulting message. Please see the Sept 1, 1996 Page 27 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 section on Non----Interactive Uses of Elm in The Elm Users Guide for more information. -t Disable use of the termcap/terminfo ti////te capabilities. Many terminal emulators require it (not the least of which is the OpenLook cmdtool). Some terminal emulators clear the screen on te (some xterms). See also the usetite variable, described under Boolean Variables in section 2. -z This causes Elm not to start if you don't have any mail, but instead to display the message "You have no mail." This emulates the behavior of programs like Berkeley Mail. All the above options default to reasonable values, so there is usually no need to use them. Furthermore, the most used options are available through the .elm/elmrc file, described in section 2. 4.... Multi----Media Capabilities of Elm Elm optionally provides you with some Multi-Media features, which are compliant to the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) standard. If the support is compiled into Elm, on the receiving side Elm accesses Metamail from Nathaniel Borenstein of Bellcore. If you receive a MIME compliant message, Elm calls Metamail automatical- ly to display the message. Metamail asks you if you want to display each part of the message and uses the display programs available at your site. This is controlled through the mailcap file. On the sending side, there is a simple mechanism integrated in Elm to compose MIME compliant messages. This is the attachments menu that can be found in the main index screen. Elm still supports the old method where you have one or more key lines of the form [include file contenttype/subtype encoding] in the message body, at each of these key lines, a file is in- cluded, and becomes a part of the message. The text lines before, between and after the include lines go into extra message parts of type text. As an example, say you want to include the file foo.gif into your message, which is a GIF image, and you want to use base64 encod- ing, use the following line: Sept 1, 1996 Page 28 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 [include foo.gif image/gif base64] Or you want to include a text file which contains plain ASCII: [include foo.txt text/plain] The encoding parameter is optional and the default is 7bit. Refer to RFC1341 for valid contenttype/subtype and encoding parameter values. 5.... Special Outgoing Mail Processing There are a few extra features that Elm offers on outgoing mail that are worthy of mention. The first, and probably the most exciting feature,839 is the abili- ty to send encrypted mail! To do this is extremely simple: you need merely to have two key lines [encode] and [clear] in the message body. Consider the following outgoing message: Joe, Remember that talk we had about Amy? Well, I talked to my manager about it and he said... uhh...better encrypt this...the usual `key'... [encode] He said that Amy was having family problems and that it had been affecting her work. Given this, I went and talked to her, and told her I was sorry for getting angry. She said that she understood. We're friends again!! [clear] Exciting stuff, eh? Mike While this is obviously quite readable while being typed into the editor, as soon as the message is confirmed as wanting to be sent, the Elm mailer prompts with: Enter encryption key: @ __________ 3. Unfortunately, at many non-US sites, it's quite probable that you won't be able to use this feature since you won't have the crypt() library available due to licensing restrictions. Sept 1, 1996 Page 29 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 and accepts a key (a series of 8 or less characters) without echoing them to the screen. After entry, it will ask for the same key again to confirm it, then *poof* it will encrypt and send the mail. If you have the copy option enabled, the program will save your copy of the message encrypted too. (This is to ensure the priva- cy and security of your mail archive, too.) If the mailer doesn't ask for the encryption key, it's because you don't have the [encode] entered as the first 8 characters of the line. It MUST be so for this to work!! On the other end, a person receiving this mail (they must also be using Elm to receive it, since this mailer has a unique encryp- tion program) will be reading the message and then suddenly be prompted: Enter decryption key: @ and will again be asked to re-enter it to confirm. The program will then on-the-fly decrypt the mail and display each line as it is decoded. The [clear] line signifies that the block to encrypt is done. Note that it is not possible currently to pipe or print encrypted mail. The other feature on outgoing mail is the ability to specify what section of the message you want to have archived (assuming copy is enabled) and what section you don't. This is most useful for sending out source file listings and so on. To indicate the end of the section that should be saved in the archive, you need merely to have the key line [nosave] or [no save] appear by itself on a line. This key line is removed from the outgoing mail, and indicates the last line of the message to be saved. Other than this, the saved mail is identical to the out- going mail. 6.... Customized header lines The mailer provides a facility for including customized header lines in the messages you send. If you have an .elm/elmheaders file, the mailer will include its contents immediately after the regular headers of all outbound mail. The mailer supports use of the backquote convention in this file to run commands and Sept 1, 1996 Page 30 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 substitute the commands' output for the backquoted text. Here's a typical .elm/elmheaders file: Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Phone: (415)-555-1234 Operating-System: `uname -srv` These lines will be inserted after all other header lines in the message. 7.... Commands This section discusses each command in the Elm program in more detail than above, including the prompts the user can expect upon executing the command, the meaning of different options, etc. ? Help. This command used once puts you in the help mode, where any key you press results in a one-line descrip- tion of the key. Pressing '?' again at this point pro- duces a summary listing each command available. Press- ing '.' (period) leaves the help mode and returns you to the command level. Display the current message. is useful for reading through a mail folder. When issued from the in- dex screen, it displays the first screen of the current message. When issued while in the builtin pager, it pages through the message to the end. When issued at the end of a message (with either the builtin pager or an external pager), it displays the first screen of the next message not marked for deletion. Display the current message. behaves somewhat differently from . When issued while in the builtin pager, it scrolls the current message forward one line, and then when issued at the end of a message (with either the builtin pager or an external pager), it redisplays the first screen of the the current message. The latter is useful in case you have issued a non-pager command while in the builtin pager and want to restart the display of the current message. ! Shell. This allows you to send a command to the shell without leaving the program. Note that it is possible that the person who installed Elm on your system dis- abled this feature. Sept 1, 1996 Page 31 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 | Pipe. This command allows you to pipe the current mes- sage or the set of tagged messages through other filters as you desire. The shell used for the entire command is either the one specified in your .elm/elmrc file, or the default shell (see the shell variable under String Vari---- ables in section 2). / Pattern match. This command, at the command level, al- lows the user to search through all the from and subject lines of the current folder starting at the current mes- sage and continuing through the end. If the first char- acter of the pattern is a '/', then Elm tries to match the specified pattern against any line in the folder. Again, this works from the current message through the end. Both searches are case insensitive. - or Display the previous page of the message index. + or Display the next page of the message index. Specify new current message. When you type in any di- git, Elm prompts "Set current to : n", where n is the digit entered. Continue entering the full number and terminate with . Note that changing the current message to a message not on the current page of headers results in a new page being displayed. < Scan message for calendar entries. A rather novel feature of the Elm mailer is the ability to automatical- ly incorporate calendar/agenda information from a mail message into the user's calendar file. This is done quite simply; any line that has the pattern -> calendar entry is automatically added to the user's calendar file when the '<' command is used (see the calendar variable under String Variables in section 2). For example, let's say we had a message with the text: Regardless of that meeting, here's the seminar stuff: -> 8/03 3:00pm: AI Seminar with Ira Goldstein of HP Labs Sept 1, 1996 Page 32 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 then using the '<' command would add the line: 8/03 3:00pm: AI Seminar with Ira Goldstein of HP Labs to the user's calendar file. & Toggle Magic mode. See the command line option ----M for more information. a Alias. The alias system is a way by which more complex mail addresses can be shortened for the mail user. For example: joe, bleu = Joe Bleu = joe@hpfcla.SSO.HP.COM which allows mail to "joe" or "bleu" with the system ex- panding the address properly. Obviously, this saves having to remember complex addresses. A more detailed discussion can be found in either the section entitled The Alias System in this document or The Elm Alias Sys_- tem Users Guide. b Bounce mail. This "remails" mail to someone else in such a way as to make the return address the original sender rather than you. The forward command is similar, but it makes the return address you rather than the ori- ginal sender. C Copy to folder. This command copies the current message or set of tagged messages to a folder. If there is any- thing in the folder currently the message is appended to the end, otherwise the folder is created containing only the newly copied messages. The prompt for this command is "Copy to folder: ". A response of cancels the command and returns the user to the command prompt. The usual filename metacharacters are available, too. That is, this command expands filenames with '~' (tilde) to your home directory and '=' to your maildir directo- ry, if defined. This command also allows you to use '>' for your receivedmail folder, '<' for your sentmail folder, '.' for the last folder you saved or copied a message to and "@alias" for the default folder for "alias". If you use a shell wildcard in the file or folder name, you are given a list of all files or fold- ers which match the wildcard. Elm uses your shell to find the names, so whatever wildcards you are used to will work. Finally, you can also enter '?' at the prompt to get detailed help. Sept 1, 1996 Page 33 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 c Change folder. Specifying this command allows the user to change the folder that is currently being read. This is intended for perusal and reply to previously archived messages. The prompt is "Name of new folder: " and entering cancels the operation, while entering a filename causes the program to read that file as the new folder, if possible. This command expands filenames with '~' (tilde) to your home directory and '=' to your maildir directory, if defined. This command also allows you to use '!' as an abbreviation for you incoming mail- box, '>' for your receivedmail folder, '<' for your sentmail folder, '.' for the last folder you saved or copied a message to and "@alias" for the default folder for "alias". If you use a shell wildcard in the file or folder name, you are given a list of all files or fold- ers which match the wildcard. Elm uses your shell to find the names, so whatever wildcards you are used to will work. Finally, you can also enter '?' at the prompt to get detailed help. d, u Delete and undelete. Neither of these two commands have any prompts and indicate their action by either adding a 'D' to the current message index entry (indicating dele- tion pending) or removing the 'D' (indicating that the message isn't set for deletion). -D This command allows you to easily mark for deletion all messages that have a specific pattern. After <<<>>>----D is pressed, Elm prompts for the string to match in either the from or subject lines of the mes- sages. -U This is the direct opposite command to the <<<>>>----D command - all messages that match the specified pattern have any mark for deletion removed by this command. e Edit mailbox. This allows you to modify the current mail file at a single keystroke. This is mostly useful for editing messages before saving them. Modifying headers should be done with extreme caution, as they contain routing information and other vital stuff for full functionality. This command may be disabled by whoever configured your Elm installation. f Forward. Allows the user to forward the current message to another user. This copies the message into the edit buffer and allows the user to add their own message too. Sept 1, 1996 Page 34 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 The prompt is "Forward to:" and will expand an alias if entered. See also bounce, above. Elm will ask you if you want to edit the message before sending it. If you answer yes, Elm will prepend your prefix string to each line of the message, and let you edit the result. If you do not want the prefix string on each line, answer no; you will have another chance to edit the message when you get to the "send" menu. See the prefix variable under String Variables in section 2. g Group reply. Identical to reply below, except that the response is mailed to all recipients of the original message except yourself. See the alternatives variable under String Variables in section 2. h Display the current message with all headers intact. When you display a message with other commands, certain header lines are formatted and others discarded accord- ing to the weedlist variable, described under String Variables in section 2. i Return to the index screen, when issued in the builtin pager or at the end of a message with either the builtin pager or an external pager. j or , k or These four keys work similarly to what they would do in vi or any of the other (precious few) screen oriented programs. The j and <<<>>> keys move the current mes- sage pointer down to the next message skipping over any marked deleted (going to the next page if necessary) and the k and <<<>>> keys move the current message pointer back to the previous message skipping over any marked deleted (also changing pages if necessary). J, K These two keys work similarly to their lower case coun- terparts, except that they don't skip over deleted mes- sages. l Limit. This feature allows you to specify a subset of the existing messages to be dealt with. For example, let's say we had a folder with four hundred messages in it, with only four or five different subjects. We could then limit what we're dealing with by using the limit command. Pressing l would result in the prompt: Criteria: Sept 1, 1996 Page 35 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 to which we could answer "subject string", "from string" or "to string". In our example, we could use "subject programming" as a criterion for selection. Once we've limited our selections, the screen is rewritten with just the selected messages and the top line changes to have a message like: Folder is "=elm" with 92 shown out of 124 [Elm 2.4] We can further limit selections by using the limit op- tion repeatedly to enter further criteria. To clear all the criteria and get back to the "regular" display, simply enter "all" as the limiting criteria. It should be noted that the selection based on "to" isn't fully implemented for this version, so it is recommended that users stay with "subject" and "from" as the basis for their criteria. M Mlist toggle. This toggles the display between the standard elm display and a display that shows more in- formation about messages that aren't directly to you. The main purpose of this display is make it easier to deal with messages from a mailing list. See section 8, Enabling Elm """"mailing list"""" display support for more in- formation. m Mail. Send mail to a specified user. The prompt asso- ciated with this command is "Send mail to: ". Entering an alias name results in the full address being rewrit- ten in parenthesis immediately. This prompt is followed by "Subject: " which allows the user to title their note. The final prompt is "Copies to: ", which allows other people specified to receive "carbon copies" of the message, but see the askcc variable under Boolean Vari---- ables in section 2. Upon entering all three items the editor is invoked and the message can be composed. n Next message that is not marked for deletion. Useful for displaying successive messages in a folder. When issued from the index screen, it displays the current message, and when issued while in the builtin pager or at the end of a message (with either the builtin pager or an external pager), it displays the first screen of the next message not marked for deletion. o Options. This full-screen display allows you to alter the settings of a number of parameters, including the current sorting method, the method of printing files, the calendar file, the save file, and so on. It's Sept 1, 1996 Page 36 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 self-documenting (where have you heard that before?) so isn't explained in too much detail here. See the confi---- goptions variable under String Variables in section 2. p Print. This allows you to print out the current message or the tagged messages to a previously defined printer. See the print variable under String Variables in section 2. q Quit. If you in the pager, you are returned to the in- dex screen. If you are at the index screen, Elm quits altogether. However, if you have the ask variable set ON, Elm first prompts you for the disposition of the messages in the current folder. If any messages are marked for deletion, it asks if you want them deleted. If the current folder is your incoming mailbox, you are also asked if read messages should be stored in your re---- ceivedmail folder, and if unread messages should be kept in the incoming mailbox. The default answers to these questions are set by the .elm/elmrc variables always---- delete, alwayskeep, and alwaysstore (see Boolean Vari---- ables in section 2). However, if you elect to not store your read messages (i.e. keep them) it is presumed you want to keep your unread messages, too. Q Quick quit. This behaves similar to the quit command except that you are never prompted for answers to the message disposition questions. Elm disposes of messages according to the values you have set for alwaysdelete, alwaysstore, and alwayskeep in your .elm/elmrc file (see Boolean Variables in section 2). r Reply. Reply to the sender of the current message. If the askreplycopy variable is set to ON in your .elm/elmrc file, Elm prompts "Copy message into reply? (y/n)", to which you can specify whether or not a copy of the source message is to be copied into the edit buffer. If copied in, all lines from the message are prepended with the prefix character sequence specified in your .elm/elmrc file (see String Variables in section 2). S Status change. This full-screen display allows you to change arbitrarily the New/Old/Read and Replied-to status of the current message. Like Options, it's in- tended to be self-documenting and isn't covered in de- tail here. This command may have been disabled by who- ever configured your Elm installation. Sept 1, 1996 Page 37 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 s Save to folder. This command is like the copy command, except that the saved messages are marked for deletion and, if you are saving just the current message, the current message pointer is incremented afterwards (see the resolve variable under Boolean Variables in section 2). This command expands folder names with '~' (tilde) to your home directory and '=' to your maildir directo- ry, if defined. This command also allows you to use '>' for your receivedmail folder, '<' for your sentmail folder (see String Variables in section 2), '.' (period) for the last folder you saved or copied a message to and "@alias" for the default folder for "alias". t Tag. Tag the current message for a later operation.84 9 T Tag and move to next undeleted message. This command is like the `Tag' command but also increments the current message pointer to the next undeleted message. -T Tag all messages containing the specified pattern. Since tagging messages can occur on screens other than the one being viewed, Elm first checks to see if any messages are currently tagged and ask you if you'd like to remove those tags. After that, it will, similar to the <<<>>>----D command, prompt for a pattern to match and then mark all messages that contain the (case insen- sitive) pattern in either the from or subject lines. x Exit. This leaves Elm and discards any changes to the mailbox. If changes are pending (such as messages marked for deletion) you are asked to confirm discarding the changes. If confirmed, no messages are deleted and the status of all messages is unchanged. That is, any messages that were new will remain new instead of being noted as old, and any messages that were read for the first time will be again noted as unread. X Exit immediately. This leaves Elm in the quickest pos- sible manner without even prompting about discarding the changes to the mailbox. No messages are deleted and the status of all messages is unchanged. That is, any mes- sages that were new will remain new instead of being noted as old, and any messages that were read for the first time will be again noted as unread. __________ 4. Currently only copy, pipe, print, and save support this. Sept 1, 1996 Page 38 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 When you are about to send a message with the forward, mail, or reply commands (see above), a small menu of the following options appears: c Specify the folder for saving a copy of the message. This allows you to override the copy, forcename, save---- byname, and savebyalias variables from your .elm/elmrc file (see Boolean Variables in section 2). It prompts you for the name of the folder where a copy of the out- going message is to be saved. The default displayed is taken from those three .elm/elmrc options and can be changed. This command also allows you to use '>' for your receivedmail folder and '<' for your sentmail fold- er (see String Variables in section 2), and '=?' to mean "conditionally save by name" and '=' to mean "uncondi- tionally save by name". Since you could next enter the edit headers command and change the recipients of your message, the name of the folder under the two "save by name" options is not established until you enter the send command. If you use a shell wildcard in the file or folder name, you are given a list of all files or folders which match the wildcard. Elm uses your shell to find the names, so whatever wildcards you are used to will work. You can also enter '?' at the prompt to get help about saving. e Edit message (or form). Entering this command allows you to edit the text of your message or form. f Forget. This gets you out of sending a message you started. If you are in send-only mode, the message is saved to the file Canceled.mail in your home directory. Otherwise it can be restored at the next forward, mail, or reply command during the current session of Elm After issuing one of those commands you will be prompted with "Recall last kept message?" h Edit headers. This puts you into the header editing mode, whereby you can edit any of the various headers of your message. Like the options screen, it's self- documenting, so it isn't explained in too much detail here. i Run ispell (or some other configured spelling correction program). The outgoing message is run through an in- teractive spelling correction program if one is avail- able. The default spelling program is the GNU ispell program unless changed by the person who installed Elm on your system. Sept 1, 1996 Page 39 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 m Make form. This converts the message you have edited into a form. See the forms variable under Boolean Vari---- ables in section 2 and The Elm Forms Mode Guide for more details. s Send. This sends the message as is without any further ado. 8.... Enabling Elm """"mailing list"""" display support Elm has an alternate display mode that gives additional informa- tion about message recipients. This makes it easy to differen- tiate between messages sent from a mailing list or other forms of mail aliasing, and messages that are to you personally. This mode is controlled by the showmlists elmrc variable (default OFF), and may be toggled at run time with the M command. (The frm program also has mlist support; use the "-l" option.) When the mlist mode is active, the screen looks like this: 1 Jul 28 team@work / Jimmy Stewart (19) 5:00 today 2 Jul 28 team@work / Jimmy Stewart (14) Today at 5:00 3 Jul 28 ============/ Marilyn Monroe (26) RF movie playing 4 Jul 28 (b9@relay ) John Wayne (51) B9 Construc- tion 5 Jul 28 snapper-dev / Peter Graves (47) Check out this week's 6 Jul 28 snapper-dev / Ann Margaret (42) Sneak Preview of THE M 7 Jul 28 ------------/ William H. Goldbe (60) Re: Important Video Qu The first field, after the date, contains the additional informa- tion about the message's recipients, broken down into one of four possible categories: a) the message is addressed to you, and there are no other recipients; b) the message is addressed to you and also to other recipients; c) the message is cc'd to you (im- plies multiple recipients); or d) the message is not addressed specifically to you. It is the wide range of the last category that this mode is primarily designed to handle. Examples of this are mailing lists, in which the mailing list address is the reci- pient, and other mail aliases such as owner-list, postmaster, etc. that resolve to your email address. Elm uses the following notations to indicate which category your mail falls into: "------------" indicates that either you, or you and the sender are the only recipients. In other words, this is private email between you and the sender. "============" indi- cates that your username appears somewhere in the recipient list, in addition to other users. This is to remind you to use group reply if you want your comments to be sent to everyone. The same Sept 1, 1996 Page 40 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 notation is used if the message is cc'd to you, as not all users will want to distinguish these cases. The "(address)" notation indicates that the mail is not addressed directly to you and the recipient list doesn't match any addresses in the "mlists" files (more on this below). Finally, any other text in this field in- dicates that the mail is not addressed directly to you and a match to one of the addressees was found in one of the "mlists" files. The first pattern in mlists to match any recipient ad- dress is used. All of these notations can be customized. Mailing list names are read from $HOME/.elm/mlists and /usr/local/lib/mlists, in that order. Since the first pattern that matches is used, entries from the home mlists file will be used over entries from the glo- bal mlists file. The format of the mlists file is a list of RFC-822 compliant ad- dresses, one per line. This means each line is of the format "list name" , list-address (list name), or simply list-address. The list-address does not have to be the full ad- dress, just the portion that you want to match. Matches are case-independent, and only match whole words, with '@', '!', and ':' as delimiter characters. So "os" will match "host!os" or "os@host", but not "osf@host". The "------------" and "============" representations can be changed in the mlist file as well. To change them, instead of a list address, specify a special token and name them just like any other list. The tokens are "[[[[to----me]]]]" (mail just to me), "[[[[to---- many]]]]" (mail to me and others), and "[[[[cc----me]]]]" (mail to me and others, but I'm on the cc list). examples: # this is a comment os (OS Group) elm-dev devnull (Hitech Sim) "long name" [to-me] (------) [to-many](======) [cc-me] (==cc==) 9.... Using Elm with editor ==== none"""""""" The Elm program also supports a builtin editor for simple message composition that is very (very) similar to the simple line editor available from the Berkeley Mail system. To access it, you need merely to specify "editor====none" in your .elm/elmrc file. With that, any messages to be composed that don't already have text in the buffer (e.g. no reply with the text included, etc.), will use this editor. Sept 1, 1996 Page 41 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 From the builtin editor, the following options are available for use. Each command here is prefixed with a '~' (tilde). You can specify a different "escape" character in your .elm/elmrc file, if you desire (see the escape variable under String Variables in section 2). ~? Print a brief help menu. ~b Change the Blind-Carbon-Copy list. ~c Change the Carbon-Copy list. ~e Invoke the easyeditor editor on the message, if possible (see the easyeditor variable under String Variables in sec- tion 2). ~f Add the specified message or current message. ~h Change all the available headers (To, Cc, Bcc, and Subject). ~m Same as ~~~~f, but with the current prefix (see the prefix variable under String Variables in section 2). ~o Invoke a user specified editor on the message. ~p Print out, on the screen, the message as typed in so far. ~r Include (read in) the contents of the specified file. ~s Change the Subject line. ~t Change the To list. ~v Invoke the vi visual editor on the message. ~< Execute the specified UNIX command, entering the output of the command into the editor buffer upon completion. For ex- ample, "~< who" includes the output of the who command in your message. Sept 1, 1996 Page 42 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 ~! Execute a UNIX command if one is given (as in "~!ls") or give the user a shell, either from the shell variable set- ting in the .elm/elmrc file or the default (see the shell variable under String Variables in section 2). ~~ Add a line prefixed by a single '~' character. A useful note is that the ~~~~f and ~~~~m commands invoke the readmsg command, so you can pass parameters along too. For example, if we wanted to include a message from Joe, without any headers, but with each line prefixed, we could use: ~m -n Joe to accomplish the task. To learn more about how they work, try 'em! 10.... The Alias System As mentioned previously, there exists in the Elm system a set of aliases that associate an arbitrary word (such as a persons name) to a complex address or group. The advantages are readily ap- parent; rather than remembering an address of the form: host1!host2! ... !hostN!user the user merely has to remember a single word. Two alias tables are available for a each user within Elm, namely the system alias file and the user's alias file. The system alias file is created and maintained (by the system administra- tor) by editing the file name defined for SYSTEM_ALIASES in the sysdefs.h file (see The Elm Configuration Guide) and as described in the documentation with the newalias command, then running the newalias program. An individual user can also have an alias file which works in conjunction with the system aliases. To do this, one merely needs to enter the alias menu system and create aliases with the a (alias current message) or n (make new alias) commands. Alter- natively, the user can peruse the documentation for the newalias command and create a file as indicated therein. After executing the program, the aliases are available for use from within Elm. Please refer to The Elm Alias Users Guide for complete details. Within Elm, however, the alias system acts as an entirely dif- ferent program, with its own display, own commands, and own mini-menu. The aliases are presented in a list similar to the index screen with the following menu: Sept 1, 1996 Page 43 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 Alias commands: ?=help, =set current to n, /=search pattern a)lias current message, c)hange, d)elete, e)dit aliases.text, f)ully expand, l)imit display, m)ail, n)ew alias, r)eturn, t)ag, u)ndelete, or e(x)it Alias: @ The commands are: ? Help. This command used once puts you in the help mode, where any key you press will result in a one-line descrip- tion of the key. Pressing '?' again at this point produces a summary listing each command available. Pressing '.' (period) leaves the help mode and returns you to the alias command prompt. or or v Display the current alias address. The alias address is displayed below the alias menu. This command allows you to verify the address for a person or the contents of a group alias. $ Resynchronize the alias text file ($HOME/.elm/aliases.text) and alias database by rebuilding the database from the text file by running newalias. Aliases marked for deletion are removed, tagged aliases are untagged, and new and changed aliases are recognized. The alias screen is updated to re- flect these changes. / Pattern match. This command allows the user to search through all the alias and username entries in the alias list starting at the current alias and continuing through the end. If the first character of the pattern is a '/', then Elm also includes the comment and the fully expanded address fields in the search. The search is case insensitive. This allows the user to find a specific alias in the situation where there are a large number of aliases. a Alias current message. This allows the user to create an alias that has the return address of the current message as the address field of the alias. It prompts for a unique alias name. If the alias name is not unique, you will be asked if you wish to replace the existing alias. For furth- er information, please see The Elm Alias System Users Guide. c Change current alias. This will prompt for changes to the current names and address. If other aliases are tagged you will be asked if you want to create a group alias from the Sept 1, 1996 Page 44 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 tagged aliases. The original alias is replaced with the new information in your individual alias file ($HOME/.elm/aliases.text) and then added to the database (at the next alias resync). Aliases that have been changed are marked with an 'N' (for new) until the database is updated. d, u Delete or undelete an alias. This allows the user to mark an alias for deletion in the same fashion as on the index screen. The deletions are not actually made until the user returns to the main menu with the r, q, or i commands or resyncs the display with the $$$$ command. Deletions on system aliases are not allowed. These commands (plus the <<<>>>----D and <<<>>>----U versions) behave identically to their index screen counterparts (see section 7, Commands). e Edit the .elm/aliases.text file. The user alias file is edited using the editor defined in the editor variable in your .elm/elmrc file (see String Variables in section 2). newalias is run after the edit. f Display fully expanded alias. The currently selected alias is fully expanded and displayed to the user. This is most useful when working with group aliases. l Limit the display. You can limit the display by alias type (person/group or user/system) or by search pattern on name or alias. Otherwise, this works exactly like the limit com- mand on the index screen. m Send mail to the current alias. The user is prompted to compose a new mail message to be sent to the person or group specified by the selected alias. If aliases are tagged the message is mailed to the person(s) and/or group(s) specified by the tagged aliases. Tags are cleared after mailing the message. n Make a new user alias. This prompts for a unique alias name and then for an address. If the alias name is not unique, you are asked if you wish to replace the existing alias. If aliases are tagged you are asked if you want to create a group alias from the tagged aliases. The information pro- vided is added to your individual alias file ($HOME/.elm/aliases.text) and then added to the database at the next alias resync. Sept 1, 1996 Page 45 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 r or q or i Return. Return to the index screen of the Elm program. Any pending deletions are processed and newalias is run to up- date the database. New additions are handled at this time as well. R or Q or I Quick return. This behaves like the 'r' command except that you are never prompted for answers to alias disposition questions. Elm disposes of aliases according to the value set for the alwaysdelete variable in your .elm/elmrc file (see Boolean Variables in section 2). t Tag. Tag the current alias for a later operation.859 This command (plus the <<<>>>----T version) behaves identically to its index screen counterpart (see section 7, Commands). x Exit alias menu. Exits the alias menu without processing any deletions. Aliases marked for deletion are unmarked and newalias is not run, even if alias additions have been made. Additionally, the movement keys ('j', 'k', '+', '-', etc.) work in the same fashion as on the index screen (see section 7, Com---- mands). 11.... Elm and Signals Elm can handle several standard UNIX signals to do some special processing. Signals are interrupt messages sent from one program to another. No detailed messages are sent, but a properly con- figured program (such as Elm) can watch for and handle these sig- nals. In particular, Elm watches for the following signals and takes these actions: ALRM This is the alarm clock signal or time warning. Elm uses this to wake itself up periodically and check for new mail. HUP This is the hangup notice. It means that the terminal/modem/whatever which you have been using with Elm has become detached from the system where Elm was running. When Elm gets this signal, it aborts all the pending opera- tions and exits, leaving your mailbox unchanged. __________ 5. Currently only mail, change, and new alias support this. Sept 1, 1996 Page 46 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 USR1 This is the first user-defined signal. When Elm gets this signal, it receives any pending mail, performs all the pend- ing operations (deletes), and exits leaving all unread mail marked as new. This is the same as giving both the $$$$ and X commands. USR2 This is the second user-defined signal. When Elm gets this signal, it receives any pending mail, performs all the pend- ing operations (deletes), and exits, leaving all unread mail marked as old. This is the same as giving both the $$$$ and Q commands. You would only use these signals yourself under the most unusual circumstances. For example, suppose you were using Elm to read mail on host_1. You have many messages, most of which have been read and filed (and therefore deleted), or simply deleted. You have not yet resynchronized your mailbox ($$$$ command). Now you go to lunch. On your return, you're stopped at the door and told to take care of an emergency. You go to another part of the build- ing, and want to read your mail to see what the emergency is - but you can't, because Elm is still running at your desk. What you really want is one of the scenarios given in the description of HUP, USR1 or USR2. Use your local ps command to find out what the process number of your Elm session is. Then give the command kill -XXX process_number where XXX is either "HUP", "USR1" or "USR2" and process_number is the process number for your remote Elm session. Your remote ses- sion will terminate with the actions noted above. 12.... Expert Mail Users and Debugging the Mailer There are some additional facilities available in the Elm mailer for those people who are knowledgeable about mail protocols, or trying to debug/track down a problem. The h (display with headers) command at the command prompt displays the current message ignoring the current setting of the weed variable (see Boolean Variables in section 2). This is most useful for answering questions of the form "I wonder what this guy put in his header?" and such. This command does not show up on the mini-menu because it is somewhat esoteric, but it does ap- pear on the help screen. The @@@@ command at the command prompt outputs a screen of debugging information, including the number of lines and offsets of each of the messages in the current mailbox. The #### command at the command prompt displays the entire stored "record structure" for the current message. Sept 1, 1996 Page 47 9 Elm Reference Guide Version 2.5 9 The %%%% command displays the full computed return address of the current message. Starting up Elm with the ----d (debug) option (see section 3, Com---- mand Line Options) creates a file called ELM:debug.info in your home directory which contains a wealth of useful information (to me, at least!) to aid in tracking down what errors are occurring and why. If there are any problems with Elm, please try to recreate the error with the debug option enabled and set to the highest level (11) before sending defect reports my way. One final note: all error names reported by the program are docu- mented in the AT&T System V Interface Definition Reference Manual in errno(2). Sept 1, 1996 Page 48