MH-PROFILE(5)MH-PROFILE(5)NAMEmh-profile - user profile customization for nmh message
handler
SYNOPSIS
.mh_profile
DESCRIPTION
Each user of nmh is expected to have a file named .mh_pro-
file in his or her home directory. This file contains a
set of user parameters used by some or all of the nmh fam-
ily of programs. Each entry in the file is of the format
profile-component: value
If the text of profile entry is long, you may extend it
across several real lines by indenting the continuation
lines with leading spaces or tabs.
Standard Profile Entries
The possible profile components are exemplified below.
The only mandatory entry is `Path:'. The others are
optional; some have default values if they are not pre-
sent. In the notation used below, (profile, default)
indicates whether the information is kept in the user's
nmh profile or nmh context, and indicates what the default
value is.
Path: Mail
Locates nmh transactions in directory "Mail".
This is the only mandatory profile entry. (pro-
file, no default)
context: context
Declares the location of the nmh context file.
This is overridden by the environment variable
MHCONTEXT. See the HISTORY section below.
(profile, default: <nmh-dir>/context)
Current-Folder: inbox
Keeps track of the current open folder. (con-
text, default: folder specified by "Inbox")
Inbox: inbox
Defines the name of your default inbox. (pro-
file, default: inbox)
Previous-Sequence: pseq
Names the sequence or sequences which should be
defined as the `msgs' or `msg' argument given to
any nmh command. If not present or empty, no
such sequences are defined. Otherwise, for each
name given, the sequence is first zero'd and
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then each message is added to the sequence.
Read the mh-sequence(5) man page for the details
about this sequence. (profile, no default)
Sequence-Negation: not
Defines the string which, when prefixed to a
sequence name, negates that sequence. Hence,
"notseen" means all those messages that are not
a member of the sequence "seen". Read the
mh-sequence(5) man page for the details. (pro-
file, no default)
Unseen-Sequence: unseen
Names the sequence or sequences which should be
defined as those messages which are unread. The
commands inc, rcvstore, mhshow, and show will
add or remove messages from these sequences when
they are incorporated or read. If not present
or empty, no such sequences are defined. Other-
wise, each message is added to, or removed from,
each sequence name given. Read the
mh-sequence(5) man page for the details about
this sequence. (profile, no default)
mh-sequences: .mh_sequences
The name of the file in each folder which
defines public sequences. To disable the use of
public sequences, leave the value portion of
this entry blank. (profile, default:
.mh_sequences)
atr-seq-folder: 172 178-181 212
Keeps track of the private sequence called seq
in the specified folder. Private sequences are
generally used for read-only folders. See the
mh-sequence(5) man page for details about pri-
vate sequences. (context, no default)
Editor: /usr/bin/vi
Defines the editor to be used by the commands
comp (1), dist (1), forw (1), and repl (1).
(profile, default: /usr/bin/vi)
automimeproc:
If defined and set to 1, then the whatnow pro-
gram will automatically invoke the buildmimeproc
(discussed below) to process each message as a
MIME composition draft before it is sent. (pro-
file, no default)
Msg-Protect: 644
An octal number which defines the permission
bits for new message files. See chmod (1) for
an explanation of the octal number. (profile,
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default: 0644)
Folder-Protect: 750
An octal number which defines the permission
bits for new folder directories. See chmod (1)
for an explanation of the octal number. (pro-
file, default: 700)
program: default switches
Sets default switches to be used whenever the mh
program program is invoked. For example, one
could override the Editor: profile component
when replying to messages by adding a component
such as:
repl: -editor /bin/ed
(profile, no defaults)
lasteditor-next: nexteditor
Names "nexteditor" to be the default editor
after using "lasteditor". This takes effect at
"What now?" prompt in comp, dist, forw, and
repl. After editing the draft with "lastedi-
tor", the default editor is set to be "nextedi-
tor". If the user types "edit" without any
arguments to "What now?", then "nexteditor" is
used. (profile, no default)
bboards: system
Tells bbc which BBoards you are interested in.
(profile, default: system)
Folder-Stack: folders
The contents of the folder-stack for the folder
command. (context, no default)
mhe:
If present, tells inc to compose an MHE audit-
file in addition to its other tasks. MHE is
Brian Reid's Emacs front-end for nmh. (profile,
no default)
Alternate-Mailboxes: mh@uci-750a, bug-mh*
Tells repl and scan which addresses are really
yours. In this way, repl knows which addresses
should be included in the reply, and scan knows
if the message really originated from you.
Addresses must be separated by a comma, and the
hostnames listed should be the "official" host-
names for the mailboxes you indicate, as local
nicknames for hosts are not replaced with their
official site names. For each address, if a
host is not given, then that address on any host
is considered to be you. In addition, an aster-
isk (`*') may appear at either or both ends of
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the mailbox and host to indicate wild-card
matching. (profile, default: your user-id)
Aliasfile: aliases other-alias
Indicates aliases files for ali, whom, and send.
This may be used instead of the `-alias file'
switch. (profile, no default)
Draft-Folder: drafts
Indicates a default draft folder for comp, dist,
forw, and repl. Read the mh-draft (5) man page
for details. (profile, no default)
digest-issue-list: 1
Tells forw the last issue of the last volume
sent for the digest list. (context, no default)
digest-volume-list: 1
Tells forw the last volume sent for the digest
list. (context, no default)
MailDrop: .mail
Tells inc your maildrop, if different from the
default. This is superseded by the environment
variable MAILDROP. (profile, default:
/var/mail/$USER)
Signature: RAND MH System (agent: Marshall Rose)
Tells send your mail signature. This is super-
seded by the environment variable SIGNATURE. If
SIGNATURE is not set and this profile entry is
not present, the "gcos" field of the /etc/passwd
file will be used; otherwise, on hosts where nmh
was configured with the UCI option, the file
$HOME/.signature is consulted. Your signature
will be added to the address send puts in the
"From:" header; do not include an address in the
signature text. (profile, no default)
Process Profile Entries
The following profile elements are used whenever an nmh
program invokes some other program such as more (1). The
.mh_profile can be used to select alternate programs if
the user wishes. The default values are given in the
examples.
buildmimeproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/mhbuild
This is the program used by whatnow to process
drafts which are MIME composition files.
fileproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/refile
This program is used to refile or link a message
to another folder. It is used by post to file a
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copy of a message into a folder given by a
"Fcc:" field. It is used by the draft folder
facility in comp, dist, forw, and repl to refile
a draft message into another folder. It is used
to refile a draft message in response to the
`refile' directive at the "What now?" prompt.
incproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/inc
Program called by mhmail to incorporate new mail
when it is invoked with no arguments.
installproc: /usr/contrib/mh/lib/install-mh
This program is called to initialize the envi-
ronment for new users of nmh.
lproc: /usr/bin/more
This program is used to list the contents of a
message in response to the `list' directive at
the "What now?" prompt. It is also used by the
draft folder facility in comp, dist, forw, and
repl to display the draft message.
mailproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/mhmail
This is the program used to automatically mail
various messages and notifications. It is used
by conflict when using the `-mail' option. It
is used by send to post failure notices. It is
used to retrieve an external-body with access-
type `mail-server' (such as when storing the
body with mhstore).
mhlproc: /usr/contrib/mh/lib/mhl
This is the program used to filter messages in
various ways. It is used by mhshow to filter
and display the message headers of MIME mes-
sages. When the `-format' or `-filter' option
is used by forw or repl, the mhlproc is used to
filter the message that you are forwarding, or
to which you are replying. When the `-filter'
option is given to send or post, the mhlproc is
used by post to filter the copy of the message
that is sent to "Bcc:" recipients.
moreproc: /usr/bin/more
This is the program used by mhl to page the mhl
formatted message when displaying to a terminal.
It is also the default program used by mhshow to
display message bodies (or message parts) of
type text/plain.
mshproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/msh
Currently not used.
packproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/packf
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Currently not used.
postproc: /usr/contrib/mh/lib/post
This is the program used by send, mhmail,
rcvdist, and viamail (used by the sendfiles
shell script) to post a message to the mail
transport system. It is also called by whom
(called with the switches `-whom' and
`-library') to do address verification.
rmmproc: none
This is the program used by rmm and refile to
delete a message from a folder.
rmfproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/rmf
Currently not used.
sendproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/send
This is the program to use by whatnow to actu-
ally send the message
showmimeproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/mhshow
This is the program used by show to process and
display non-text (MIME) messages.
showproc: /usr/contrib/mh/lib/mhl
This is the program used by show to filter and
display text (non-MIME) messages.
whatnowproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/whatnow
This is the program invoked by comp, forw, dist,
and repl to query about the disposition of a
composed draft message.
whomproc: /usr/contrib/mh/bin/whom
This is the program used by whatnow to determine
to whom a message would be sent.
Environment Variables
The operation of nmh and its commands it also controlled
by the presence of certain environment variables.
Many of these environment variables are used internally by
the "What now?" interface. It's amazing all the informa-
tion that has to get passed via environment variables to
make the "What now?" interface look squeaky clean to the
nmh user, isn't it? The reason for all this is that the
nmh user can select any program as the whatnowproc,
including one of the standard shells. As a result, it's
not possible to pass information via an argument list.
If the WHATNOW option was set during nmh configuration,
and if this environment variable is set, then if the
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commands refile, send, show, or whom are not given any
`msgs' arguments, then they will default to using the file
indicated by mhdraft. This is useful for getting the
default behavior supplied by the default whatnowproc.
MH : With this environment variable, you can specify a
profile other than .mh_profile to be read by the nmh
programs that you invoke. If the value of MH is not
absolute, (i.e., does not begin with a / ), it will
be presumed to start from the current working direc-
tory. This is one of the very few exceptions in nmh
where non-absolute pathnames are not considered rela-
tive to the user's nmh directory.
MHCONTEXT : With this environment variable, you can spec-
ify a context other than the normal context file (as
specified in the nmh profile). As always, unless the
value of MHCONTEXT is absolute, it will be presumed
to start from your nmh directory.
MM_CHARSET : With this environment variable, you can spec-
ify the native character set you are using. You must
be able to display this character set on your termi-
nal.
This variable is checked to see if a RFC-2047 header
field should be decoded (in inc, scan, mhl). This
variable is checked by show to see if the showproc or
showmimeproc should be called, since showmimeproc
will be called if a text message uses a character set
that doesn't match MM_CHARSET. This variable is
checked by mhshow for matches against the charset
parameter of text contents to decide it the text con-
tent can be displayed without modifications to your
terminal. This variable is checked by mhbuild to
decide what character set to specify in the charset
parameter of text contents containing 8bit charac-
ters.
When decoding text in such an alternate character
set, nmh must be able to determine which characters
are alphabetic, which are control characters, etc.
For many operating systems, this will require
enabling the support for locales (such as setting the
environment variable LC_CTYPE to iso_8859_1).
MAILDROP : tells inc the default maildrop
This supersedes the "MailDrop:" profile entry.
SIGNATURE : tells send and post your mail signature
This supersedes the "Signature:" profile entry.
HOME : tells all nmh programs your home directory
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SHELL : tells bbl the default shell to run
TERM : tells nmh your terminal type
The environment variable TERMCAP is also consulted.
In particular, these tell scan and mhl how to clear
your terminal, and how many columns wide your termi-
nal is. They also tell mhl how many lines long your
terminal screen is.
editalt : the alternate message
This is set by dist and repl during edit sessions so
you can peruse the message being distributed or
replied to. The message is also available through a
link called "@" in the current directory if your cur-
rent working directory and the folder the message
lives in are on the same UNIX filesystem.
mhdraft : the path to the working draft
This is set by comp, dist, forw, and repl to tell the
whatnowproc which file to ask "What now?" questions
about.
mhfolder :
This is set by dist, forw, and repl, if appropriate.
mhaltmsg :
dist and repl set mhaltmsg to tell the whatnowproc
about an alternate message associated with the draft
(the message being distributed or replied to).
mhdist :
dist sets mhdist to tell the whatnowproc that message
re-distribution is occurring.
mheditor :
This is set to tell the whatnowproc the user's choice
of editor (unless overridden by `-noedit').
mhuse :
This may be set by comp.
mhmessages :
This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations
are to occur.
mhannotate :
This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations
are to occur.
mhinplace :
This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations
are to occur.
mhfolder : the folder containing the alternate message
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This is set by dist and repl during edit sessions so
you can peruse other messages in the current folder
besides the one being distributed or replied to. The
environment variable mhfolder is also set by show,
prev, and next for use by mhl.
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile
or $MH Rather than the standard profile
<mh-dir>/context The user context
or $MHCONTEXT Rather than the standard context
<folder>/.mh_sequences Public sequences for <folder>
PROFILE COMPONENTS
All
SEE ALSOmh(1), environ(5), mh-sequence(5)DEFAULTS
None
CONTEXT
All
HISTORY
The .mh_profile contains only static information, which
nmh programs will NOT update. Changes in context are made
to the context file kept in the users nmh directory. This
includes, but is not limited to: the "Current-Folder"
entry and all private sequence information. Public
sequence information is kept in each folder in the file
determined by the "mh-sequences" profile entry (default is
.mh_sequences).
The .mh_profile may override the path of the context file,
by specifying a "context" entry (this must be in lower-
case). If the entry is not absolute (does not start with
a / ), then it is interpreted relative to the user's nmh
directory. As a result, you can actually have more than
one set of private sequences by using different context
files.
BUGS
The shell quoting conventions are not available in the
.mh_profile. Each token is separated by whitespace.
There is some question as to what kind of arguments should
be placed in the profile as options. In order to provide
a clear answer, recall command line semantics of all nmh
programs: conflicting switches (e.g., `-header and
`-noheader') may occur more than one time on the command
line, with the last switch taking effect. Other
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arguments, such as message sequences, filenames and fold-
ers, are always remembered on the invocation line and are
not superseded by following arguments of the same type.
Hence, it is safe to place only switches (and their argu-
ments) in the profile.
If one finds that an nmh program is being invoked again
and again with the same arguments, and those arguments
aren't switches, then there are a few possible solutions
to this problem. The first is to create a (soft) link in
your $HOME/bin directory to the nmh program of your
choice. By giving this link a different name, you can
create a new entry in your profile and use an alternate
set of defaults for the nmh command. Similarly, you could
create a small shell script which called the nmh program
of your choice with an alternate set of invocation line
switches (using links and an alternate profile entry is
preferable to this solution).
Finally, the csh user could create an alias for the com-
mand of the form:
alias cmd 'cmd arg1 arg2 ...'
In this way, the user can avoid lengthy type-in to the
shell, and still give nmh commands safely. (Recall that
some nmh commands invoke others, and that in all cases,
the profile is read, meaning that aliases are disregarded
beyond an initial command invocation)
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