When vmail is invoked, it loads mail headers for the folders which will initially be active. The default is for inbox (or the MH profile field Current-Folder) to be the only active folder. (Other folders may be made active during the course of a session.) There are a number of command-line flags. -inc asks vmail to incorporate mail before loading any folders. -flush instructs vmail not to flush typeahead. -comp, -forw, -ans, -dist, -burst, and -sort specify that comp, forw, repl (`answer'), dist, burst, and sortm respectively do not require that the user give arguments; see the commands c, f, a, t, b, and S. Arguments may also be set by the profile component vmail. Typical usage of vmail might be:
vmail +priv inbox outbox
to start up vmail with folders priv, inbox, and outbox active and with priv as the current folder. vmail might then print
Vmail 9/87 -- reading mail headers
inbox: 122-279 (32 items)
outbox: 1-95 (19 items)
priv: 2-19 (5 items)
as it loaded the named folders.
When loading completed it would bring up the screen
representing the mail items in the folder priv.
priv (page 1 of 1)
2 17-06-86 fred@munnari Just testing << Are you receiving
6 7-11-86 To: fred, nerk A promise << The commitment: Dinn
7 9-05-87 bill thanks for everything, but << wha
12 11-05-87 -bill Re: thanks for everything, but <<
19 9-05-87 To: bill Re: thanks for everything, but <<
(Note that the dates in the example are in British format; a US installation
would have the US form.)
The `-' indicates that a reply has been sent to that piece of mail.
Text to the left of `<<' is the subject, other text is the
first part of the body.
The user could now move up and down between mail items with k and
j, show the current mail item with <space>, delete the current
mail item with d, or forward or answer it with f or a.
If the folder priv contained more mail items than could be displayed on a screen, priv would be broken into a number of pages. vmail has one or more pages for each active folder. The user can move between pages, which are ordered alphabetically on folder name, by typing <return> and <backspace> (forwards and backwards respectively).
For those who like to mix use of MH and vmail, vmail updates the MH environment on q (quit), ! (call shell) and ^Z (suspend). Specifically, the fields `Current-Folder' in context and `cur' in mh-profile are updated to be the current folder and current mail item respectively. Also, the ^R command is useful for getting vmail to sync up and recognize changes made by mh commands not under its control.
The following points are relevant to all vmail commands. First, type-ahead is flushed (as in rn), so any commands typed ahead of time will be ignored. Second, vmail always remembers the name of an ``alternate folder'', the last folder other than the current folder with which there has been an interaction (such as the folder to which an item was refiled, or the previous current folder). This alternate folder is used by a number of commands. Third, some commands may be preceded by a count.
The following is a complete list of vmail commands.
The commands a, c, t and f update the physical folders, but the corresponding pages of mail headers in vmail are not updated. ^R can be used to force the vmail representation of a folder to come up to date.
vmail recognizes the following environment variables. Where they describe an executable, a full path name should be given.
Folder-Protect (protection for new folders)
Path (of mail directory)
Current-Folder (for startup folder)
$HOME/.mh_profile
$HOME/Mail
Original program Copyright 1987 J. Zobel, jz@mulga.oz.au. Permission for redistribution and modifications were permitted, providing that the copyright notice remained intact.
Bug fixes, Sparc port, burst, dist, resync commands added by James Perkins 1989-1991, jamesp@metolius.wr.tek.com.
Check the alternate folder before using it unless absolutely sure of its identity; a command may change it unexpectedly.
Only a couple of formats of "Date:" lines are recognized; if the format is different, the date is replaced by a block of spaces.
Startup time is proportional to the number of items in the current folder. It is therefore better to have a large number of folders each with fewer mail items than a small number of large folders. Many first-time vmail users find that their inbox is large enough (> 400 items, say) that vmail takes a while to start up - expect to spend some time initially decluttering inbox and other large folders.
If your inbox is empty at startup, vmail will immediately exit.