xdgmail(1) X11 5.4R3.00 xdgmail(1)
NAME
xdgmail - a Motif-based electronic mail interface
SYNOPSIS
xdgmail [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
xdgmail is a graphical mail tool consisting of five main components:
menubar The menubar contains pulldown menus which can be used to
invoke any xdgmail operation. See the OPERATIONS section
for the list of available operations.
Certain menu selections may not be available if there are
no messages selected. These de-sensitized menu selections
will appear faded, and cannot be selected.
status The status window displays the current mailbox name and the
number of messages in the current mailbox. In addition to
the total number of messages, this window shows the number
of new, deleted, and selected messages.
inbox The inbox window contains a summary line for each of the
messages in the mailbox. Double click the pointer on one
of the summary lines to select that message and display it
in the view window.
Multiple selections can be accomplished by dragging the
pointer or by holding the Crtl key and selecting the
individual message summaries. Selecting a summary with the
Crtl key pressed will toggle the message selection on and
off.
control The control component contains a set of buttons that
provide convenient access to most selections available
through the pulldown menus. The buttons that are displayed
can be set using the buttons resource.
Certain buttons may not be available if there are no
messages selected. These de-sensitized buttons will appear
faded, and cannot be selected if they are displayed.
view The view window contains the header and body of a message.
It is only filled when a message is selected for viewing by
double clicking on a message summary in the inbox window or
by indicating that the message is not to be displayed in a
separate window and then choosing the Selected button in
the View menu.
In addition to these windows, a number of popup dialog boxes are used
to exchange information with the user. These dialog boxes are
described in the OPERATIONS section.
The xdgmail icon will raise the mailbox flag and optionally ring the
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bell when new mail arrives.
Message Selection
xdgmail allows a single message or group of messages to be selected
to perform actions on. Messages can be selected by using the
pointer, entering a message number into the message number dialog
box, or by using the Search operation from the View menu.
The Search operation can be used to follow the thread of a discussion
(select by subject), look at all mail from a particular person
(select by sender), read all mail sent to a mailing list (select by
recipient), or find messages based on when they were received (select
by date). The Search operation also allows selection of messages by
their current status.
OPERATIONS
The following operations are available within xdgmail from the
menubar. These operations can be selected by using the pointer or
the keyboard mnemonics. The mnemonic key is the underlined character
in each menu entry.
The following operations are available from the File menu:
Change Mailbox...
A file selection dialog box is displayed when the
Change Mailbox operation is invoked. Use this dialog
box to choose the mailbox from which to select
messages. The default mailbox is automatically
selected when this dialog is displayed. The current
mailbox will be written before reading in the new
mailbox.
Update/Save Mailbox
Saves the current mailbox, removes all deleted
messages and updates the messages that have been
read.
Save Mailbox As...
A file selection dialog box is displayed when the
Save Mailbox As operation is invoked. The mailbox is
saved to the file selected in the dialog box.
Edit Message Displays the currently selected message in a separate
window for editing. If the Save button is pressed
after editing, the original message will be
overwritten. If the Save As Is button is pressed
after editing, the original message remains unchanged
and the edited copy is saved to the designated file.
Pressing Cancel aborts the edit operation.
Save Message(s)...
A file selection dialog box is displayed. The
selected message(s) will be saved to the file
indicated in the dialog box. If the file does not
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exist the file is created and the message is copied
into the file. If the file exists the message is
appended to the file.
Print Message(s)
Sends the selected message(s) to the line printer.
The message(s) are piped to the standard input of the
command specified by the printCmd resource.
Pass Message(s) to Command...
A command dialog box is displayed when the Pass
Message(s) to Command operation is invoked. xdgmail
sends the selected message(s) to the standard input
of the command entered at the text prompt. If the
command begins with a '-', the header will not be
piped to the command. If the command begins with a
'+' or has no prefix, the complete message (headers
and text) will be piped to the command.
Exit... Displays a dialog box prompting to save the mailbox
before exiting.
The following operations are available from the Edit menu:
Delete Mark the selected message(s) as deleted.
Undelete Unmark the selected message(s) as deleted.
Mark Read Mark the selected message(s) as read.
Unmark Read Unmark the selected message(s) as read.
The following operations are available from the View menu:
Selected Displays the selected message in the location
specified by the user; either in the main view area
or in a separate window.
Mode Toggles the method of display for a selected message.
If set to View Area, xdgmail displays the selected
message in the view area. Otherwise, a separate
window is opened to display the selected message.
Message Number...
Displays the message corresponding to the number
entered in the message number dialog box.
Newest Selects and displays the newest message in the
current mailbox.
Oldest Selects and displays the oldest message in the
current mailbox.
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Next Displays the next message in the list if one message
is selected. If more than one message is selected,
displays the next selected message.
Previous Displays the previous message in the list if one
message is selected. If more than one message is
selected, displays the previous selected message.
Search... The search dialog box is displayed. Use the
Search... dialog to select messages which match
certain criteria. A text prompt is at the top where
Search Text is entered. Controls for specifying the
type of search and the fields to search are also
included. The messages may be searched by sender
(From:), recipient (To:), subject (Subject:), date
(Date:), delete state (Delete), new state (New), read
state (Read). The default is to search the entire
message and header.
The following operations are available from the Options menu:
Mailcheck Timer...
The Mailcheck timer dialog box is displayed. Use the
scale to set the time interval when checking for
incoming mail. The maximum time limit can be reset
using the OSF/Motif maximum resource for the
mailcheckScale object.
Include Message->
The include message cascading menu displays On and
Off buttons. Use the buttons to toggle
inclusion/exclusion of the original message in a
reply.
Object Name Select this menu item and then click with the
question mark cursor on any object in the application
to display its name. Find the corresponding Motif
object type listed in the resource file
(/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XdgMail). The man page
for this Motif object type describes the behavior of
the object and lists all of its resources.
The following operations are available from the Compose menu:
New Display a separate window to generate a new message.
The To: field must be filled in with the mail
recipient(s). All other fields are optional and can
be added or deleted in the Message Header area in the
Compose Window. Initial message text can be
specified using the *msgText resource. Press the Send
button when the message is complete to send the
message to the recipient(s). Press the Cancel button
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to abort the message. The Compose window will be
removed after either button press. The editCmd
resource allows an alternate editor to be specified.
The msgHeader and msgText resources determine the
initial contents of the message. The file designated
by the signatureFile resource will be appended to the
end of the message.
Reply Display a separate window to generate a reply to the
sender of the currently selected message. By
default, the original message is included in the
reply with each line from the original message
prefixed by the character(s) specified in the
includePrefix resource. Setting the includeInReply
resource to false will prevent the original message
from being included. The To: field and the Subject:
field are pre-filled. Press the Send button when the
reply is complete to send it to the recipient(s).
Press the Cancel button to abort the message. The
Reply window will be removed after either button
press. The file designated by the signatureFile
resource will be appended to the end of the message.
Reply to Group Display a separate window to generate a reply to the
sender and all other recipients of the currently
selected message. By default, the original message
is included in the reply with each line prefixed by
the character(s) specified in the includePrefix
resource. Setting the includeInReply resource to
false will prevent the original message from being
included. The To: field and the Subject: field are
pre-filled. Press the Send button when the reply is
complete to send it to the sender and all
recipient(s). Press the Cancel button to abort the
message. The Reply to Group window will be removed
after either button press. The file designated by
the signatureFile resource will be appended to the
end of the message.
Forward Forward the currently viewed or first selected
message. The To: field must be filled in with the
mail recipient(s). Press the Send button when the
message is complete to forward the message to the
recipient(s). Press the Cancel button to abort the
message. The Forward window will be removed after
either button press.
The following operations are available from the Help menu:
on Xdgmail This help topic contains a brief description of
xdgmail and its components. The reader can move to
other help topics by clicking on highlighted text,
called links.
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on Resources The xdgmail application-specific resources are listed
with their default settings.
on Options The xdgmail command-line options are listed.
on Usage Displays detailed information about how to use
xdgmail.
on Help Displays detailed information on using the help
system.
on Version Displays the name and version of the application.
A complete discussion of how to use OSF/Motif applications is
documented in the OSF/Motif User's Guide.
CUSTOMIZATION
The behavior of xdgmail can be customized by using resources, command
line options, and environment variables.
Resources
The class name of xdgmail is XdgMail. There are a number of xdgmail-
specific resources:
biffBeep When set to true, causes the bell to ring when new
mail arrives. The default value is true.
buttons List the buttons to display on the control menu. In
addition to the individual button names, all can be
specified to display all buttons and none can be
specified to display no buttons. The default value
is saveMailboxControlButton saveMessageControlButton
printControlButton pipeControlButton
deleteControlButton undeleteControlButton
nextControlButton previousControlButton
replyControlButton forwardControlButton
newControlButton exitControlButton.
contentAudio Directs all messages of audio content type to the
command specified. If the command begins with a '-',
excludes headers; if the command begins with a '+' or
has no prefix, pipes the complete message. If this
resource is unset and contentTypeWarn is set to True,
the content dialog box will appear with a warning
message and several options for processing the
message. If this resource is unset and
contentTypeWarn is set to False, the message will
automatically be displayed as raw data.
contentBinary Directs all messages of binary content type to the
command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
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contentImageGif Directs all messages of image (subtype gif) content
type to the command specified. See contentAudio for a
more detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
To send GIF images with Xdgmail, the GIF file must be
uuencoded before it is included in the mail message.
To view the GIF image, it must be uudecoded and
passed to a suitable viewer (Note that Data General
does not provide a GIF file viewer). To uuencode the
file you might use a line like :
cat foo.gif | uuencode /tmp/xdgmail.gif >
/tmp/xdgmail.gif.uu
To uudecode a GIF file, set the contentImageGif
resource to be something like:
uudecode ; xgif /tmp/xdgmail.gif ; /bin/rm -f
/tmp/xdgmail.gif
contentImageJpeg
Directs all messages of image (subtype jpeg) content
type to the command specified. See contentAudio for a
more detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentMessage Directs all messages of message content type to the
command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentMultipart
Directs all messages of multipart content type to the
command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentOda Directs all messages of application (subtype oda)
content type to the command specified. See
contentAudio for a more detailed description of
contentTYPE resources.
contentPostscript
Directs all messages of postscript content type to
the command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentRichtext Directs all messages of richtext content type to the
command specified. If this resource is unset, the
message will be displayed with all richtext
directives stripped out.
contentVideo Directs all messages of video content type to the
command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentTypeWarn If this resource is not set or is set to true, a
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warning is issued when non-text messages are selected
for display and the appropriate contentTYPE resource
is unset. The user can elect to view the message
anyway, save the message to a file, type in a command
to pipe the message to, or cancel the selection. If
set to false, the message is displayed as raw data
and without any warning message. The default is true.
displayHeaders When set to false, xdgmail displays the selected
message(s) without any headers showing. The headers
can still be viewed by moving the scroll bar.
editCmd If this resource is not set or is set to the string
builtin (the default), xdgmail will use a built in
editor in a popup window. Diskless workstation users
may wish to experiment with this built in editor, as
it should be much faster than external editors.
If this resource is set the command line string must
end with %s. xdgmail will substitute the name of the
file for the mandatory %s and invoke the command
line. When the command completes xdgmail will
display a dialog window allowing the user to select
the disposition of the message.
includeInReply When set to true, causes the original message to be
included in any reply. The default value is true.
includePrefix Used to prefix each line of the original message when
replying to that message. The default is ">".
mailBox Specifies an alternate mailbox to use when starting
xdgmail. When this resource is unset (the default),
xdgmail uses the user's system default mailbox. This
resource overrides the MAIL environment variable.
mailIcon Specifies the icon bitmap used to indicate the
arrival of new mail. The default is the flagup
bitmap.
msgLog Allows all messages sent to be recorded into a file.
This resource is unset by default.
msgHeader This string is used to determine the initial header
field(s) for a new message. If the To: field is not
included xdgmail will automatically add it to the
user's headers. The default is To: Subject: Cc: .
msgText The string specified by this resource is used as the
initial text when composing new mail messages. This
resource is unset by default.
noMailIcon Specifies the icon bitmap used to indicate that no
new mail has arrived. The default is the flagdown
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bitmap.
printCmd Allows the command used when the print operation is
selected to be changed. The default is lp -s
-txdgmail-msg
saveInbox When xdgmail writes the mailbox to disk it renames
the mailbox to usernamesavedinbox and creates a new
mailbox. This operation is performed to prevent
losing mail in the event of a catastrophe.
If the saveInbox resource is set to false, xdgmail
will delete usernamesavedinbox after the mailbox is
successfully written. If saveInbox is set to true
the file will be preserved. The default is true.
signatureFile The contents of the file specified by this resource
will be appended to all messages sent. This is
useful for specifying name, e-mail address, title,
company, etc. without constantly retyping them. This
resource is unset by default.
spellCmd Specifies the spelling checker to be used when the
spell operation for newly composed messages is
selected. The default is spell.
viewInWindow If this resource is set to true, selected messages
will be viewed in a separate window. Otherwise, the
message is displayed in the view area of the main
window.
In addition to the above resources, each of the xdgmail objects can
be configured using the OSF/Motif resources for the object classes.
The object name dialog displays the name of an object which
corresponds to a Motif widget type listed in the resource file.
Consult the man pages on the widget type for a discussion of its
resources or see the OSF/Motif Programmer's Reference for a complete
listing of resources for each OSF/Motif widget type. All resources
can be set through various mechanisms. See the Xdefaults man page
for a complete description of these mechanisms.
Options
Each of the resources listed in the Resources section can be
specified on the command line, although there is not a corresponding
command line option for every resource. Any resource without a
corresponding command line option can be set on the command line with
the xrm option. For boolean options, +resourcename is equivalent to
setting the resource to true, and -resourcename is equivalent to
setting the resource to false. For string options, -resourcename
value is equivalent to setting the resource to value.
Environment Variables
xdgmail uses the following environment variables:
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MAIL Default location of mailbox. This variable is
typically set by the login shell. If this variable is
unset, xdgmail uses /var/mail/user_name.
CONTENT TYPES
xdgmail supports a number of message content types. The user can set
the Content-Type header field by editing the header for the message
that the user is sending.
Below, the resource name that controls the viewing of a content type
is given, then the content types associated with that resource name
are given :
No Resource :
text
text/plain
*contentPostscript :
application/postscript
text-plus/postscript
*contentRichtext :
text/richtext
text-plus/richtext
*contentBinary :
binary
application/octet-stream
*contentMultipart :
multipart
*contentMessage :
message
*contentImageGif :
image
image/gif
*contentImageJpeg :
image/jpeg
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*contentAudio :
audio
*contentVideo :
video
*contentOda :
application/oda
WARNINGS
It is important that other mail reading programs not be run (e.g.
mailx, elm ) while xdgmail is running, as xdgmail needs exclusive
access to the mailbox. Running other mail readers will cause
inconsistencies between the mailbox on disk and the internal version
kept by xdgmail and may result in a corrupted mailbox.
The default editor for composing messages is subject to the
limitations of the Motif text widget. For example, it does not
handle inserting files with embedded NULL characters. See the XmText
man page for more information.
Any pathnames specified in the resource file must be complete; X does
not recognize shell variables such as ~ or $HOME.
If /tmp or the directory containing the user's mailbox are full,
messages may be truncated.
After an abnormal exit, some xdgmail files may be left in /tmp.
System managers may want to set up a cron job to delete all /tmp
files more than a few days old.
Any message summaries prepended by a question mark have been
corrupted since receipt. The user should read them carefully since
they are usually a combination of 2 or more messages. In some cases,
they may be a single message with missing text.
FILES
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XdgMail
Contains the default resources for xdgmail and the on
line help system.
/usr/lib/xhelp/C/XdgMail/helpfile
Contains the text for the on line help.
/usr/bin/X11/xdgmail
BUGS
There is currently a conflict between some of the menu button
mnemonics and default accelerators. If you use a menu button mnemonic
that is the same as an accelerator for another operation, you will
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get both selections. For example, if you press "h" while in the menu
bar, the help window AND the search dialog box will pop up. This
problem will be corrected in a later release of xdgmail.
Occasionally, on initial start-up of xdgmail the application will
come up without a view area. This is due to a bug in one of the
underlying libraries and should be fixed in the next release. The
user can correct the situation in this release by resizing the panes
inside the main window.
SEE ALSO
sendmail (1c), mailx (1), Xdefaults (5).
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) Data General Corporation, 1991, 1992, 1993. All Rights
Reserved. Licensed Material-Property of Data General Corporation.
This software is made available solely pursuant to the terms of a DGC
license agreement which governs its use.
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