xdgmail(1) X11 R4.11MU05 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 Contains pulldown menus that you can use to invoke any
xdgmail operation. See the OPERATIONS section for the list
of available operations.
Certain menu selections may not be available if no messages
are selected. These de-sensitized menu selections appear
faded, and and you cannot select them.
status This 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 This 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. A 'M' indicates a MIME message, which
will be displayed according to the contentTYPE resources
rather than appearing in the view window.
You can make multiple selections either by dragging the
pointer or by holding the Crtl key and selecting the
individual message summaries. To toggle the message
selection on and off, press the Ctrl key and select a
summary.
control This component contains a set of buttons that provide
convenient access to most selections available through the
pulldown menus. You can set the displayed buttons with the
buttons resource.
Certain buttons may not be available if no messages
selected. These de-sensitized buttons appear faded, and
you cannot select them.
view This window contains the header and body of a message. It
is filled either when you select a message for viewing by
double clicking on a message summary in the inbox window,
or when you indicate that the message is not to be
displayed in a separate window and then choose the Selected
button in the View menu.
In addition to these windows, a number of popup dialog boxes are used
to exchange information. These dialog boxes are described in the
OPERATIONS section.
The xdgmail icon raises the mailbox flag and optionally rings a bell
when new mail arrives.
Message Selection
You can select either a single message or group of messages upon
which to perform actions. You can select messages by using the
pointer, entering a message number into the message number dialog
box, or by using the Search operation from the View menu.
You can use the Search operation 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). You can also select messages by their current status.
OPERATIONS
The following operations are available within xdgmail from the
menubar. You can select these operations by using the pointer or the
keyboard mnemonics. The mnemonic key is the underlined character in
each menu entry.
You can select the following operations from the File menu:
Change Mailbox...
Displays a file selection dialog box used to choose
the mailbox from which to select messages. The
default mailbox is automatically selected when this
dialog displays. 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...
Displays a file selection dialog box. 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 you press the Save button
after editing, the original message is overwritten.
If you press the Save As Is button after editing, the
original message remains unchanged and the edited
copy is saved to the designated file. Press Cancel
to abort the edit operation.
Save Message(s)...
Displays a file selection dialog box. The selected
message(s) are saved to the file indicated in the
dialog box. If the file does not 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...
Displays a command dialog box when you invoke the
Pass Message(s) to Command operation. xdgmail sends
the selected message(s) to the standard input of the
command that you enter at the text prompt. If the
command begins with -, the header is not piped to the
command. If the command begins with + or has no
prefix, the complete message (headers and text) is
piped to the command.
Exit... Displays a dialog box that prompts you to save the
mailbox before exiting.
The following operations are available from the Edit menu:
Delete Marks the selected message(s) as deleted.
Undelete Unmarks the selected message(s) as deleted.
Mark Read Marks the selected message(s) as read.
Unmark Read Unmarks the selected message(s) as read.
The following operations are available from the View menu:
Selected Displays the selected message in the location that
you specify, 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.
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... Displays the search dialog box. Use the Search...
dialog to select messages that match certain
criteria. A text prompt is at the top where you
enter Search Text The search dialog also includes
controls for specifying the type of search and the
fields to search. 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...
Displays a dialog box in which you can use the scale
to set the time interval when checking for incoming
mail. You can reset the maximum time limit using the
OSF/Motif maximum resource for the mailcheckScale
object.
Include Message->
This 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 manual page
for this Motif object type describes the behavior of
the object and lists its resources.
The following operations are available from the Compose menu:
New Displays a separate window to generate a new message.
Fill in the To: field 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. You can specify initial message text 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 to abort the
message. The Compose window is removed after either
button press. The editCmd resource allows you to
specify an alternate editor; you must be sure to
leave a blank line between the header and message
text when using this editor. The msgHeader and
msgText resources determine the initial contents of
the message. The file designated by the
signatureFile resource is appended to the end of the
message. The message is sent by splitmail which will
split large messages into multiple MIME messages that
can be reassembled by a receiving MIME mailer.
To attach the contents of a file to the end of the
message, press the Attachments... button. This will
display the Attachments Editor dialog. Pressing the
Add... button will popup a file selection dialog for
choosing the file to attach. Pressing the OK button
in this file selection dialog will popup the
Attachment Type Selection dialog from which you must
select the data type of the attached file. Pressing
the OK button in this dialog removes the dialog and
displays the file name and type in the Attachments
Editor dialog. To delete an attached file, select a
file from the scrolled list window of the Attachment
Editor dialog and press the Delete button. Press the
OK button to accept changes to the attached file
list, or press the Cancel button to cancel the
changes. Pressing either button removes the dialog.
In the Attachments... button, a [0] indicates that
there are no attached files and a [+] indicates that
there are attached files.
The contents of the attached files will be added to
the composed message when the message is sent. The
result is a MIME message containing the text message
followed by the contents of each of the attached
files in their given order. The text message will be
assigned a Content-Type of `text/plain; charset=us-
ascii'. Appropriate Content-Transfer-Encodings will
be chosen automatically by xdgmail.
Reply Displays 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. Set the includeInReply
resource to false if you do not want to include the
original message. 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 is removed after either button press.
The file designated by the signatureFile resource is
appended to the end of the message.
If the included message is a MIME message, it will be
added as an attached file rather than as included
text.
Reply to Group Displays 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. Set the includeInReply resource to false
if you do not want to include the original message.
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 is removed after either button press.
The file designated by the signatureFile resource is
appended to the end of the message.
If the included message is a MIME message, it will be
added as an attached file rather than as included
text.
Forward Forwards the currently-viewed or first selected
message. Fill in the To: field 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 is removed after either
button press.
If the forwarded message is a MIME message, it will
be added as an attached file rather than as included
text.
The following operations are available from the Help menu:
on Xdgmail Contains a brief description of xdgmail and its
components. You can move to other help topics by
clicking on highlighted text, called links.
on Resources Lists xdgmail application-specific resources with
their default settings.
on Options Lists xdgmail command-line options.
on Usage Displays detailed information on using xdgmail.
on Help Displays detailed information on using the help
system.
on Version Displays the name and version of the application.
A complete discussion on using OSF/Motif applications is documented
in the OSF/Motif User's Guide.
CUSTOMIZATION
You can customize the behavior of xdgmail by using resources, command
line options, and environment variables.
Resources
The class name of xdgmail is XdgMail. Following are xdgmail-specific
resources:
biffBeep When set to true, causes the bell to ring when new
mail arrives. The default value is true.
buttons Lists the buttons to display on the control menu. In
addition to the individual button names, you can
specify all to display all buttons or none to display
no buttons. The default value is
saveMailboxControlButton
saveMessageControlButton
printControlButton
pipeControlButton
deleteControlButton
undeleteControlButton
nextControlButton
previousControlButton
replyControlButton
forwardControlButton
newControlButton
exitControlButton.
To arrange the buttons in the button bar, set the
following resources as described below. You can use
any of these resource to specify the location (x and
y), color (foreground and background), and text
(labelString) for the control buttons located in the
center of the XdgMail window:
XdgMail*{buttonname}.x
XdgMail*{buttonname}.y
XdgMail*{buttonname}.background
XdgMail*{buttonname}.foreground
XdgMail*{buttonname}.labelString
Locations are specified as a pixel offset from the
top left corner of the control window. Set the
resource:
XdgMail*controlMenu.packing: packnone
to allow the positions of the buttons to be
specified.
Following are all of the buttons that you can place
in the control area. You must list these buttons in
the XdgMail*buttons resource to included them in the
control area. For more information, see the EXAMPLE
section.
changeMailboxControlButton
deleteControlButton
exitControlButton
forwardControlButton
helpAboutControlButton
helpContentTypesControlButton
helpFeaturesControlButton
helpHelpControlButton
helpOptionsControlButton
HELPResourcesControlButton
helpUsageControlButton
helpVersionControlButton
mailboxControlButton
markReadControlButton
markUnreadControlButton
newControlButton
newestControlButton
nextControlButton
objectNameControlButton
oldestControlButton
pipeMessageControlButton
previousControlButton
printMessageControlButton
replyControlButton
replyToGroupControlButton
saveMailboxAsControlButton
saveMailboxControlButton
saveMessageControlButton
searchControlButton
undeleteControlButton
viewMessageNumberControlButton
viewSelectedControlButton
contentAudio Directs all messages of audio content type to the
command specified. If the command begins with -, it
excludes headers. If the command begins with + or
has no prefix, it pipes the complete message. If
this resource is unset, the command specified in the
contentDefault resource is used. If both these
resources are unset and contentTypeWarn is set to
true, the content dialog box appears with a warning
message and several options for processing the
message; if contentTypeWarn is set to false, the
message automatically displays as raw data.
The preferred method is to set contentDefault to use
metamail, and to unset all other content resources.
contentBinary Directs all messages of binary content type to the
command specified. See contentAudio for a more
detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
contentImageGif Directs all messages of image (subtype gif) content
type to the command specified. See contentAudio for
a more detailed description of contentTYPE resources.
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 displays 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.
contentDefault Directs all MIME messages to the command specified
unless superceded by a specific content resource.
See contentAudio for a more detailed description of
contentTYPE resources. The value given in the
XdgMail app-defaults file uses the metamail utility.
See the metamail man page for more information.
contentTypeWarn If you do not set this resource or if you set it to
true, a warning is issued when you select non-text
messages for display and the appropriate contentTYPE
resource is unset. You can choose 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 you set this resource 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. You can
still view the headers by moving the scroll bar.
editCmd If you do not set this resource or if you set it to
the string builtin (the default), xdgmail uses a
built-in editor in a popup window. If you have a
diskless workstation, you may want 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 substitutes the name of the
file for the mandatory %s and invokes the command
line. When the command completes, xdgmail displays a
dialog window that allow you to select the
disposition of the message.
includeInReply When set to true, this resource causes the original
message to be included in any reply. The default
value is true.
includePrefix Prefixes each line of the original message when you
reply 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 your 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.
logAttachments If msgLog is set: if logAttachments is true, all
attachments will be included in the logged message;
if logAttachments is false, only the initial text
message will be included in the logged message. The
default is false.
msgHeader Determines the initial header field(s) for a new
message. If the To: field is not included, xdgmail
automatically adds it to your headers. The default
is To: Subject: Cc: .
msgText Specifies a string used as the initial text when you
compose 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
bitmap.
printCmd Changes the command used when the print operation is
selected. 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. xdgmail performs this operation to prevent
lost mail in the event of a catastrophe.
If the saveInbox resource is set to false, xdgmail
deletes usernamesavedinbox after the mailbox is
successfully written. If saveInbox is set to true,
the file is preserved. The default is true.
signatureFile The contents of the file specified by this resource
is 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
are viewed in a separate window. Otherwise, the
message displays in the view area of the main window.
attachmentTypes MIME composition types used in the Attachment Type
Selector dialog are given as the value of the
attachmentTypes resource and are specified as a
Content-type and a description. The Content-type
will be used in a Content-type field of the composed
message; it must be a valid MIME type/subtype and
parameter set. The description will be used in the
interface dialogs; it should be a string which is
understandable by a user. The Content type and the
description must each be enclosed in parentheses and
each content-type/description pair must be enclosed
in parentheses. For example: ((text/plain;
charset=us-ascii) (ASCII Text))
In addition to the above resources, each xdgmail object can be
configured using the OSF/Motif resources for the object classes. The
object name dialog displays the name of an object that corresponds to
a Motif widget type listed in the resource file. Consult the manual
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. You can set all resources through
various mechanisms. See the Xdefaults manual page for a complete
description of these mechanisms.
Options
You can specify each of the resources listed in the RESOURCES section
on the command line, although there is not a corresponding command
line option for every resource. You can set any resource that does
not have a corresponding command line option 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:
MAIL Specifies the default location of mailbox. This
variable is typically set by the login shell. If
this variable is unset, xdgmail uses
/var/mail/username.
CONTENT TYPES
xdgmail supports a number of message content types. 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
*contentAudio :
audio
*contentVideo :
video
*contentOda :
application/oda
EXAMPLE
This is an example XdgMail app-defaults file.
XdgMail*controlMenu.packing: packnone
XdgMail*buttons: saveMailboxControlButton saveMessageControlButton \
pipeMessageControlButton printMessageControlButton \
undeleteControlButton deleteControlButton \
previousControlButton nextControlButton \
forwardControlButton replyControlButton \
newControlButton oldestControlButton \
exitControlButton
XdgMail*saveMailboxControlButton.x: 0
XdgMail*saveMailboxControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*saveMailboxControlButton.labelString: Update Mailbox
XdgMail*saveMessageControlButton.labelString: Save Message..
XdgMail*saveMessageControlButton.x: 0
XdgMail*saveMessageControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*pipeMessageControlButton.labelString: Pipe Message...
XdgMail*pipeMessageControlButton.x: 125
XdgMail*pipeMessageControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*printMessageControlButton.labelString: Print Message
XdgMail*printMessageControlButton.x: 125
XdgMail*printMessageControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*undeleteControlButton.labelString: Undelete
XdgMail*undeleteControlButton.x: 250
XdgMail*undeleteControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*deleteControlButton.labelString: Delete
XdgMail*deleteControlButton.x: 250
XdgMail*deleteControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*previousControlButton.x: 325
XdgMail*previousControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*nextControlButton.x: 325
XdgMail*nextControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*forwardControlButton.labelString: Forward
XdgMail*forwardControlButton.x: 405
XdgMail*forwardControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*replyControlButton.x: 405
XdgMail*replyControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*newControlButton.x: 480
XdgMail*newControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*oldestControlButton.labelString: Last
XdgMail*oldestControlButton.x: 480
XdgMail*oldestControlButton.y: 30
XdgMail*exitControlButton.x: 700
XdgMail*exitControlButton.y: 0
XdgMail*exitControlButton.background: red
XdgMail*exitControlButton.labelString: Exit...
WARNINGS
Do not run other mail reading programs (e.g. mailx, elm) while
xdgmail is running, because 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, the default text
editor does not handle inserting files with embedded NULL characters.
See the XmText manual page for more information.
Any pathnames that you specify in the resource file must be complete;
X does not recognize shell variables such as ~ or $HOME.
If /tmp or the directory containing your mailbox is 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.
A message summary prepended by a question mark has been corrupted
since receipt. Read it carefully, since it is probably a combination
of 2 or more messages. In some cases, it 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 system.
/usr/bin/X11/xdgmail
BUGS
Currently, there is 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 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.
On a system with DG/UX information security, xdgmail does not handle
multilevel directories; messages at different sensitivity levels may
not be visible (see mailx(1)).
SEE ALSO
splitmail(1), metamail(1), mailx(1), Xdefaults(5).
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) Data General Corporation, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994. 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.
Licensed material--property of copyright holder(s)