PROMPTER(1)         RISC/os Reference Manual          PROMPTER(1)



NAME
     prompter - prompting editor front-end

SYNOPSIS
     prompter [-erase chr] [-kill chr] [-prepend] [-noprepend]
          [-rapid] [-norapid] file [-help]

DESCRIPTION
     This program is normally not invoked directly by users but
     takes the place of an editor and acts as an editor
     front-end.  It operates on an 822-style message draft skele-
     ton specified by file, normally provided by comp, dist,
     forw, or repl.

     Prompter is an editor which allows rapid composition of mes-
     sages.  It is particularly useful to network and low-speed
     (less than 2400 baud) users of MH.  It is an MH program in
     that it can have its own profile entry with switches, but it
     is not invoked directly by the user.  The commands comp,
     dist, forw, and repl invoke prompter as an editor, either
     when invoked with `-editor prompter', or by the profile
     entry "Editor: prompter", or when given the command
     `edit prompter' at "What now?" level.

     For each empty component prompter finds in the draft, the
     user is prompted for a response; A <RETURN> will cause the
     whole component to be left out.  Otherwise, a `\' preceding
     a <RETURN> will continue the response on the next line,
     allowing for multiline components.  Continuation lines must
     begin with a space or tab.

     Each non-empty component is copied to the draft and
     displayed on the terminal.

     The start of the message body is denoted by a blank line or
     a line of dashes.  If the body is non-empty, the prompt,
     which isn't written to the file, is

         "--------Enter additional text",

     or (if `-prepend' was given)

         "--------Enter initial text".

     Message-body typing is terminated with an end-of-file (usu-
     ally CTRL-D).  At this point control is returned to the cal-
     ling program, where the user is asked "What now?".  See
     whatnow for the valid options to this query.

     By using the `-prepend' switch, the user can add type-in to
     the beginning of the message body and have the rest of the
     body follow.  This is useful for the forw command.



                        Printed 11/19/92                MH Page 1

PROMPTER(1)         RISC/os Reference Manual          PROMPTER(1)



     By using the `-rapid' switch, if the draft already contains
     text in the message-body, it is not displayed on the user's
     terminal.  This is useful for low-speed terminals.

     The line editing characters for kill and erase may be speci-
     fied by the user via the arguments `-kill chr' and
     `-erase chr', where chr may be a character; or `\nnn', where
     "nnn" is the octal value for the character.

     An interrupt (usually CTRL-C) during component typing will
     abort prompter and the MH command that invoked it.  An
     interrupt during message-body typing is equivalent to
     CTRL-D, for historical reasons.  This means that prompter
     should finish up and exit.

     The first non-flag argument to prompter is taken as the name
     of the draft file, and subsequent non-flag arguments are
     ignored.

FILES
     $HOME/.mh_profile                 The user profile
     /tmp/prompter*                    Temporary copy of message

PROFILE COMPONENTS
     prompter-next:       To name the editor to be used on exit from prompter
     Msg-Protect:         To set mode when creating a new draft

SEE ALSO
     comp(1), dist(1), forw(1), repl(1), whatnow(1)

DEFAULTS
     `-prepend'
     `-norapid'

CONTEXT
     None

BUGS
     Prompter uses stdio (3), so it will lose if you edit files
     with nulls in them.















MH Page 2               Printed 11/19/92