Reading Mail - The MH-E Manual

6 Reading Your Mail

The MH-E entry point for reading mail is M-x mh-rmail. This command incorporates your mail and creates a buffer called ‘+inbox’ in MH-Folder mode. The command M-x mh-rmail shows you only new mail, not mail you have already read¹.

There are some commands that need to read mail, such as Mouse-2 over the ‘Mail’ button that display-time adds to the mode line. You can configure Emacs to have these commands use MH-E by setting the option read-mail-command to ‘mh-rmail’.

The ‘+inbox’ buffer contains scan lines, which are one-line summaries of each incorporated message. You can perform most MH commands on these messages via one- or two-letter commands in either the MH-Folder or MH-Show buffers or by using the ‘Message’ menu. See scan(1) for a description of the contents of the scan lines, and see the Figure in Reading Mail Tour, for an example.

?

Display cheat sheet for the MH-E commands (mh-help).

<RET>

Display message (mh-show).

, (comma)

Display message with all header fields (mh-header-display).

: (colon)

Display message with the default preferred alternative (mh-show-preferred-alternative).

; (semicolon)

Toggle the value of mh-decode-mime-flag (mh-toggle-mh-decode-mime-flag).

<SPC>

Display next page in message (mh-page-msg).

<BS>

Display previous page in message (mh-previous-page).

>

Append message to end of file (mh-write-msg-to-file).

|

Pipe message through shell command (mh-pipe-msg).

C-d

Delete range, don't move to next message (mh-delete-msg-no-motion).

d

Delete range (mh-delete-msg).

D ?

Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).

D <SPC>

Display next message in digest (mh-page-digest).

D <BS>

Display previous message in digest (mh-page-digest-backwards).

D b

Break up digest into separate messages (mh-burst-digest).

g

Go to a message (mh-goto-msg).

k

Delete messages with same subject or thread (mh-delete-subject-or-thread).

K ?

Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).

K <TAB>

Go to the next button (mh-next-button).

K S-<TAB>

Go to the previous button (mh-prev-button).

K a

Save attachments (mh-mime-save-parts).

K e

View attachment externally (mh-display-with-external-viewer).

K i

Show attachment verbatim (mh-folder-inline-mime-part).

K o

Save (output) attachment (mh-folder-save-mime-part).

K t

Toggle option mh-display-buttons-for-inline-parts-flag (mh-toggle-mime-buttons).

K v

View attachment (mh-folder-toggle-mime-part).

M

Edit message (mh-modify).

M-<

Display first message (mh-first-msg).

M->

Display last message (mh-last-msg).

M-n

Display next unread message (mh-next-unread-msg).

M-p

Display previous unread message (mh-previous-unread-msg).

n

Display next message (mh-next-undeleted-msg).

p

Display previous message (mh-previous-undeleted-msg).

P ?

Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).

P C

Toggle whether color is used in printing messages (mh-ps-print-toggle-color).

P F

Toggle whether printing is done with faces or not (mh-ps-print-toggle-faces).

P f

Print range to file (mh-ps-print-msg-file).

P l

Print range the old fashioned way (mh-print-msg).

P p

Print range (mh-ps-print-msg).

X ?

Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).

X s

X u

Unpack message created with uudecode or shar (mh-store-msg).

Mouse-2

Move point to mouse event and show message (mh-show-mouse).

Within the MH-Show buffer, the following command is defined.

<RET>

Mouse-1

Mouse-2

View contents of button (mh-press-button).

The following table lists options in the ‘mh-show’ customization group that are used while reading mail.

mh-bury-show-buffer-flag

On means show buffer is buried (default: ‘on’).

mh-clean-message-header-flag

On means remove extraneous header fields (default: ‘on’).

mh-decode-mime-flag

On means attachments are handled (default: ‘on’ if the Gnus ‘mm-decode’ package is present).

mh-display-buttons-for-alternatives-flag

On means display buttons for all alternative attachments (default: ‘off’).

mh-display-buttons-for-inline-parts-flag

On means display buttons for all inline attachments (default: ‘off’).

mh-do-not-confirm-flag

On means non-reversible commands do not prompt for confirmation (default: ‘off’).

mh-fetch-x-image-url

Control fetching of ‘X-Image-URL:’ header field image (default: ‘Never Fetch’).

mh-graphical-smileys-flag

On means graphical smileys are displayed (default: ‘on’).

mh-graphical-emphasis-flag

On means graphical emphasis is displayed (default: ‘on’).

mh-highlight-citation-style

Style for highlighting citations (default: ‘Multicolor’).

mh-invisible-header-fields-default

List of hidden header fields (default: a checklist too long to list here).

mh-invisible-header-fields

Additional header fields to hide (default: nil).

mh-lpr-command-format

Command used to print (default:

"lpr -J
    '%s'"

mh-max-inline-image-height

Maximum inline image height if ‘Content-Disposition:’ is not present (default: 0).

mh-max-inline-image-width

Maximum inline image width if ‘Content-Disposition:’ is not present(default: 0).

mh-mhl-format-file

Specifies the format file to pass to the mhl program (default: ‘Use Default mhl Format (Printing Only)’).

mh-mime-save-parts-default-directory

Default directory to use for K a.

mh-print-background-flag

On means messages should be printed in the background (default: ‘off’).

mh-show-buffer-mode-line-buffer-id

Format string to produce mode-line-buffer-identification for show buffers (default: " {show-%s} %d").

mh-show-maximum-size

Maximum size of message (in bytes) to display automatically (default: 0).

mh-show-use-xface-flag

On means display face images in MH-Show buffers (default: ‘on’).

mh-store-default-directory

Default directory for X s (default: ‘Current’).

mh-summary-height

Number of lines in MH-Folder buffer (including the mode line) (default: depends on size of frame).

The following hooks are available.

mh-delete-msg-hook

Hook run after marking each message for deletion (default: nil).

mh-show-hook

Hook run after <RET> shows a message (default: nil).

mh-show-mode-hook

Hook run upon entry to mh-show-mode (default: nil).

The following faces are available.

mh-show-cc

Face used to highlight ‘cc:’ header fields.

mh-show-date

Face used to highlight ‘Date:’ header fields.

mh-show-from

Face used to highlight ‘From:’ header fields.

mh-show-header

Face used to deemphasize less interesting header fields.

mh-show-pgg-bad

Bad PGG signature face.

mh-show-pgg-good

Good PGG signature face.

mh-show-pgg-unknown

Unknown or untrusted PGG signature face.

mh-show-signature

Signature face.

mh-show-subject

Face used to highlight ‘Subject:’ header fields.

mh-show-to

Face used to highlight ‘To:’ header fields.

mh-show-xface

X-Face image face.

The functions and variables introduced here are explained in more detail in the following sections.

Footnotes

[1] If you want to see your old mail as well, use F r to pull all your messages into MH-E. Or, give a prefix argument to mh-rmail so it will prompt you for folder to visit like F v (for example, C-u M-x mh-rmail <RET> bob <RET>). See Folders.