vm - Email viewer
mail-check - Check for new email
stop-mail-check - Disable the check for new email
mail - Compose and send an email
vm
mail-check
stop-mail-check
mail
vm is a simple email manager, it relies on a system inbox, such as "/usr/mail/username" to which new mail is appended by the system as it arrives. Email receiving and sending is set up using the user-setup(3) Mail dialog.
mail-check tests the size of this incoming mail box, a non-zero length indicates that new mail has arrived and mail-check informs the user by inserting a 'M' in the mode-line (2nd character for the left) and ringing the system bell. mail-check uses create-callback(2) to check for new mail every 10 minutes, this can be disabled by executing stop-mail-check.
When vm is executed it checks for new mail, if found it first copies the new mail to a file called "new_mail" in the users mail directory. The incoming box is then emptied by truncating the file to zero length. The users main mail box is then loaded and the new mail (if any) is appended. The mail box is then processed after which 2 windows are created the bottom window listing all messages in the box and the top displaying the current message.
vm is capable of:
Use the vm help page (bound to "esc h") for further information.
vm supports two types of embedded data, uuencode and mime encoding and uses ipipe-shell-command(2) to extract the data, the commanding to use must be supplied by the user using the setup dialog, which can contain the following special tokens:
%i
%o
%b
If no command line is supplied then the embedded data is written to the user supplied file name as a text file in the form found in the mail message.
mail can be used to compose and send an email, it can insert embedded data in a similar way to vm's data extraction, the following special tokens can be used:
%i
%b
%o
mail also uses ipipe-shell-command to send the mail message, the following special tokens can be used:
%f
%s
%t
%c
%o
Any field not used in the command-line is left at the head of the mail message.
The following command-line can be used on most UNIX systems to extract uuencoded data:
rm -f %o ; uudecode %i ; rm -f %i
The following command-line can be used on most UNIX systems to extract mime encoded data:
rm -f /tmp/%b ; metamail -B -d -q -w -x -z %i ; mv -f /tmp/%b %o
The following command-line can be used on most UNIX systems to uuencode a data file ready for it to be embedded, the original file is not changed:
uuencode %b < %i > %o
The following command-line can be used on most UNIX systems to send an email:
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oem -odi -t < %o
The following command-line can be on Windows systems to send an email once blat(1) has been successfully installed:
blat %o -f %f -s \"%s\" -t \"%t\" -c \"%c\"
vm is a macro defined in vm.emf, mail-check, stop-mail-check and mail are macros defined in mail.emf.
vm has only been tested in one environment, the author will not except any responsibility for any loss of data, i.e. use at your own peril. You have been warned! Back-up all data files and test vm THOROUGHLY before using it.
user-setup(3), ipipe-shell-command(2), create-callback(2), sendmail(1).
(c) Copyright JASSPA 1999
Last Modified: 1998/09/20
Generated On: 1999/07/16