MultiMail(1)

NAME
mm - offline mail packet reader for Blue Wave and QWK

SYNOPSIS
mm

DESCRIPTION
MultiMail is an offline mail packet reader, supporting the Blue Wave and QWK formats. It uses a simple curses-based interface. Blue Wave and QWK packers are used primarily by dialup BBSes, to save connect time, and to provide a better interface to the message base. This manpage is for version 0.25.

USAGE
On most screens, the available keystroke commands are displayed in the lower part of the screen. In the mail-reading window, pressing F1 or '?' will show the commands available there. The navigation keys, most of which work throughout the program, are briefly summarized only on the packet screen, for lack of space. :-) Basically, they consist of the standard cursor and keypad keys, with <Enter> to select. For terminals without full support for these keys, aliases are available for some of them: ESC = Q
PgDn = B
PgUp = F
Right = +
Left = -
(Although shown in capitals, these may be entered unshifted.) Of special note is the space bar. In most areas of the program, it functions as an alias for PgDn; but in the mail-reading window, it works as a combination PgDn/Enter key, allowing you to page through an area with one key. In the letter list, only unread messages are displayed, by default, but you can toggle this by pressing L. Multiple sort modes are available in the packet and letter lists; you can cycle through them by pressing '$'. The default sort modes are set in the

SEARCHING
A case-insensitive search function is available on all screens. Press '/' to specify the text to look for, or '.' to repeat the last search. The search is confined to the current list or letter, starting at the current active line (or top screen line, for the letter or ANSI window).

HIDDEN LINES AND ROT13
In the letter window, you can toggle viewing of Fidonet "hidden" lines (marked with a ^A in the first position) by pressing 'x'. The lines are shown as part of the text, but in a different color. Pressing 'd' toggles rot13 encoding, the crude "encryption" method used for spoiler warnings and such, primarily on Usenet. To tell the truth, I coded this just to be able to read a single message. :-)

ANSI VIEWER
If a message contains ANSI color codes, you may be able to view it as originally intended by activating the ANSI viewer. Press 'v' to start it. Press 'q' to leave the ANSI viewer; the navigation keys are the same as in the mail-reading window. The ANSI viewer includes support for animation. While within the ANSI viewer, press 'v' again to animate the picture. Press any key to abort the animation. The ANSI viewer is also used to display the new files list and bulletins, if any are present.

CHARACTER SETS
MultiMail supports two character sets: the IBM PC set (Code Page 437), and Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1). Messages can be in either character set; the set is determined by the area attributes -- Internet and Usenet areas default to Latin-1, while all others default to IBM -- and by a CHRS or CHARSET kludge, if one is present. MultiMail automatically translates between these character sets when displaying messages and creating replies. The Unix versions of MultiMail assume that the console uses Latin-1, while the DOSish versions (DOS, OS/2, and Win32) assume the IBM PC set. You can override this in the .mmailrc, or on a temporary basis by pressing 'c'. The character set translation code has been greatly revised in version 0.25.

ENVIRONMENT
MultiMail uses the HOME or MMAIL environment variable to find its configuration file, .mmailrc; and EDITOR for the default editor. MMAIL is takes precedence over HOME if it's defined. If neither is defined, the startup directory is used. Depending on the implementation, TMP and/or TEMP may also be used to specify the directory for temporary files. The use of EDITOR can be overridden in .mmailrc; however, environment variables can't be used within .mmailrc.

FILES
The only hardwired file is the configuration file: .mmailrc (mmail.rc in DOS, OS/2 or Win32). It's used to specify the pathnames to MultiMail's other files, and the command lines for external programs (the editor and the archivers). By default, the other permanent files are placed in the MultiMail home directory ($HOME/mmail or $MMAIL/mmail). For temporary directories and files, MultiMail uses the tmpnam() function (the location is system-dependent). Directories specified in the .mmailrc are created automatically; the default values are shown here:

~/mmail
    to store the tagline file, netmail addressbook, etc.

taglines
    a plain text file, one tagline per line

addressbook (address.bk in DOS, OS/2 or Win32)
    a list of names and corresponding Fido netmail addresses

colors
    specifies the colors to use

~/mmail/down
    to store the packets as they came from the bbs

~/mmail/up
    to store the reply packet(s) which you have to upload to the bbs

~/mmail/save
    is the default directory for saving messages

UPGRADING
As of version 0.25, you can now set the default console character set and the default packet and letter list sort modes in the .mmailrc. The default packet sort is now by time instead of name. If you're upgrading from 0.19 to 0.20 or later, and you have a customized ColorFile, be sure to note the new options. If you're upgrading from a version before 0.19, be aware that any comments you may have added to your .mmailrc will be erased the first time you run 0.19; it rewrites the file. Note that any *values* you specified will NOT be affected; only comments. Henceforward, this will happen with each version upgrade, and it will also affect the ColorFile. The rewrite is done to ensure that new keywords are added to the file. The ColorFile is new in 0.19. Check it out (~/mmail/colors, by default). As of 0.16, the HOME environment variable can be overridden with MMAIL, or omitted altogether. If you're upgrading from a version before 0.9, and you have existing reply packets (.rep or .new) whose names are partly or wholly in uppercase, you must rename them to lowercase before version 0.9 or higher will recognize them. (Downloaded packets are not at issue.) If you're upgrading from a version below 0.8, you may want to manually delete the /tmp/$LOGNAME directory created by previous versions. (0.8 and higher clean out their own temp directories, and use different names for each session.) If you're upgrading from a version prior to 0.7, please note the changes in the default directories; previously they were "~/mmail/bwdown", etc.

NOTES
If you're using the XCurses (PDCurses) version, and your editor isn't an X app, it will work better if you set MultiMail's "editor" keyword to "xterm -e filename" (instead of just "filename"). I decided not to do this automatically because someone might actually use it with an X editor. Editing and deletion of old replies are available through the REPLY area, which always appears at the top of the area list. This differs from Blue Wave and some other readers. The Escape key works to back out from most screens, but after you press it, you'll have to wait a bit for it to be sensed (with ncurses; not true with PDCurses). Only Blue Wave style taglines (beginning with "...") are recognized by the tagline stealer. The tagline must be visible on the screen to be taken. Netmail only works in Blue Wave mode, and is still slightly limited; much better than in previous versions, though. Netmail from points now includes the point address. As of 0.25, Internet email is now available in Blue Wave mode, for those doors that support it, using the same interface as Fido netmail.

AUTHORS
MultiMail was originally developed under Linux by Kolossvary Tamas and Toth Istvan. John Zero was the maintainer for versions 0.2 through 0.6; since version 0.7, the maintainer is William McBrine <wmcbrine@clark.net>. Additional code has been contribued by Peter Karlsson, Mark D. Rejhon, Ingo Brueckl, and Robert Vukovic.

BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
The ANSI viewer eats up a huge amount of memory -- the number of rendered lines, times the screen width, times four bytes. (And when it's used as a file viewer, add the length of the disk file to that.) That wasn't much of a problem when viewing ANSI messages, but it can get severe now that the ANSI viewer is used for new file lists. (A list of several hundred K may require several megs of memory.) I believe I know how to get around this, but it will require a complete rewrite of the ANSI viewer. The new file list and bulletin viewer is, as yet, a temporary hack. A better means of selecting which ones to view will be forthcoming, if I can ever decide just how it should look. (Your opinion is welcome.) If you find any bugs, or have ideas for improvement, please write to me.