--
"I used to command a battalion of German ants." --Tom
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phillip (Ant) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | and http://aqfl.net (Ant's Quality Foraged Links/AQFL)
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )
Recently, the administrator switched Linux distribution that used
old Pine. Pine was great and easy to use. I have been using since for
about a decade.
Now, the new system is running Mutt. I cannot seem to get used to it
after a few days.
Questions:
1. How do I access my old e-mails in mail/ directory/folder?
2. How do I access my .addressbook? I email a lot of people randomly.
3. Where's BCC and receive receiption?
4. Jed editor drives me nuts.
5. Mutt's UI drives me nuts. I cannot use my arrows in SecureCRT 3.x.
Are there any other simple text (for SSH) e-mail clients that use maildir
format (administrator mentions this)?
Thank you in advance.
Sigs are supposed to be sigs, not bulletin boards. They aren't
supposed to get in people's faces.
So I'll leave you to the fellow with the X-No-Archive: yes
header, which means that you can't trust anything he says
because he'll be able to deny he said it due to the fact
that there won't be any record of his post at google groups.
When people get in your faces with their sigs, in obvious
contravention of the Netiquette, one knows that they
don't have anything worth shit to say.
<snip>
AC
> <snip>
--
> c to change mailboxes, then hit tab until you get to the file browser,
> and navigate in all the filesystem you have access to. See section 4.6
> of the manual to read up on this.
OK, I see http://mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-4.html#ss4.6 which is too
technical to me. ;)
How do I change back to inbox mode? I had to quit and reload Mutt.
> > 2. How do I access my .addressbook? I email a lot of people randomly.
> The admin probably also installed abook. abook can import .addressbook
> files.
How do I know if it is installed to access it? The administrator is hard
to contact so I am on my own most of the times.
> > 3. Where's BCC and receive receiption?
> after you compose the message you'll get the compose menu screen. b
> there adds Bcc: adderesses. Not sure what you mean by "receive
> receiption"...
Can I access the addresbook, and tag all the names into BCC line? That's how
I did it with Pine. Nice and quick.
Sorry, return receipt.
> > 4. Jed editor drives me nuts.
> Change your $EDITOR or $VISUAL environmental variable to whatever editor
> command you like, or set it via mutt's "editor" config variable. If
> that's been set to override in a Mutt config someplace, the internal
> editor will escape out to the environmental one with a ~v command.
OK, I will look. I think I will use Nano (was Pico).
> > 5. Mutt's UI drives me nuts. I cannot use my arrows in SecureCRT 3.x.
> TERM setting issue. Works brilliantly through PuTTY or screen(1)
Yeah, screen is broken (known issue) on this new system. Unknown why...
> > Are there any other simple text (for SSH) e-mail clients that use maildir
> > format (administrator mentions this)?
> Probably. But Mutt's the best choice. (:
I hope so. It is not very userfriendly. :(
> Read through the manual, at least a couple of times. Even if it's
> technical, bits and pieces will stick and you'll start getting a feel
> for how Mutt does things.
> > How do I change back to inbox mode? I had to quit and reload Mutt.
> Mutt knows where a couple of things are. '!' is a short-cut name for
> your inbox, and '=' is a prefix for the directory that Mutt knows to use
> as a folder base. The configuration variable section of the manual will
> show what variables to set to change those *if* you've got a need to.
> >> > 2. How do I access my .addressbook? I email a lot of people randomly.
> >
> >> The admin probably also installed abook. abook can import .addressbook
> >> files.
> >
> > How do I know if it is installed to access it? The administrator is hard
> > to contact so I am on my own most of the times.
> type 'abook' at a command prompt. If it's there, it'll work, and you'll
> get a (probably empty) address book showing. Then read the man pages for
> abbok to learn how to import your .addressbook file.
> >> > 3. Where's BCC and receive receiption?
> >
> >> after you compose the message you'll get the compose menu screen. b
> >> there adds Bcc: adderesses. Not sure what you mean by "receive
> >> receiption"...
> >
> > Can I access the addresbook, and tag all the names into BCC line? That's how
> > I did it with Pine. Nice and quick.
> >
> > Sorry, return receipt.
> The Pine-approved (er, -tolerated, rather) way of doing this is with a
> header line. If you don't want to do this all the time, turn on
> $edit_headers and add
> Return-Receipt-To: your-a...@example.com
> to the header section by hand.
> If you want it all the time, you can use a my_hdr configuration command
> to make Mutt add it for you.
> If you want to add it *sometimes*, under predictable circumstances, you
> can use hooks to do a my_hdr under those conditions, but that's best to
> wait until you've gotten the hang of configuring Mutt in a static way
> first.
> >> > 4. Jed editor drives me nuts.
> >
> >> Change your $EDITOR or $VISUAL environmental variable to whatever editor
> >> command you like, or set it via mutt's "editor" config variable. If
> >> that's been set to override in a Mutt config someplace, the internal
> >> editor will escape out to the environmental one with a ~v command.
> >
> > OK, I will look. I think I will use Nano (was Pico).
> Mutt will happily let you use that if you like.
> >> > 5. Mutt's UI drives me nuts. I cannot use my arrows in SecureCRT 3.x.
> >
> >> TERM setting issue. Works brilliantly through PuTTY or screen(1)
> >
> > Yeah, screen is broken (known issue) on this new system. Unknown why...
> Sadness... Screen is REALLY useful. Off-topic, but useful.
> >> > Are there any other simple text (for SSH) e-mail clients that use maildir
> >> > format (administrator mentions this)?
> >
> >> Probably. But Mutt's the best choice. (:
> >
> > I hope so. It is not very userfriendly. :(
> The tradtional answer is that it's VERY user friendly. It's just a
> little picky about who it's friends with.
One more question: Where does Mutt store my sent e-mails? I cannot seem
to find them or in the mail.
It doesn't save sent mail as a default. Search for "set record" in your
.muttrc file -- assuming your sys admin gave you a reasonable default
mutt configuration file. If you don't have one, copy the system default
in to your home dir (find it with "locate Muttrc") and rename it and
search therein.
>> Probably. But Mutt's the best choice. (:
> I hope so. It is not very userfriendly. :(
It might be worth noting that the default distribution of mutt comes with an
rc file which mimics pine (up to a point). So it might be worth looking to
see if you can find Pine.rc - on many Linux systems it can probably be found
under /usr/share/doc/mutt/examples, but I don't know about all of them (let
alone Solaris or similar).
--
Paul
Problem:
$ cp /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc ~/.muttrc
$ mutt
Error in /home/ant/.muttrc, line 104: use_mailcap: unknown variable
Error in /home/ant/.muttrc, line 334: /home/ant/.muttrc-local: No such file or directory
source: errors in /home/ant/.muttrc
Press any key to continue...
Any ideas? Did I copy the wrong file?
$ locate muttrc
/usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc
/usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc.https
/usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc-tlr
/usr/share/man/man5/muttrc.5.gz
/usr/share/vim/vim63/syntax/muttrc.vim
I also got an e-mail in HTML. Mutt told me to launch a viewer, but it
didn't work since it couldn't find a viewer. I assume that is set in
.muttrc as well.
The viewers to use are set from ~/.mailcap I've recently found this
page quite handy for setting up some of the odder ones (like viewing
MS OFFice docs directly in mutt):
http://www.spocom.com/users/gjohnson/mutt/#mime
--
Stephen Patterson st...@patter.mine.nu http://patter.mine.nu/
Linux Counter No: 142831 GPG Public key: E3E8E974
"Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door."
-- Melissa O'Brien
> Read through the manual, at least a couple of times. Even if it's
> technical, bits and pieces will stick and you'll start getting a feel
> for how Mutt does things.
> > How do I change back to inbox mode? I had to quit and reload Mutt.
> Mutt knows where a couple of things are. '!' is a short-cut name for
> your inbox, and '=' is a prefix for the directory that Mutt knows to use
> as a folder base. The configuration variable section of the manual will
> show what variables to set to change those *if* you've got a need to.
> >> > 2. How do I access my .addressbook? I email a lot of people randomly.
> >
> >> The admin probably also installed abook. abook can import .addressbook
> >> files.
> >
> > How do I know if it is installed to access it? The administrator is hard
> > to contact so I am on my own most of the times.
> type 'abook' at a command prompt. If it's there, it'll work, and you'll
> get a (probably empty) address book showing. Then read the man pages for
> abbok to learn how to import your .addressbook file.
OK, I got abook command to work. How can I run this inside of Mutt like Pine?
I don't want have to quit Mutt to find my e-mail addresses. I have a lot. :)
> >> > 3. Where's BCC and receive receiption?
> >
> >> after you compose the message you'll get the compose menu screen. b
> >> there adds Bcc: adderesses. Not sure what you mean by "receive
> >> receiption"...
Oooh! Thanks.
> > Can I access the addresbook, and tag all the names into BCC line? That's how
> > I did it with Pine. Nice and quick.
> >
> > Sorry, return receipt.
> The Pine-approved (er, -tolerated, rather) way of doing this is with a
> header line. If you don't want to do this all the time, turn on
> $edit_headers and add
> Return-Receipt-To: your-a...@example.com
> to the header section by hand.
> If you want it all the time, you can use a my_hdr configuration command
> to make Mutt add it for you.
> If you want to add it *sometimes*, under predictable circumstances, you
> can use hooks to do a my_hdr under those conditions, but that's best to
> wait until you've gotten the hang of configuring Mutt in a static way
> first.
Isn't there a way to hit a key to enter this when composing e-mails? I
use it rarely.
> >> > 4. Jed editor drives me nuts.
> >
> >> Change your $EDITOR or $VISUAL environmental variable to whatever editor
> >> command you like, or set it via mutt's "editor" config variable. If
> >> that's been set to override in a Mutt config someplace, the internal
> >> editor will escape out to the environmental one with a ~v command.
> >
> > OK, I will look. I think I will use Nano (was Pico).
> Mutt will happily let you use that if you like.
OK, got nano. Thanks goodness!! Jed drove me nuts. :)
> >> > 5. Mutt's UI drives me nuts. I cannot use my arrows in SecureCRT 3.x.
> >
> >> TERM setting issue. Works brilliantly through PuTTY or screen(1)
> >
> > Yeah, screen is broken (known issue) on this new system. Unknown why...
> Sadness... Screen is REALLY useful. Off-topic, but useful.
Yeah, I will deal with that later.The administrator still hasn't figured out
why it crashes. Screen does rock. :)
> >> > Are there any other simple text (for SSH) e-mail clients that use maildir
> >> > format (administrator mentions this)?
> >
> >> Probably. But Mutt's the best choice. (:
> >
> > I hope so. It is not very userfriendly. :(
> The tradtional answer is that it's VERY user friendly. It's just a
> little picky about who it's friends with.
I am sort of starting to like Mutt, but still not perfect yet. Still got
quirks to work out. :I Maybe, I will love it later? We'll see!!
> You got one that depends on other things. Hit Google. If you can find an
> archived copy of our dear departed Sven's annotated one, you'll be able
> to read it for hints of what's necessary. Lacking that, start with a
> .muttrc that's empty and add the bits that you want to CHANGE from how
> Mutt behaves by default.i
OK. I will do that. I found it at http://www.dotfiles.com/files/27/40_sven_muttrc
... Wow, that's old (1999). I hope each parameter is still valid!
> > $ locate muttrc
> > /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc
> > /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc.https
> > /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.1/sample.muttrc-tlr
> > /usr/share/man/man5/muttrc.5.gz
> > /usr/share/vim/vim63/syntax/muttrc.vim
> >
> >
> > I also got an e-mail in HTML. Mutt told me to launch a viewer, but it
> > didn't work since it couldn't find a viewer. I assume that is set in
> > .muttrc as well.
> Mutt uses a combination of its own stuff and any of several possible
> mailcap files to handle this. And (obviously) what's correct depends on
> the tools available to you. Personally, I've got mutt displaying the
> HTML unless I poke at it via the v attachments display, in which case it
> calls w3m to render the HTML. Mostly, I've almost never any reason to
> look at things in HTML-rendered form....
I do have eLinks compiled. I cannot find a parameter to call eLinks as my
text Web browser. How can I do that when I hit v to view?
In http://www.dotfiles.com/files/28/246_pinerc ... it says:
# Over-rides default path for signature file. Default is ~/.signature
signature-file=
I have ~/.muttrc say:
# Over-rides default path for signature file. Default is ~/.signature
signature-file=/home/ant/antsignature-email2.txt
but I get:
$ mutt
Error in /home/ant/.muttrc, line 20: signature-file=/home/ant/antsignature-email2.txt: unknown
command source: errors in /home/ant/.muttrc
What am I doing wrong? It is not a command! It's just a text file.
> The viewers to use are set from ~/.mailcap I've recently found this
> page quite handy for setting up some of the odder ones (like viewing
> MS OFFice docs directly in mutt):
> http://www.spocom.com/users/gjohnson/mutt/#mime
It looks like it uses X. I am not using X. Just ssh.
> Mutt knows where a couple of things are. '!' is a short-cut name for
> your inbox, and '=' is a prefix for the directory that Mutt knows to use
> as a folder base. The configuration variable section of the manual will
> show what variables to set to change those *if* you've got a need to.
! gives me shell command
= is first entry according to help
Am I missing something? Help doesn't show inbox when I searched with "/".
>> > How do I change back to inbox mode? I had to quit and reload Mutt.
>> Mutt knows where a couple of things are. '!' is a short-cut name for
>> your inbox, and '=' is a prefix for the directory that Mutt knows to use
>> as a folder base. The configuration variable section of the manual will
>> show what variables to set to change those *if* you've got a need to.
> ! gives me shell command
First type c (change folder) and then '!' plus enter. Or put this
little macro definition in your .muttrc:
macro index i <change-folder>!<enter> # go to the inbox
Then try this (you can substitute catdoc for antiword if you have that
installed instead)
in ~/.mailcap
application/msword; antiword %s; copiousoutput
and in ~/.muttrc
autoview application/msword
step 3. Profit $$ :)
Two things. First, you are not using the right configuration variables.
Second, you keep posting simple questions here that you could answer for
yourself with just a little effort by consulting the extensive Mutt
documentation or by looking at sample .muttrc files.
> http://www.wolfermann.org/mutt.html handles this one way,
> abook also has a command option that supports mutt's address query
> pretty directly.
I like it!! Thanks.
> [..]
> >> Return-Receipt-To: your-a...@example.com
> >
> >> to the header section by hand.
> >
> >> If you want it all the time, you can use a my_hdr configuration command
> >> to make Mutt add it for you.
> >
> >> If you want to add it *sometimes*, under predictable circumstances, you
> >> can use hooks to do a my_hdr under those conditions, but that's best to
> >> wait until you've gotten the hang of configuring Mutt in a static way
> >> first.
> >
> > Isn't there a way to hit a key to enter this when composing e-mails? I
> > use it rarely.
> Beats me. I've never found it terribly useful, and therefore don't
> bother with it at all.
OK. Hopefully, someone will post a way.
Ah, thanks. I missed c part as a prefix. Thanks. Lots of combinations and
keys to learn.
> Isn't there a way to hit a key to enter this when composing e-mails? I
> use it rarely.
If you write it as a macro for your editor - whatever that might be - you
should be fine. Otherwise, the answer's pretty much going to be no. While
you're editing mail, you're not in mutt, so mutt keybindings won't help you,
I'm afraid. :-)
--
Paul
That stinks. It was interesting to see Mutt doesn't have its own editor
like Pine does. Another reason why I like Pine. :) Oh well. Nothing I can
do since I am still using text mode especialyl when I use dial-up. I will
say text email clients are so much better than Webmail and GUI clients.
:)
--
"Is this stuff any good for ants?" "No, it kills them." --unknown
> That stinks. It was interesting to see Mutt doesn't have its own editor
> like Pine does.
So simply use pico then.
--
Ralf Hildebrandt (i.A. des IT-Zentrums) Ralf.Hil...@charite.de
Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Tel. +49 (0)30-450 570-155
Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin Fax. +49 (0)30-450 570-962
IT-Zentrum Standort CBF send no mail to spam...@charite.de
Well, it's a simple matter to configure PINE to use your editor of
choice. PICO ("PIne COmposer") just happens to be the default,
originally developed as part of the PINE project to be a simple, easy to
use editor with PINE's look and feel. But from an implementation point
of view, PICO is a stand-alone editor no more connected to PINE than vi
or emacs.
Chris Menzel
> That stinks. It was interesting to see Mutt doesn't have its own editor
> like Pine does. Another reason why I like Pine. :) Oh well. Nothing I can
Feature; it means we're not stuck with yet another second-rate editor built
into an app, but can use whatever we like. :)
> do since I am still using text mode especialyl when I use dial-up. I will
> say text email clients are so much better than Webmail and GUI clients.
Well, assuming you have space, you could always build pine in your user
account.
--
Paul
> use editor with PINE's look and feel. But from an implementation point of
> view, PICO is a stand-alone editor no more connected to PINE than vi or
> emacs.
So presumably, PINE keybindings/macros won't work in pico...?
--
Paul
I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by
reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of
progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization
-- Petronius Arbiter, ~60 A.D
> > That stinks. It was interesting to see Mutt doesn't have its own editor
> > like Pine does. Another reason why I like Pine. :) Oh well. Nothing I can
> Feature; it means we're not stuck with yet another second-rate editor built
> into an app, but can use whatever we like. :)
True.
> > do since I am still using text mode especialyl when I use dial-up. I will
> > say text email clients are so much better than Webmail and GUI clients.
> Well, assuming you have space, you could always build pine in your user
> account.
Nope, I have like 30 MB free. Heh. I remember the administrator wanted to
dump Pine because it didn't support the new mail file format (don't remember
the name of it).
> Well, it's a simple matter to configure PINE to use your editor of
> choice. PICO ("PIne COmposer") just happens to be the default,
> originally developed as part of the PINE project to be a simple, easy to
> use editor with PINE's look and feel. But from an implementation point
> of view, PICO is a stand-alone editor no more connected to PINE than vi
> or emacs.
Interesting history. I never knew that since I have been using Pico and
Pine for about a decade. Thanks for sharing. :)
Well, you wouldn't *want* a lot PINEs keybindings to work in PICO, as
most of them are single ASCII chars, like "d" for delete -- though PICO
does use ctrl-d for delete, so there's a similarity there. There is
also some direct overlap, though, e.g., ctrl-w is "search" in both PINE
and PICO, ctrl-p and ctrl-n move you up and down a line, respectively,
in a PINE folder list, and they move you up and down a line in a PICO
buffer as well, etc.