NAME
xmh - send and read mail with an X interface to MH

SYNOPSIS
xmh [-path mailpath] [-initial foldername] [-flag] [-toolki-
toption ...]

DESCRIPTION
The xmh program provides a graphical user interface to the
MH Message Handling System. To actually do things with your
mail, it makes calls to the MH package. Electronic mail
messages may be composed, sent, received, replied to, for-
warded, sorted, and stored in folders. xmh provides exten-
sive mechanism for customization of the user interface.

This document introduces many aspects of the Athena Widget
Set.

OPTIONS
-path directory
This option specifies an alternate collection of
mail folders in which to process mail. The direc-
tory is specified as an absolute pathname. The
default mail path is the value of the Path component
in the MH profile, which is determined by the MH
environment variable and defaults to
$HOME/.mh_profile. $HOME/Mail will be used as the
path if the MH Path is not given in the profile.

-initial folder
This option specifies an alternate folder which may
receive new mail and is initially opened by xmh. The
default initial folder is "inbox".

-flag This option will cause xmh to change the appearance
of appropriate folder buttons and to request the
window manager to change the appearance of the xmh
icon when new mail has arrived. By default, xmh
will change the appearance of the "inbox" folder
button when new mail is waiting. The application-
specific resource checkNewMail can be used to turn
off this notification, and the -flag option will
still override it.

These three options have corresponding application-specific
resources, MailPath, InitialFolder, and MailWaitingFlag,
which can be specified in a resource file.

The standard toolkit command line options are given in X(1).

INSTALLATION
xmh requires that the user is already set up to use MH, ver-
sion 6. To do so, see if there is a file called .mh_profile
in your home directory. If it exists, check to see if it
contains a line that starts with "Current-Folder". If it
does, you’ve been using version 4 or earlier of MH; to con-
vert to version 6, you must remove that line. (Failure to
do so causes spurious output to stderr, which can hang xmh
depending on your setup.)

If you do not already have a .mh_profile, you can create one
(and everything else you need) by typing "inc" to the
shell. You should do this before using xmh to incorporate
new mail.

For more information, refer to the mh(1) documentation.

Much of the user interface of xmh is configured in the Xmh
application class defaults file; if this file was not
installed properly a warning message will appear when xmh is
used. xmh is backwards compatible with the R4 application
class defaults file.

The default value of the SendBreakWidth resource has changed
since R4.

BASIC SCREEN LAYOUT
xmh starts out with a single window, divided into four major
areas:

- Six buttons with pull-down command menus.

- A collection of buttons, one for each top level folder.
New users of MH will have two folders, "drafts" and
"inbox".

- A listing, or Table of Contents, of the messages in the
open folder. Initially, this will show the messages in
"inbox".

- A view of one of your messages. Initially this is
blank.

XMH AND THE ATHENA WIDGET SET
xmh uses the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget Set.
Many of the features described below (scrollbars, button-
boxes, etc.) are actually part of the Athena Widget Set, and
are described here only for completeness. For more informa-
tion, see the Athena Widget Set documentation.

SCROLLBARS
Some parts of the main window will have a vertical area on
the left containing a grey bar. This area is a scrollbar.
They are used whenever the data in a window takes up more
space than can be displayed. The grey bar indicates what
portion of your data is visible. Thus, if the entire length
of the area is grey, then you are looking at all your data.
If only the first half is grey, then you are looking at the
top half of your data. The message viewing area will have a
horizontal scrollbar if the text of the message is wider
than the viewing area.

You can use the pointer in the scrollbar to change what part
of the data is visible. If you click with pointer button 2,
the top of the grey area will move to where the pointer is,
and the corresponding portion of data will be displayed. If
you hold down pointer button 2, you can drag around the grey
area. This makes it easy to get to the top of the data:
just press with button 2, drag off the top of the scrollbar,
and release.

If you click with button 1, then the data to the right of
the pointer will scroll to the top of the window. If you
click with pointer button 3, then the data at the top of the
window will scroll down to where the pointer is.

BUTTONBOXES, BUTTONS, AND MENUS
Any area containing many words or short phrases, each
enclosed in a rectangular or rounded boundary, is called a
buttonbox. Each rectangle or rounded area is actually a but-
ton that you can press by moving the pointer onto it and
pressing pointer button 1. If a given buttonbox has more
buttons in it than can fit, it will be displayed with a
scrollbar, so you can always scroll to the button you want.

Some buttons have pull-down menus. Pressing the pointer but-
ton while the pointer is over one of these buttons will pull
down a menu. Continuing to hold the button down while mov-
ing the pointer over the menu, called dragging the pointer,
will highlight each selectable item on the menu as the
pointer passes over it. To select an item in the menu,
release the pointer button while the item is highlighted.

ADJUSTING THE RELATIVE SIZES OF AREAS
If you’re not satisfied with the sizes of the various areas
of the main window, they can easily be changed. Near the
right edge of the border between each region is a black box,
called a grip. Simply point to that grip with the pointer,
press a pointer button, drag up or down, and release.
Exactly what happens depends on which pointer button you
press.

If you drag with the pointer button 2, then only that border
will move. This mode is simplest to understand, but is the
least useful.

If you drag with pointer button 1, then you are adjusting
the size of the window above. xmh will attempt to compen-
sate by adjusting some window below it.

If you drag with pointer button 3, then you are adjusting
the size of the window below. xmh will attempt to compen-
sate by adjusting some window above it.

All windows have a minimum and maximum size; you will never
be allowed to move a border past the point where it would
make a window have an invalid size.

PROCESSING YOUR MAIL
This section will define the concepts of the selected
folder, current folder, selected message(s), current mes-
sage, selected sequence, and current sequence. Each xmh
command is introduced.

For use in customization, action procedures corresponding to
each command are given; these action procedures can be used
to customize the user interface, particularly the keyboard
accelerators and the functionality of the buttons in the
optional button box created by the application resource Com-
mandButtonCount.

FOLDERS AND SEQUENCES
A folder contains a collection of mail messages, or is
empty. xmh supports folders with one level of subfolders.

The selected folder is whichever foldername appears in the
bar above the folder buttons. Note that this is not neces-
sarily the same folder that is currently being viewed. To
change the selected folder, just press on the desired folder
button with pointer button 1; if that folder has subfolders,
select a folder from the pull-down menu.

The Table of Contents, or toc, lists the messages in the
viewed folder. The title bar above the Table of Contents
displays the name of the viewed folder.

The toc title bar also displays the name of the viewed
sequence of messages within the viewed folder. Every folder
has an implicit "all" sequence, which contains all the
messages in the folder, and initially the toc title bar will
show "inbox:all".

FOLDER COMMANDS
The Folder command menu contains commands of a global
nature:

Open Folder
Display the data in the selected folder. Thus, the
selected folder also becomes the viewed folder. The
action procedure corresponding to this command is
XmhOpenFolder([foldername]). It takes an optional
argument as the name of a folder to select and open;
if no folder is specified, the selected folder is
opened. It may be specified as part of an event
translation from a folder menu button or from a
folder menu, or as a binding of a keyboard accelera-
tor to any widget other than the folder menu buttons
or the folder menus.

Open Folder in New Window
Displays the selected folder in an additional main
window. Note, however, that you cannot reliably
display the same folder in more than one window at a
time, although xmh will not prevent you from trying.
The corresponding action is XmhOpenFolderInNewWin-
dow().

Create Folder
Create a new folder. You will be prompted for a
name for the new folder; to enter the name, move the
pointer to the blank box provided and type. Sub-
folders are created by specifying the parent folder,
a slash, and the subfolder name. For example, to
create a folder named "xmh" which is a subfolder
of an existing folder named "clients", type
"clients/xmh". Click on the Okay button when fin-
ished, or just type Return; click on Cancel to can-
cel this operation. The action corresponding to
Create Folder is XmhCreateFolder().

Delete Folder
Destroy the selected folder. You will be asked to
confirm this action (see CONFIRMATION WINDOWS).
Destroying a folder will also destroy any subfolders
of that folder. The corresponding action is
XmhDeleteFolder().

Close Window
Exits xmh, after first confirming that you won’t
lose any changes; or, if selected from any addi-
tional xmh window, simply closes that window. The
corresponding action is XmhClose().

HIGHLIGHTED MESSAGES, SELECTED MESSAGES

AND THE CURRENT MESSAGE
It is possible to highlight a set of adjacent messages in
the area of the Table of Contents. To highlight a message,
click on it with pointer button 1. To highlight a range of
messages, click on the first one with pointer button 1 and
on the last one with pointer button 3; or press pointer but-
ton 1, drag, and release. To extend a range of selected
messages, use pointer button 3. To highlight all messages in
the table of contents, click rapidly three times with
pointer button 1. To cancel any selection in the table of
contents, click rapidly twice.

The selected messages are the same as the highlighted mes-
sages, if any. If no messages are highlighted, then the
selected messages are considered the same as the current
message.

The current message is indicated by a ‘+’ next to the mes-
sage number. It usually corresponds to the message
currently being viewed. Upon opening a new folder, for
example, the current message will be different from the
viewed message. When a message is viewed, the title bar
above the view will identify the message.

TABLE OF CONTENTS COMMANDS
The Table of Contents command menu contains commands which
operate on the open, or viewed, folder.

Incorporate New Mail
Add any new mail received to viewed
folder, and set the current message to be
the first new message. This command is
selectable in the menu and will execute
only if the viewed folder is allowed to
receive new mail. By default, only
"inbox" is allowed to incorporate new
mail. The corresponding action is XmhIn-
corporateNewMail().

Commit Changes Execute all deletions, moves, and copies
that have been marked in this folder. The
corresponding action is XmhCom-
mitChanges().

Pack Folder Renumber the messages in this folder so
they start with 1 and increment by 1. The
corresponding action is XmhPackFolder().

Sort Folder Sort the messages in this folder in chro-
nological order. (As a side effect, this
may also pack the folder.) The
corresponding action is XmhSortFolder().

Rescan Folder Rebuild the list of messages. This can be
used whenever you suspect that xmh’s idea
of what messages you have is wrong. (In
particular, this is necessary if you
change things using straight MH commands
without using xmh.) The corresponding
action is XmhForceRescan().

MESSAGE COMMANDS
The Message command menu contains commands which operate on
the selected message(s), or if there are no selected mes-
sages, the current message.

Compose Message Composes a new message. A new window will
be brought up for composition; a descrip-
tion of it is given in the COMPOSITION
WINDOWS section below. This command does
not affect the current message. The
corresponding action is XmhComposeMes-
sage().

View Next Message View the first selected message. If no
messages are highlighted, view the current
message. If current message is already
being viewed, view the first unmarked mes-
sage after the current message. The
corresponding action is XmhViewNextMes-
sage().

View Previous View the last selected message. If no
messages are highlighted, view the current
message. If current message is already
being viewed, view the first unmarked mes-
sage before the current message. The
corresponding action is XmhViewPrevious().

Delete Mark the selected messages for deletion.
If no messages are highlighted, mark the
current message for deletion and automati-
cally display the next unmarked message.
The corresponding action is XmhMark-
Delete().

Move Mark the selected messages to be moved
into the currently selected folder. (If
the selected folder is the same as the
viewed folder, this command will just
beep.) If no messages are highlighted,
mark the current message to be moved and
display the next unmarked message. The
corresponding action is XmhMarkMove().

Copy as Link Mark the selected messages to be copied
into the selected folder. (If the
selected folder is the same as the viewed
folder, this command will just beep.) If
no messages are highlighted, mark the
current message to be copied. Note that
messages are actually linked, not copied;
editing a message copied by xmh will
affect all copies of the message. The
corresponding action is XmhMarkCopy().

Unmark Remove any of the above three marks from
the selected messages, or the current mes-
sage, if none are highlighted. The
corresponding action is XmhUnmark().

View in New Create a new window containing only a view
of the first selected message, or the
current message, if none are highlighted.
The corresponding action is XmhViewIn-
NewWindow().

Reply Create a composition window in reply to
the first selected message, or the current
message, if none are highlighted. The
corresponding action is XmhReply().

Forward Create a composition window whose body is
initialized to contain an encapsulation of
of the selected messages, or the current
message if none are highlighted. The
corresponding action is XmhForward().

Use as Composition
Create a composition window whose body is
initialized to be the contents of the
first selected message, or the current
message if none are selected. Any changes
you make in the composition will be saved
in a new message in the "drafts" folder,
and will not change the original message.
However, there is an exception to this
rule. If the message to be used as compo-
sition was selected from the "drafts"
folder, (see BUGS), the changes will be
reflected in the original message (see
COMPOSITION WINDOWS). The action pro-
cedure corresponding to this command is
XmhUseAsComposition().

Print Print the selected messages, or the
current message if none are selected. xmh
normally prints by invoking the
enscript(1) command, but this can be cus-
tomized with the xmh application-specific
resource PrintCommand. The corresponding
action is XmhPrint().

SEQUENCE COMMANDS
The Sequence command menu contains commands pertaining to
message sequences (See MESSAGE-SEQUENCES), and a list of the
message-sequences defined for the currently viewed folder.
The selected message-sequence is indicated by a check mark
in its entry in the margin of the menu. To change the
selected message-sequence, select a new message-sequence
from the sequence menu.

Pick Messages Define a new message-sequence. The
corresponding action is XmhPickMessages().

The following menu entries will be sensitive only if the
current folder has any message-sequences other than the
"all" message-sequence.

Open Sequence Change the viewed sequence to be the same
as the selected sequence. The correspond-
ing action is XmhOpenSequence().

Add to Sequence Add the selected messages to the selected
sequence. The corresponding action is
XmhAddToSequence().

Remove from Sequence
Remove the selected messages from the
selected sequence. The corresponding
action is XmhRemoveFromSequence().

Delete Sequence Remove the selected sequence entirely.
The messages themselves are not affected;
they simply are no longer grouped together
to define a message-sequence. The
corresponding action is XmhDeleteSe-
quence().

VIEW COMMANDS
Commands in the View menu and in the buttonboxes of view
windows (which result from the Message menu command View In
New) correspond in functionality to commands of the same
name in the Message menu, but they operate on the viewed
message rather than the selected messages or current mes-
sage.

Close Window When the viewed message is in a separate
view window, this command will close the
view, after confirming the status of any
unsaved edits. The corresponding action
procedure is XmhCloseView().

Reply Create a composition window in reply to
the viewed message. The related action
procedure is XmhViewReply().

Forward Create a composition window whose body is
initialized contain an encapsulation of
the viewed message. The corresponding
action is XmhViewForward().

Use As Composition
Create a composition window whose body is
initialized to be the contents of the
viewed message. Any changes made in the
composition window will be saved in a new
message in the "drafts" folder, and will
not change the original message. An
exception: if the viewed message was
selected from the "drafts" folder, (see
BUGS) the original message is edited. The
action procedure corresponding to this
command is XmhViewUseAsComposition().

Edit Message This command enables the direct editing of
the viewed message. The action procedure
is XmhEditView().

Save Message This command is insensitive until the mes-
sage has been edited; when activated,
edits will be saved to the original mes-
sage in the view. The corresponding
action is XmhSaveView().

Print Print the viewed message. xmh prints by
invoking the enscript(1) command, but this
can be customized with the application-
specific resource PrintCommand. The
corresponding action procedure is
XmhPrintView().

Delete Marks the viewed message for deletion.
The corresponding action procedure is
XmhViewMarkDelete().

OPTIONS
The Options menu contains one entry.

Read in Reverse
When selected, a check mark appears in the margin of
this menu entry. Read in Reverse will switch the mean-
ing of the next and previous messages, and will incre-
ment to the current message marker in the opposite
direction. This is useful if you want to read your
messages in the order of most recent first. The option
acts as a toggle; select it from the menu a second time
to undo the effect. The check mark appears when the
option is selected.

COMPOSITION WINDOWS
Composition windows are created by selecting Compose Message
from the Message command menu, or by selecting Reply or For-
ward or Use as Composition from the Message or View command
menu. These are used to compose mail messages. Aside from
the normal text editing functions, there are six command
buttons associated with composition windows:

Close Window Close this composition window. If changes
have been made since the most recent Save
or Send, you will be asked to confirm los-
ing them. The corresponding action is
XmhCloseView().

Send Send this composition. The corresponding
action is XmhSend().

New Headers Replace the current composition with an
empty message. If changes have been made
since the most recent Send or Save, you
will be asked to confirm losing them. The
corresponding action is XmhResetCompose().

Compose Message Bring up another new composition window.
The corresponding action is XmhComposeMes-
sage().

Save Message Save this composition in your drafts
folder. Then you can safely close the
composition. At some future date, you can
continue working on the composition by
opening the drafts folder, selecting the
message, and using the "Use as Composi-
tion" command. The corresponding action
is XmhSave().

Insert Insert a related message into the composi-
tion. If the composition window was
created with a "Reply" command, the
related message is the message being
replied to, otherwise no related message
is defined and this button is insensitive.
The message may be filtered before being
inserted; see ReplyInsertFilter under
APPLICATION RESOURCES for more informa-
tion. The corresponding action is XmhIn-
sert().

ACCELERATORS
Accelerators are shortcuts. They allow you to invoke com-
mands without using the menus, either from the keyboard or
by using the pointer.

xmh defines pointer accelerators for common actions: To
select and view a message with a single click, use pointer
button 2 on the message’s entry in the table of contents.
To select and open a folder or a sequence in a single
action, make the folder or sequence selection with pointer
button 2.

To mark the highlighted messages, or current message if none
have been highlighted, to be moved to a folder in a single
action, use pointer button 3 to select the target folder and
simultaneously mark the messages. Similarly, selecting a
sequence with pointer button 3 will add the highlighted or
current message(s) to that sequence. In both of these
operations, the selected folder or sequence and the viewed
folder or sequence are not changed.

xmh defines the following keyboard accelerators over the
surface of the main window, except in the view area while
editing a message:
Meta-I Incorporate New Mail
Meta-C Commit Changes
Meta-R Rescan Folder
Meta-P Pack Folder
Meta-S Sort Folder

Meta-space View Next Message
Meta-c Mark Copy
Meta-d Mark Deleted
Meta-f Forward the selected or current message
Meta-m Mark Move
Meta-n View Next Message
Meta-p View Previous Message
Meta-r Reply to the selected or current message
Meta-u Unmark

Ctrl-V Scroll the table of contents forward
Meta-V Scroll the table of contents backward
Ctrl-v Scroll the view forward
Meta-v Scroll the view backward

TEXT EDITING COMMANDS
All of the text editing commands are actually defined by the
Text widget in the Athena Widget Set. The commands may be
bound to different keys than the defaults described below
through the X Toolkit Intrinsics key re-binding mechanisms.
See the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget Set docu-
mentation for more details.

Whenever you are asked to enter any text, you will be using
a standard text editing interface. Various control and meta
keystroke combinations are bound to a somewhat Emacs-like
set of commands. In addition, the pointer buttons may be
used to select a portion of text or to move the insertion
point in the text. Pressing pointer button 1 causes the
insertion point to move to the pointer. Double-clicking
button 1 selects a word, triple-clicking selects a line,
quadruple-clicking selects a paragraph, and clicking rapidly
five times selects everything. Any selection may be
extended in either direction by using pointer button 3.

In the following, a line refers to one displayed row of
characters in the window. A paragraph refers to the text
between carriage returns. Text within a paragraph is broken
into lines for display based on the current width of the
window. When a message is sent, text is broken into lines
based upon the values of the SendBreakWidth and SendWidth
application-specific resources.

The following keystroke combinations are defined:

Ctrl-a Beginning Of Line Meta-b Backward Word
Ctrl-b Backward Character Meta-f Forward Word
Ctrl-d Delete Next Character Meta-iInsert File
Ctrl-e End Of Line Meta-k Kill To End Of Paragraph
Ctrl-f Forward Character Meta-q Form Paragraph
Ctrl-g Multiply Reset Meta-v Previous Page
Ctrl-h Delete Previous Character Meta-yInsert Current Selection
Ctrl-j Newline And Indent Meta-z Scroll One Line Down
Ctrl-k Kill To End Of Line Meta-d Delete Next Word
Ctrl-l Redraw Display Meta-D Kill Word
Ctrl-m Newline Meta-h Delete Previous Word
Ctrl-n Next Line Meta-H Backward Kill Word
Ctrl-o Newline And Backup Meta-< Beginning Of File
Ctrl-p Previous Line Meta-> End Of File
Ctrl-r Search/Replace Backward Meta-]Forward Paragraph
Ctrl-s Search/Replace Forward Meta-[Backward Paragraph
Ctrl-t Transpose Characters
Ctrl-u Multiply by 4 Meta-Delete Delete Previous Word
Ctrl-v Next Page Meta-Shift DeleteKill Previous Word
Ctrl-w Kill Selection Meta-Backspace Delete Previous Word
Ctrl-y Unkill Meta-Shift BackspaceKill Previous Word
Ctrl-z Scroll One Line Up

In addition, the pointer may be used to copy and paste text:
Button 1 Down Start Selection
Button 1 MotionAdjust Selection
Button 1 Up End Selection (copy)

Button 2 Down Insert Current Selection (paste)

Button 3 Down Extend Current Selection
Button 3 MotionAdjust Selection
Button 3 Up End Selection (copy)

CONFIRMATION DIALOG BOXES
Whenever you press a button that may cause you to lose some
work or is otherwise dangerous, a popup dialog box will
appear asking you to confirm the action. This window will
contain an "Abort" or "No" button and a "Confirm" or
"Yes" button. Pressing the "No" button cancels the
operation, and pressing the "Yes" will proceed with the
operation.

When xmh is run under a Release 6 session manager it will
prompt the user for confirmation during a checkpoint opera-
tion. The dialog box asks whether any current changes
should be committed (saved) during the checkpoint. Respond-
ing "Yes" will have the same effect as pressing the "Com-
mit Changes" or "Save Message" buttons in the respective
folder and view windows. Responding "No" will cause the
checkpoint to continue successfully to completion without
actually saving any pending changes. If the session manager
disallows user interaction during the checkpoint a "Yes"
response is assumed; i.e. all changes will be committed
during the checkpoint.

Some dialog boxes contain messages from MH. Occasionally
when the message is more than one line long, not all of the
text will be visible. Clicking on the message field will
cause the dialog box to resize so that you can read the
entire message.

MESSAGE-SEQUENCES
An MH message sequence is just a set of messages associated
with some name. They are local to a particular folder; two
different folders can have sequences with the same name.
The sequence named "all" is predefined in every folder; it
consists of the set of all messages in that folder. As many
as nine sequences may be defined for each folder, including
the predefined "all" sequence. (The sequence "cur" is
also usually defined for every folder; it consists of only
the current message. xmh hides "cur" from the user,
instead placing a "+" by the current message. Also, xmh
does not support MH’s"unseen" sequence, so that one is
also hidden from the user.)

The message sequences for a folder (including one for
"all") are displayed in the "Sequence" menu, below the
sequence commands. The table of contents (also known as the
"toc") is at any one time displaying one message sequence.
This is called the "viewed sequence", and its name will be
displayed in the toc title bar after the folder name. Also,
at any time one of the sequences in the menu will have a
check mark next to it. This is called the "selected
sequence". Note that the viewed sequence and the selected
sequence are not necessarily the same. (This all pretty
much corresponds to the way folders work.)

The Open Sequence, Add to Sequence, Remove from Sequence,
and Delete Sequence commands are active only if the viewed
folder contains message-sequences other than "all"
sequence.

Note that none of the above actually affect whether a mes-
sage is in the folder. Remember that a sequence is a set of
messages within the folder; the above operations just affect
what messages are in that set.

To create a new sequence, select the "Pick" menu entry. A
new window will appear, with lots of places to enter text.
Basically, you can describe the sequence’s initial set of
messages based on characteristics of the message. Thus, you
can define a sequence to be all the messages that were from
a particular person, or with a particular subject, and so
on. You can also connect things up with boolean operators,
so you can select all things from "weissman" with a sub-
ject containing "xmh".

The layout should be fairly obvious. The simplest cases are
the easiest: just point to the proper field and type. If
you enter in more than one field, it will only select mes-
sages which match all non-empty fields.

The more complicated cases arise when you want things that
match one field or another one, but not necessarily both.
That’s what all the "or" buttons are for. If you want all
things with subjects that include "xmh" or "xterm", just
press the "or" button next to the "Subject:" field.
Another box will appear where you can enter another subject.

If you want all things either from "weissman" or with sub-
ject "xmh", but not necessarily both, select the "-Or-"
button. This will essentially double the size of the form.
You can then enter "weissman" in a from: box on the top
half, and "xmh" in a subject: box on the lower part.

If you select the "Skip" button, then only those messages
that don’t match the fields on that row are included.

Finally, in the bottom part of the window will appear
several more boxes. One is the name of the sequence you’re
defining. (It defaults to the name of the selected sequence
when "Pick" was pressed, or to "temp" if "all" was the
selected sequence.) Another box defines which sequence to
look through for potential members of this sequence; it
defaults to the viewed sequence when "Pick" was pressed.

Two more boxes define a date range; only messages within
that date range will be considered. These dates must be
entered in RFC 822-style format: each date is of the form
"dd mmm yy hh:mm:ss zzz", where dd is a one or two digit
day of the month, mmm is the three-letter abbreviation for a
month, and yy is a year. The remaining fields are optional:
hh, mm, and ss specify a time of day, and zzz selects a time
zone. Note that if the time is left out, it defaults to
midnight; thus if you select a range of "7 nov 86" - "8
nov 86", you will only get messages from the 7th, as all
messages on the 8th will have arrived after midnight.

"Date field" specifies which field in the header to look
at for this date range; it defaults to "Date". If the
sequence you’re defining already exists, you can optionally
merge the old set with the new; that’s what the "Yes" and
"No" buttons are all about. Finally, you can "OK" the
whole thing, or "Cancel" it.

In general, most people will rarely use these features.
However, it’s nice to occasionally use "Pick" to find some
messages, look through them, and then hit "Delete
Sequence" to put things back in their original state.

WIDGET HIERARCHY
In order to specify resources, it is useful to know the
hierarchy of widgets which compose xmh. In the notation
below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The
widget class name is given first, followed by the widget
instance name. The application class name is Xmh.

The hierarchy of the main toc and view window is identical
for additional toc and view windows, except that a TopLevel-
Shell widget is inserted in the hierarchy between the appli-
cation shell and the Paned widget.

Xmh xmh
Paned xmh
SimpleMenu folderMenu
SmeBSB open
SmeBSB openInNew
SmeBSB create
SmeBSB delete
SmeLine line
SmeBSB close
SimpleMenu tocMenu
SmeBSB inc
SmeBSB commit
SmeBSB pack
SmeBSB sort
SmeBSB rescan
SimpleMenu messageMenu
SmeBSB compose
SmeBSB next
SmeBSB prev
SmeBSB delete
SmeBSB move
SmeBSB copy
SmeBSB unmark
SmeBSB viewNew
SmeBSB reply
SmeBSB forward
SmeBSB useAsComp
SmeBSB print
SimpleMenu sequenceMenu
SmeBSB pick
SmeBSB openSeq
SmeBSB addToSeq
SmeBSB removeFromSeq
SmeBSB deleteSeq
SmeLine line
SmeBSB all
SimpleMenu viewMenu
SmeBSB reply
SmeBSB forward
SmeBSB useAsComp
SmeBSB edit
SmeBSB save
SmeBSB print
SimpleMenu optionMenu
SmeBSB reverse
Viewport.Core menuBox.clip
Box menuBox
MenuButton folderButton
MenuButton tocButton
MenuButton messageButton
MenuButton sequenceButton
MenuButton viewButton
MenuButton optionButton
Grip grip
Label folderTitlebar
Grip grip
Viewport.Core folders.clip
Box folders
MenuButton inbox
MenuButton drafts
SimpleMenu menu
SmeBSB <folder_name>
.
.
.

Grip grip
Label tocTitlebar
Grip grip
Text toc
Scrollbar vScrollbar
Grip grip
Label viewTitlebar
Grip grip
Text view
Scrollbar vScrollbar
Scrollbar hScrollbar

The hierarchy of the Create Folder popup dialog box:

TransientShell prompt
Dialog dialog
Label label
Text value
Command okay
Command cancel

The hierarchy of the Notice dialog box, which reports messages from MH:

TransientShell notice
Dialog dialog
Label label
Text value
Command confirm

The hierarchy of the Confirmation dialog box:

TransientShell confirm
Dialog dialog
Label label
Command yes
Command no

The hierarchy of the dialog box which reports errors:

TransientShell error
Dialog dialog
Label label
Command OK

The hierarchy of the composition window:

TopLevelShell xmh
Paned xmh
Label composeTitlebar
Text comp
Viewport.Core compButtons.clip
Box compButtons
Command close
Command send
Command reset
Command compose
Command save
Command insert

The hierarchy of the view window:

TopLevelShell xmh
Paned xmh
Label viewTitlebar
Text view
Viewport.Core viewButtons.clip
Box viewButtons
Command close
Command reply
Command forward
Command useAsComp
Command edit
Command save
Command print
Command delete

The hierarchy of the pick window:
(Unnamed widgets have no name.)

TopLevelShell xmh
Paned xmh
Label pickTitlebar
Viewport.Core pick.clip
Form form
Form groupform
The first 6 rows of the pick window have identical structure:
Form rowform
Toggle
Toggle
Label
Text
Command

Form rowform
Toggle
Toggle
Text
Text
Command
Form rowform
Command
Viewport.core pick.clip
Form form
From groupform
Form rowform
Label
Text
Label
Text
Form rowform
Label
Text
Label
Text
Label
Text
Form rowform
Label
Toggle
Toggle
Form rowform
Command
Command

APPLICATION-SPECIFIC RESOURCES
The application class name is Xmh. Application-specific
resources are listed below by name. Application-specific
resource class names always begin with an upper case charac-
ter, but unless noted, are otherwise identical to the
instance names given below.

Any of these options may also be specified on the command
line by using the X Toolkit Intrinsics resource specifica-
tion mechanism. Thus, to run xmh showing all message
headers,
% xmh -xrm ’*HideBoringHeaders:off’

If TocGeometry, ViewGeometry, CompGeometry, or PickGeometry
are not specified, then the value of Geometry is used
instead. If the resulting height is not specified (e.g.,
"", "=500", "+0-0"), then the default height of windows is
calculated from fonts and line counts. If the width is not
specified (e.g., "", "=x300", "-0+0"), then half of the
display width is used. If unspecified, the height of a pick
window defaults to half the height of the display.

The following resources are defined:

banner A short string that is the default label of the
folder, Table of Contents, and view. The default is
"xmh X Consortium R6".

blockEventsOnBusy
Whether to disallow user input and show a busy cur-
sor while xmh is busy processing a command. If
false, the user can ‘mouse ahead’ and type ahead; if
true, user input is discarded when processing
lengthy mh commands. The default is true.

busyCursor
The name of the symbol used to represent the posi-
tion of the pointer, displayed if blockEventsOnBusy
is true, when xmh is processing a time-consuming
command. The default is "watch".

busyPointerColor
The foreground color of the busy cursor. Default is
XtDefaultForeground.

checkFrequency
How often to check for new mail, make checkpoints,
and rescan the Table of Contents, in minutes. If
checkNewMail is true, xmh checks to see if you have
new mail each interval. If makeCheckpoints is true,
checkpoints are made every fifth interval. Also
every fifth interval, the Table of Contents is
checked for inconsistencies with the file system,
and rescanned if out of date. To prevent all of
these checks from occurring, set CheckFrequency to
0. The default is 1. This resource is retained for
backward compatibility with user resource files; see
also checkpointInterval, mailInterval, and rescanIn-
terval.

checkNewMail
If true, xmh will check at regular intervals to see
if new mail has arrived for any of the top level
folders and any opened subfolders. A visual indica-
tion will be given if new mail is waiting to be
incorporated into a top level folder. Default is
true. The interval can be adjusted with mailInter-
val.

checkpointInterval (class Interval)
Specifies in minutes how often to make checkpoints
of volatile state, if makeCheckpoints is true. The
default is 5 times the value of checkFrequency.

checkpointNameFormat
Specifies how checkpointed files are to be named.
The value of this resource will be used to compose a
file name by inserting the message number as a
string in place of the required single occurance of
‘%d’. If the value of the resource is the empty
string, or if no ‘%d’ occurs in the string, or if
"%d" is the value of the resource, the default will
be used instead. The default is "%d.CKP". Check-
pointing is done in the folder of origin unless an
absolute pathname is given. xmh does not assist the
user in recovering checkpoints, nor does it provide
for removal of the checkpoint files.

commandButtonCount
The number of command buttons to create in a button
box in between the toc and the view areas of the
main window. xmh will create these buttons with the
names button1, button2 and so on, in a box with the
name commandBox. The default is 0. xmh users can
specify labels and actions for the buttons in a
private resource file; see the section ACTIONS AND
INTERFACE CUSTOMIZATION.

compGeometry
Initial geometry for windows containing composi-
tions.

cursor The name of the symbol used to represent the
pointer. Default is "left_ptr".

debug Whether or not to print information to stderr as xmh
runs. Default is false.

draftsFolder
The folder used for message drafts. Default is
"drafts".

geometry
Default geometry to use. Default is none.

hideBoringHeaders
If "on", then xmh will attempt to skip uninterest-
ing header lines within messages by scrolling them
off the top of the view. Default is "on".

initialFolder
Which folder to display on startup. May also be set
with the command-line option -initial. Default is
"inbox".

initialIncFile
The absolute path name of your incoming mail drop
file. In some installations, for example those
using the Post Office Protocol, no file is appropri-
ate. In this case, initialIncFile should not be
specified, or may be specified as the empty string,
and inc will be invoked without a -file argument.
By default, this resource has no value. This
resource is ignored if xmh finds an .xmhcheck file;
see the section on multiple mail drops.

mailInterval (class Interval)
Specifies the interval in minutes at which the mail
should be checked, if mailWaitingFlag or check-
NewMail is true. The default is the value of check-
Frequency.

mailPath
The full path prefix for locating your mail folders.
May also be set with the command line option, -path.
The default is the Path component in the MH profile,
or "$HOME/Mail" if none.

mailWaitingFlag
If true, xmh will attempt to set an indication in
its icon when new mail is waiting to be retrieved.
If mailWaitingFlag is true, then checkNewMail is
assumed to be true as well. The -flag command line
option is a quick way to turn on this resource.

makeCheckpoints
If true, xmh will attempt to save checkpoints of
volatile edits. The default is false. The fre-
quency of checkpointing is controlled by the
resource checkpointInterval. For the location of
checkpointing, see checkpointNameFormat.

mhPath What directory in which to find the MH commands. If
a command isn’t found in the user’s path, then the
path specified here is used. Default is
"/usr/local/mh6".

newMailBitmap (class NewMailBitmap)
The bitmap to show in the folder button when a
folder has new mail. The default is "black6".

newMailIconBitmap (class NewMailBitmap)
The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the
icon when any folder has new mail. The default is
"flagup".

noMailBitmap (class NoMailBitmap)
The bitmap to show in the folder button when a
folder has no new mail. The default is "box6".

noMailIconBitmap (class NoMailBitmap)
The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the
icon when no folders have new mail. The default is
"flagdown".

pickGeometry
Initial geometry for pick windows.

pointerColor
The foreground color of the pointer. Default is
XtDefaultForeground.

prefixWmAndIconName
Whether to prefix the window and icon name with
"xmh: ". Default is true.

printCommand
An sh command to execute to print a message. Note
that stdout and stderr must be specifically
redirected. If a message or range of messages is
selected for printing, the full file paths of each
message file are appended to the specified print
command. The default is "enscript >/dev/null
2>/dev/null".

replyInsertFilter
An sh command to be executed when the Insert button
is activated in a composition window. The full path
and filename of the source message is appended to
the command before being passed to sh(1). The
default filter is cat; i.e. it inserts the entire
message into the composition. Interesting filters
are: sed ’s/^/> /’ or awk -e ’{print " " $0}’ or
<mh directory>/lib/mhl -form mhl.body.

rescanInterval (class Interval)
How often to check the Table of Contents of
currently viewed folders and of folders with mes-
sages currently being viewed, and to update the
Table of Contents if xmh sees inconsistencies with
the file system in these folders. The default is 5
times the value of checkFrequency.

reverseReadOrder
When true, the next message will be the message
prior to the current message in the table of con-
tents, and the previous message will be the message
after the current message in the table of contents.
The default is false.

sendBreakWidth
When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer than
this value will be split into multiple lines, each
of which is no longer than SendWidth. This value
may be overridden for a single message by inserting
an additional line in the message header of the form
SendBreakWidth: value. This line will be removed
from the header before the message is sent. The
default is 2000 (to allow for sending mail contain-
ing source patches).

sendWidth
When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer than
SendBreakWidth characters will be split into multi-
ple lines, each of which is no longer than this
value. This value may be overridden for a single
message by inserting an additional line in the mes-
sage header of the form SendWidth: value. This line
will be removed from the header before the message
is sent. The default is 72.

showOnInc
Whether to automatically show the current message
after incorporating new mail. Default is true.

skipCopied
Whether to skip over messages marked for copying
when using "View Next Message" and "View Previous
Message". Default is true.

skipDeleted
Whether to skip over messages marked for deletion
when using "View Next Message" and "View Previous
Message". Default is true.

skipMoved
Whether to skip over messages marked for moving to
other folders when using "View Next Message" and
"View Previous Message". Default is true.

stickyMenu
If true, when popup command menus are used, the most
recently selected entry will be under the cursor
when the menu pops up. Default is false. See the
file clients/xmh/Xmh.sample for an example of how to
specify resources for popup command menus.

tempDir Directory for xmh to store temporary files. For
privacy, a user might want to change this to a
private directory. Default is "/tmp".

tocGeometry
Initial geometry for main xmh toc and view windows.

tocPercentage
The percentage of the main window that is used to
display the Table of Contents. Default is 33.

tocWidth
How many characters to generate for each message in
a folder’s table of contents. Default is 100. Use
less if the geometry of the main xmh window results
in the listing being clipped at the right hand boun-
dary, or if you plan to use mhl a lot, because it
will be faster, and the extra characters may not be
useful.

viewGeometry
Initial geometry for windows showing a view of a
message.

MULTIPLE MAIL DROPS
Users may need to incorporate mail from multiple spool files
or mail drops. If incoming mail is forwarded to the MH slo-
cal program, it can be sorted as specified by the user into
multiple incoming mail drops. Refer to the MH man page for
slocal to learn how to specify fowarding and the automatic
sorting of incoming mail in a .maildelivery file.

To inform xmh about the various mail drops, create a file in
your home directory called .xmhcheck. In this file, a map-
ping between existing folder names and mail drops is created
by giving a folder name followed by the absolute pathname of
the mail drop site, with some white space separating them,
one mapping per line. xmh will read this file whether or
not resources are set for notification of new mail arrival,
and will allow incorporation of new mail into any folder
with a mail drop. xmh will invoke inc with the -file argu-
ment, and if xmh has been requested to check for new mail,
it will check directly, instead of using msgchk.

An example of .xmhcheck file format, for the folders
"inbox" and "xpert":
inbox /usr/spool/mail/converse
xpert /users/converse/maildrops/xpert

ACTIONS AND INTERFACE CUSTOMIZATION
Because xmh provides action procedures which correspond to
command functionality and installs accelerators, users can
customize accelerators and new button functionality in a
private resource file. For examples of specifying custom-
ized resources, see the file mit/clients/xmh/Xmh.sample. To
understand the syntax, see the Appendix of the X Toolkit
Intrinsics specification on Translation Table Syntax, and
any general explanation of using and specifying X resources.
Unpredictable results can occur if actions are bound to
events or widgets for which they were not designed.

Here’s an example of how to bind actions to your own xmh
buttons, and how to redefine the default accelerators so
that the Meta key is not required, in case you don’t have
access to the sample file mentioned above.

! To create buttons in the middle of the main window and give them semantics:

Xmh*CommandButtonCount: 5

Xmh*commandBox.button1.label: Inc
Xmh*commandBox.button1.translations: #override <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhIncorporateNewMail() unset()

Xmh*commandBox.button2.label: Compose
Xmh*commandBox.button2.translations: #override <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhComposeMessage() unset()

Xmh*commandBox.button3.label: Next
Xmh*commandBox.button3.translations: #override <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhViewNextMessage() unset()

Xmh*commandBox.button4.label: Delete
Xmh*commandBox.button4.translations: #override <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhMarkDelete() unset()

Xmh*commandBox.button5.label: Commit
Xmh*commandBox.button5.translations: #override <Btn1Down>,<Btn1Up>: XmhCommitChanges() unset()

! To redefine the accelerator bindings to exclude modifier keys,
! and add your own keyboard accelerator for Compose Message:

Xmh*tocMenu.accelerators: #override !:<Key>I: XmhIncorporateNewMail() !:<Key>C: XmhCommitChanges() !:<Key>R: XmhForceRescan() !:<Key>P: XmhPackFolder() !:<Key>S: XmhSortFolder()
Xmh*messageMenu.accelerators: #override !:<Key>E: XmhComposeMessage() !<Key>space: XmhViewNextMessage() !:<Key>c: XmhMarkCopy() !:<Key>d: XmhMarkDelete() !:<Key>f: XmhForward() !:<Key>m: XmhMarkMove() !:<Key>n: XmhViewNextMessage() !:<Key>p: XmhViewPreviousMessage() !:<Key>r: XmhReply() !:<Key>u: XmhUnmark()

xmh provides action procedures which correspond to entries
in the command menus; these are given in the sections
describing menu commmands, not here. In addition to the
actions corresponding to commands in the menus, these action
routines are defined:

XmhPushFolder([foldername, ...])
This action pushes each of its argument(s) onto a
stack of foldernames. If no arguments are given,
the selected folder is pushed onto the stack.

XmhPopFolder()
This action pops one foldername from the stack and
sets the selected folder.

XmhPopupFolderMenu()
This action should always be taken when the user
selects a folder button. A folder button
represents a folder and zero or more subfolders.
The menu of subfolders is built upon the first
reference, by this routine. If there are no sub-
folders, this routine will mark the folder as hav-
ing no subfolders, and no menu will be built. In
that case the menu button emulates a toggle but-
ton. When subfolders exist, the menu will popup,
using the menu button action PopupMenu().

XmhSetCurrentFolder()
This action allows menu buttons to emulate toggle
buttons in the function of selecting a folder.
This action is for menu button widgets only, and
sets the selected folder.

XmhLeaveFolderButton()
This action ensures that the menu button behaves
properly when the user moves the pointer out of
the menu button window.

XmhPushSequence([sequencename, ...])
This action pushes each of its arguments onto the
stack of sequence names. If no arguments are
given, the selected sequence is pushed onto the
stack.

XmhPopSequence()
This action pops one sequence name from the stack
of sequence names, which then becomes the selected
sequence.

XmhPromptOkayAction()
This action is equivalent to pressing the okay
button in the Create Folder popup.

XmhReloadSeqLists()
This action rescans the contents of the public MH
sequences for the currently opened folder and
updates the sequence menu if necessary.

XmhShellCommand( parameter [, parameter])
At least one parameter must be specified. The
parameters will be concatenated with a space char-
acter separator, into a single string, and the
list of selected messsages, or if no messages are
selected, the current message, will be appended to
the string of parameters. The string will be exe-
cuted as a shell command. The messages are always
given as absolute pathnames. It is an error to
cause this action to execute when there are no
selected messages and no current message.

XmhCheckForNewMail()
This action will check all mail drops known to
xmh. If no mail drops have been specified by the
user either through the .xmhcheck file or by the
initialIncFile resource, the MH command msgchk is
used to check for new mail, otherwise, xmh checks
directly.

XmhWMProtocols([wm_delete_window] [wm_save_yourself])
This action is responsible for participation in
window manager communication protocols. It
responds to delete window and save yourself mes-
sages. The user can cause xmh to respond to one
or both of these protocols, exactly as if the win-
dow manager had made the request, by invoking the
action with the appropriate parameters. The
action is insensitive to the case of the string
parameters. If the event received is a ClientMes-
sage event and parameters are present, at least
one of the parameters must correspond to the pro-
tocol requested by the event for the request to be
honored by xmh.

CUSTOMIZATION USING MH
The initial text displayed in a composition window is gen-
erated by executing the corresponding MH command; i.e. comp,
repl, or forw, and therefore message components may be cus-
tomized as specified for those commands. comp is executed
only once per invocation of xmh and the message template is
re-used for every successive new composition.

xmh uses MH commands, including inc, msgchk, comp, send,
repl, forw, refile, rmm, pick, pack, sort, and scan. Some
flags for these commands can be specified in the MH profile;
xmh may override them. The application resource debug can
be set to true to see how xmh uses MH commands.

ENVIRONMENT
HOME - users’s home directory
MH - to get the location of the MH profile file

FILES
~/.mh_profile - MH profile, used if the MH environment vari-
able is not set
~/Mail - directory of folders, used if the MH profile cannot
be found
~/.xmhcheck - optional, for multiple mail drops in coopera-
tion with slocal.
/usr/local/mh6 - MH commands, as a last resort, see mhPath.
~/Mail/<folder>/.xmhcache - scan output in each folder
~/Mail/<folder>/.mh_sequences - sequence definitions, in
each folder
/tmp - temporary files, see tempDir.

SEE ALSO
X(1), xrdb(1), X Toolkit Intrinsics, Athena Widget Set,
mh(1), enscript(1)
At least one book has been published about MH and xmh.

BUGS
- When the user closes a window, all windows which are tran-
sient for that window should also be closed by xmh.
- When XmhUseAsComposition and XmhViewUseAsComposition
operate on messages in the DraftsFolder, xmh disallows edit-
ing of the composition if the same message is also being
viewed in another window.
- Occasionally after committing changes, the table of con-
tents will appear to be completely blank when there are
actually messages present. When this happens, refreshing
the display, or typing Control-L in the table of contents,
will often cause the correct listing to appear. If this
doesn’t work, force a rescan of the folder.
- Should recognize and use the "unseen" message-sequence.
- Should determine by itself if the user hasn’t used MH
before, and offer to create the .mh_profile, instead of
hanging on inc.
- A few commands are missing (rename folder, resend mes-
sage).
- WM_DELETE_WINDOW protocol doesn’t work right when request-
ing deletion of the first toc and view, while trying to keep
other xmh windows around.
- Doesn’t support annotations when replying to messages.
- Doesn’t allow folders to be shared without write permis-
sion.
- Doesn’t recognize private sequences.
- MH will report that the .mh_sequences file is poorly for-
matted if any sequence definition in a particular folder
contains more than BUFSIZ characters. xmh tries to capture
these messages and display them when they occur, but it can-
not correct the problem.
- Should save a temporary checkpoint file rather than
requiring changes to be committed in the non-shutdown case.

AUTHOR
Terry Weissman, formerly of Digital Western Research Labora-
tory
Donna Converse, MIT X Consortium