2 # FAQ -- frequently asked questions
9 nmh (new MH) is an electronic mail handling system. It is based on
10 version 6.8.3 of the MH message system originally developed by the
11 RAND Corporation and the University of California.
13 2) Is it nmh, Nmh, nMH, NMH?
15 It's nmh. Richard Coleman hates capital letters.
17 3) Who is developing nmh?
19 Richard Coleman (coleman@math.gatech.edu) started the nmh project.
20 After he grew too busy to continue maintaining it, it was handed off
21 to the net at large. Doug Morris (doug@mhost.com) hosted the web
22 site and mailing lists, web pages, and CVS repository for a long
23 time. More recently, the CVS repository has moved to Savannah
24 (http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/nmh) and Ken Hornstein
25 (kenh@pobox.com) is the project maintainer.
27 4) Why did Richard start the nmh project?
32 a) It's an interesting project.
33 b) I like using MH/nmh.
34 c) I wanted to increase the portability of MH.
35 d) I wanted to make MH easier to install (convert to autoconf).
36 e) I wanted to remove all the unnecessary junk from the
37 MH distribution (pop daemon, bulletin board support, etc...).
38 f) UCI seems to have abandoned MH, so someone needed to pick up
41 5) What is the copyright status of nmh?
43 nmh is distributed under a variant of the classical BSD copyright.
44 Check the COPYRIGHT file in the nmh distribution for the details.
45 There are some specific files which were contributed to the original
46 MH package that are copyrighted by their original author. We have
47 retained the copyright notices of these authors in these files.
49 Essentially, you can do anything you want with the nmh package as long
50 as you don't blame us if it trashes all your mail.
52 6) What is the difference between nmh and MH?
54 Check the file DIFFERENCES in the nmh distribution for the
55 (ever growing) list of differences between nmh and MH.
57 7) Where do I get nmh?
59 The latest version of nmh is available at
60 http://savannah.gnu.org/download/nmh
62 8) Where is the nmh web page?
64 The nmh home page is located at
65 http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/nmh/
67 9) Where is the nmh mailing list?
69 There is a mailing list for nmh development at:
72 To subscribe, send e-mail to the administrative address:
73 nmh-workers-request@mhost.com
75 with the subject "subscribe" (without the quotes).
77 10) Is there an archive of the nmh-workers mailing list?
79 There are, but they are only available if you are subscribed to
80 the mailing list as well. This is done to try to prevent
81 harvesting of email addresses for spam lists. For information on
82 how to use the archive, see the MAILING-LISTS file in the docs
83 subdirectory of the distribution.
85 11) Where do I report bugs in nmh?
87 Send bug reports and suggestions to
90 12) Which mail transfer agents (MTA's) are supported?
92 The default setup for nmh is to use SMTP, so nmh should work with
93 most MTA's that provide a standard SMTP connection on port 25.
94 Also you may configure nmh to use a sendmail interface (still
95 uses SMTP) by editing the mts.conf file. There is also a configure
96 option (--enable-pop) to include client-side support for POP.
98 13) Why does `folder' and `flist' overlook some of my subfolders?
100 There was a bug in these commands which caused them to quit
101 searching a folder for subfolders too early, if the folder contained
102 subfolders which were symbolic links. This has been improved in
103 nmh-0.25, but `folder' and `flist' will still not recurse into
104 folders that contain only symbolic links.
106 14) Why doesn't the (X)Emacs package `mh-e' work with
109 In nmh, the default location of things have changed. Also the MH
110 lib directory has been split into a `etc' directory (containing
111 configuration files and components), and a `lib' directory
112 (containing support binaries). So sometimes mh-e has trouble
113 finding the components skeleton for composing new mail or replies.
114 Depending on the install location of nmh at your site, you will
115 need to add something similar to the following to your .emacs file.
116 The lines for `mh-comp-formfile' and `mh-repl-formfile' should point
117 to your personal copies of these files (if you have them) or else
118 point to the default nmh versions.
120 ;; set a few mh-e variables for nmh
121 (setq mh-progs "/usr/local/nmh/bin/")
122 (setq mh-lib "/usr/local/nmh/lib/")
123 (setq mh-comp-formfile "/usr/local/nmh/etc/components")
124 (setq mh-repl-formfile "/usr/local/nmh/etc/replcomps")