From 7428828caf071831ea3caf1efb856c418929acc2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Levine Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:44:43 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Updated docs/README-ATTACHMENTS, mainly to reflect that no setup is required with nmh 1.5 and beyond. And the user documentation is in the send(1) and whatnow(1) man pages. --- docs/README-ATTACHMENTS | 144 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------------- 1 file changed, 82 insertions(+), 62 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/README-ATTACHMENTS b/docs/README-ATTACHMENTS index ff9db2a..dc04662 100644 --- a/docs/README-ATTACHMENTS +++ b/docs/README-ATTACHMENTS @@ -2,7 +2,11 @@ Jon Steinhart's (jon@fourwinds.com) Attachment Handling Mods ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A bunch of changes have been made to improve the nmh user interface for -handling MIME attachments. +handling MIME attachments. This document provides the background and +implementation details of this so-called attach feature. + +The user documentation for the attach feature is in the nmh send(1) +and whatnow(1) man pages. Why Did I Do This? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @@ -21,23 +25,31 @@ automatically created when drafts with attachments are sent. The Simple Setup ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The gory details are all given below. Here's how to set things up simply. This -only works if you're using the "standard" interface, i.e., whatnow. Life is more -complicated if you run mh-e. +Starting with nmh version 1.5, no setup is necessary. + +====================================================================== +Through nmh 1.4, and optionally with nmh 1.5 and beyond, here's how to +set things up. + +This only works if you're using the "standard" interface, i.e., +whatnow. Life is more complicated if you run mh-e. Add the following to your .mh_profile: - send: -attach X-MH-Attachment - whatnow: -attach X-MH-Attachment + send: -attach Nmh-Attachment + whatnow: -attach Nmh-Attachment -You may already have send and whatnow lines in your .mh_profile; if you do, just add -the new stuff to the end of the line. For example, mine looks like: +You may already have send and whatnow lines in your .mh_profile; if +you do, just add the new stuff to the end of the line. For example, +mine looks like: - send: -alias aliases -attach X-MH-Attachment - whatnow: -attach X-MH-Attachment + send: -alias aliases -attach Nmh-Attachment + whatnow: -attach Nmh-Attachment -That's it. Next time you want to send an attachment, say "attach filename" at the -whatnow prompt and you're done. You can check your attachments by saying "alist". +That's it. Next time you want to send an attachment, say "attach +filename" at the whatnow prompt and you're done. You can check your +attachments by saying "alist". +====================================================================== Did I Do This Correctly? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @@ -50,7 +62,8 @@ I am aware of two deviations from what I saw in the nmh code. 1. I commented my changes. 2. It's been years since I've used a VT-100, so I don't try to make code - fit into 80 columns anymore. Seems silly to me. + fit into 80 columns anymore. Seems silly to me. (Some of us might + disagree. :-) What Did I Do? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @@ -77,15 +90,18 @@ draft that looks like this To: jon Subject: test of attachments - X-MH-Attachment: /export/home/jon/foo - X-MH-Attachment: /export/home/jon/bar - X-MH-Attachment: /export/home/jon/test/foo + Nmh-Attachment: /export/home/jon/foo + Nmh-Attachment: /export/home/jon/bar + Nmh-Attachment: /export/home/jon/test/foo -------- has the files "foo", "bar", and foo as attachments. -Although I use the header field name "X-MH-Attachment" to indicate +Although I use the header field name "Nmh-Attachment" to indicate attachments, the implementation allows any header field name. +(Originally, Jon used X-MH-Attachment. We have globally changed that +to Nmh-Attachment to prevent contributing to the X- header field +namespace.) The advantage of using header fields is that the list of attachments travels with the draft so it remains valid across editing sessions. @@ -113,34 +129,35 @@ generalize anno: Using the modified anno, the example above could be created (assuming that the draft exists) by - prompt% anno -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/foo -nodate -append - prompt% anno -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/bar -nodate -append - prompt% anno -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/test/foo -nodate -append + prompt% anno -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/foo -nodate -append + prompt% anno -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/bar -nodate -append + prompt% anno -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/test/foo -nodate -append -One can quite easily make an "attach" command using shell scripts, aliases or functions. -For example, here's a bash function that does the job: +One can quite easily make an "attach" command using shell scripts, +aliases or functions. For example, here's a bash function that does +the job: - function attach() { for i in $*; do anno -append -nodate -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text "$i"; done; } + function attach() { for i in $*; do anno -append -nodate -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text "$i"; done; } The following examples show the different ways in which attachments can be listed. - prompt% anno -list -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment + prompt% anno -list -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment foo bar foo - prompt% anno -list -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text / + prompt% anno -list -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text / /export/home/jon/foo - /export/home/jon/bar +v /export/home/jon/bar /export/home/jon/test/foo - prompt% anno -list -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -number + prompt% anno -list -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -number 1 foo 2 bar 3 foo - prompt% anno -list -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text / -number + prompt% anno -list -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text / -number 1 /export/home/jon/foo 2 /export/home/jon/bar 3 /export/home/jon/test/foo @@ -162,16 +179,16 @@ the same file name in different directories, as in the above example. Attachments are deleted using the -delete option. - prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text foo + prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text foo -deletes the first attachment since the foo matches the basename of the attachment -name. +deletes the first attachment since the foo matches the basename of the +attachment name. - prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/test/foo + prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -text /export/home/jon/test/foo deletes the third attachment since the text is a full path name and matches. - prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp X-MH-Attachment -number 2 + prompt% anno -delete -draft -comp Nmh-Attachment -number 2 deletes the second attachment. @@ -235,35 +252,38 @@ follows: running the file command on the attachment file. The filename is the field body from the attachment header field. -I added an -attach option to whatnow that specifies the header field name for -attachments. - -I added to the commands available at the whatnow prompt to provide an interface -to the attachment mechanism. - -I'm not completely happy with some of these additions because they duplicate -shell functionality. I'm not sure that there's a good way around it other than -to not use whatnow. - -The first three additions (the ones I'm not happy with) are cd, ls, and pwd. -These do the same thing as their system counterparts. As a matter of fact, -these are implemented by running the commands in a subshell. I did this because -I wanted proper interpretation of shell-specific things like ~ and wildcard -expansion. - -The next command is attach. This takes a list of files and adds them to the draft -as attachments using the same code as the modified anno. The list of files is -run through ls using the user's shell, so wildcard expansion and all that works. - -The alist command lists the attachments on the current draft using listing function -that I added to anno. It takes two optional options, -l for a long listing meaning -full path names, and -n for a numbered listing. - -The detach command removes attachments from the current draft, again using the -modified anno. The arguments are interpreted as numbers if the -n option is used, -otherwise they're interpreted as file names. File names are shoveled through ls -using the user's shell in the directory containing the file for wildcard expansion -and such. File names are matched against the last pathname component unless they +I added an -attach option to whatnow that specifies the header field +name for attachments. + +I added to the commands available at the whatnow prompt to provide an +interface to the attachment mechanism. + +I'm not completely happy with some of these additions because they +duplicate shell functionality. I'm not sure that there's a good way +around it other than to not use whatnow. + +The first three additions (the ones I'm not happy with) are cd, ls, +and pwd. These do the same thing as their system counterparts. As a +matter of fact, these are implemented by running the commands in a +subshell. I did this because I wanted proper interpretation of +shell-specific things like ~ and wildcard expansion. + +The next command is attach. This takes a list of files and adds them +to the draft as attachments using the same code as the modified anno. +The list of files is run through ls using the user's shell, so +wildcard expansion and all that works. + +The alist command lists the attachments on the current draft using +listing function that I added to anno. It takes two optional options, +-l for a long listing meaning full path names, and -n for a numbered +listing. + +The detach command removes attachments from the current draft, again +using the modified anno. The arguments are interpreted as numbers if +the -n option is used, otherwise they're interpreted as file names. +File names are shoveled through ls using the user's shell in the +directory containing the file for wildcard expansion and such. File +names are matched against the last pathname component unless they begin with a / in which case they're matched against the entire name. What's Left To Do? -- 1.7.10.4