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. I hate 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) is hosting the
22 mailing lists, web pages, and CVS repository for nmh now.
24 This FAQ was originally written by Richard, and the "I"s in it
27 4) Why are you developing nmh?
30 a) It's an interesting project.
31 b) I like using MH/nmh.
32 c) I wanted to increase the portability of MH.
33 d) I wanted to make MH easier to install (convert to autoconf).
34 e) I wanted to remove all the unnecessary junk from the
35 MH distribution (pop daemon, bulletin board support, etc...).
36 f) UCI seems to have abandoned MH, so someone needed to pick up
39 5) What is the copyright status of nmh?
41 nmh is distributed under a variant of the classical BSD copyright.
42 Check the COPYRIGHT file in the nmh distribution for the details.
43 There are some specific files which were contributed to the original
44 MH package that are copyrighted by their original author. We have
45 retained the copyright notices of these authors in these files.
47 Essentially, you can do anything you want with the nmh package as long
48 as you don't blame us if it trashes all your mail.
50 6) What is the difference between nmh and MH?
52 Check the file DIFFERENCES in the nmh distribution for the
53 (ever growing) list of differences between nmh and MH.
55 7) Where do I get nmh?
57 The latest version of nmh is available at
58 ftp://ftp.mhost.com/pub/nmh/nmh.tar.gz
60 8) Where is the nmh web page?
62 The nmh home page is located at
63 http://www.mhost.com/nmh/
65 9) Where is the nmh mailing list?
67 There is a mailing list for nmh development at:
70 To subscribe, send e-mail to the administrative address:
71 nmh-workers-request@mhost.com
73 with the subject "subscribe" (without the quotes).
75 10) Where do I report bugs in nmh?
77 Send bug reports and suggestions to
80 11) Which mail transfer agents (MTA's) are supported?
82 The default setup for nmh is to use SMTP, so nmh should work with
83 most MTA's that provide a standard SMTP connection on port 25.
84 Also you may configure nmh to use a sendmail interface (still
85 uses SMTP) by using the configure option --with-mts=sendmail.
86 There is also an option (--enable-pop) to include client-side
89 12) Why does `folder' and `flist' overlook some of my subfolders?
91 There was a bug in these commands which caused them to quit
92 searching a folder for subfolders too early, if the folder contained
93 subfolders which were symbolic links. This has been improved in
94 nmh-0.25, but `folder' and `flist' will still not recurse into
95 folders that contain only symbolic links.
97 13) Why doesn't the (X)Emacs package `mh-e' work with
100 In nmh, the default location of things have changed. Also the MH
101 lib directory has been split into a `etc' directory (containing
102 configuration files and components), and a `lib' directory
103 (containing support binaries). So sometimes mh-e has trouble
104 finding the components skeleton for composing new mail or replies.
105 Depending on the install location of nmh at your site, you will
106 need to add something similar to the following to your .emacs file.
107 The lines for `mh-comp-formfile' and `mh-repl-formfile' should point
108 to your personal copies of these files (if you have them) or else
109 point to the default nmh versions.
111 ;; set a few mh-e variables for nmh
112 (setq mh-progs "/usr/local/nmh/bin/")
113 (setq mh-lib "/usr/local/nmh/lib/")
114 (setq mh-comp-formfile "/usr/local/nmh/etc/components")
115 (setq mh-repl-formfile "/usr/local/nmh/etc/replcomps")