--- /dev/null
+#
+# NEWS - Release notes for nmh 1.5
+#
+
+Welcome to nmh, the new version of the classic MH mail handling
+system. Long-time MH and nmh users should read carefully the NOTABLE
+CHANGES section, as there are some subtle but significant changes
+to the way nmh now behaves. Otherwise, please see the README and INSTALL
+files for help on getting started with nmh.
+
+------------
+NEW FEATURES
+------------
+
+The following are new features for the 1.5 release of nmh.
+
+- Improved performance for TLS encryption of the SMTP protocol.
+- MH-E and POP support are now always compiled in.
+- The selection of a locking directory for dot-locking files is now
+ controllable via configure.
+- fileproc and mhlproc mh-profile are now obeyed by send, rcvdist,
+ and whatnow.
+- New mh-format instructions have been implemented: %(putlit),
+ %(concataddr), %(myhost), %(myname), %(localmbox). See mh-format(5)
+ for more details.
+- Nmh's idea of the local mailbox is now configurable via a new profile
+ entry, Local-Mailbox. See mh-profile(5) for more details.
+- comp, forw, and dist now process all component templates through
+ mh-format(5), and now all support new command line arguments -from,
+ -to, -cc, -fcc, and -subject.
+- burst(1) now supports any valid message delimiter according to RFC 934.
+- post(8) now requires a From: header in all drafts that it processes;
+ see NOTABLE CHANGES below for more details.
+- post(8) can now explicitly control the SMTP envelope address either via
+ the Sender: header or the new Envelope-From: header.
+- The -attach option is now the default for send (using the header
+ Nmh-Attachment) and -attachformat 1 is the default attachment type.
+- repl and dist now support new switches -atfile and -noatfile to control
+ the creation of the ./@ link to the message being replied or
+ redistributed. The current default is -atfile.
+- Support (if available) for readline editing and filename completion at
+ the WhatNow? prompt.
+- Support for using an external command to filter the body of a message
+ through in mhl. See mhl(1) for more details, specifically, the
+ "format" keyword, the "formatproc" entry in mh-profile(5), and the
+ -fmtproc switch for mhl and repl.
+- Preliminary support for improved MIME handling when replying to messages!
+ Yes, a long requested feature has a solution. A perl script
+ called replyfilter is available; it is designed to act as a mhl
+ external filter to process MIME messages in a more logical way.
+ It is available in $(srcdir)/docs/contrib/replyfilter or is
+ typically installed as $(prefix)/share/doc/nmh/contrib/replyfilter.
+ See the comments at the top of replyfilter for usage information;
+ it will likely require some adjustment for your site. replyfilter
+ requires the MIME-Tools and MailTools perl modules.
+
+----------------------------
+OBSOLETE/DEPRECATED FEATURES
+----------------------------
+
+The following features have either been removed completely or marked
+as officially deprecated for removal in a future release of nmh.
+
+- The creation of the ./@ link to the message being replied or
+ redistributed is deprecated; -noatfile will be the default in the
+ next release. If there are no requests to maintain -atfile it
+ will be removed in a future release.
+- Old code enabled by the UCI preprocessor definition has been removed.
+- All configuration options that were formerly only adjustable by editing
+ config.h have either been moved into configure or removed completely.
+- Support for the built-in ftp client (used when dealing with external-body
+ message parts in MIME messages) has been removed.
+- The following environment variables are marked as obsolete/deprecated.
+ Support for them will be removed from the next nmh release:
+ MHPOPDEBUG (use -snoop command line switch instead)
+ MM_NOASK (use -nolist and -nopause command line switches instead)
+ NOMHNPROC (use -nocheckmime command line switch instead)
+ FACEPROC (undocumented faceproc feature to be removed)
+- The hostable option of mts.conf is no longer needed and has been removed.
+
+---------------
+NOTABLE CHANGES
+---------------
+
+The largest change is that post(8) now requires a From: header in all drafts
+that it processes.
+
+The impetus for this change has been the evolution of email and client
+systems. When MH was first developed the norm was to have tightly managed
+clients that were part of the same domain as a user's email address. This
+is no longer a valid assumption, and the algorithm used by nmh to determine
+the user's local mailbox is no longer a reasonable default.
+
+Unfortunately, the way that nmh uses the user's local mailbox used to happen
+very late in the message process; it was handled by post during message
+submission. If no From: header exists in the current draft post would
+insert one based on it's idea of the local mailbox, which was frequently
+wrong.
+
+After a long discussion within the nmh development community, it was
+decided that the only reasonable way forward was to move the local mailbox
+handling up a level and place it under more direct control of the end
+user. post(8) no longer will try to determine the local mailbox name;
+it will take that information from the draft message. Thus a From: header
+is now required in all drafts.
+
+As part of these changes, all message composition utilities now process
+their component files using mh-format. All of the default component
+files have been modified to include a From: header in them; this will
+give the user a chance to see nmh's idea of the local mailbox and modify
+it if desired. The new mh-profile(5) entry Local-Mailbox can be used
+to adjust the local mailbox name if the system default is not appropriate.
+
+So how should end-users adapt to these changes? Here are some suggestions:
+
+1) If you use the default component files, everything should basically work
+ the same for you. You should see a From: header in the drafts of your
+ messages. If the address you see in the From: header is incorrect
+ you can change it via the Local-Mailbox profile entry. You can also
+ use the -from switch to change it on a per-command basis.
+
+2) If you have custom component files that include a From: header or
+ you perform custom processing on drafts that end up placing a From:
+ header in the draft message, everything should work as before.
+
+3) If you have custom component files that do NOT include a From: header
+ then you will have to adapt then to include a From: header. You
+ can either simply hard-code the correct From: header or use the
+ default component files as a guide (see mh-format(5) for more
+ details, specifically the %(localmbox) function).
+
+The other significant change is the support for filters in mhl. Included
+in the distribution is replyfilter, a filter designed for sane processing
+of MIME messages during replies. Since this isn't as integrated into
+nmh as we would prefer, it's included in the contrib directory as an
+optional component. Please try it out and give us feedback.
+
+--
+The nmh team
+nmh-workers@nongnu.org
Things to add to the release notes for the next full release:
-- Switched to buffered output when performing TLS encryption in the SMTP
- MTA to increase performance.
-- mh-e support has been changed so that it is always compiled into nmh;
- old features that were previously enabled by the MHE option have been
- garbage collected.
-- Old code enabled by the UCI preprocessor definition has been
- garbage-collected.
-- LOCKDIR is now configurable via --enable-lockdir
-- All configuration options that were formerly only adjustable via editing
- config.h have been removed.
-- Support for the built-in ftp client (used when dealing with external body
- message parts in MIME messages) has been removed.
-- fileproc and mhlproc mh-profile entries will now be obeyed by
- send, rcvdist, and whatnow.
-- New mh-format(5) instructions have been implemented: %(putlit),
- %(concataddr), %(myhost), %(myname)
-- The --enable-pop configure option has been removed; POP support is now
- compiled in always.
-- You can now filter the body of a message through a user-defined filter
- program inside of repl (the idea is that it will be used by repl).
- See mhl(1), specifically the "format" keyword and "formatproc" in
- mh-profile(5).
-- The test suite has been integrated into the Makefile via "make check".
-- The following environment variables are obsolete/deprecated. Support for
- them will be removed from the next nmh release:
- MHPOPDEBUG (use -snoop command line switch instead)
- MM_NOASK (use -nolist and -nopause command line switches instead)
- NOMHNPROC (use -nocheckmime command line switch instead)
- FACEPROC (undocumented faceproc feature to be removed)
-- nmh's idea of the local mailbox is available via a new mh-profile(5)
- escape, %(localmbox). The local mailbox name is now configurable
- via a new mh-profile(5) entry, Local-Mailbox.
-- comp, forw, and dist all support -from, -to, -cc, -fcc, and -subject
- switches. They also all process all component templates through
- mh-format(5).
-- post(8) now requires a From: header in all drafts that it processes
- for sending. The default component templates have all been adjusted
- to include appropriate From: headers based on either the -from switch
- or the local mailbox.
-- burst(1) now supports any valid message delimiter according to RFC 934.
-- A problem with the MD5 digest calculator on 64-bit systems has been fixed.
-- Fixed mhbuild -check to properly insert Content-MD5 header.
-- Fixed mhlist -verbose to work with all content types [Bug #35219].
-- Fixed file descriptor leaks in mhparse [Bug #24004: (debbug 344182)].
-- Fixed mhstore to honor nmh-storage profile entry even with -auto
- [Bug #35303].
-- post(8) can now explicitly control the SMTP envelope address either via
- the Sender: header or the new Envelope-From: header.
-- The -attach option is now the default (using Nmh-Attachment) and
- -attachformat 1 is now the default.
-- repl and dist currently create a link named ./@ to the message being
- replied or redistributed. A switch, -noatfile, has been added to
- disable creation of this link. The current default behavior can
- also be specified with -atfile. The current default behavior is
- obsolete/deprecated: -noatfile will become the default in the next
- nmh release. If there are no requests to maintain -atfile, it will
- be removed in the future.
-- Added support for readline editing and command/filename completion at
- the WhatNow? prompt
-- The hostable option of mts.conf is no longer needed and has been removed.
-- A sample mhl filter for handling MIME content inside of mhl has been
- placed as "replyfilter" in the doc contrib directory, which is typically
- installed as <prefix>/share/doc/nmh/contrib/.
projects / mmh / commitdiff