HELP MAIL                                         Aaron Sloman, Jan 1997

There used to be a HELP MAIL file distributed with Poplog accessible as
    $usepop/pop/help/mail

However, the main mail reading system (ENTER mail) that it describes is
out of date and has been superseded by the ENTER getmail procedure,
described in
    HELP * VED_GETMAIL

To make it available do

    uses vedmail

You can get a VED "menu" panel to guide you with the use of getmail, and
related commands for posting and replying to mail if you do

    ENTER menu mail

If you find that panel confusing, or would like help in configuring it
to present a different set of options, or a different arrangement of the
options, please email A.Sloman or post to comp.lang.pop or pop-forum

There are several Unix mail readers some using the X window graphical
facilities including mouse keys, others using only the keyboard.
Examples are

Text only mailers:
    elm         --  See MAN * elm

    pine        --  See MAN * pine

    mailx       --  See MAN * mailx
        This is not an X-based mailer.

    mail        --  See MAN * mail
        "mail" is a very primitive and unhelpful mail program. It is not
        recommended. If you want something simple, use "mailx"

    mh          --  See MAN * mh, xmh
        "xmh" provides an X interface to "mh". The latter is a
        collection of Unix shell commands.

X-based:
    xmail       --  See MAN * xmail
    mailtool    --  See MAN * mailtool

And others. Some of the mail programs that are easier to get started on
are far more restrictive and harder to control (e.g. formatting of your
text).

Many mailers allow you to invoke an editor of your choice to compose a
message, or a reply to a message. In your .login file you can usually
specify which editor you want by setting the VISUAL and EDITOR
environment variables. (There are two so that you can use different
editors for different purposes). For example if you wish only to use VED
as your editor, you can put the following in your .login file:

    setenv VISUAL "ved"
    setenv EDITOR "ved"

Some editors will require a more complex format.

(If you use ksh or bash as your login shell you will need a different
syntax, but you should be able to work it out.)

If you wish to read and send mail in VED there are many useful
utilities, including commands to prepare a reply that includes the
original text indented, so that you can easily quote portions. If you
wish to send programming examples or error messages from Poplog
programs, or if you wish to include portions of othe files in your mail
message, you can do this very easily in VED. Moreover, because VED is
programmable in Pop-11 you can usually extend it if it does not include
some option you require.

(Emacs provides similar functionality).

For more information on reading and sending mail in VED see
the following:


TEACH * RHYME
    - Provides practice using VED, including using it to send and read
      mail. (For beginners.)

HELP * VED_GETMAIL
    - reading Unix mail inside the editor VED (+ overview)

HELP * SEND
    - sending mail from inside VED

HELP * VED_REPLY
    - replying to mail inside the editor (Unix only)

HELP * VED_GETMAIL/respond
    - How to reply using a quoted version of the original message.

HELP * MAILRC
    - gives information on defining your own mail aliases and
      controlling the behaviour of some Unix mail programs.

HELP * VED_ALIAS
HELP * VED_ALIASES
    - Describe VED commands for checking on your own aliases in your
      .mailrc file, and the system alias lists here in Birmingham.

HELP * VED_CHECKMAIL
    - describes the VED "ENTER checkmail" command to check for incoming
      mail at regular intervals and notify you if something arrives.

The old VED mail help file, can be read using the following command

    ENTER pved $usepop/pop/help/ved_mail

("pved" stands for "protected ved": i.e. if you accidentally try to
write the file it won't let you even try. So you don't get Unix error
messages about the file not being writeable.)

For reading and posting to internet bulleting boards (Net News, also
known as "usenet") see

HELP * VED_GN
    For getting and reading news articles
HELP * VED_POSTNEWS
    For posting news articles

HELP * VED_POSTNEWS/followup
    For posting a followup article, or replying only to the author.


--- $poplocal/local/help/mail
--- Copyright University of Birmingham 1997. All rights reserved. ------