Content-Type: text/x-zim-wiki Wiki-Format: zim 0.4 Creation-Date: 2011-12-29T14:32:36+08:00 ====== Manual ====== Created Thursday 29 December 2011 http://www.mutt.org/doc/devel/manual.html#intro The Mutt E-Mail Client Michael Elkins version 1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Abstract “All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.” — me, circa 1995 ===== Table of Contents ===== 1. Introduction 1. Mutt Home Page 2. Mailing Lists 3. Getting Mutt 4. Mutt Online Resources 5. Contributing to Mutt 6. Typographical Conventions 7. Copyright 2. Getting Started 1. Core Concepts 2. Screens and Menus 2.1. Index 2.2. Pager 2.3. File Browser 2.4. Help 2.5. Compose Menu 2.6. Alias Menu 2.7. Attachment Menu 3. Moving Around in Menus 4. Editing Input Fields 4.1. Introduction 4.2. History 5. Reading Mail 5.1. The Message Index 5.2. The Pager 5.3. Threaded Mode 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions 6. Sending Mail 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Editing the Message Header 6.3. Sending Cryptographically Signed/Encrypted Messages 6.4. Sending Format=Flowed Messages 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail 8. Postponing Mail 3. Configuration 1. Location of Initialization Files 2. Syntax of Initialization Files 3. Address Groups 4. Defining/Using Aliases 5. Changing the Default Key Bindings 6. Defining Aliases for Character Sets 7. Setting Variables Based Upon Mailbox 8. Keyboard Macros 9. Using Color and Mono Video Attributes 10. Message Header Display 10.1. Header Display 10.2. Selecting Headers 10.3. Ordering Displayed Headers 11. Alternative Addresses 12. Mailing Lists 13. Using Multiple Spool Mailboxes 14. Monitoring Incoming Mail 15. User-Defined Headers 16. Specify Default Save Mailbox 17. Specify Default Fcc: Mailbox When Composing 18. Specify Default Save Filename and Default Fcc: Mailbox at Once 19. Change Settings Based Upon Message Recipients 20. Change Settings Before Formatting a Message 21. Choosing the Cryptographic Key of the Recipient 22. Adding Key Sequences to the Keyboard Buffer 23. Executing Functions 24. Message Scoring 25. Spam Detection 26. Setting and Querying Variables 26.1. Variable Types 26.2. Commands 26.3. User-Defined Variables 26.4. Type Conversions 27. Reading Initialization Commands From Another File 28. Removing Hooks 29. Format Strings 29.1. Basic usage 29.2. Conditionals 29.3. Filters 29.4. Padding 4. Advanced Usage 1. Character Set Handling 2. Regular Expressions 3. Patterns: Searching, Limiting and Tagging 3.1. Pattern Modifier 3.2. Simple Searches 3.3. Nesting and Boolean Operators 3.4. Searching by Date 4. Using Tags 5. Using Hooks 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks 6. External Address Queries 7. Mailbox Formats 8. Mailbox Shortcuts 9. Handling Mailing Lists 10. New Mail Detection 10.1. How New Mail Detection Works 10.2. Polling For New Mail 11. Editing Threads 11.1. Linking Threads 11.2. Breaking Threads 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support 13. Start a WWW Browser on URLs 14. Miscellany 5. Mutt's MIME Support 1. Using MIME in Mutt 1.1. MIME Overview 1.2. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager 1.3. The Attachment Menu 1.4. The Compose Menu 2. MIME Type Configuration with mime.types 3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap 3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File 3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap 3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage 3.4. Example Mailcap Files 4. MIME Autoview 5. MIME Multipart/Alternative 6. Attachment Searching and Counting 7. MIME Lookup 6. Optional Features 1. General Notes 1.1. Enabling/Disabling Features 1.2. URL Syntax 2. SSL/TLS Support 3. POP3 Support 4. IMAP Support 4.1. The IMAP Folder Browser 4.2. Authentication 5. SMTP Support 6. Managing Multiple Accounts 7. Local Caching 7.1. Header Caching 7.2. Body Caching 7.3. Cache Directories 7.4. Maintenance 8. Exact Address Generation 9. Sending Anonymous Messages via Mixmaster 7. Security Considerations 1. Passwords 2. Temporary Files 3. Information Leaks 3.1. Message-Id: headers 3.2. mailto:-style Links 4. External Applications 8. Performance Tuning 1. Reading and Writing Mailboxes 2. Reading Messages from Remote Folders 3. Searching and Limiting Mutt is a small but very powerful **text-based MIME mail client**. Mutt is highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting groups of messages. ====== 1. Mutt Home Page ====== The official homepage can be found at http://www.mutt.org/. ===== 2. Mailing Lists ===== To subscribe to one of the following mailing lists, send a message with the word subscribe in the body to list-name-request@mutt.org. — low traffic list for announcements — help, bug reports and feature requests — development mailing list All messages posted to mutt-announce are automatically forwarded to mutt-users, so you do not need to be subscribed to both lists. ===== 3. Getting Mutt ===== Mutt releases can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/. For a list of mirror sites, please refer to http://www.mutt.org/download.html. For nightly tarballs and version control access, please refer to the Mutt development site. ===== 4. Mutt Online Resources ===== Bug Tracking System The official Mutt bug tracking system can be found at http://bugs.mutt.org/ Wiki An (unofficial) wiki can be found at http://wiki.mutt.org/. IRC For the IRC user community, visit channel #mutt on irc.freenode.net. USENET For USENET, see the newsgroup __comp.mail.mutt__. ===== 5. Contributing to Mutt ===== There are various ways to contribute to the Mutt project. Especially for new users it may be helpful to meet other new and experienced users to __chat about__ Mutt, talk about problems and __share tricks__. Since translations of Mutt into other languages are highly appreciated, the Mutt developers always look for skilled translators that help improve and continue to maintain stale translations. For contributing code patches for new features and bug fixes, please refer to the developer pages at http://dev.mutt.org/ for more details. ===== 6. Typographical Conventions ===== This section lists typographical conventions followed throughout this manual. See table Table 1.1, “Typographical conventions for special terms” for typographical conventions for special terms. Table 1.1. Typographical conventions for special terms Item Refers to... printf(3) UNIX manual pages, execute man 3 printf named keys named Mutt function ^G Control+G key combination $mail_check Mutt configuration option $HOME environment variable Examples are presented as: mutt -v Within command synopsis, curly brackets (“{}”) denote a set of options of which one is **mandatory**, square brackets (“[]”) denote **optional** arguments, three dots denote that the argument may be repeated **arbitrary times**. ===== 7. Copyright ===== Mutt is Copyright © 1996-2009 Michael R. Elkins and others. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. ====== Chapter 2. Getting Started ====== Table of Contents 1. Core Concepts 2. Screens and Menus 2.1. Index 2.2. Pager 2.3. File Browser 2.4. Help 2.5. Compose Menu 2.6. Alias Menu 2.7. Attachment Menu 3. Moving Around in Menus 4. Editing Input Fields 4.1. Introduction 4.2. History 5. Reading Mail 5.1. The Message Index 5.2. The Pager 5.3. Threaded Mode 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions 6. Sending Mail 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Editing the Message Header 6.3. Sending Cryptographically Signed/Encrypted Messages 6.4. Sending Format=Flowed Messages 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail 8. Postponing Mail This section is intended as a **brief overview** of how to use Mutt. There are many other features which are described elsewhere in the manual. There is even more information available in the __Mutt FAQ__ and various web pages. See the Mutt homepage for more details. The __keybindings __described in this section are the defaults as distributed. Your local system administrator may have altered the defaults for your site. You can always type **“?”** in any menu to display the current bindings. The first thing you need to do is invoke Mutt, simply by typing mutt at the command line. There are various command-line options, see either the Mutt man page or the reference. ===== 1. Core Concepts ===== Mutt is a text-based application which interacts with users through different** menus** which are mostly__ line-/entry-based or page-based__. A line-based menu is the so-called __“index” menu__ (listing all messages of the currently opened folder) or the __“alias” menu__ (allowing you to select recipients from a list). Examples for page-based menus are the __“pager” __(showing one message at a time) or the__ “help”__ menu listing all available key bindings. The user interface consists of a** context sensitive **__help line__ at the top, the **menu's **__contents__ followed by a **context sensitive **__status line__ and finally the __command line__. The command line is used to display informational and error messages as well as for prompts and for entering interactive commands. Mutt is configured through **variables** which, if the user wants to permanently use a non-default value, are written to configuration files. Mutt supports a rich config file syntax to make even complex configuration files readable and commentable. Because Mutt allows for customizing almost all key bindings, there are so-called “**functions**” which can be executed __manually__ (using the command line) or in __macros__. Macros allow the user to** bind a sequence** of commands to a single key or a short key sequence instead of repeating a sequence of actions over and over. Many commands (such as saving or copying a message to another folder) can be applied to a single message or __a set of__ messages (so-called __“tagged” messages__). To help selecting messages, Mutt provides a rich set of __message patterns__ (such as recipients, sender, body contents, date sent/received, etc.) which can be combined into complex expressions using the boolean and and or operations as well as negating. These patterns can also be used to (for example) search for messages or to limit the index to show only matching messages. Mutt supports __a “hook” concept__ which allows the user to execute arbitrary configuration commands and functions **in certain situations** such as entering a folder, starting a new message or replying to an existing one. These hooks can be used to** highly customize Mutt's behavior** including managing multiple identities, customizing the display for a folder or even implementing auto-archiving based on a per-folder basis and much more. Besides an interactive mode, Mutt can also be used as a__ command-line tool__ only send messages. It also supports a mailx(1)-compatible interface, see Table 9.1, “Command line options” for a complete list of command-line options. ===== 2. Screens and Menus ===== ==== 2.1. Index ==== The index is the screen that you usually see first when you start Mutt. It gives** an overview** over your emails in the __currently opened mailbox__. By default, this is your system mailbox. The information you see in the index is __a list of __emails, each with its **number **on the left, its** flags** (new email, important email, email that has been forwarded or replied to, tagged email, ...), the** date **when email was sent, its **sender**, the email** size**, and the **subject**. Additionally, the index also shows __thread hierarchies__: when you reply to an email, and the other person replies back, you can see the other person's email in a __"sub-tree"__ below. This is especially useful for personal email between a group of people or when you've subscribed to mailing lists. ==== 2.2. Pager ==== The pager is responsible for __showing the email content__. On the top of the pager you have an overview over the most important__ email headers__ like the sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more information. How much information you actually see depends on your configuration, which we'll describe below. Below the headers, you see the __email body__ which usually contains the message. If the email contains any **attachments**, you will see more information about them below the email body, or, if the attachments are text files, you can view them **directly** in the pager. To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure Mutt to show different things in the pager with __different colors__. Virtually everything that can be described with a __regular expression __can be colored, e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys. ==== 2.3. File Browser ==== The file browser is the interface to the __local or remote file system__. When selecting a __mailbox__ to open, the browser allows custom sorting of items, limiting the items shown by a regular expression and a freely adjustable format of what to display in which way. It also allows for easy navigation through the file system when **selecting file**(s) to attach to a message, select **multiple files** to attach and many more. ==== 2.4. Help ==== The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It lists the current configuration of **key bindings** and their **associated commands** including a short description, and currently unbound functions that still need to be associated with a key binding (or alternatively, they can be called via the Mutt command prompt). ==== 2.5. Compose Menu ==== The compose menu features a split screen containing the information which really matter __before actually sending a message__ by mail: who gets the message as what (recipients and who gets what kind of copy). Additionally, users may set __security options__ like deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and encrypt a message with/for what keys. Also, it's used to attach messages, to re-edit any attachment including the message itself. ==== 2.6. Alias Menu ==== The alias menu is used to help users** finding the recipients** of messages. For users who need to contact many people, there's no need to remember addresses or names completely because it allows for searching, too. The alias mechanism and thus the alias menu also features__ grouping several addresses__ by a shorter nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't have to select each single recipient manually. ==== 2.7. Attachment Menu ==== As will be later discussed in detail, Mutt features a good and stable MIME implementation, that is, it supports sending and receiving messages of arbitrary MIME types. The attachment menu displays a__ message's structure__ in detail: what content parts are attached to which parent part (which gives a true tree structure), which type is of what type and what size. **Single **parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and easy access to message's internals. ===== 3. Moving Around in Menus ===== The most important navigation keys common to** line- or entry-based menus** are shown in Table 2.1, “Most common navigation keys in entry-based menus” and in Table 2.2, “Most common navigation keys in **page-based menus**” for page-based menus. Table 2.1. Most common navigation keys in entry-based menus Key Function Description j or move to the next entry k or move to the previous entry z or go to the **next page** Z or go to the** previous page** = or jump to the **first entry** * or jump to the** last entry** q exit the__ current menu__ ? list all keybindings for the current menu Table 2.2. Most common navigation keys in **page-based** menus #注意定义的快捷键不要和上表重复。 Key Function Description __J __or scroll down one line scroll up one line __K__, or move to the next page - or move the previous page move to the top move to the bottom ===== 4. Editing Input Fields ===== ==== 4.1. Introduction ==== Mutt has a **built-in line editor for inputting text**, e.g. email addresses or filenames. The keys used to manipulate text input are very similar to those of __Emacs__. See Table 2.3, “Most common line editor keys” for a full reference of available functions, their default key bindings, and short descriptions. Table 2.3. Most common line editor keys Key Function Description ^A or move to the start of the line ^B or move back one char Esc B move back one word ^D or delete the char under the cursor ^E or move to the end of the line ^F or move forward one char Esc F move forward one word complete **filename or alias** ^T complete__ address with query__ ^K delete to the end of the line Esc d delete to the end of the word ^W kill the word in front of the cursor ^U delete entire line ^V __quote__ the next typed key <__history-up__> recall previous string from history recall next string from history kill the char in front of the cursor Esc u convert word to upper case Esc l convert word to lower case Esc c capitalize the word ^G n/a __abort__ n/a finish editing You can __remap__ the editor functions using the** bind command**. For example, to make the key delete the character in front of the cursor rather than under, you could use: bind editor backspace ===== 4.2. History ===== Mutt maintains a history for the **built-in editor**. The** number of items** is controlled by the __$history__ variable and can be made persistent using an external file specified using __$history_file__. You may **cycle through** them at an editor prompt by using the and/or commands. But notice that Mutt does not remember the currently entered text, it only cycles through history and wraps around at the end or beginning. Mutt maintains several distinct history lists, one for each of the following categories: * .muttrc commands * addresses and aliases * shell commands * filenames * patterns * everything else Mutt automatically filters out consecutively repeated items from the history. It also mimics the behavior of some shells by ignoring items starting with a space. The latter feature can be useful in macros to not clobber the history's valuable entries with unwanted entries. ===== 5. Reading Mail ===== Similar to many other mail clients, there are __two modes__ in which mail is read in Mutt. The first is** a list of messages** in the __mailbox__, which is called the “index” menu in Mutt. The second mode is the **display of the message contents**. This is called the “pager.” The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these modes. ==== 5.1. The Message Index ==== Common keys used to navigate through and manage messages in the index are shown in Table 2.4, “Most common message index keys”. How messages are presented in the index menu can be customized using the __$index_format __variable. Table 2.4. Most common message index keys Key Description __c__ change to a different mailbox Esc c change to a folder in read-only mode C copy the current message to another mailbox #未解码的原始邮件 Esc C **decode **a message and copy it to a folder #解码的邮件。 Esc s decode a message and **save** it to a folder D delete messages matching a pattern d delete the** current **message F mark as** important** __l__ show messages matching a pattern N mark message as **new** o change the current **sort method** O reverse sort the mailbox q **save changes** and exit s save-message T __tag messages__ matching a pattern t toggle the tag on a message Esc t toggle tag on **entire message thread** U undelete messages matching a pattern u undelete-message v view-attachments x **abort changes** and exit __display-message__ jump to the next **new or unread** message @ show the author's **full e-mail address** __$__ save changes to mailbox / search Esc / search-reverse ^L clear and redraw the screen ^T __untag messages__ matching a pattern In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of the **disposition** of each message is printed beside the message number. Zero or more of the “flags” in Table 2.5, “Message status flags” may appear, some of which can be turned on or off using these functions: ** and ** bound by default to __“w” and “W”__ respectively. Furthermore, the flags in Table 2.6, “Message recipient flags” reflect who the message is addressed to. They can be customized with the **$to_chars** variable. Table 2.5. Message __status flags__ Flag Description D message is deleted (is marked for deletion) d message has **attachments** marked for deletion K contains a PGP public key N message is __new__ O message is __old__ P message is PGP encrypted r message has** been replied to** S message is signed, and the signature is successfully verified s message is signed ! message is __flagged important__ *message is __tagged__ n thread contains new messages (only if collapsed) o thread contains old messages (only if collapsed) Table 2.6. Message__ recipient flags__ Flag Description __+__ message is to you and you only T message is to you, but also to or CC'ed to others C message is CC'ed to you F message is from you L message is sent to a subscribed **mailing list** ==== 5.2. The Pager ==== By default, Mutt uses its **built-in pager** to display the contents of messages (an external pager such as less(1) can be configured, see __$pager__ variable). The pager is very similar to the Unix program** less(1)** though not nearly as featureful. Table 2.7. Most common pager keys Key Description ____ go down one line display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message) - go back to the previous page S skip beyond quoted text T toggle display of quoted text ? show keybindings / __regular expression search__ __#mutt使用的是扩展的正则表达式形式__ n search for next match Esc / backward regular expression search \ toggle__ highlighting __of search matches ^ jump to the top of the message In addition to key bindings in Table 2.7, “Most common pager keys”, many of the functions from the index menu are also available in the pager, such as or (this is **one advantage** over using an external pager to view messages). Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For one, it will accept and translate the __“standard” nroff __sequences for bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter, backspace (“^H”), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace, “_” for denoting underline. Mutt will attempt to display these in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If not, you can use the bold and underline color objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them. Additionally, the internal pager supports the **ANSI escape sequences** for character attributes. Mutt translates them into the correct color and character settings. The sequences Mutt supports are: __\e[Ps;Ps;..Ps;m__ where **Ps **can be one of the codes shown in Table 2.8, “ANSI escape sequences”. Table 2.8. ANSI escape sequences Escape code Description 0 All attributes off 1 Bold on 4 Underline on 5 Blink on 7 Reverse video on 3 __Foreground color__ is (see Table 2.9, “Color sequences”) 4 Background color is (see Table 2.9, “Color sequences”) Table 2.9. Color sequences Color code Color 0 Black 1 Red 2 Green 3 Yellow 4 Blue 5 Magenta 6 Cyan 7 White Mutt uses these attributes for handling __text/enriched__ messages, and they can also be used by an external **autoview** script for highlighting purposes. Note If you change the colors for your display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green. Note Note that the search commands in the pager take regular expressions, which are **not quite the same** as the more complex patterns used by the search command in the index. This is because patterns are used to select messages by criteria whereas the pager already displays a selected message. ==== 5.3. Threaded Mode ==== So-called “threads” provide a __hierarchy of messages __where **replies are linked to their parent** message(s). This organizational form is extremely useful in mailing lists where different parts of the discussion diverge. Mutt displays threads as __a tree structure__. In Mutt, when a mailbox is sorted by threads, there are a few additional functions available in the index and pager modes as shown in Table 2.10, “Most common thread mode keys”. Table 2.10. Most common thread mode keys Key Function Description ^D delete** all messages** in the current thread ^U undelete all messages in the current thread ^N jump to the start of the __next thread__ ^P jump to the start of the previous thread ^R mark the current thread __as read__ __Esc__ d delete all messages in the **current subthread** Esc u undelete all messages in the current subthread Esc n jump to the start of the __next subthread__ Esc p jump to the start of the previous subthread Esc r mark the current subthread as read Esc t __toggle the tag__ on the current thread Esc v __toggle collapse__ for the current thread Esc V toggle collapse for **all threads** P jump to parent message in thread Collapsing a thread displays only the** first message** in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads on the screen. See **%M in $index_format**. For example, you could use “%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?” in $index_format to optionally display the **number of hidden messages** if the thread is collapsed. The __%??&?__ syntax is explained in detail in format string conditionals. Technically, every reply should contain a list of its parent messages in the thread tree, but not all do. In these cases, Mutt groups them by subject which can be controlled using the $strict_threads variable. ==== 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions ==== In addition, the index and pager menus have these interesting functions: * (default: __a__) Creates a new alias based upon the **current message** (or prompts for a new one). Once editing is complete, an alias command is added to the file specified by the __$alias_file__ variable for future use Note Mutt does not read the $alias_file upon startup so you must __explicitly source __the file. * (default: Esc P) This function will search the current message fo__r content signed or encrypted__ with PGP the “traditional” way, that is, without proper MIME tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change the MIME content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this is similar to the function's effect. __ (default: e)__ This command (available in the index and pager) allows you to edit the **raw current message **as it's present in the mail folder. After you have finished editing, the changed message will be __appended__ to the current folder, and the original message will be __marked for deletion__; if the message is unchanged it won't be replaced. (default:__ ^E__ on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index menus; __^T __on the compose menu) This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's **content type **to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the opportunity to edit the __top-level __attachment's content type. On the **attachment menu**, you can change any attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get lost upon changing folders. Note that this command is also available on the compose menu. There, it's used to __fine-tune the properties of attachments__ you are going to send. (default: “:”) This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or in conjunction with **macros** to change settings on the fly. (default: ^K) This command **extracts PGP public keys** from the current or tagged message(s) and adds them to your __PGP public key ring__. (default: ^F) This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if you misspelled the passphrase. (default: L) Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which match the regular expressions given by the __lists or subscribe commands(这两个变量值需要在配置文件中指定。)__, but also honor any Mail-Followup-To header(s) if the** $honor_followup_to** configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted to __mailing lists __helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of the message you are replying to. (default: |) Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or tagged message(s) to it. The variables __$pipe_decode, $pipe_split, $pipe_sep and $wait_key __control the exact behavior of this function. (default: Esc e) Mutt takes the current message__ as a template for a new message__. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while **preserving the original mail structure**. Note that the amount of headers included here depends on the value of the $weed variable. This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this to easily resend a message which was included with a **bounce message** as a message/rfc822 body part. (default: !) #一般要设置$wait_key参数，同时注意没有指定命令时，启动的是交互式shell。 Asks for an __external Unix command__ and executes it. The __$wait_key__ can be used to control whether Mutt will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on the return status of the named command. If no command is given, an__ interactive shell __is executed. (default: T) The pager uses the __$quote_regexp__ variable to detect quoted text when displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when being interested in just the** response **and there is a large amount of quoted text in the way. (default: S) This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which comes after a line of quoted text in the internal pager. ===== 6. Sending Mail ===== ==== 6.1. Introduction ==== The bindings shown in Table 2.11, “Most common mail sending keys” are available in the index and pager to start a new message. Table 2.11. Most common mail sending keys Key Function Description m compose a new message r reply to sender g __reply to all recipients__ L reply to mailing list address f forward message b __bounce (remail) message__ Esc k mail a** PGP public key** to someone Bouncing a message sends the message as-is to the recipient you specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or modify the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed in greater detail in the next section “Forwarding and Bouncing Mail.” Mutt will then enter the** compose menu **and prompt you for the recipients to place on the “To:” header field when you hit m to start a new message. Next, it will ask you for the “Subject:” field for the message, providing a default if you are replying to or forwarding a message. You again have the chance to adjust recipients, subject, and security settings right before actually sending the message. See also $askcc, $askbcc, $autoedit, $bounce, __$fast_reply__, and__ $include__ for changing how and if Mutt asks these questions. When replying, Mutt** fills these fields **with proper values depending on the **reply type**. The types of replying supported are: Simple reply Reply to the author directly. Group reply Reply to the author as well to all recipients except you; this consults alternates. List reply Reply to all mailing list addresses found, either specified via configuration or auto-detected. See Section 12, “Mailing Lists” for details. After getting recipients for new messages, forwards or replies, Mutt will then automatically start your __$editor__ on the message body. If the __$edit_headers __variable is set, the headers will be at the top of the message in your editor. Any messages you are replying to will be added in sort order to the message, with appropriate $attribution, __$indent_string __and __$post_indent_string__. When forwarding a message, if the $mime_forward variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If you have specified a $signature, it will be appended to the message. Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are returned to the compose menu providing the functions shown in Table 2.12, “Most common compose menu keys” to modify, send or postpone the message. Table 2.12. Most common compose menu keys Key Function Description a attach a file A attach message(s) to the message Esc k attach a PGP public key d edit __description on attachment__ D __detach a file__ t edit the To field __Esc f__ edit the From field r edit the Reply-To field c edit the Cc field __b__ edit the Bcc field y send the message s edit the Subject S select** S/MIME options** __f__ specify an** “Fcc” mailbox** p select PGP options P __postpone this message __until later __q__ quit (abort) sending the message __w__ write the message to a folder i check spelling (if available on your system) ^F wipe passphrase(s) from memory The compose menu is also used to edit the attachments for a message which can be either files or other messages. The function to will prompt you for a folder to attach messages from. You can now__ tag messages__ in that folder and they will be attached to the message you are sending. 通过tag的方式，一次可以选中多个文件或条目，进行下次操作。 Note Note that certain operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are not permitted when you are in that folder. The** %r in $status_format** will change to a “A” to indicate that you are in attach-message mode. ==== 6.2. Editing the Message Header ==== When editing the header because of __$edit_headers__ being set, there are a several __pseudo headers__ available which will not be included in sent messages but **trigger special Mutt behavior.** === 6.2.1. Fcc: Pseudo Header === If you specify Fcc: filename as a header, Mutt will pick up filename just as if you had used the function in the compose menu. It can later be changed from the compose menu. === 6.2.2. Attach: Pseudo Header === You can also attach files to your message by specifying Attach: filename [ description ] where filename is the file to attach and description is an **optional string** to use as the description of the attached file. Spaces in filenames have to be escaped using backslash (“\”). The file can be removed as well as more added from the compose menu. 6.2.3. Pgp: Pseudo Header If you want to use PGP, you can specify Pgp: [ E | S | S ] **“E” selects encryption, “S” selects signing and “S” selects signing with the given key**, setting __$pgp_sign_as__ permanently. The selection can later be changed in the compose menu. 6.2.4. In-Reply-To: Header When replying to messages, the **In-Reply-To: header contains the Message-Id **of the message(s) you reply to. If you remove or modify its value, Mutt will not generate a** References: field**, which allows you to create a new message thread, for example to create a new message to a mailing list without having to enter the mailing list's address. If you intend to** start a new thread by replying**, please make really sure you remove the In-Reply-To: header in your editor. Otherwise, though you'll produce a technically valid reply, some netiquette guardians will be annoyed by this so-called “thread hijacking”. ==== 6.3. Sending Cryptographically Signed/Encrypted Messages ==== If you have told Mutt to PGP or S/MIME **encrypt** a message, it will guide you through __a key selection __process when you try to send the message. Mutt will not ask you any questions about keys which have a __certified user ID__ matching one of the message** recipients**' mail addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching keys can be found. In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or Mutt can't find any matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as usually, abort this prompt using ^G. When you do so, Mutt will return to the compose screen. Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message will be encrypted using the__ selected public keys__ when sent out. Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also **$pgp_entry_format**) have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the capabilities, flags, and validity fields are in order. The flags sequence (“%f”) will expand to one of the flags in Table 2.13, “PGP key menu flags”. Table 2.13. PGP key menu flags Flag Description R The key has been** revoked** and can't be used. X The key is** expired** and can't be used. d You have marked the key as** disabled**. c There are unknown critical self-signature packets. The capabilities field (“%c”) expands to a two-character sequence representing a **key's capabilities**. The first character gives the key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (“-”) means that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (“.”) means that it's marked as a **signature key** in one of the user IDs, but may also be used for encryption. The letter “e” indicates that this key can be used for** encryption**. The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once again, a “-” implies “not for signing”, “.” implies that the key is marked as an encryption key in one of the user-ids, and “s” denotes a key which can be used for signing. Finally, the **validity field** (“%t”) indicates how well-certified a user-id is. A question mark (“?”) indicates undefined validity, a minus character (“-”) marks an untrusted association, a space character means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (“+”) indicates complete validity. ==== 6.4. Sending Format=Flowed Messages ==== === 6.4.1. Concept === format=flowed-style messages (or __f=f__ for short) are** text/plain messages** that consist of paragraphs which a receiver's mail client may reformat to its own needs which mostly means to __customize line lengths__ regardless of what the sender sent. Technically this is achieved by letting lines of a “flowable” paragraph **end in spaces** except for the last line. While for text-mode clients like Mutt it's the best way to assume only a standard __80x25__ character cell terminal, it may be desired to let the receiver decide completely how to view a message. === 6.4.2. Mutt Support === Mutt only supports setting the required** format=flowed MIME** parameter on outgoing messages if the__ $text_flowed__ variable is set, specifically it does not add the trailing spaces. After editing the initial message text and before entering the compose menu, Mutt properly space-stuffs the message. Space-stuffing is required by RfC3676 defining format=flowed and means to prepend a space to: * all lines starting with a space * lines starting with the word “From” followed by space * all lines starting with “>” which is not intended to be a quote character Note Mutt only supports space-stuffing for the first two types of lines but not for the third: It is impossible to safely detect whether a leading > character starts a quote or not. Furthermore, Mutt only applies space-stuffing once after the initial edit is finished. All leading spaces are to be removed by receiving clients to restore the original message prior to further processing. === 6.4.3. Editor Considerations === As Mutt provides no additional features to compose __f=f messages__, it's completely up to the user and his editor to produce proper messages. Please consider your editor's documentation if you intend to send f=f messages. Please note that when editing messages from the compose menu several times before really sending a mail, it's up to the user to ensure that the message is properly space-stuffed. For example, vim provides the w flag for its formatoptions setting to assist in creating f=f messages, see :help fo-table for details. ==== 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail ==== Bouncing and forwarding let you send an existing message to recipients that you specify. Bouncing a message sends a__ verbatim copy__ of a message to alternative addresses as if they were the message's **original recipients** specified in the Bcc header. Forwarding a message, on the other hand, allows you to __modify __the message before it is resent (for example, by adding your own comments). Bouncing is done using the function and forwarding using the function bound to “b” and “f” respectively. Forwarding can be done by including the original message in the new __message's body__ (surrounded by **indicating lines**) or including it as a __MIME attachment__, depending on the value of the __$mime_forward__ variable. Decoding of attachments, like in the pager, can be controlled by the **$forward_decode** and** $mime_forward_decode** variables, respectively. The desired forwarding format may depend on the content, therefore $mime_forward is a** quadoption** which, for example, can be set to “ask-no”. The inclusion of headers is controlled by the current setting of the $weed variable, unless $mime_forward is set. Editing the message to forward follows the same procedure as sending or replying to a message does. ==== 8. Postponing Mail ==== At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have already begun to compose. When the function is used in the compose menu, the body of your message and attachments are **stored in the mailbox** specified by the __$postponed__ variable. This means that you can recall the message even if you exit Mutt and then restart it at a later time. Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the command line you can use the __“-p”__ option, or if you compose a new message from the index or pager you will be prompted if postponed messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the **postponed menu** will pop up and you can select which message you would like to resume. Note If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you replied to for the status of the message to be updated. See also the $postpone quad-option. ====== Chapter 3. Configuration ====== Table of Contents 1. Location of Initialization Files 2. Syntax of Initialization Files 3. Address Groups 4. Defining/Using Aliases 5. Changing the Default Key Bindings 6. Defining Aliases for Character Sets 7. Setting Variables Based Upon Mailbox 8. Keyboard Macros 9. Using Color and Mono Video Attributes 10. Message Header Display 10.1. Header Display 10.2. Selecting Headers 10.3. Ordering Displayed Headers 11. Alternative Addresses 12. Mailing Lists 13. Using Multiple Spool Mailboxes 14. Monitoring Incoming Mail 15. User-Defined Headers 16. Specify Default Save Mailbox 17. Specify Default Fcc: Mailbox When Composing 18. Specify Default Save Filename and Default Fcc: Mailbox at Once 19. Change Settings Based Upon Message Recipients 20. Change Settings Before Formatting a Message 21. Choosing the Cryptographic Key of the Recipient 22. Adding Key Sequences to the Keyboard Buffer 23. Executing Functions 24. Message Scoring 25. Spam Detection 26. Setting and Querying Variables 26.1. Variable Types 26.2. Commands 26.3. User-Defined Variables 26.4. Type Conversions 27. Reading Initialization Commands From Another File 28. Removing Hooks 29. Format Strings 29.1. Basic usage 29.2. Conditionals 29.3. Filters 29.4. Padding ===== 1. Location of Initialization Files ===== While the default configuration (or “preferences”) make Mutt usable right out of the box, it is often desirable to__ tailor Mutt to suit your own tastes__. When Mutt is first invoked, it will attempt to read the “system” configuration file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the “-n” command line option is specified. This file is typically /usr/local/share/mutt/Muttrc or /etc/Muttrc. Mutt will next look for a file named__ .muttrc__ in your home directory. If this file does not exist and your home directory has a subdirectory named __.mutt__, Mutt tries to load a file named __.mutt/muttrc__. .muttrc is the file where you will usually place your commands to configure Mutt. In addition, Mutt supports **version specific configuration files** that are parsed instead of the default files as explained above. For instance, if your system has a Muttrc-0.88 file in the system configuration directory, and you are running version 0.88 of Mutt, this file will be sourced instead of the Muttrc file. The same is true of the user configuration file, if you have a file .muttrc-0.88.6 in your home directory, when you run Mutt version 0.88.6, it will source this file instead of the default .muttrc file. The version number is the same which is visible using the “-v” command line switch or using the show-version key (default: V) from the index menu. ===== 2. Syntax of Initialization Files ===== An initialization file consists of a series of commands. Each line of the file may contain **one or more commands**. When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a__ semicolon (“;”)__. Example 3.1. Multiple configuration commands per line **set realname='Mutt user' **__; __**ignore x-** The hash mark, or pound sign (“#”), is used as a “comment” character. You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character to the end of the line is ignored. Example 3.2. Commenting configuration files my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? __#__ This is a comment Single quotes (“'”) and double quotes (“"”) can be used to __quote strings__ which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular__ shell programs__, namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which should be evaluated. For example, backticks are evaluated inside of double quotes, but not for single quotes. “\” quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For example, if want to put quotes “"” inside of a string, you can use “\” to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted character. Example 3.3. Escaping quotes in configuration files set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins" “\\” means to insert a literal “\” into the line.__ “\n” and “\r” have their usual C meanings__ of linefeed and carriage-return, respectively. A “\” at the end of a line can be used to split commands over multiple lines as** it “escapes” the line end**, provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of command names. Lines are first concatenated before interpretation so that a multi-line can be commented by commenting out the first line only. Example 3.4. Splitting long configuration commands over several lines set status_format="some very \ long value split \ over several lines" It is also possible to __substitute the output of a Unix command__ in an initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in__ backticks (``)__. In Example 3.5, “Using external command's output in configuration files”, the output of the Unix command “uname -a” will be substituted before the line is parsed. Since initialization files are line oriented, only the** first line of output** from the Unix command will be substituted. Example 3.5. Using external command's output in configuration files my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a` Both __environment variables and Mutt variables __can be accessed by prepending “$” to the name of the variable. For example, Example 3.6. Using environment variables in configuration files set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME will cause Mutt to save outgoing messages to a folder named “sent_on_kremvax” if the environment variable $HOSTNAME is set to “kremvax.” (See $record for details.) Mutt __expands the variable__ when it is assigned, not when it is used. If the value of a variable on the right-hand side of an assignment changes after the assignment, the variable on the left-hand side will not be affected. The commands understood by Mutt are explained in the next paragraphs. For a complete list, see the command reference. All configuration files are expected to be in the **current locale** as specified by the__ $charset __variable which doesn't have a default value since it's determined by Mutt at startup. If a configuration file is not encoded in the same character set the $config_charset variable should be used: all lines starting with the next are recoded from $config_charset to $charset. This mechanism should be avoided if possible as it has the following implications: * These variables should be set early in a configuration file with $charset preceding $config_charset so Mutt knows what character set to convert to. * If $config_charset is set, it should be set in each configuration file because the value is global and not per configuration file. Because Mutt first recodes a line before it attempts to parse it, a conversion introducing question marks or other characters as part of errors (unconvertable characters, transliteration) may introduce syntax errors or silently change the meaning of certain tokens (e.g. inserting question marks into regular expressions). ===== 3. Address Groups ===== Usage: group [ -group name ...] { -rx **expr ...** | -addr **expr ... **} ungroup [ -group name ...] { * | -rx expr ... | -addr expr ... } Mutt supports grouping addresses logically into__ named groups__. An address or address pattern can appear in **several groups** at the same time. These groups can be used in patterns (for searching, limiting and tagging) and in hooks by using group patterns. This can be useful to__ classify mail __and take certain actions depending on in what groups the message is. For example, the mutt user's mailing list would fit into the categories “mailing list” and “mutt-related”. Using send-hook, the sender can be set to a dedicated one for writing mailing list messages, and the signature could be set to a mutt-related one for writing to a mutt list — for other lists, the list sender setting still applies but a different signature can be selected. Or, given a group only containing recipients known to accept encrypted mail, “auto-encryption” can be achieved easily. The group command is used to directly add either addresses or regular expressions to the specified group or groups. The different categories of arguments to the group command can be in any order. The flags -rx and -addr specify what the following strings (that cannot begin with a hyphen) should be interpreted as: either a regular expression or an email address, respectively. These address groups can also be created implicitly by the **alias, lists, subscribe** and **alternates** commands by specifying the optional__ -group __option. For example, alternates __-group me__ address1 address2 alternates __-group me -group work__ address3 would create a group named “me” which contains all your addresses and a group named “work” which contains only your work address address3. Besides many other possibilities, this could be used to **automatically mark your own messages in a mailing list folder **as read or use a special signature for work-related messages. The ungroup command is used to remove addresses or regular expressions from the specified group or groups. The syntax is similar to the group command, however the special character * can be used to **empty a group** of all of its contents. As soon as a group gets empty because all addresses and regular expressions have been removed, it'll internally be removed, too (i.e. there cannot be an empty group). When removing regular expressions from a group, the pattern must be specified exactly as given to the __group__ command or -group argument. ===== 4. Defining/Using Aliases ===== Usage: alias [ -group name ...] **key** address [ address ...] unalias [ -group name ...] { * | key ... } It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone you are communicating with. Mutt allows you to create “aliases” which map a short string to a full address. Note If you want to create an alias for more than one address, you must __separate the addresses with a comma (“,”)__. The optional -group argument to alias causes __the aliased address(es) to be added to the named group__. To remove an alias or aliases (“*” means all aliases): alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins) #这里的muttdude为key, me@cs.hmc.edu为地址 ，括号里的内容为真正用户名 alias theguys manny, moe, jack Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined in a special file. The alias command can appear anywhere in a configuration file, __as long as this file is sourced__. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your .muttrc. On the other hand, the function can__ use only one file__, the one pointed to by the __$alias_file__ variable (which is ~/.muttrc by default). This file is not special either, in the sense that Mutt will happily append aliases to any file, but in order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly source this file too. Example 3.7. Configuring external alias files source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases source ~/.mail_aliases set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases To use aliases, you merely **use the alias at any place** in Mutt where Mutt prompts for addresses, such as the To: or Cc: prompt. You can also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the __$edit_headers__ variable set. In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the__ tab__ character to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches, Mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab without a partial alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting multiple addresses. In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the select-entry key (default: ), and use the exit key (default: q) to return to the address prompt. ===== 5. Changing the Default Key Bindings ===== Usage: __bind map key function__ This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation invoked when pressing a key).map specifies **in which menu** the binding belongs. Multiple maps may be specified by separating them with **commas** (no additional whitespace is allowed). The currently defined maps are: * generic This is not a real menu, but is used as a__ fallback for all__ of the other menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not defined in another menu, Mutt will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows you to bind a key to a certain function in **multiple menus** instead of having multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task. * alias The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined in your .muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full email address(es) of the recipient(s). * attach The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on received messages. * browser The browser is used for both browsing the local __directory structure__, and for listing all of your__ incoming mailboxes__. * editor The editor is used to allow the user to enter __a single line of text__, such as the To or Subject prompts in the compose menu. * index The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox. * compose The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message. * pager The pager is the mode used to** display message/attachment data**, and help listings. * pgp The pgp menu is used to select the __OpenPGP keys__ used to encrypt outgoing messages. * smime The smime menu is used to select the OpenSSL certificates used to encrypt outgoing messages. * postpone The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used when __recalling a message__ the user was composing, but saved until later. * query The query menu is the **browser for results** returned by $query_command. * mix The mixmaster screen is used to select remailer options for outgoing messages (if Mutt is compiled with Mixmaster support). key is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a control character, use the sequence __\Cx__, where x is the letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use “\Ca”). Note that **the case of x as well as \C is ignored**, so that \CA, \Ca, \cA and \ca are all equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a __three digit octal number__ prefixed with a “\” (for example \177 is equivalent to \c?). In addition, key may be __a symbolic name__ as shown in Table 3.1, “Symbolic key names”. Table 3.1. Symbolic key names Symbolic name Meaning \t tab tab backtab / shift-tab \r carriage return \n newline \e escape __escape__ up arrow down arrow left arrow right arrow Page Up Page Down Backspace Delete Insert Enter Return Home End Space bar function key 1 function key 10 key does** not need to be enclosed** in quotes unless it contains a space (“ ”) or semi-colon (“;”). function specifies which action to take when key is pressed. For a complete list of functions, see the reference. Note that the bind expects function to be specified without angle brackets. The special function ____ unbinds the specified key sequence. ===== 6. Defining Aliases for Character Sets ===== Usage: __charset-hook __alias charset iconv-hook charset local-charset The charset-hook command defines an __alias for a character set__. This is useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a character set name **not known** to Mutt. The iconv-hook command defines a **system-specific name** for a character set. This is helpful when your systems character conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names for character sets. ===== 7. Setting Variables Based Upon Mailbox ===== Usage: __folder-hook__ [!]regexp command It is often desirable to change settings __based on which mailbox__ you are reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute any **configuration command**. regexp is a regular expression specifying__ in which mailboxes__ to execute command before loading. If a mailbox matches multiple folder-hooks, they are executed** in the order** given in the .muttrc. Note If you use the __“!” shortcut for $spoolfile __at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the logical not operator for the expression. Note __Settings are not restored__ when you leave the mailbox. For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting method based upon the mailbox being read: folder-hook mutt "set sort=threads" However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when reading a different mailbox. To specify__ a default command__, use the __pattern “.”__ before other folder-hooks adjusting a value on a per-folder basis because folder-hooks are evaluated **in the order** given in the configuration file. The following example will set the sort variable to date-sent for **all folders** but to threads for all folders containing “mutt” in their name. Example 3.8. Setting sort method based on mailbox name __folder-hook . "set sort=date-sent" __ __ #设置一个缺省的排序方式。__ folder-hook mutt "set sort=threads" ===== 8. Keyboard Macros ===== Usage: __macro__ menu key sequence [ description ] Macros are useful when you would like** a single key to perform a series of actions**. When you press key in menu menu, Mutt will behave as if you had typed sequence. So if you have **a common sequence of commands** you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single key or fewer keys. menu is the **map** which the macro will be bound in. Multiple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments **by commas**. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and the commas separating them. key and sequence are expanded by the same rules as the key bindings with some additions. The first is that control characters in sequence can also be __specified as ^x__. In order to get a caret (“^”) you need to use__ ^^__. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as up or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format ** and **. For a listing of key names see the section on key bindings. Functions are listed in the reference. The advantage with __using function names directly__ is that the macros will work regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent on the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more robust and portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used by more than one user (e.g., the system Muttrc). Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after sequence, which is shown in the help screens if they contain a description. Note Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped. ===== 9. Using Color and Mono Video Attributes ===== Usage: color object foreground background color { header | body } foreground background __regexp__ color index foreground background __pattern__ uncolor { index | header | body } { * | pattern ... } If your __terminal supports color__, you can spice up Mutt by creating your own** color scheme**. To define the color of an object (type of information), you must specify both a foreground color and a background color (it is not possible to only specify one or the other). header and body match regexp in the **header/body of a message**, index matches pattern (see Section 3, “Patterns: Searching, Limiting and Tagging”) in the **message index**. object can be one of: ** attachment** ** bold** (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages) ** error **(error messages printed by Mutt) **hdrdefault** (default color of the__ message header in the pager__) **indicator** (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu) markers (the “+” markers at the beginning of__ wrapped lines__ in the pager) message (informational messages) normal quoted (text matching** $quote_regexp** in the body of a message) quoted1, quoted2, ..., quotedN (higher levels of quoting) **search **(highlighting of words in the pager) signature __status __(mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message) tilde (the “~” used to pad blank lines in the pager) ** tree** (thread tree drawn in the __message index and attachment menu__) underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of messages) foreground and background can be one of the following: white black green __ magenta__ blue __cyan__ yellow red default colorx foreground can optionally be **prefixed with the keyword bright** to make the foreground color __boldfaced__ (e.g., brightred). If your terminal supports it, the special keyword default can be used as a__ transparent color__. The value brightdefault is also valid. If Mutt is linked against the** S-Lang library**, you also need to set the __$COLORFGBG__ environment variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells): set COLORFGBG="green;black" export COLORFGBG Note The S-Lang library requires you to use the lightgray and brown keywords instead of white and yellow when setting this variable. Note The uncolor command can be applied to the__ index, header and body objects only__. It removes entries from the list. You must specify the __same pattern__ specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern “*” is a special token which means to clear the color list of all entries. Mutt also recognizes the keywords color0, color1, ..., colorN-1 (N being the number of colors supported by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your display (for example by changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning. If your terminal **does not support color**, it is still possible change the video attributes through the use of the “mono” command. Usage: mono object attribute mono { header | body } attribute regexp mono index attribute pattern unmono { index | header | body } { * | pattern ... } For object, see the color command. attribute can be one of the following: none bold underline reverse standout ===== 10. Message Header Display ===== ==== 10.1. Header Display ==== When displaying a message in the pager, Mutt **folds long header lines** at __$wrap__ columns. Though there're precise rules about where to break and how, Mutt always folds headers using a** tab** for readability. (Note that the sending side is not affected by this, Mutt tries to implement standards compliant folding.) ==== 10.2. Selecting Headers ==== Usage: ignore pattern [ pattern ...] unignore { * | pattern ... } Messages often have many header fields added by **automatic processing systems**, or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command allows you to __specify header fields__ which you don't normally want to see in the pager. You do **not need** to specify the full header field name. For example, “ignore content-” will ignore all header fields that begin with the pattern “content-”. “ignore *” will ignore all headers. To remove a previously added token from the list, use the “unignore” command. The “unignore” command will make Mutt display headers with the given pattern. For example, if you do “ignore x-” it is possible to “unignore x-mailer”. “unignore *” will remove all tokens from the ignore list. Example 3.9. Header weeding # Sven's draconian header weeding ignore * unignore from date subject to cc unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list: unignore posted-to: ==== 10.3. Ordering Displayed Headers ==== Usage: __hdr_order__ header [ header ...] unhdr_order { * | header ... } With the hdr_order command you can specify an order in which Mutt will attempt to present these headers to you when viewing messages. “unhdr_order *” will clear all previous headers from the order list, thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup file. Example 3.10. Configuring header display order hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject: ===== 11. Alternative Addresses ===== Usage: alternates [ -group name ...] regexp [ regexp ...] unalternates [ -group name ...] { * | regexp ... } With various functions, Mutt will** treat messages differently**, depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from someone else. For instance, when replying to a message that you sent to a different party, Mutt will automatically suggest to send the response to the original message's recipients — responding to yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See** $reply_to**.) Many users **receive e-mail under a number of different addresses**. To fully use Mutt's features here, the program must be able to recognize __what e-mail addresses you receive mail under__. That's the purpose of the alternates command: It takes a list of regular expressions, each of which can identify an address under which you receive e-mail. As addresses are matched using regular expressions and n**ot exact stric**t comparisons, you should make sure you specify your addresses as precise as possible to avoid mismatches. For example, if you specify: alternates user@example Mutt will consider “some-user@example” as being your address, too which may not be desired. As a solution, in such cases addresses should be specified as: alternates '^user@example$' The** -group** flag causes all of the subsequent regular expressions to be added to the named group. The unalternates command can be used to write exceptions to alternates patterns. If an address matches something in an alternates command, but you nonetheless do not think it is from you, you can list a more precise pattern under an unalternates command. To remove a regular expression from the alternates list, use the unalternates command with exactly the same regexp. Likewise, if the regexp for an alternates command matches an entry on the unalternates list, that unalternates entry will be removed. If the regexp for unalternates is “*”, all entries on alternates will be removed. ===== 12. Mailing Lists ===== Usage: lists [ -group name ...] regexp [ regexp ...] unlists { * | regexp ... } subscribe [ -group name ...] regexp [ regexp ...] unsubscribe { * | regexp ... } Mutt has a few nice features for handling __mailing lists__. In order to take advantage of them, you must specify **which addresses belong to mailing lists**, and which __mailing lists you are subscribed to__. Mutt also has limited support for auto-detecting mailing lists: it supports parsing **mailto:** links in the common List-Post: header which has the same effect as specifying the list address via the lists command (except the group feature). Once you have done this, the __ function__ will work for all known lists. Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed list, Mutt will add a **Mail-Followup-To** header to tell other users' mail user agents not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note The Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not supported by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against receiving personal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the $followup_to configuration variable since it's common practice on some mailing lists to send Cc upon replies (which is more a group- than a list-reply). More precisely, Mutt maintains lists of patterns for the addresses of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the list command. To mark it as subscribed, use subscribe. You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all messages sent to a specific bug report's address on Debian's bug tracking system as list mail, for instance, you could say subscribe [0-9]*.*@bugs.debian.org as it's often sufficient to just give a portion of the list's e-mail address. Specify as much of the address as you need to to__ remove ambiguity__. For example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt mailing list, you will receive mail addressed to mutt-users@mutt.org. So, to tell Mutt that this is a mailing list, you could add lists mutt-users@ to your initialization file. To tell Mutt that you are subscribed to it, add subscribe mutt-users to your initialization file instead. If you also happen to get mail from someone whose address is mutt-users@example.com, you could use lists ^mutt-users@mutt\\.org$ or subscribe ^mutt-users@mutt\\.org$ to match only mail from the actual list. The -group flag adds all of the subsequent regular expressions to the named address group in addition to adding to the specified address list. The “unlists” command is used to remove a token from the list of known and subscribed mailing-lists. Use “unlists *” to remove all tokens. To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists, but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use unsubscribe. ===== 13. Using Multiple Spool Mailboxes ===== Usage: mbox-hook [!]pattern mailbox This command is used to __move read messages from a specified mailbox to a different mailbox automatically__ when you **quit or change folders**. pattern is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a “spool” mailbox and mailbox specifies where mail should be saved when read. Unlike some of the other hook commands, only the first matching pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single mailbox). ===== 14. Monitoring Incoming Mail ===== Usage: mailboxes mailbox [ mailbox ...] unmailboxes { * | mailbox ... } This command specifies folders which can **receive** mail and which will be checked for new messages __periodically__. folder can either be **a local file or directory** (Mbox/Mmdf or Maildir/Mh). If Mutt was built with POP and/or IMAP support, folder can also be a **POP/IMAP folder URL**. The URL syntax is described in Section 1.2, “URL Syntax”, POP and IMAP are described in Section 3, “POP3 Support” and Section 4, “IMAP Support” respectively. Mutt provides a number of advanced features for handling (possibly many) folders and new mail within them, please refer to Section 10, “New Mail Detection” for details (including in what situations and how often Mutt checks for new mail). The “unmailboxes” command is used to remove a token from the list of folders which receive mail. Use “unmailboxes *” to remove all tokens. Note The folders in the mailboxes command are resolved when the command is executed, so if these names contain__ shortcut characters__ (such as “=” and “!”), any variable definition that affects these characters (like __$folder and $spoolfile__) should **be set before **the mailboxes command. If none of these shortcuts are used, a local path should be absolute as otherwise Mutt tries to find it relative to the directory from where Mutt was started which may not always be desired. ===== 15. User-Defined Headers ===== Usage: my_hdr string unmy_hdr { * | field ... } The my_hdr command allows you to **create your own header fields** which will be added to every message you send and appear in the editor if __$edit_headers__ is set. For example, if you would like to add an “Organization:” header field to all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command something like shown in Example 3.11, “Defining custom headers” in your .muttrc. Example 3.11. Defining custom headers **my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA** Note Space characters are not allowed between the keyword and the colon (“:”). The standard for electronic mail (RFC2822) says that space is illegal there, so Mutt enforces the rule. If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should either set the $edit_headers variable, or use the ____ function (default: “E”) in the compose menu so that you can edit the header of your message along with the body. To remove user defined header fields, use the unmy_hdr command. You may specify an asterisk (“*”) to remove all header fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all “To” and “Cc” header fields, you could use: unmy_hdr to cc ===== 16. Specify Default Save Mailbox ===== Usage: save-hook [!]pattern mailbox This command is used to override the default mailbox used __when saving messages__. mailbox will be used as the default if the message matches pattern, see Message Matching in Hooks for information on the exact format. To provide more flexibility and good defaults, Mutt applies the expandos of __$index_format to mailbox after it was expanded.__ Example 3.12. Using %-expandos in save-hook # __default__: save all to ~/Mail/ save-hook . ~/Mail/%F # save from me@turing.cs.hmc.edu and me@cs.hmc.edu to $folder/elkins save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$__ +elkins__ # save from aol.com to $folder/spam save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam Also see the fcc-save-hook command. ===== 17. Specify Default Fcc: Mailbox When Composing ===== Usage: fcc-hook [!]pattern mailbox This command is used to __save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than $record__. Mutt searches the initial list of message **recipients **for the** first** matching regexp and uses mailbox as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved to $record mailbox. To provide more flexibility and good defaults, Mutt applies the expandos of $index_format to mailbox after it was expanded. See Message Matching in Hooks for information on the exact format of pattern. fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers ...will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the fcc-save-hook command. ===== 18. Specify Default Save Filename and Default Fcc: Mailbox at Once ===== Usage: fcc-save-hook [!]pattern mailbox This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a__ fcc-hook__ and a__ save-hook__ with its arguments, including %-expansion on mailbox according to $index_format. ===== 19. Change Settings Based Upon Message Recipients ===== Usage: reply-hook [!]pattern command send-hook [!]pattern command send2-hook [!]pattern command These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based upon recipients of the message. pattern is used to match the message, see Message Matching in Hooks for details. command is executed when pattern matches. reply-hook is matched against the message you are replying to, instead of the message you are sending. send-hook is matched against all messages, both new and replies. Note reply-hooks are matched before the send-hook, regardless of the order specified in the user's configuration file. send2-hook is matched every time a message is changed, either by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients or subject. send2-hook is executed after send-hook, and can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the $sendmail variable depending on the message's sender address. For each type of send-hook or reply-hook, when multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the .muttrc (for that type of hook). Example: send-hook mutt "set mime_forward signature=''" Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the $attribution, $signature and $locale variables in order to change the language of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients. Note send-hook's are only executed once after getting the initial list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the message will not cause any send-hook to be executed, similarly if $autoedit is set (as then the initial list of recipients is empty). Also note that my_hdr commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed from a send-hook. ===== 20. Change Settings Before Formatting a Message ===== Usage: message-hook [!]pattern command This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands **before viewing or formatting a message** based upon information about the message. command is executed if the pattern matches the message to be displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the .muttrc. See Message Matching in Hooks for information on the exact format of pattern. Example: message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin' message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""' ===== 21. Choosing the Cryptographic Key of the Recipient ===== Usage: crypt-hook pattern keyid When encrypting messages with PGP/GnuPG or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a certain key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address, or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt would normally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to a certain recipient. The meaning of keyid is to be taken broadly in this context: You can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even just a real name. ===== 22. Adding Key Sequences to the Keyboard Buffer ===== Usage: push string This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence string in the macro command. You may use it to automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering certain folders. For example, Example 3.13, “Embedding push in folder-hook” shows how to automatically collapse all threads when entering a folder. Example 3.13. Embedding push in folder-hook folder-hook . 'push ' For using functions like shown in the example, it's important to use angle brackets (“<” and “>”) to make Mutt recognize the input as a function name. Otherwise it will simulate individual just keystrokes, i.e. “push collapse-all” would be interpreted as if you had typed “c”, followed by “o”, followed by “l”, ..., which is not desired and may lead to very unexpected behavior. Keystrokes can be used, too, but are less portable because of potentially changed key bindings. With default bindings, this is equivalent to the above example: folder-hook . 'push \eV' because it simulates that Esc+V was pressed (which is the default binding of ). ===== 23. Executing Functions ===== Usage: exec function [ function ...] This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are listed in the function reference. “exec function” is equivalent to “push ”. ===== 24. Message Scoring ===== Usage: score pattern value unscore { * | pattern ... } The score commands __adds value to a message's score__ if pattern matches it. pattern is a string in the format described in the patterns section (note: For efficiency reasons, patterns which scan information not available in the index, such as ~b, ~B or ~h, may not be used). value is a positive or negative integer. A message's final score is the sum total of all matching score entries. However, you may optionally prefix value with an equal sign (“=”) to cause evaluation to stop at a particular entry if there is a match. Negative final scores are rounded up to 0. The unscore command removes score entries from the list. You must specify the same pattern specified in the score command for it to be removed. The pattern “*” is a special token which means to clear the list of all score entries. ===== 25. Spam Detection ===== Usage: spam pattern format nospam { * | pattern } Mutt has generalized support for __external spam-scoring filters__. By defining your spam patterns with the spam and nospam commands, you can limit, search, and sort your mail based on its **spam attributes**, as determined by the external filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index display using the %H selector in the $index_format variable. (Tip: try %?H?[%H] ? to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.) Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using the spam command. pattern should be a regular expression that matches a header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox matches this regular expression, it will receive __a “spam tag” or “spam attribute”__ (unless it also matches a nospam pattern — see below.) The appearance of this attribute is entirely up to you, and is governed by the format parameter. format can be any static text, but it also can include back-references from the pattern expression. (A regular expression “back-reference” refers to a sub-expression contained within parentheses.) %1 is replaced with the first back-reference in the regex, %2 with the second, etc. To match spam tags, mutt needs the corresponding header information which is always the case for local and POP folders but not for IMAP in the default configuration. Depending on the spam header to be analyzed, $imap_headers may need to be adjusted. If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than one spam-related header. You can define spam patterns for each filter you use. If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the message's spam tag will consist of all the format strings joined together, with the value of $spam_separator separating them. For example, suppose one uses DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage, then the configuration might look like in Example 3.14, “Configuring spam detection”. Example 3.14. Configuring spam detection spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1" spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA" spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM" set spam_separator=", " If then a message is received that DCC registered with “many” hits under the “Fuz2” checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a 97% probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would read 90+/DCC-Fuz2, 97/PM. (The four characters before “=many” in a DCC report indicate the checksum used — in this case, “Fuz2”.) If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each spam pattern match supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting joined format strings, you'll get only the last one to match. The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use %H in the $index_format variable. It's also the string that the ~H pattern-matching expression matches against for and functions. And it's what sorting by spam attribute will use as a sort key. That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual environments will have only one spam filter. The simpler your configuration, the more effective Mutt can be, especially when it comes to sorting. Generally, when you sort by spam tag, Mutt will sort lexically — that is, by ordering strings alphanumerically. However, if a spam tag begins with a number, Mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically only when two numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's sort -n.) A message with no spam attributes at all — that is, one that didn't match any of your spam patterns — is sorted at lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next, beginning with 0 and ranging upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are sorted, with “a” taking lower priority than “z”. Clearly, in general, sorting by spam tags is most effective when you can coerce your filter to give you a raw number. But in case you can't, Mutt can still do something useful. The nospam command can be used to write exceptions to spam patterns. If a header pattern matches something in a spam command, but you nonetheless do not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list a more precise pattern under a nospam command. If the pattern given to nospam is exactly the same as the pattern on an existing spam list entry, the effect will be to remove the entry from the spam list, instead of adding an exception. Likewise, if the pattern for a spam command matches an entry on the nospam list, that nospam entry will be removed. If the pattern for nospam is “*”, all entries on both lists will be removed. This might be the default action if you use spam and nospam in conjunction with a folder-hook. You can have as many spam or nospam commands as you like. You can even do your own primitive spam detection within Mutt — for example, if you consider all mail from MAILER-DAEMON to be spam, you can use a spam command like this: spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999" ===== 26. Setting and Querying Variables ===== ==== 26.1. Variable Types ==== Mutt supports these types of configuration variables: boolean A boolean expression, either “yes” or “no”. number A signed integer number in the range -32768 to 32767. string Arbitrary text. **path** A specialized string for representing paths including support for mailbox shortcuts (see Section 8, “Mailbox Shortcuts”) as well as tilde (“~”) for a user's home directory and more. __quadoption__ Like a boolean but triggers a prompt when set to** “ask-yes” or “ask-no” with “yes” and “no” **preselected respectively. sort order A specialized string allowing only particular words as values depending on the variable. regular expression A regular expression, see Section 2, “Regular Expressions” for an introduction. **folder magic** Specifies the __type of folder__ to use: mbox, mmdf, mh or maildir. Currently only used to determine the type for newly created folders. e-mail address An e-mail address either with or without realname. The older “user@example.org (Joe User)” form is supported but strongly deprecated. user-defined Arbitrary text, see Section 26.3, “User-Defined Variables” for details. ==== 26.2. Commands ==== The following commands are available to__ manipulate and query variables__: Usage: set { [ __no | inv__ ] variable | variable=value } [...] toggle variable [ variable ...] unset variable [ variable ...] reset variable [ variable ...] This command is used to set (and unset) configuration variables. There are four __basic types__ of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. boolean variables can be** set (true) or unset (false)**. number variables can be assigned a positive integer value. string variables consist of any number of printable characters and must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You may also use the escape sequences “\n” and “\t” for newline and tab, respectively. quadoption variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of yes will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the question. Similarly, a value of no will cause the action to be carried out as if you had answered “no.” A value of ask-yes will cause a prompt with a default answer of “yes” and ask-no will provide a default answer of “no.” Prefixing a variable with “__no” will unset it__. Example: set noaskbcc. For boolean variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with __inv __to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing macros. Example: set __inv__smart_wrap. The toggle command automatically __prepends the inv prefix __to all specified variables. The unset command automatically __prepends the no prefix__ to all specified variables. Using the ____ function in the index menu, you can query the value of a variable by** prefixing the name of the variable with a question** mark: __set ?allow_8bit__ The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption variables. The reset command resets all given variables to the **compile time** defaults (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command set and prefix the variable with __“&” __this has the same behavior as the reset command. With the reset command there exists the special variable “all”, which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults. ===== 26.3. User-Defined Variables ===== ===== 26.3.1. Introduction ===== Along with the variables listed in the Configuration variables section, Mutt supports user-defined variables with __names starting with my___ as in, for example, my_cfgdir. The set command either creates a custom my_ variable or changes its value if it does exist already. The unset and reset commands remove the variable entirely. Since user-defined variables are expanded in the same way that environment variables are (except for the shell-escape command and backtick expansion), this feature can be used to make configuration files more readable. === 26.3.2. Examples === The following example defines and uses the variable my_cfgdir to abbreviate the calls of the __source__ command: Example 3.15. Using user-defined variables for config file readability set my_cfgdir = $HOME/mutt/config source $my_cfgdir/hooks source $my_cfgdir/macros # more source commands... A custom variable can also be **used in macros** to backup the current value of another variable. In the following example, the value of the $delete is changed temporarily while its original value is saved as my_delete. After the macro has executed all commands, the original value of $delete is restored. Example 3.16. Using user-defined variables for backing up other config option values macro pager ,x '\ ____set my_delete=$delete\ set delete=yes\ ...\ set delete=$my_delete' Since Mutt** expands such values** already when parsing the configuration file(s), the value of $my_delete in the last example would be the value of $delete exactly as it was at that point during parsing the configuration file. If another statement would change the value for $delete later in the same or another file, it would have no effect on $my_delete. However, the expansion can be deferred to runtime, as shown in the next example, when escaping the dollar sign. Example 3.17. Deferring user-defined variable expansion to runtime macro pager "\ set my_old_pager_stop=\$pager_stop pager_stop\ \ set pager_stop=\$my_old_pager_stop\ unset my_old_pager_stop" Note that there is a space between and the set configuration command, preventing Mutt from recording the macro's commands into its history. ===== 26.4. Type Conversions ===== Variables are always assigned string values which Mutt parses into its internal representation according to the** type of the variable**, for example an integer number for numeric types. For all queries (including $-expansion) the value is converted from its internal type back into string. As a result, any variable can be assigned any value given that its content is valid for the target. This also counts for custom variables which are of type string. In case of parsing errors, Mutt will print error messages. Example 3.18, “Type conversions using variables” demonstrates type conversions. Example 3.18. Type conversions using variables set my_lines = "5" # value is string "5" set pager_index_lines = $my_lines # value is integer 5 set my_sort = "date-received" # value is string "date-received" set sort = "last-$my_sort" # value is sort last-date-received set my_inc = $read_inc # value is string "10" (default of $read_inc) set my_foo = $my_inc # value is string "10" These assignments are all valid. If, however, the value of $my_lines would have been “five” (or something else that cannot be parsed into a number), the assignment to $pager_index_lines would have produced an error message. Type conversion applies to all configuration commands which take arguments. But please note that __every expanded value of a variable is considered just a single token__. A working example is: set my_pattern = "~A" set my_number = "10" # same as: score ~A +10 score $my_pattern +$my_number What does not work is: set my_mx = "+mailbox1 +mailbox2" mailboxes $my_mx +mailbox3 because the value of $my_mx is interpreted as a single mailbox named “+mailbox1 +mailbox2” and not two distinct mailboxes. ===== 27. Reading Initialization Commands From Another File ===== Usage: source filename This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in ~/.mail_aliases so that I can make my ~/.muttrc readable and keep my aliases private. If the filename begins with a tilde (“~”), it will be expanded to the path of your home directory. If the filename__ ends with a vertical bar (“|”__), then filename is considered to be an **executable program **from which to read input (e.g. source ~/bin/myscript|). ===== 28. Removing Hooks ===== Usage: unhook { * | hook-type } This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined. You can either remove all hooks by giving the “*” character as an argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying something like unhook send-hook. ===== 29. Format Strings ===== ==== 29.1. Basic usage ==== Format strings are a general concept you'll find in several locations through the Mutt configuration, especially in the __$index_format, $pager_format, $status_format,__ and other related variables. These can be very straightforward, and it's quite possible you already know how to use them. The most basic format string element is a** percent symbol followed by another character**. For example, %s represents a message's Subject: header in the $index_format variable. The “expandos” available are documented with each format variable, but there are** general modifiers** available with all formatting expandos, too. Those are our concern here. Some of the modifiers are **borrowed right out of C **(though you might know them from Perl, Python, shell, or another language). These are the __[-]m.n modifiers__, as in %-12.12s. As with such programming languages, these modifiers allow you to specify the **minimum and maximum size** of the resulting string, as well as its justification. If the “-” sign follows the percent, the string will be __left-justified__ instead of right-justified. If there's a number immediately following that, it's the** minimum **amount of space the formatted string will occupy — if it's naturally smaller than that, it will be** padded** out with spaces. If a decimal point and another number follow, that's the maximum space allowable — the string will not be permitted to exceed that width, no matter its natural size. Each of these three elements is optional, so that all these are legal format strings: %-12s, %4c, %.15F and %-12.15L. Mutt adds some other modifiers to format strings. If you use an equals symbol__ (=) __as a numeric prefix (like the minus above), it will force the string to be **centered** within its minimum space range. For example,__ %=14y__ will reserve 14 characters for the %y expansion — that's the X-Label: header, in $index_format. If the expansion results in a string less than 14 characters, it will be centered in a 14-character space. If the X-Label for a message were “test”, that expansion would look like “ test ”. There are two very little-known modifiers that affect the way that an expando is replaced. If there is an underline (“_”) character between any format modifiers (as above) and the expando letter, it will expands in all lower case. And if you use a colon (“:”), it will replace all decimal points with underlines. ==== 29.2. Conditionals ==== Depending on the** format string variable**, some of its sequences can be used to __optionally print a string__ if their value is nonzero. For example, you may only want to see the number of flagged messages if such messages exist, since zero is not particularly meaningful. To optionally print a string based upon one of the above sequences, the following construct is used: %??? where sequence_char is an expando, and optional_string is the string you would like printed__ if sequence_char is nonzero__. optional_string may contain other sequences as well as normal text, but you may not nest optional strings. Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print the number of new messages in a mailbox in $status_format: %?n?%n new messages.? You can also switch between two strings using the following construct: __%??&?__ If the value of sequence_char is non-zero, if_string will be expanded, otherwise else_string will be expanded. ==== 29.3. Filters ==== Any format string __ending in a vertical bar (“|”) __will be expanded and piped through the__ first word__ in the string, using **spaces** as separator. The string returned will be used for display. If the returned string ends in %, it will be passed through the formatter **a second time**. This allows the filter to generate a replacement format string including % expandos. All % expandos in a format string are expanded__ before__ the script is called so that: Example 3.19. Using external filters in format strings set status_format="__script.sh__ '%r %f (%L)'|" will make Mutt expand %r, %f and %L before calling the script. The example also shows that arguments can be quoted: the script will receive the expanded string between the **single quotes** as the only argument. A practical example is the mutt_xtitle script installed in the samples subdirectory of the Mutt documentation: it can be used as filter for $status_format to set the current terminal's title, if supported. ==== 29.4. Padding ==== In most format strings, Mutt supports different types of padding using special **%-expandos**: __%|X__ When this occurs, Mutt will fill the **rest **of the line with the character X. For example, filling the rest of the line with dashes is done by setting: set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages __%|-"__ %>X Since the previous expando **stops at the end **of line, there must be a way to fill the gap between two items via the %>X expando: it puts as many characters X in __between two items __so that the rest of the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the version string and hostname the above example on the left but on the right and** fill the gap with spaces**, one might use (note the space after %>): set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)" %*X Normal right-justification will print everything **to the left of the %>**, displaying padding and whatever lies to the right only if there's room. By contrast, “soft-fill” gives priority to the right-hand side, guaranteeing space to display it and showing padding only if there's still room. If necessary, soft-fill will eat text leftwards to make room for rightward text. For example, to right-justify the subject making sure as much as possible of it fits on screen, one might use (note two spaces after %* : the second ensures there's a space between the truncated right-hand side and the subject): set index_format="%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15L (%?l?%4l&%4c?)%* %s" ====== Chapter 4. Advanced Usage ====== Table of Contents 1. Character Set Handling 2. Regular Expressions 3. Patterns: Searching, Limiting and Tagging 3.1. Pattern Modifier 3.2. Simple Searches 3.3. Nesting and Boolean Operators 3.4. Searching by Date 4. Using Tags 5. Using Hooks 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks 6. External Address Queries 7. Mailbox Formats 8. Mailbox Shortcuts 9. Handling Mailing Lists 10. New Mail Detection 10.1. How New Mail Detection Works 10.2. Polling For New Mail 11. Editing Threads 11.1. Linking Threads 11.2. Breaking Threads 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support 13. Start a WWW Browser on URLs 14. Miscellany ===== 1. Character Set Handling ===== A “character set” is basically __a mapping between bytes and glyphs and implies a certain character encoding scheme__. For example, for the ISO 8859 family of character sets, an encoding of 8bit per character is used. For the Unicode character set, **different character encodings** may be used, __UTF-8 __being the most popular. In UTF-8, a character is represented using a variable number of bytes ranging from 1 to 4. Since Mutt is a command-line tool run from a shell, and **delegates certain tasks to external tools** (such as an editor for composing/editing messages), all of these tools need to agree on a character set and encoding. There exists no way to reliably deduce the character set a plain text file has. Interoperability is gained by the use of well-defined environment variables. The full set can be printed by issuing locale on the command line. Upon startup, Mutt determines the character set on its own using routines that inspect locale-specific environment variables. Therefore, it is generally not necessary to set the $charset variable in Mutt. It may even be counter-productive as Mutt uses system and library functions that derive the character set themselves and on which Mutt has no influence. It's safest to let Mutt work out the locale setup itself. If you happen to work with several character sets on a regular basis, it's highly advisable to use Unicode and an UTF-8 locale. Unicode can represent nearly all characters in a message at the same time. When not using a Unicode locale, it may happen that you receive messages with characters not representable in your locale. When displaying such a message, or replying to or forwarding it, information may get lost possibly rendering the message unusable (not only for you but also for the recipient, this breakage is not reversible as lost information cannot be guessed). A Unicode locale makes all conversions superfluous which eliminates the risk of conversion errors. It also eliminates potentially wrong expectations about the character set between Mutt and external programs. The terminal emulator used also must be properly configured for the current locale. Terminal emulators usually do not derive the locale from environment variables, they need to be configured separately. If the terminal is incorrectly configured, Mutt may display random and unexpected characters (question marks, octal codes, or just random glyphs), format strings may not work as expected, you may not be abled to enter non-ascii characters, and possible more. Data is always represented using bytes and so a correct setup is very important as to the machine, all character sets “look” the same. Warning: A mismatch between what system and library functions think the locale is and what Mutt was told what the locale is may make it behave badly with non-ascii input: it will fail at seemingly random places. This warning is to be taken seriously since not only local mail handling may suffer: sent messages may carry wrong character set information the receiver has too deal with. The need to set $charset directly in most cases points at terminal and environment variable setup problems, not Mutt problems. A list of officially assigned and known character sets can be found at IANA, a list of locally supported locales can be obtained by running locale -a. ===== 2. Regular Expressions ===== All string patterns in Mutt including those in more complex patterns must be specified using regular expressions (regexp) in the “__POSIX extended__” syntax (which is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax. The search is **case sensitive** if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note “\” must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization command: “\\”. A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings. Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions. Note The regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either " or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space character. See Syntax of Initialization Files for more information on " and ' delimiter processing. To match a literal " or ' you must preface it with \ (backslash). The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits, are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash. The period “.” matches any single character. The caret “^” and the dollar sign “$” are metacharacters that respectively match the empty string at the beginning and end of a line. A list of characters enclosed by “[” and “]” matches any single character in that list; if the first character of the list is a caret “^” then it matches any character not in the list. For example, the regular expression [0123456789] matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen “-”. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside lists. To include a literal “]” place it first in the list. Similarly, to include a literal “^” place it anywhere but first. Finally, to include a literal hyphen “-” place it last. Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes consist of “[:”, a keyword denoting the class, and “:]”. The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard in Table 4.1, “POSIX regular expression character classes” Table 4.1. POSIX regular expression character classes Character class Description [:alnum:] Alphanumeric characters [:alpha:] Alphabetic characters [:blank:] Space or tab characters [:cntrl:] Control characters [:digit:] Numeric characters [:graph:] Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable, but not visible, while an “a” is both) [:lower:] Lower-case alphabetic characters [:print:] Printable characters (characters that are not control characters) [:punct:] Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control characters, or space characters) [:space:] Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few) [:upper:] Upper-case alphabetic characters [:xdigit:] Characters that are hexadecimal digits A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the brackets of a character list. Note Note that the brackets in these class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For example, :digit: is equivalent to [0-9]. Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called collating elements) that are represented with more than one character, as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or sorting purposes: Collating Symbols A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed in “[.” and “.]”. For example, if “ch” is a collating element, then [[.ch.]] is a regexp that matches this collating element, while [ch] is a regexp that matches either “c” or “h”. Equivalence Classes An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in “[=” and “=]”. For example, the name “e” might be used to represent all of “e” with grave (“è”), “e” with acute (“é”) and “e”. In this case, [[=e=]] is a regexp that matches any of: “e” with grave (“è”), “e” with acute (“é”) and “e”. A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one of several repetition operators described in Table 4.2, “Regular expression repetition operators”. Table 4.2. Regular expression repetition operators Operator Description ? The preceding item is optional and matched at most once * The preceding item will be matched zero or more times + The preceding item will be matched one or more times {n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times {n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times {,m} The preceding item is matched at most m times {n,m} The preceding item is matched at least n times, but no more than m times Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions. Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator “|”; the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either subexpression. Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in parentheses to override these precedence rules. Note If you compile Mutt with the included regular expression engine, the following operators may also be used in regular expressions as described in Table 4.3, “GNU regular expression extensions”. Table 4.3. GNU regular expression extensions Expression Description \\y Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word \\B Matches the empty string within a word **\\<** Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word **\\>** Matches the empty string at the end of a word \\w Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore) \\W Matches any character that is not word-constituent \\` Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string) \\' Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems. ===== 3. Patterns: Searching, Limiting and Tagging ===== 3.1. Pattern Modifier Many of Mutt's commands allow you to specify a pattern to match **(limit, tag-pattern, delete-pattern**, etc.). Table 4.4, “Pattern modifiers” shows several ways to select messages. Table 4.4.__ Pattern modifiers__ Pattern modifier Description ~A __all__ messages __~b__ EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the __message body__ =b STRING messages which c**ontain STRING** in the message body. If IMAP is enabled, searches for STRING on the server, rather than downloading each message and searching it locally. ~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the **whole** message ~c EXPR messages carbon-copied to EXPR %c GROUP messages carbon-copied to any member of __GROUP__ ~C EXPR messages __either__ to: or cc: EXPR %C GROUP messages either to: or cc: to any member of GROUP ~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with “__date-sent__” in a Date range ~D **deleted messages** ~e EXPR messages which contains EXPR in the “**Sender**” field %e GROUP messages which contain a member of GROUP in the “Sender” field ~E __expired messages__ ~F flagged messages ~f EXPR messages originating from EXPR %f GROUP messages** originating from** any member of GROUP ~g cryptographically signed messages ~G cryptographically encrypted messages ~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the** message header** ~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR ~i EXPR messages which match EXPR in the “__Message-ID__” field ~k messages which contain PGP key material ~L EXPR messages either **originated or received** by EXPR %L GROUP message either originated or received by any member of GROUP ~l messages addressed to a known mailing list ~m [MIN]-[MAX] messages in the range MIN to MAX *) ~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *) ~N __new messages__ ~O __old messages__ ~p messages addressed to you (consults alternates) ~P messages **from** you (consults alternates) ~Q messages which have been replied to ~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with “date-received” in a Date range ~R read messages ~s EXPR messages having EXPR in the “Subject” field. ~S superseded messages ~t EXPR messages **addressed to** EXPR ~T __tagged__ messages ~u messages addressed to a subscribed mailing list ~U **unread **messages ~v messages part of a collapsed thread. ~V cryptographically verified messages ~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the “References” or “In-Reply-To” field ~X [MIN]-[MAX] messages with MIN to MAX attachments *) ~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the “X-Label” field ~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *) **) ~= **duplicated **messages (see $duplicate_threads) ~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view) ~(PATTERN) messages in threads containing messages matching PATTERN, e.g. all threads containing messages from you: ~(~P) Where EXPR is a regular expression, and GROUP is an address group. *) The forms “<[MAX]”, “>[MIN]”, “[MIN]-” and “-[MAX]” are allowed, too. **) The suffixes “K” and “M” are allowed to specify kilobyte and megabyte respectively. Special attention has to be payed when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically, Mutt's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (“\”), which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes instead (“\\”). You can force Mutt to treat EXPR as a simple string instead of a regular expression by using = instead of ~ in the pattern name. For example, =b *.* will find all messages that contain the literal string “*.*”. Simple string matches are less powerful than regular expressions but can be considerably faster. This is especially true for IMAP folders, because string matches can be performed on the server instead of by fetching every message. IMAP treats =h specially: it must be of the form “header: substring” and will not partially match header names. The substring part may be omitted if you simply wish to find messages containing a particular header without regard to its value. Patterns matching lists of addresses (notably c, C, p, P and t) match if there is at least one match in the whole list. If you want to make sure that all elements of that list match, you need to prefix your pattern with “^”. This example matches all mails which only has recipients from Germany. Example 4.1. Matching all addresses in address lists ^~C \.de$ ===== 3.2. Simple Searches ===== Mutt supports two versions of so called “**simple searches”**. These are issued if the__ query entered for searching, limiting__ and similar operations does not seem to contain a valid pattern modifier (i.e. it does not contain one of these characters: “~”, “=” or “%”). If the query is supposed to contain one of these special characters, they must be escaped by prepending a backslash (“\”). The first type is by checking whether the query string equals a keyword case-insensitively from Table 4.5, “Simple search keywords”: If that is the case, Mutt will use the shown pattern modifier instead. If a keyword would conflict with your search keyword, you need to turn it into a regular expression to avoid matching the keyword table. For example, if you want to find all messages matching “flag” (using $simple_search) but don't want to match flagged messages, simply search for “[f]lag”. Table 4.5. Simple search keywords Keyword Pattern modifier all ~A . ~A ^ ~A del ~D flag ~F new ~N old ~O repl ~Q read ~R tag ~T unread ~U The second type of simple search is to build a complex search pattern using $simple_search as a template. Mutt will insert your query properly quoted and search for the composed complex query. ===== 3.3. Nesting and Boolean Operators ===== **Logical AND** is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For example: ~t mutt ~f elkins would select messages which contain the word “mutt” in the list of recipients and that have the word “elkins” in the “From” header field. Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search patterns: ! — logical NOT operator | — logical OR operator () — logical grouping operator Here is an example illustrating a complex search pattern. This pattern will select all messages which do not contain “mutt” in the “To” or “Cc” field and which are from “elkins”. Example 4.2. Using boolean operators in patterns !(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins Here is an example using white space in the regular expression (note the “'” and “"” delimiters). For this to match, the mail's subject must match the “^Junk +From +Me$” and it must be from either “Jim +Somebody” or “Ed +SomeoneElse”: '~s "^Junk +From +Me$" ~f ("Jim +Somebody"|"Ed +SomeoneElse")' Note If a regular expression contains parenthesis, or a vertical bar ("|"), you must enclose the expression in double or single quotes since those characters are also used to separate different parts of Mutt's pattern language. For example: ~f "me@(mutt\.org|cs\.hmc\.edu)" Without the quotes, the parenthesis wouldn't end. This would be separated to two OR'd patterns: ~f me@(mutt\.org and cs\.hmc\.edu). They are never what you want. ===== 3.4. Searching by Date ===== Mutt supports two types of dates, **absolute and relative**. 3.4.1. Absolute Dates Dates must be in __DD/MM/YY__ format (month and year are optional, defaulting to the current month and year). An example of a __valid range__ of dates is: Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10 If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify “-DD/MM/YY”, all messages__ before__ the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum (second) date, and specify “DD/MM/YY-”, all messages after the given date will be selected. If you specify a single date with no dash (“-”), only messages sent on the given date will be selected. You can add __error margins__ to absolute dates. An error margin is a sign (+ or -), followed by a digit, followed by one of the units in Table 4.6, “Date units”. As a special case, you can replace the sign by a “*” character, which is equivalent to giving identical plus and minus error margins. Table 4.6. Date units Unit Description y Years m Months w Weeks d Days Example: To select any messages two weeks around January 15, 2001, you'd use the following pattern: Limit to messages matching: ~d 15/1/2001*2w 3.4.2. Relative Dates This type of date is relative to the current date, and may be specified as: >offset for messages older than offset units __ function, which is bound to** “shift-T”** by default. Or you can select individual messages by hand using the__ __ function, which is bound to **“t” **by default. See patterns for Mutt's pattern matching syntax. Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the__ “tag-prefix” __operator, which is the __“;” __(semicolon) key by default. When the “tag-prefix” operator is used, the **next operation** will be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that manner. If the__ $auto_tag__ variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages automatically, without requiring the “tag-prefix”. In macros or push commands, you can use the **** operator. If there are no tagged messages, Mutt will “eat” the rest of the macro to abort it's execution. Mutt will stop “eating” the macro when it encounters the **** operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed as normal. ===== 5. Using Hooks ===== A hook is a concept found in many other programs which allows you to **execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation**. For example, you may wish to tailor your configuration **based upon which mailbox** you are reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt world, a hook consists of a** regular expression** or pattern along with a configuration option/command. See: account-hook charset-hook crypt-hook fcc-hook fcc-save-hook ** folder-hook ** iconv-hook **mbox-hook ** **message-hook** reply-hook save-hook send-hook send2-hook for specific details on each type of hook available. Note If a hook changes configuration settings, these changes __remain effective__ until the end of the current Mutt session. As this is generally not desired, __a “default” hook__ needs to be added before all other hooks of that type to restore configuration defaults. Example 4.3. Specifying a “default” hook send-hook . '__un__my_hdr From:' send-hook **~C'^b@b\.b$' **my_hdr from: c@c.c In Example 4.3, “Specifying a “default” hook”, by default the value of $from and $realname is not overridden. When sending messages either To: or Cc: to , the From: header is changed to . === 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks === Hooks that act upon messages (message-hook, reply-hook, send-hook, send2-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook) are evaluated in a **slightly different manner**. For the other types of hooks, a regular expression is sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is needed for matching since for different purposes you want to __match different criteria__. Mutt allows the use of the search pattern language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in exactly the same way as it would when **limiting or searching** the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those operators which match information Mutt extracts __from the header __of the message (i.e., from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.). For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending mail to a specific address, you could do something like: send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt User ' which would execute the given command when sending mail to me@cs.hmc.edu. However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the full searching language. You can still specify a simple regular expression like the other hooks, in which case Mutt will translate your pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by the $default_hook variable. The pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value of $default_hook that is in effect at that time will be used. ===== 6. External Address Queries ===== Mutt supports connecting to __external directory databases __such as__ LDAP__, ph/qi, bbdb, or __NIS __through a **wrapper script** which connects to Mutt using a simple interface. Using the **$query_command** variable, you specify the wrapper command to use. For example: set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl %s" The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It should return** a one line message**, then each matching response on a single line, each line containing a **tab separated** address then name then some other optional information. On error, or if there are no matching addresses, return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message. An example multiple response output: Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching: me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more roessler@does-not-exist.org Thomas Roessler mutt pgp There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of Mutt. One is to do a query from the index menu using the__ function__ (default: Q). This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will list the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select addresses to create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple addresses to mail, start a new query, or have a new query appended to the current responses. The other mechanism for accessing the query function is f**or address completion**, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address entry, you can use the ____ function (default: ^T) to run a query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, Mutt will look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If there is a single response for that query, Mutt will expand the address in place. If there are multiple responses, Mutt will activate the query menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be added to the prompt. ===== 7. Mailbox Formats ===== Mutt supports reading and writing of four different **local mailbox formats**: __mbox__, MMDF, MH and __Maildir__. The mailbox type is** auto detected**, so there is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When** creating new **mailboxes, Mutt uses the default specified with the __$mbox_type__ variable. A short description of the formats follows. mbox. This is a widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All messages are__ stored in a single file__. Each message has a line of the form: From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the** “From_” line**). The mbox format requires mailbox locking, is prone to mailbox corruption with concurrently writing clients or misinterpreted From_ lines. Depending on the environment, new mail detection can be unreliable. Mbox folders are fast to open and easy to archive. MMDF. This is a variant of the mbox format. Each message is surrounded by lines containing “^A^A^A^A” (four times control-A's). The same problems as for mbox apply (also with finding the right message separator as four control-A's may appear in message bodies). MH. A radical departure from mbox and MMDF, a mailbox consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file. The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not correspond to the message number Mutt displays). Deleted messages are renamed with a comma (“,”) prepended to the filename. Mutt detects this type of mailbox by looking for either .mh_sequences or .xmhcache files (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH mailboxes). MH is more robust with concurrent clients writing the mailbox, but still may suffer from lost flags; message corruption is less likely to occur than with mbox/mmdf. It's usually slower to open compared to mbox/mmdf since many small files have to be read (Mutt provides Section 7.1, “Header Caching” to greatly speed this process up). Depending on the environment, MH is not very disk-space efficient. __Maildir.__ The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a replacement for sendmail). Similar to MH, except that it **adds three subdirectories** of the mailbox: __tmp, new and cur__. Filenames for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking is needed and corruption is very unlikely. Maildir maybe slower to open without caching in Mutt, it too is not very disk-space efficient depending on the environment. Since no additional files are used for metadata (which is embedded in the message filenames) and Maildir is locking-free, it's easy to sync across different machines using file-level synchronization tools. ===== 8. Mailbox Shortcuts ===== There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes. These shortcuts can be __used anywhere__ you are prompted for a file or mailbox path or in path-related configuration variables. Note that these only work at the beginning of a string. Table 4.7. Mailbox shortcuts Shortcut Refers to... __!__ your $spoolfile (**incoming**) mailbox __>__ your $mbox file __<__ your $record file ^ the current mailbox - or !! the file you've last visited __~__ your home directory __= or +__ your $folder directory @alias to the default save folder as determined by the address of the alias For example, to store a copy of outgoing messages in the folder they were composed in, a folder-hook can be used to set $record: folder-hook . 'set record=^' ===== 9. Handling Mailing Lists ===== Mutt has a few configuration options that make dealing with large amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt know __what addresses you consider to be mailing lists __(technically this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most often used for), and __what lists you are subscribed to__. This is accomplished through the use of the lists and subscribe commands in your .muttrc. Now that Mutt knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in the index menu display. This is useful to **distinguish** between personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the $index_format variable, the expando “%L” will print the string “To ” when “list” appears in the “To” field, and “Cc ” when it appears in the “Cc” field (otherwise it prints the name of the author). Often times the “To” and “Cc” fields in mailing list messages tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the author of the message they reply to from the list, resulting in two or more copies being sent to that person. The function, which by default is bound to “L” in the index menu and pager, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as specified by Mail-Followup-To, see below). Mutt also supports the Mail-Followup-To header. When you send a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several subscribed mailing lists, and if the $followup_to option is set, Mutt will generate a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that group-replies or list-replies (also known as “followups”) to this message should only be sent to the original recipients of the message, and not separately to you - you'll receive your copy through one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to. Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which has a Mail-Followup-To header, Mutt will respect this header if the $honor_followup_to configuration variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified in the list of recipients in the Mail-Followup-To. Note When header editing is enabled, you can create a Mail-Followup-To header manually. Mutt will only auto-generate this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message. The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a “Reply-To” field which points back to the mailing list address rather than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients will automatically reply to the address given in the “Reply-To” field. Mutt uses the $reply_to variable to help decide which address to use. If set to ask-yes or ask-no, you will be prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in the “Reply-To” field, or reply directly to the address given in the “From” field. When set to yes, the “Reply-To” field will be used when present. The “X-Label:” header field can be used to further identify mailing lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages individually). The $index_format variable's “%y” and “%Y” expandos can be used to expand “X-Label:” fields in the index, and Mutt's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to “X-Label:” fields with the “~y” selector. “X-Label:” is not a standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by procmail and other mail filtering agents. Lastly, Mutt has the ability to sort the mailbox into threads. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealing with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value. ===== 10. New Mail Detection ===== Mutt supports setups with multiple folders, allowing all of them to be monitored for new mail (see Section 14, “Monitoring Incoming Mail” for details). === 10.1. How New Mail Detection Works === For **Mbox** and Mmdf folders, new mail is detected by comparing access and/or modification __times of files__: Mutt assumes a folder has new mail if it **wasn't accessed after it was last modified**. Utilities like biff or frm or any other program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt to never detect new mail for that mailbox if they do not properly** reset the access time**. Other possible causes of Mutt not detecting new mail in these folders are backup tools (updating access times) or filesystems mounted without access time update support (for Linux systems, see the relatime option). Note Contrary to older Mutt releases, it now maintains the new mail status of a folder by properly** resetting the access time** if the folder contains at least one message which is neither read, nor deleted, nor marked as old. In cases where new mail detection for Mbox or Mmdf folders appears to be unreliable, the__ $check_mbox_size__ option can be used to make Mutt track and consult **file sizes** for new mail detection instead which won't work for size-neutral changes. New mail for Maildir is assumed if there is one message in the __new/__ subdirectory which is **not marked deleted** (see__ $maildir_trash__). For MH folders, a mailbox is considered having new mail if there's at least one message in the “unseen” sequence as specified by $mh_seq_unseen. Mutt does **not poll POP3 folders** for new mail, it only periodically checks the currently opened folder (if it's a POP3 folder). For IMAP, by default Mutt uses recent message counts provided by the server to detect new mail. If the $imap_idle option is set, it'll use the IMAP IDLE extension if advertised by the server. === 10.2. Polling For New Mail === When in the index menu and **being idle** (also see __$timeout__), Mutt periodically checks for new mail in** all folders** which have been configured via the__ mailboxes__ command. The interval depends on the folder type: for local/IMAP folders it consults__ $mail_check__ and __$pop_checkinterval__ for POP folders. Outside the index menu the directory browser supports checking for new mail using the__ __ function which is unbound by default. Pressing **TAB **will bring up a menu showing the files specified by the mailboxes command, and indicate which contain new messages. Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the command line with the -y option. For the pager, index and directory browser menus, Mutt contains the ____ function (bound to “.” by default) which will print a list of folders with new mail in the command line at the bottom of the screen. For the index, by default Mutt displays the number of mailboxes with new mail in the status bar, please refer to the__ $status_format__ variable for details. When changing folders, Mutt fills the prompt with the first folder from the mailboxes list containing new mail (if any), pressing will cycle through folders with new mail. The (by default unbound) function in the index can be used to immediately open the next folder with unread mail (if any). ===== 11. Editing Threads ===== Mutt has the ability to **dynamically restructure threads** that are broken either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes from these annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion. === 11.1. Linking Threads === Some mailers tend to “forget” to correctly set the__ “In-Reply-To:” and “References:”__ headers when replying to a message. This results in **broken discussions **because Mutt has not enough information to guess the correct threading. You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent message and using the__ __ function (bound to__ &__ by default). The reply will then be connected to this parent message. You can also connect multiple children at once, __tagging them and using the command (“;”) or the $auto_tag option__. === 11.2. Breaking Threads === On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new discussion by hitting “reply” **to any **message from the list and changing the subject to a totally unrelated one. You can fix such threads by using the ____ function (bound by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the current message into a whole different thread. === 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support === RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for __relaying information__ about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as “**return receipts.”** To support DSN, there are two variables. __$dsn_notify__ is used to request receipts for different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.). $dsn_return requests how much of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full message). When using $sendmail for mail delivery, you need to use either Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x (or greater) a MTA supporting DSN command line options compatible to Sendmail: The -N and -R options can be used by the mail client to make requests as to what type of status messages should be returned. Please consider your MTA documentation whether DSN is supported. For SMTP delivery using $smtp_url, it depends on the capabilities announced by the server whether Mutt will attempt to request DSN or not. ===== 13. Start a WWW Browser on URLs ===== If a message contains URLs, it is efficient to get a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This functionality is provided by the external__ urlview__ program which can be retrieved at ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/ and the configuration commands: macro index__ \cb __|urlview\n macro pager \cb |urlview\n ===== 14. Miscellany ===== This section documents various features that fit nowhere else. Address normalization Mutt__ normalizes all e-mail addresses __to the simplest form possible. If an address contains a realname, the form Joe User is used and the pure e-mail address without angle brackets otherwise, i.e. just joe@example.com. This normalization affects all headers Mutt generates including aliases. Initial folder selection The folder Mutt opens at startup is determined as follows: the folder specified in the** $MAIL** environment variable if present. Otherwise, the value of **$MAILDIR** is taken into account. If that isn't present either, Mutt takes the user's mailbox in the **mailspool** as determined at compile-time (which may also reside in the home directory). The __$spoolfile__ setting** overrides** this selection. Highest priority has the mailbox given with the__ -f__ command line option. ====== Chapter 5. Mutt's MIME Support ====== Table of Contents 1. Using MIME in Mutt 1.1. MIME Overview 1.2. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager 1.3. The Attachment Menu 1.4. The Compose Menu 2. MIME Type Configuration with mime.types 3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap 3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File 3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap 3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage 3.4. Example Mailcap Files 4. MIME Autoview 5. MIME Multipart/Alternative 6. Attachment Searching and Counting 7. MIME Lookup Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt __the premier text-mode MIME MUA__. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards wherever possible. When configuring Mutt for MIME, there are two extra types of configuration files which Mutt uses. One is the __mime.types __file, which contains the** mapping of file extensions to IANA MIME types**. The other is the__ mailcap file__, which specifies the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types. ===== 1. Using MIME in Mutt ===== 1.1. MIME Overview MIME is short for__ “Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension” __and **describes mechanisms **to__ internationalize and structure mail messages__. Before the introduction of MIME, messages had a single** text part** and were limited to **us-ascii header** and **content**. With MIME, messages can have **attachments** (and even attachments which itself have attachments and thus form a tree structure), nearly arbitrary characters can be used for sender names, recipients and subjects. Besides the handling of __non-ascii characters in message headers__, to Mutt the most important aspect of MIME are so-called MIME types. These are constructed using a **major and minor type** separated by a forward slash. These specify details about the** content **that follows. Based upon these, Mutt decides how to handle this part. The most popular major type is “text” with minor types for plain text, HTML and various other formats. Major types also exist for images, audio, video and of course general application data (e.g. to separate cryptographically signed data with a signature, send office documents, and in general arbitrary binary data). There's also the __multipart__ __major type__ which represents the** root of a subtree** of MIME parts. A list of supported MIME types can be found in Table 5.1, “Supported MIME types”. MIME also defines a set of __encoding schemes__ for transporting MIME content over the network: **7bit, 8bit, quoted-printable, base64 and binary**. There're some rules when to choose what for encoding headers and/or body (if needed), and Mutt will in general make a good choice. Mutt does most of MIME encoding/decoding behind the scenes to form messages conforming to MIME on the** sending side**. On reception, it can be flexibly configured as to how what MIME structure is displayed (and if it's displayed): these decisions are based on the __content's MIME type__. There are three areas/menus in dealing with MIME: the** pager **(while viewing a message), **the attachment menu and the compose menu**. 1.2. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt __decodes__ as much of a message as possible to a__ text representation__. Mutt internally supports a number of MIME types, including the text major type (with all minor types), the message/rfc822 (mail messages) type and some** multipart types**. In addition, it recognizes a variety of__ PGP MIME types__, including PGP/MIME and application/pgp. Mutt will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them. These lines are of the form: [-- Attachment #1: **Description **--] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --] Where the Description is the description or filename given for the attachment, and the Encoding is one of the already mentioned content encodings. If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like: [-- image/gif is unsupported (use __'v'__ to view this part) --] ==== 1.3. The Attachment Menu ==== The default binding for __ __is “v”, which displays the **attachment menu** for a message. The attachment menu displays** a list **of the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can** save, print, pipe, delete, and view attachments**. You can apply these operations to a group of attachments at once, by __tagging__ the attachments and by using the operator. You can also__ reply to__ the current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the attachments tagged) will be** quoted **in your reply. You can view attachments as text, or view them using the__ mailcap viewer__ definition (the mailcap mechanism is explained later in detail). Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like , and the and functions) to attachments of type message/rfc822. See table Table 9.7, “Default Attachment Menu Bindings” for all available functions. ==== 1.4. The Compose Menu ==== The compose menu is the menu __you see before you send a message__. It allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy, filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a list of tagged attachments. You can also__ modifying __the attachment information, notably the type, encoding and __description.__ Attachments appear as follows by default: - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz The “-” denotes that Mutt will **delete** the file after sending (or postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the__ __ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME content-type, and can be changed with the ____ command (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment, which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit links. It can be changed with the ____ command (default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment, rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename, which can be changed with the__ __command (default: R). The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be changed with the__ __ command (default: d). See $attach_format for a full list of available expandos to format this display to your needs. === 2. MIME Type Configuration with mime.types === To get most out of MIME, it's important that a MIME part's content type matches the content as closely as possible so that the recipient's client can automatically select the__ right viewer __for the content. However, there's no reliable for Mutt to know how to detect every possible file type. Instead, it uses a simple plain text mapping file that specifies what** file extension corresponds to what MIME type**. This file is called __mime.types.__ When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your personal mime.types file at $HOME/__.mime.types__, and then the system mime.types file at /usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types or /etc/mime.types Each line starts with the full MIME type, followed by a space and space-separated list of file extensions. For example you could use: Example 5.1. mime.types application/postscript ps eps application/pgp pgp audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff A sample mime.types file comes with the Mutt distribution, and should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use. If Mutt can not determine the MIME type by the extension of the file you attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary information, Mutt will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it as** text/plain**. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will mark it as **application/octet-stream**. You can change the MIME type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the__ __ command from the compose menu (default: **^T**), see Table 5.1, “Supported MIME types” for supported major types. Mutt recognizes all of these if the appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. Non-recognized mime types should only be used if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments. Table 5.1. Supported MIME types MIME major type Standard Description application yes General application data audio yes Audio data image yes Image data message yes Mail messages, message status information model yes VRML and other modeling data __multipart__ yes __Container__ for other MIME parts text yes Text data video yes Video data chemical no Mostly molecular data MIME types are not arbitrary, they need to be assigned by IANA. ==== 3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap ==== Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format is commonly referred to as the __“mailcap” format__. Many MIME compliant programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to use this format include Firefox, lynx and metamail. In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt doesn't have__ built-in support__ for, it parses a series of external configuration files to __find an external handler__. The default search string for these files is a colon delimited list containing the following files: $HOME/.mailcap $PKGDATADIR/mailcap $SYSCONFDIR/mailcap /etc/mailcap /usr/etc/mailcap /usr/local/etc/mailcap where $HOME is your home directory. The $PKGDATADIR and the__ $SYSCONFDIR__ directories depend on where Mutt is installed: the former is the default for shared data, the latter for system configuration files. The default search path can be obtained by running the following command: mutt -nF /dev/null __-Q__ mailcap_path In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file, usually as /usr/local/etc/mailcap, which contains some baseline entries. 3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are **comments, blank, or definitions**. * A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want. * A blank line is blank. * A definition line consists of __a content type, a view command, and any number of optional fields__. Each field of a definition line is divided by a semicolon__ “;” __character. The content type is specified in the MIME standard__ “type/subtype” __notation. For example, text/plain, text/html, image/gif, etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for wildcards, one using the special __“*”__ subtype, the other is the implicit wild, where you only include the major type. For example, image/*, or video will match all image types and video types, respectively. The view command is a__ Unix command__ for viewing the type specified. There are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send the body of the MIME message to the command **on stdin**. You can change this behavior by using__ %s__ as a parameter to your view command. This will cause Mutt to save the body of the MIME message to **a temporary file**, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will **turn over** the terminal to the view program **until the program quits**, at which time Mutt will remove the temporary file if it exists. This means that mailcap does not work out of the box with programs which __detach__ themselves from the terminal right after starting, like open on Mac OS X. In order to nevertheless use these programs with mailcap, you probably need custom shell scripts. So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the external pager more on **standard input**: text/plain; more Or, you could send the message__ as a file__: text/plain; more __%s__ Perhaps you would like to use lynx to **interactively view** a text/html message: text/html; lynx %s In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from standard input, so you must use the %s syntax. On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you just want to have it **convert the text/html to text/plain**, then you can use: text/html;__ lynx -dump %s | more__ Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on all other text formats, then you would use the following: text/html; lynx %s text/*; more ==== 3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap ==== The interpretation of** shell meta-characters** embedded in MIME parameters can lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to__ quote parameters__ in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by substituting them, see the $mailcap_sanitize variable. Although Mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules: Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting. Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt does this for you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful with evil statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix broken behavior with quotes introduces new leaks — there is no alternative to correct quoting in the first place. If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following example (using $charset inside the backtick expansion is safe, since it is not itself subject to any further expansion): text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \ && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1 ==== 3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage ==== 3.3.1. Optional Fields In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you can add semi-colon “;” __separated fields to set flags and other options__. Mutt recognizes the following optional fields: __copiousoutput__ This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts of text on standard output. This causes Mutt to__ invoke a pager__ (either the internal pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes that the **command is interactive**. One could use this to replace the pipe to more in the lynx -dump example in the Basic section: text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain and Mutt will use **your standard pager **to display the results. Note that__ when using the built-in pager, only entries with this flag will be considered a handler __for a MIME type — all other entries will be ignored. needsterminal Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with auto_view, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting of the $wait_key variable or not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the corresponding mailcap entry has a needsterminal flag, Mutt will use $wait_key and the exit status of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt you for a key. compose= This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu. composetyped= This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in that Mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new attachment. Mutt supports this from the compose menu. print= This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus. edit= This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined $editor for text attachments. __nametemplate=