


MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


NAME
       mm - offline mail reader for Blue Wave, QWK, OMEN and SOUP
       packets

SYNOPSIS
       mm [filename1] [filename2] [...]

DESCRIPTION
       MultiMail is an offline mail packet reader, supporting the
       Blue  Wave,  QWK,  OMEN and SOUP formats. It uses a simple
       curses-based interface.

       SOUP is used for Internet email and Usenet. The others are
       used  primarily  by dialup (or telnet) BBSes, to save con-
       nect time, and to provide a better interface to  the  mes-
       sage base.

       Not  all packet formats may be available, depending on how
       the program was compiled.

       This manpage is for version 0.33.

USAGE
       On most screens, the available keystroke commands are dis-
       played  in  the  lower  part  of  the screen. In the mail-
       reading window, pressing F1 or '?'  will show the commands
       available there.

       The  navigation  keys,  most  of which work throughout the
       program, are briefly summarized only on the packet screen,
       for  lack  of  space.  :-)  Basically, they consist of the
       standard cursor and keypad keys, with <Enter>  to  select.
       For terminals without full support for these keys, aliases
       are available for some of them:

       ESC   = Q
       PgDn  = B
       PgUp  = F
       Right = +
       Left  = -

       (Although  shown  in  capitals,  these  may   be   entered
       unshifted.)

       With  "Lynx-style  navigation", activated by the "UseLynx-
       Nav" option, the Left arrow key backs out from any screen,
       while  the  Right  arrow  key  selects. It also makes Left
       equivalent to selecting ".." in the packet list, except at
       the  top  level  (where it's equivalent to Quit). The plus
       and minus keys are no longer aliases for Right  and  Left,
       but perform the same functions as in the traditional navi-
       gation system.

       Of special note is the space bar. In  most  areas  of  the



                        February 21, 2000                       1





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       program,  it  functions  as  an alias for PgDn; but in the
       mail-reading window, it works as a combination  PgDn/Enter
       key, allowing you to page through an area with one key.

       In the letter list, only unread messages are displayed, by
       default, but you can toggle this by pressing L.

       Multiple sort modes are available in the packet and letter
       lists;  you  can  cycle  through them by pressing '$'. The
       default sort modes are set in the .mmailrc.

       Packet names may be specified on the command line, bypass-
       ing  the  packet  menu.  If  multiple  packets  are named,
       they'll be opened sequentially.

       You can abort the program immediately from any screen with
       CTRL-X. You won't be prompted to confirm the exit, but you
       will still  be  prompted  to  save  replies  and  pointers
       (unless  autosaving is set). Note that if you've specified
       multiple packets on the command line, this is the only way
       to terminate the sequence prematurely.

       You  can  obtain  a  temporary  command  shell anywhere by
       pressing  CTRL-Z.  In  the  DOSish  ports  (MS-DOS,  OS/2,
       Win32),  it spawns a command shell, and you return to Mul-
       tiMail via the "exit" command. In Unix, it relies  on  the
       shell  to put MultiMail in the background; you return with
       "fg". (This has always been available  in  the  Unix  ver-
       sions; however, it won't work if MultiMail wasn't launched
       from an interactive shell, or if the shell doesn't support
       it.)

SEARCHING
       A  case-insensitive  search  function  is available on all
       screens. Press '/' to specify the text to look for, or '>'
       or '.' to repeat the last search.

       New  searches  (specified  with  '/')  always start at the
       beginning of the list or message.  Repeat  searches  (with
       '>' or '.') start with the line below the current one. You
       can take advantage of this to manually adjust the starting
       point for the next search.

       Searches started in the letter, area or packet lists allow
       the searches to extend below the current list. "Full text"
       searches  all  the  way  through the text of each message;
       "Headers" searches only the message  headers  (the  letter
       list), "Areas" only the area list, and "Pkt list" only the
       packet list. So, a "Full text"  search  started  from  the
       packet list will search every message in every packet (but
       only in the current directory).

       When scanning "Full text", the automatic  setting  of  the
       "Read"  marker  is disabled. However, if you find a search



                        February 21, 2000                       2





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       string in the header of a message and then select it manu-
       ally,  the  marker  will be set. But if you start scanning
       from the packet list, and exit the  packet  via  a  repeat
       search, the last-read markers won't be saved.

       Scans of "Headers" or "Full text" that start from the area
       list or packet list will automatically expand  the  letter
       lists  they  descend into.  Similarly, scans that start at
       the packet list will expand the area lists.  Otherwise, if
       you're  viewing  the  short  list, that's all that will be
       searched.

       I hope the above makes some sense. :-) The searching func-
       tions are difficult to explain, but easy to use.

OFFLINE CONFIGURATION
       At  present,  offline config is limited to subscribe (add)
       and unsubscribe (drop) functions.  The  Blue  Wave,  OMEN,
       QWKE,  and  QWK  Add/Drop  (with DOOR.ID) methods are sup-
       ported. (The QMAIL "CONFIG" method is not supported  yet.)
       Offline config is not yet available in SOUP mode.

       In  the  area list, press 'U' or 'Del' to unsubscribe from
       the highlighted area. To subscribe to  a  new  conference,
       first  expand the list ('L'), then highlight the appropri-
       ate area and press 'S' or 'Ins'. Dropped areas are  marked
       with  a  minus sign ('-') in the first column; added areas
       with a plus ('+'). In the  expanded  area  list,  already-
       subscribed  areas are marked with an asterisk ('*'). (This
       and also applies to the little area list.  With plain  QWK
       packets,  the  asterisk  should  not be relied upon; other
       areas may also be subscribed.) Added or dropped areas  are
       highlighted  in the "Area_Reply" color. Yeah, I'll have to
       change that name now. ;-)

       Pressing 'S' on an area marked with '-', or 'U' on an area
       marked '+' turns the flag off again.

       In  Blue  Wave,  OMEN  or QWKE mode, the list of added and
       dropped areas is read back in when  the  reply  packet  is
       reopened.  If  the reply packet has already been uploaded,
       and you're reading a packet with the  altered  area  list,
       this is benign. If it's an older packet, you can alter the
       list before uploading, as  with  reply  messages.  In  QWK
       Add/Drop  mode,  the  changed  area flags are converted to
       reply messages when  the  reply  packet  is  saved.  Note:
       Adding  or dropping areas sets the "unsaved replies" flag,
       like entering a reply message, but does not  invoke  auto-
       matic reply packet saving until you exit the packet.

       Unfortunately, the OMEN mode has not actually been tested;
       but I believe it conforms to the specs. Reports welcome.





                        February 21, 2000                       3





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


HIDDEN LINES AND ROT13
       In the letter window, you can toggle  viewing  of  Fidonet
       "hidden" lines (marked with a ^A in the first position) by
       pressing 'x'. The lines are shown as part of the text, but
       in  a different color. In Internet email and Usenet areas,
       the full headers of the messages are available in the same
       way  (if provided in the packet -- generally, full headers
       are available in SOUP, and partial extra headers  in  Blue
       Wave).

       Pressing  'd'  toggles  rot13 encoding, the crude "encryp-
       tion" method used for spoiler warnings and such, primarily
       on Usenet.

ANSI VIEWER
       If a message contains ANSI color codes, you may be able to
       view it as originally  intended  by  activating  the  ANSI
       viewer.  Press  'v'  to  start it.  Press 'q' to leave the
       ANSI viewer; the navigation keys are the same  as  in  the
       mail-reading window.

       The  ANSI  viewer  includes  support  for animation. While
       within the ANSI viewer, press 'v'  again  to  animate  the
       picture. Press any key to abort the animation.

       The ANSI viewer is also used to display the new files list
       and bulletins, if any are present.

CHARACTER SETS
       MultiMail supports automatic translation between two char-
       acter  sets:  the  IBM PC set (Code Page 437), and Latin-1
       (ISO 8859-1). Messages can be in either character set; the
       set  is  determined by the area attributes -- Internet and
       Usenet areas default to Latin-1, while all others  default
       to  IBM -- and by a CHRS or CHARSET kludge, if one is pre-
       sent. OMEN packets indicate their  character  set  in  the
       INFOxy.BBS file. MultiMail translates when displaying mes-
       sages and creating replies.

       The Unix versions of MultiMail  assume  that  the  console
       uses  Latin-1,  while  the DOSish versions (DOS, OS/2, and
       Win32) assume the IBM PC set. You can  override  this  via
       the  .mmailrc option "Charset", or on a temporary basis by
       pressing 'c'.

       You can also use a different character  set  by  disabling
       the  conversion  in  MultiMail,  and letting your terminal
       handle it. For SOUP packets, and for  Internet  or  Usenet
       areas  in other packets, everything will be passed through
       unchanged if you set  MultiMail  to  "Latin-1".  For  most
       other packet types, setting MultiMail to "CP437" will have
       the same effect.

       Beginning with version 0.33, a new character set  variable



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       is  available: "outCharset". This is a string which Multi-
       Mail puts into the MIME identifier lines in  SOUP  replies
       if the text includes 8-bit characters.  It's also used for
       the pseudo-QP headers which are generated under  the  same
       conditions;  and  when  displaying such headers, MultiMail
       only converts text back to  8-bit  if  the  character  set
       matches. The default is "iso-8859-1".

       By  default,  if  a  header  line in a SOUP reply contains
       8-bit characters, MultiMail now writes  it  out  with  RFC
       2047  (pseudo-QP)  encoding. You can disable this for mail
       and/or news replies via the "UseQPMailHead" and "UseQPNew-
       sHead"  options,  though  I don't recommend it. The bodies
       can also be encoded in quoted-printable; this is now on by
       default  for  mail,  and off for news. The options "UseQP-
       Mail" and "UseQPNews" toggle QP encoding. (The headers and
       bodies  of  received  messages  will still be converted to
       8-bit.)

       QP decoding is temporarily disabled when  you  toggle  the
       display  of  hidden  lines  ('x') in the letter window, so
       that you can see the raw text of the message.

REPLY SPLITTING
       Replies may be split, either  automatically,  or  manually
       via CTRL-B in the reply area. For automatic splitting, the
       default maximum number of lines per part  is  set  in  the
       .mmailrc.  The  split  occurs whenever the reply packet is
       saved. This allows you to defer the split  and  still  re-
       edit  the  whole  reply as one. However, with autosave on,
       the split will occur immediately after  entering  a  reply
       (because  the  save  does,  too).  Setting MaxLines in the
       .mmailrc to 0 disables automatic splitting; manual  split-
       ting  is  still allowed. Attempts to split at less than 20
       lines are assumed to be mistakes and are ignored.

ENVIRONMENT
       MultiMail uses the HOME or MMAIL environment  variable  to
       find  its configuration file, .mmailrc; and EDITOR for the
       default editor. MMAIL takes precedence over HOME  if  it's
       defined.  If  neither is defined, the startup directory is
       used.

       Depending on the implementation, TMP and/or TEMP may  also
       be  used to specify the directory for temporary files. The
       use of EDITOR can  be  overridden  in  .mmailrc;  however,
       environment variables can't be used within .mmailrc.

       You  should also make sure that your time zone is set cor-
       rectly. On many systems, that means setting the  TZ  envi-
       ronment  variable. A typical value for this variable is of
       the form "EST5EDT" (that one's for the east coast  of  the
       U.S.A.).




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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


FILES
       The   only  hardwired  file  is  the  configuration  file:
       .mmailrc (mmail.rc in DOS, OS/2 or Win32).  It's  used  to
       specify  the pathnames to MultiMail's other files, and the
       command lines for external programs (the  editor  and  the
       archivers).

       By  default,  the  other permanent files are placed in the
       MultiMail home directory  ($HOME/mmail  or  $MMAIL/mmail).
       For  temporary  directories  and files, MultiMail uses the
       tmpnam()  function  (the  location  is  system-dependent).
       Directories specified in the .mmailrc are created automat-
       ically; the default values are shown here:


       ~/mmail
              To store the  tagline  file,  netmail  addressbook,
              etc.

       taglines
              A plain text file, one tagline per line.

       addressbook (address.bk in DOS, OS/2 or Win32)
              A  list  of names and corresponding Fido netmail or
              Internet  email  addresses.  Note   that   Internet
              addresses are prefaced with an 'I'.

       colors Specifies the colors to use. (See README.col.)

       ~/mmail/down
              To store the packets as they came from the bbs.

       ~/mmail/up
              To  store  the  reply  packet(s)  which you have to
              upload to the bbs.

       ~/mmail/save
              The default directory for saving messages.

CONFIG FILE
       The config file (see above) is a plain text  file  with  a
       series  of  values,  one  per  line, in the form "KeyWord:
       Value". The case of the keywords is not signifigant. Addi-
       tional,  comment  lines  may  be  present,  starting  with
       replaced by the defaults when you upgrade to  a  new  ver-
       sion.)  If any of the keywords are missing, default values
       will be used. Here are the keywords and their functions:


       Version
              Specifies  the  version  of  MultiMail  which  last
              updated the file. This is used to check whether the
              file should be updated and the "new version" prompt
              displayed.  Note that old values are preserved when



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              the file is updated; the  update  merely  adds  any
              keywords that are new. This keyword is also used in
              the colors file.

       UserName
              Your name in plain text, e.g.,  "UserName:  William
              McBrine".  This  is  used together with InetAddr to
              create a default "From:" line for SOUP replies; and
              by  itself in OMEN for display purposes (the actual
              From name is set on upload), and for matching  per-
              sonal messages.

       InetAddr
              Your   Internet  email  address,  e.g.,  "InetAddr:
              wmcbrine@clark.net".  This  is  combined  with  the
              UserName   in   the   form   "UserName  <InetAddr>"
              ("William McBrine <wmcbrine@clark.net>") to  create
              a  default "From:" line for SOUP replies. Note that
              if neither value is specified, and nothing is typed
              manually  into the From: field when creating a mes-
              sage, no From: line will be generated --  which  is
              perfectly  acceptable  to  at  least some SOUP pro-
              grams, like UQWK.

       QuoteHead, InetQuote
              These strings are placed at the  beginning  of  the
              quoted  text  when  replying  in  normal  or Inter-
              net/Usenet areas, respectively. (The distinction is
              made  because the quoting conventions for BBSes and
              the Internet are different.)   Replaceable  parame-
              ters  are  indicated  with a '%' character, as fol-
              lows:

              %f = "From" in original message
              %t = To
              %d = Date (of original message)
              %s = Subject
              %a = Area
              %n = newline (for multi-line headers)
              %% = insert an actual percent character

              Note that you can't put white space at the start of
              one  of these strings (it will be eaten by the con-
              fig parser), but you can get around that by putting
              a newline first.

       homeDir
              User's home directory.

       mmHomeDir
              MultiMail's home directory.

       signature
              Path  to optional signature file, which should be a



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              simple text file. If specified, it will be appended
              to  every  message  you  write. You should give the
              full path, not just the name.

       editor The editor MultiMail uses for replies,  along  with
              any  command-line  options. This may also be a good
              place to insert spell-checkers, etc., by specifying
              a  batch  file here. Note that the default value is
              just the editor that's (almost)  guaranteed  to  be
              available,  for a given OS (although the Unix "EDI-
              TOR" environment variable is checked first), and is
              in  no  way  a preferred editor; you can and should
              change it.

       PacketDir
              Default packet directory.

       ReplyDir
              Default reply packet directory.

       SaveDir
              Default directory for saved messages.

       AddressBook
              Path and filename of the address book.  (You  might
              change  this to share it with another installation,
              but basically this keyword isn't too useful.)

       TaglineFile
              Path and filename of the tagline file.  This  could
              be  altered  from a batch file to swap between dif-
              ferent sets of taglines. (But note that this  value
              is  only  read  at  startup.)  You could also share
              taglines with another program, but be careful  with
              that;  MultiMail  truncates the lines at 76 charac-
              ters.

       ColorFile
              Path  and  filename  of  the   colors   file.   See
              README.col.

       *UncompressCommand, *CompressCommand
              Command  lines  (program name, options, and option-
              ally the path) for the archivers  to  compress  and
              uncompress packets and reply packets. ZIP, ARJ, RAR
              and LHA are recognized. The "unknown" values are  a
              catch-all, attempted for anything that's not recog-
              nized as one of the other four types; if  you  have
              to deal with ARC or ZOO files, you might define the
              archiver for them here.

       PacketSort
              The packet list can be  sorted  either  in  inverse
              order  of  packet  date and time (the newest at the



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              top), or in alphabetical order by filename.  "Time"
              specifies the former, and "Name" the latter. (Actu-
              ally only the first letter is checked, and case  is
              not signifigant. This applies to the other keywords
              of this type (the kind that have  a  fixed  set  of
              values  to  choose  from)  as  well.) The sort type
              specified here is only the default, and can be tog-
              gled from the packet window by pressing '$'.

       LetterSort
              The sort used by default in the letter list. Can be
              "Subject" (subjects sorted alphabetically,  with  a
              case-insensitive compare), "Number" (sorted by mes-
              sage number), "From" or "To". (This can be overrid-
              den, as in the packet list.)

       Charset
              The  character  set  that the console is assumed to
              use. Either "CP437" (code page 437, the U.S.  stan-
              dard  for  the IBM PC and clones) or "Latin-1" (aka
              ISO-8859-1, the standard for most  other  systems).
              Note  that  the character set of messages is deter-
              mined separately (q.v.).

       UseTaglines
              Yes/No. If no, the tagline window is not  displayed
              at all when composing a message.

       AutoSaveReplies
              Yes/No. If yes, the reply packet is saved automati-
              cally -- the equivalent of pressing F2, but without
              a  confirmation  prompt  -- whenver the contents of
              the reply area are changed. This can be convenient,
              and  even  a safety feature if your power supply is
              irregular, but it provides less opportunity to take
              back  a  change  (like  deleting a message). If no,
              you're prompted whether  to  save  the  changes  on
              exiting the packet. Note that if you say no to that
              prompt, nothing that you wrote during that  session
              will  be  saved  (unless you saved it manually with
              F2).

       AutoSaveRead
              Yes/No. If yes, the read/marked/etc. indicators are
              saved  automatically  when exiting a packet. If no,
              you'll be prompted whether to save them; if you say
              no,  the indicators will remain as they were before
              you opened the packet.

       StripSoftCR
              Yes/No. Some messages on Fido-type networks contain
              spurious  instances of character 141, which appears
              as an accented 'i' in  code  page  437.  These  are
              really  so-called "soft returns", where the message



                        February 21, 2000                       9





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              was wrapped when composing it, but not indicating a
              paragraph  break.  Unfortunately, the character can
              also appear legitimately as that accented  'i',  so
              this  option defaults to no. It can be toggled tem-
              porarily via the 'I' key in the letter window,  and
              it doesn't apply to messages in the Latin-1 charac-
              ter set.

       BeepOnPers
              Yes/No. If yes, MultiMail beeps  when  you  open  a
              message addressed to or from yourself in the letter
              window. (These are  the  same  messages  which  are
              highlighted in the letter list.)

       UseLynxNav
              Yes/No. See the description under USAGE.

       UseScrollBars
              Yes/No.  In  list windows, when the number of items
              in the list exceeds the number of lines in the win-
              dow,  MultiMail  puts  a  "scroll bar" on the right
              border of the window, showing the  highlight  bar's
              position  relative  to  the entire list. Older ver-
              sions of MultiMail (pre-0.29) didn't do this, and I
              figure some people may not like it, so you can dis-
              able it here.

       BuildPersArea
              Yes/No. By default, MultiMail now  builds  a  "per-
              sonal"  area  automatically, consisting of messages
              addressed to you, for every  packet  format  except
              SOUP.  But  there's  some  overhead associated with
              this, so if you have a very slow computer -- or  if
              you  just  don't  want  to see this area -- you can
              disable it here.  Note  that  this  option  doesn't
              apply  to  QWK  packets  with  .NDX  files in them;
              there, the  area  only  appears  if  "personal.ndx"
              exists in the packet.

       MakeOldFlags
              Yes/No.  With  Blue Wave packets, this makes Multi-
              Mail store its last-read flags in the  ".xti"  file
              format  rather  than  in  its  native  ".red". This
              allows interoperation with some other  readers  and
              utilities,  but  it  takes  slightly longer to read
              back in. Also note that  the  old-style  flags  can
              take  precedence  over  a  .RED  file  in  the same
              packet, if the packet is future-dated (as, e.g., if
              you're  in  the  U.S., and DL'ing from a BBS in the
              U.K.), resulting in lost markers. You can fix  this
              by  extracting  the packet and setting the files to
              the current time. But if you always  use  "MakeOld-
              Flags: Yes", this won't be a problem.




                        February 21, 2000                      10





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       ReOnReplies
              Yes/No. By popular demand. :-) Setting this to "No"
              will disable the automatic prefixing of "Re:  "  to
              the  Subject  when  replying  --  except  in  areas
              flagged as Internet email or Usenet, where this  is
              the standard, and is still upheld.

       QuoteWrapCols
              Numeric.  The  right  margin for quoted material in
              replies (including the quote indicator).

       MaxLines
              Numeric. See the description under REPLY SPLITTING.

       outCharset
              String. See the description under CHARACTER SETS.

       UseQPMailHead
              Yes/No.  Controls  the  use of RFC 2047 encoding in
              outgoing mail headers.

       UseQPNewsHead
              Yes/No. Controls the use of RFC  2047  encoding  in
              outgoing news headers.

       UseQPMail
              Yes/No. Controls the use of quoted-printable encod-
              ing in outgoing mail.

       UseQPNews
              Yes/No. Controls the use of quoted-printable encod-
              ing in outgoing news.

UPGRADING
       When  you  run  a new version of MultiMail (0.19 or later)
       for the first time, it automatically updates your .mmailrc
       and  ColorFile  with  any new keywords. (Old keywords, and
       the values you've set for them,  are  preserved.  However,
       comments are lost.) Some notes on specific upgrades:

       Version  0.33  adds  the  .mmailrc  options "ReOnReplies",
       "outCharset",  "UseQPMailHead",  "UseQPNewsHead",  "UseQP-
       Mail" and "UseQPNews", and changes some default values.

       Version  0.32  adds the options "BuildPersArea" and "Make-
       OldFlags".

       Version 0.30  adds  "UserName",  "InetAddr",  "QuoteHead",
       "InetQuote", and "QuoteWrapCols".

       Version 0.29 adds "UseScrollBars" and "UseLynxNav".

       Version  0.28 adds "MaxLines", "StripSoftCR", and "BeepOn-
       Pers".



                        February 21, 2000                      11





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       Version 0.26 adds "AutoSaveReplies",  "AutoSaveRead",  and
       "UseTaglines".

       Version  0.25  adds  "Charset", "PacketSort", and "Letter-
       Sort". The default packet sort is now by time  instead  of
       name.

       If  you're  upgrading  from 0.19 to 0.20 or later, and you
       have a customized ColorFile,  be  sure  to  note  the  new
       options.

       The   ColorFile   is   new   in   0.19.   Check   it   out
       (~/mmail/colors, by default).

       As of 0.16, the HOME environment variable can be  overrid-
       den with MMAIL, or omitted altogether.

       If  you're  upgrading  from  a version before 0.9, and you
       have existing reply packets (.rep or .new) whose names are
       partly  or  wholly  in  uppercase, you must rename them to
       lowercase before version  0.9  or  higher  will  recognize
       them. (Downloaded packets are not at issue.)

       If you're upgrading from a version below 0.8, you may want
       to manually delete the /tmp/$LOGNAME directory created  by
       previous  versions.  (0.8  and  higher clean out their own
       temp directories, and use different names  for  each  ses-
       sion.)

       If  you're  upgrading  from a version prior to 0.7, please
       note the changes in the  default  directories;  previously
       they were "~/mmail/bwdown", etc.

NOTES
       SOUP  reply  packets  are  created  with  the  name "base-
       name.rep", where basename is  the  part  of  the  original
       packet  name  before the first period.  (Unlike other for-
       mats, there's no actual standard for  this  in  SOUP,  but
       this seems to be the most common form among the SOUP read-
       ers I surveyed.)  Also, not that I expect  anyone  to  try
       this,  but  currently MultiMail is only able to read reply
       packets generated by other SOUP readers if the replies are
       in  'b'  or  'B'  mode,  and  are one to a file within the
       packet.  Most readers meet the first criterion,  but  some
       of them batch all mail and news replies into a single file
       for each type. A future version of MultiMail will be  able
       to read these, too.

       When re-editing a reply, it gets pushed to end of the list
       of replies.

       The R)ename function in the packet window can also be used
       to  move  files between directories; however, the destina-
       tion filename must still be specified along with the path.



                        February 21, 2000                      12





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       If  you're  using the XCurses (PDCurses) version, and your
       editor isn't an X app, it will work better if you set Mul-
       tiMail's  "editor" keyword to "xterm -e filename" (instead
       of just "filename"). I decided not to  do  this  automati-
       cally because someone might actually use it with an X edi-
       tor.

       Editing and deletion of old replies are available  through
       the  REPLY  area,  which  always appears at the top of the
       area list. This differs from  Blue  Wave  and  some  other
       readers.

       The  Escape  key  works to back out from most screens, but
       after you press it, you'll have to wait a bit for it to be
       sensed (with ncurses; not true with PDCurses).

       Only  Blue  Wave style taglines (beginning with "...") are
       recognized by the tagline stealer.  The  tagline  must  be
       visible on the screen to be taken.

       Netmail  only  works  in  Blue Wave and OMEN modes, and is
       still slightly limited. Netmail from points  now  includes
       the  point  address.  Internet  email is available in Blue
       Wave mode, for those doors that support it,  and  in  SOUP
       mode, using the same interface as Fido netmail.

AUTHORS
       MultiMail  was originally developed under Linux by Koloss-
       vary Tamas and Toth Istvan. John Zero was  the  maintainer
       for versions 0.2 through 0.6; since version 0.7, the main-
       tainer is William McBrine <wmcbrine@clark.net>.

       Additional code has been  contribued  by  Peter  Karlsson,
       Mark D. Rejhon, Ingo Brueckl, and Robert Vukovic.

BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
       If your editor produces automatic backup files, you should
       disable this feature, if possible, or wrap it with a batch
       file  to  delete  them when done. MultiMail will erase the
       temporary files it creates itself, but it doesn't know  to
       erase the backup files from an editor.

       The  Win32  version  is  reported  to be incompatible with
       4DOS: shelling to external programs (archivers or editors)
       fails.  Thanks  to  Tony  Summerfelt for figuring this one
       out. You can set the MultiMail session to use  COMMAND.COM
       while retaining 4DOS elsewhere.

       On some platforms, specifying a packet on the command line
       fails if the filename  is  exactly  10  characters.  (Both
       shorter  and longer names are OK.)  This appears to be due
       to strange bugs in the standard  library,  and  I  haven't
       found  a  satisfactory  solution. I noticed it now because
       all OMEN packets fit this description. :-( Packets  chosen



                        February 21, 2000                      13





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       from the packet menu are unaffected.

       Red  Hat  Linux 6.0 (and possibly 6.x) comes with a defec-
       tive installation of ncurses. When linked to this,  Multi-
       Mail  mostly works, but odd effects appear when scrolling.
       (Users describe it as double-spaced.) The problem  can  be
       fixed  by  reinstalling ncurses from the source -- not the
       source RPM that comes  with  Red  Hat,  but  the  original
       source from the ncurses site (see INSTALL).

       SOUP  area type 'M' is not recognized yet. First I have to
       find a program that can generate one. :-)

       The ANSI viewer eats up a huge amount  of  memory  --  the
       number  of  rendered  lines, times the screen width, times
       four bytes. (And when it's used as a file viewer, add  the
       length  of  the  disk file to that.) That wasn't much of a
       problem when viewing ANSI messages, but it can get  severe
       now  that  the  ANSI viewer is used for new file lists. (A
       list of several hundred K may require several megs of mem-
       ory.)

       The  new file list and bulletin viewer is, as yet, a hack.
       A better means of selecting which ones  to  view  will  be
       forthcoming, if I can ever decide just how it should look.
       (Your opinion is welcome.)

       If you find any  bugs,  or  have  ideas  for  improvement,
       please write to me.




























                        February 21, 2000                      14


