Message Manual
All message composition from Gnus (both mail and news) takes place in
Message mode buffers.
This manual corresponds to Message v5.10.1. Message is distributed
with the Gnus distribution bearing the same version number as this
manual.
1. Interface
When a program (or a person) wants to respond to a message -- reply,
follow up, forward, cancel -- the program (or person) should just put
point in the buffer where the message is and call the required command.
Message will then pop up a new message mode buffer with
appropriate headers filled out, and the user can edit the message before
sending it.
1.1 New Mail Message
The message-mail command pops up a new message buffer.
Two optional parameters are accepted: The first will be used as the
To header and the second as the Subject header. If these
are nil, those two headers will be empty.
1.2 New News Message
The message-news command pops up a new message buffer.
This function accepts two optional parameters. The first will be used
as the Newsgroups header and the second as the Subject
header. If these are nil, those two headers will be empty.
1.3 Reply
The message-reply function pops up a message buffer that's a
reply to the message in the current buffer.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where replies are to go
(see section 5.1 Responses), but you can change the behavior to suit your needs
by fiddling with the message-reply-to-function variable.
If you want the replies to go to the Sender instead of the
From, you could do something like this:
| | (setq message-reply-to-function
(lambda ()
(cond ((equal (mail-fetch-field "from") "somebody")
(list (cons 'To (mail-fetch-field "sender"))))
(t
nil))))
|
This function will be called narrowed to the head of the article that is
being replied to.
As you can see, this function should return a string if it has an
opinion as to what the To header should be. If it does not, it should
just return nil, and the normal methods for determining the To
header will be used.
This function can also return a list. In that case, each list element
should be a cons, where the CAR should be the name of a header
(e.g. Cc) and the CDR should be the header value
(e.g. `larsi@ifi.uio.no'). All these headers will be inserted into
the head of the outgoing mail.
1.4 Wide Reply
The message-wide-reply pops up a message buffer that's a wide
reply to the message in the current buffer. A wide reply is a
reply that goes out to all people listed in the To, From
(or Reply-to) and Cc headers.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where wide replies are to go,
but you can change the behavior to suit your needs by fiddling with the
message-wide-reply-to-function. It is used in the same way as
message-reply-to-function (see section 1.3 Reply).
Addresses that match the message-dont-reply-to-names regular
expression will be removed from the Cc header.
If message-wide-reply-confirm-recipients is non-nil you
will be asked to confirm that you want to reply to multiple
recipients. The default is nil.
1.5 Followup
The message-followup command pops up a message buffer that's a
followup to the message in the current buffer.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where followups are to go,
but you can change the behavior to suit your needs by fiddling with the
message-followup-to-function. It is used in the same way as
message-reply-to-function (see section 1.3 Reply).
The message-use-followup-to variable says what to do about
Followup-To headers. If it is use, always use the value.
If it is ask (which is the default), ask whether to use the
value. If it is t, use the value unless it is `poster'. If
it is nil, don't use the value.
1.6 Canceling News
The message-cancel-news command cancels the article in the
current buffer.
The value of message-cancel-message is inserted in the body of
the cancel message. The default is `I am canceling my own
article.'.
When Message posts news messages, it inserts Cancel-Lock
headers by default. This is a cryptographic header that ensures that
only you can cancel your own messages, which is nice. The downside
is that if you lose your `.emacs' file (which is where Gnus
stores the secret cancel lock password (which is generated
automatically the first time you use this feature)), you won't be
able to cancel your message.
Whether to insert the header or not is controlled by the
message-insert-canlock variable.
Not many news servers respect the Cancel-Lock header yet, but
this is expected to change in the future.
1.7 Superseding
The message-supersede command pops up a message buffer that will
supersede the message in the current buffer.
Headers matching the message-ignored-supersedes-headers are
removed before popping up the new message buffer. The default is
`^Path:\\|^Date\\|^NNTP-Posting-Host:\\|^Xref:\\|^Lines:\\|
^Received:\\|^X-From-Line:\\|Return-Path:\\|^Supersedes:'.
1.8 Forwarding
The message-forward command pops up a message buffer to forward
the message in the current buffer. If given a prefix, forward using
news.
message-forward-ignored-headers
-
All headers that match this regexp will be deleted when forwarding a message.
message-make-forward-subject-function
-
A list of functions that are called to generate a subject header for
forwarded messages. The subject generated by the previous function is
passed into each successive function.
The provided functions are:
message-forward-subject-author-subject
-
Source of article (author or newsgroup), in brackets followed by the
subject.
message-forward-subject-fwd
- Subject of article with `Fwd:' prepended to it.
message-wash-forwarded-subjects
-
If this variable is
t, the subjects of forwarded messages have
the evidence of previous forwards (such as `Fwd:', `Re:',
`(fwd)') removed before the new subject is
constructed. The default value is nil.
message-forward-as-mime
-
If this variable is
t (the default), forwarded messages are
included as inline MIME RFC822 parts. If it's nil, forwarded
messages will just be copied inline to the new message, like previous,
non MIME-savvy versions of Gnus would do.
message-forward-before-signature
-
If non-
nil, put forwarded message before signature, else after.
1.9 Resending
The message-resend command will prompt the user for an address
and resend the message in the current buffer to that address.
Headers that match the message-ignored-resent-headers regexp will
be removed before sending the message. The default is
`^Return-receipt'.
1.10 Bouncing
The message-bounce command will, if the current buffer contains a
bounced mail message, pop up a message buffer stripped of the bounce
information. A bounced message is typically a mail you've sent
out that has been returned by some mailer-daemon as
undeliverable.
Headers that match the message-ignored-bounced-headers regexp
will be removed before popping up the buffer. The default is
`^\\(Received\\|Return-Path\\):'.
1.11 Mailing Lists
Sometimes while posting to mailing lists, the poster needs to direct
followups to the post to specific places. The Mail-Followup-To (MFT)
was created to enable just this. Two example scenarios where this is
useful:
-
A mailing list poster can use MFT to express that responses should be
sent to just the list, and not the poster as well. This will happen
if the poster is already subscribed to the list.
-
A mailing list poster can use MFT to express that responses should be
sent to the list and the poster as well. This will happen if the poster
is not subscribed to the list.
-
If a message is posted to several mailing lists, MFT may also be used
to direct the following discussion to one list only, because
discussions that are spread over several lists tend to be fragmented
and very difficult to follow.
Gnus honors the MFT header in other's messages (i.e. while following
up to someone else's post) and also provides support for generating
sensible MFT headers for outgoing messages as well.
1.11.1 Composing a correct MFT header automagically
The first step in getting Gnus to automagically generate a MFT header
in posts you make is to give Gnus a list of the mailing lists
addresses you are subscribed to. You can do this in more than one
way. The following variables would come in handy.
message-subscribed-addresses
- This should be a list of addresses the user is subscribed to. Its
default value is
nil. Example:
| | (setq message-subscribed-addresses
'("ding@gnus.org" "bing@noose.org"))
|
message-subscribed-regexps
- This should be a list of regexps denoting the addresses of mailing
lists subscribed to. Default value is
nil. Example: If you
want to achieve the same result as above:
| | (setq message-subscribed-regexps
'("\\(ding@gnus\\)\\|\\(bing@noose\\)\\.org")
|
message-subscribed-address-functions
- This can be a list of functions to be called (one at a time!!) to
determine the value of MFT headers. It is advisable that these
functions not take any arguments. Default value is
nil.
There is a pre-defined function in Gnus that is a good candidate for
this variable. gnus-find-subscribed-addresses is a function
that returns a list of addresses corresponding to the groups that have
the subscribed (see section `Group Parameters' in The Gnus Manual) group parameter set to a non-nil value.
This is how you would do it.
| | (setq message-subscribed-address-functions
'(gnus-find-subscribed-addresses))
|
message-subscribed-address-file
- You might be one organised human freak and have a list of addresses of
all subscribed mailing lists in a separate file! Then you can just
set this variable to the name of the file and life would be good.
You can use one or more of the above variables. All their values are
"added" in some way that works :-)
Now you are all set. Just start composing a message as you normally do.
And just send it; as always. Just before the message is sent out, Gnus'
MFT generation thingy kicks in and checks if the message already has a
MFT field. If there is one, it is left alone. (Except if it's empty -
in that case, the field is removed and is not replaced with an
automatically generated one. This lets you disable MFT generation on a
per-message basis.) If there is none, then the list of recipient
addresses (in the To: and Cc: headers) is checked to see if one of them
is a list address you are subscribed to. If none of them is a list
address, then no MFT is generated; otherwise, a MFT is added to the
other headers and set to the value of all addresses in To: and Cc:
Hm. "So", you ask, "what if I send an email to a list I am not
subscribed to? I want my MFT to say that I want an extra copy." (This
is supposed to be interpreted by others the same way as if there were no
MFT, but you can use an explicit MFT to override someone else's
to-address group parameter.) The function
message-generate-unsubscribed-mail-followup-to might come in
handy. It is bound to C-c C-f C-a by default. In any case, you
can insert a MFT of your own choice; C-c C-f C-m
(message-goto-mail-followup-to) will help you get started.
1.11.2 Honoring an MFT post
When you followup to a post on a mailing list, and the post has a MFT
header, Gnus' action will depend on the value of the variable
message-use-mail-followup-to. This variable can be one of:
use
- Always honor MFTs. The To: and Cc: headers in your followup will be
derived from the MFT header of the original post. This is the default.
nil
- Always dishonor MFTs (just ignore the darned thing)
ask
- Gnus will prompt you for an action.
It is considered good nettiquette to honor MFT, as it is assumed the
fellow who posted a message knows where the followups need to go
better than you do.
2. Commands
2.1 Buffer Entry
You most often end up in a Message buffer when responding to some other
message of some sort. Message does lots of handling of quoted text, and
may remove signatures, reformat the text, or the like--depending on
which used settings you're using. Message usually gets things right,
but sometimes it stumbles. To help the user unwind these stumblings,
Message sets the undo boundary before each major automatic action it
takes. If you press the undo key (usually located at C-_) a few
times, you will get back the un-edited message you're responding to.
2.2 Header Commands
2.2.1 Commands for moving to headers
These following commands move to the header in question. If it doesn't
exist, it will be inserted.
- C-c ?
-
Describe the message mode.
- C-c C-f C-t
-
Go to the
To header (message-goto-to).
- C-c C-f C-o
-
Go to the
From header (message-goto-from). (The "o"
in the key binding is for Originator.)
- C-c C-f C-b
-
Go to the
Bcc header (message-goto-bcc).
- C-c C-f C-f
-
Go to the
Fcc header (message-goto-fcc).
- C-c C-f C-c
-
Go to the
Cc header (message-goto-cc).
- C-c C-f C-s
-
Go to the
Subject header (message-goto-subject).
- C-c C-f C-r
-
Go to the
Reply-To header (message-goto-reply-to).
- C-c C-f C-n
-
Go to the
Newsgroups header (message-goto-newsgroups).
- C-c C-f C-d
-
Go to the
Distribution header (message-goto-distribution).
- C-c C-f C-o
-
Go to the
Followup-To header (message-goto-followup-to).
- C-c C-f C-k
-
Go to the
Keywords header (message-goto-keywords).
- C-c C-f C-u
-
Go to the
Summary header (message-goto-summary).
- C-c C-f C-i
-
This inserts the `Importance:' header with a value of
`high'. This header is used to signal the importance of the
message to the receiver. If the header is already present in the
buffer, it cycles between the three valid values according to RFC
1376: `low', `normal' and `high'.
- C-c C-f C-a
-
Insert a reasonable `Mail-Followup-To:' header
(see section 1.11 Mailing Lists) in a post to an
unsubscribed list. When making original posts to a mailing list you are
not subscribed to, you have to type in a `Mail-Followup-To:' header
by hand. The contents, usually, are the addresses of the list and your
own address. This function inserts such a header automatically. It
fetches the contents of the `To:' header in the current mail
buffer, and appends the current
user-mail-address.
If the optional argument include-cc is non-nil, the
addresses in the `Cc:' header are also put into the
`Mail-Followup-To:' header.
2.2.2 Commands to change headers
- C-c C-o
-
Sort headers according to
message-header-format-alist
(message-sort-headers).
- C-c C-t
-
Insert a
To header that contains the Reply-To or
From header of the message you're following up
(message-insert-to).
- C-c C-n
-
Insert a
Newsgroups header that reflects the Followup-To
or Newsgroups header of the article you're replying to
(message-insert-newsgroups).
- C-c C-l
-
Send a message to the list only. Remove all addresses but the list
address from
To: and Cc: headers.
- C-c M-n
-
Insert a request for a disposition
notification. (
message-insert-disposition-notification-to).
This means that if the recipient support RFC 2298 she might send you a
notification that she received the message.
- M-x message-insert-importance-high
-
Insert an `Importance' header with a value of `high',
deleting headers if necessary.
- M-x message-insert-importance-low
-
Insert an `Importance' header with a value of `low', deleting
headers if necessary.
- C-c C-f s
-
Change the current `Subject' header. Ask for new `Subject'
header and append `(was: <Old Subject>)'. The old subject can be
stripped on replying, see
message-subject-trailing-was-query
(see section 3.1 Message Headers).
- C-c C-f x
-
Ask for an additional `Newsgroups' and `FollowUp-To' for a
cross-post.
message-cross-post-followup-to mangles
`FollowUp-To' and `Newsgroups' header to point to group.
If message-cross-post-default is nil or if called with a
prefix-argument `Follow-Up' is set, but the message is not
cross-posted.
- C-c C-f t
-
Replace contents of `To' header with contents of `Cc' or
`Bcc' header.
- C-c C-f w
-
Insert `To' and `Cc' headers as if you were doing a wide
reply.
- C-c C-f a
-
Insert `X-No-Archive: Yes' in the header and a note in the body.
The header and the note can be customized using
message-archive-header and message-archive-note. When
called with a prefix argument, ask for a text to insert. If you don't
want the note in the body, set message-archive-note to
nil.
2.3 Movement
- C-c C-b
-
Move to the beginning of the body of the message
(
message-goto-body).
- C-c C-i
-
Move to the signature of the message (
message-goto-signature).
- C-a
-
If at beginning of header value, go to beginning of line, else go to
beginning of header value. (The header value comes after the header
name and the colon.) This behaviour can be disabled by toggling
the variable
message-beginning-of-line.
2.4 Insertion
- C-c C-y
-
Yank the message that's being replied to into the message buffer
(
message-yank-original).
- C-c C-M-y
-
Prompt for a buffer name and yank the contents of that buffer into the
message buffer (
message-yank-buffer).
- C-c C-q
-
Fill the yanked message (
message-fill-yanked-message). Warning:
Can severely mess up the yanked text if its quoting conventions are
strange. You'll quickly get a feel for when it's safe, though. Anyway,
just remember that C-x u (undo) is available and you'll be
all right.
- C-c C-w
-
Insert a signature at the end of the buffer
(
message-insert-signature).
- C-c M-h
-
Insert the message headers (
message-insert-headers).
- C-c M-m
-
Mark some region in the current article with enclosing tags.
See
message-mark-insert-begin and message-mark-insert-end.
- C-c M-f
-
Insert a file in the current article with enclosing tags.
See
message-mark-insert-begin and message-mark-insert-end.
2.5 MIME
Message is a MIME-compliant posting agent. The user generally
doesn't have to do anything to make the MIME happen--Message will
automatically add the Content-Type and
Content-Transfer-Encoding headers.
The most typical thing users want to use the multipart things in
MIME for is to add "attachments" to mail they send out. This can
be done with the C-c C-a command, which will prompt for a file
name and a MIME type.
You can also create arbitrarily complex multiparts using the MML
language (see section `Composing' in The Emacs MIME Manual).
2.6 IDNA
Message is a IDNA-compliant posting agent. The user
generally doesn't have to do anything to make the IDNA
happen--Message will encode non-ASCII domain names in From,
To, and Cc headers automatically.
Until IDNA becomes more well known, Message queries you
whether IDNA encoding of the domain name really should
occur. Some users might not be aware that domain names can contain
non-ASCII now, so this gives them a safety net if they accidently
typed a non-ASCII domain name.
The message-use-idna variable control whether IDNA is
used. If the variable is nil no IDNA encoding will
ever happen, if it is set to the symbol ask the user will be
queried (the default), and if set to t IDNA encoding
happens automatically.
If you want to experiment with the IDNA encoding, you can
invoke M-x message-idna-to-ascii-rhs RET in the message buffer
to have the non-ASCII domain names encoded while you edit the message.
Note that you must have GNU
Libidn installed in order to use this functionality.
2.7 Security
Using the MML language, Message is able to create digitally signed and
digitally encrypted messages. Message (or rather MML) currently
support PGP (RFC 1991), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and S/MIME.
Instructing MML to perform security operations on a MIME part is
done using the C-c C-m s key map for signing and the C-c
C-m c key map for encryption, as follows.
- C-c C-m s s
-
Digitally sign current message using S/MIME.
- C-c C-m s o
-
Digitally sign current message using PGP.
- C-c C-m s p
-
Digitally sign current message using PGP/MIME.
- C-c C-m c s
-
Digitally encrypt current message using S/MIME.
- C-c C-m c o
-
Digitally encrypt current message using PGP.
- C-c C-m c p
-
Digitally encrypt current message using PGP/MIME.
- C-c C-m C-n
-
Remove security related MML tags from message.
These commands do not immediately sign or encrypt the message, they
merely insert the proper MML secure tag to instruct the MML engine to
perform that operation when the message is actually sent. They may
perform other operations too, such as locating and retrieving a
S/MIME certificate of the person you wish to send encrypted mail
to. When the mml parsing engine converts your MML into a properly
encoded MIME message, the secure tag will be replaced with either
a part or a multipart tag. If your message contains other mml parts,
a multipart tag will be used; if no other parts are present in your
message a single part tag will be used. This way, message mode will
do the Right Thing (TM) with signed/encrypted multipart messages.
Since signing and especially encryption often is used when sensitive
information is sent, you may want to have some way to ensure that your
mail is actually signed or encrypted. After invoking the above
sign/encrypt commands, it is possible to preview the raw article by
using C-u C-c RET P (mml-preview). Then you can
verify that your long rant about what your ex-significant other or
whomever actually did with that funny looking person at that strange
party the other night, actually will be sent encrypted.
Note! Neither PGP/MIME nor S/MIME encrypt/signs
RFC822 headers. They only operate on the MIME object. Keep this
in mind before sending mail with a sensitive Subject line.
By default, when encrypting a message, Gnus will use the
"signencrypt" mode, which means the message is both signed and
encrypted. If you would like to disable this for a particular
message, give the mml-secure-message-encrypt-* command a prefix
argument, e.g., C-u C-c C-m c p.
Actually using the security commands above is not very difficult. At
least not compared with making sure all involved programs talk with each
other properly. Thus, we now describe what external libraries or
programs are required to make things work, and some small general hints.
2.7.1 Using S/MIME
Note! This section assume you have a basic familiarity with
modern cryptography, S/MIME, various PKCS standards, OpenSSL and
so on.
The S/MIME support in Message (and MML) require OpenSSL. OpenSSL
performs the actual S/MIME sign/encrypt operations. OpenSSL can
be found at http://www.openssl.org/. OpenSSL 0.9.6 and later
should work. Version 0.9.5a cannot extract mail addresses from
certificates, and it insert a spurious CR character into MIME
separators so you may wish to avoid it if you would like to avoid
being regarded as someone who send strange mail. (Although by sending
S/MIME messages you've probably already lost that contest.)
To be able to send encrypted mail, a personal certificate is not
required. Message (MML) need a certificate for the person to whom you
wish to communicate with though. You're asked for this when you type
C-c C-m c s. Currently there are two ways to retrieve this
certificate, from a local file or from DNS. If you chose a local
file, it need to contain a X.509 certificate in PEM format.
If you chose DNS, you're asked for the domain name where the
certificate is stored, the default is a good guess. To my belief,
Message (MML) is the first mail agent in the world to support
retrieving S/MIME certificates from DNS, so you're not
likely to find very many certificates out there. At least there
should be one, stored at the domain simon.josefsson.org. LDAP
is a more popular method of distributing certificates, support for it
is planned. (Meanwhile, you can use ldapsearch from the
command line to retrieve a certificate into a file and use it.)
As for signing messages, OpenSSL can't perform signing operations
without some kind of configuration. Especially, you need to tell it
where your private key and your certificate is stored. MML uses an
Emacs interface to OpenSSL, aptly named smime.el, and it
contain a custom group used for this configuration. So, try
M-x customize-group RET smime RET and look around.
Currently there is no support for talking to a CA (or RA) to create
your own certificate. None is planned either. You need to do this
manually with OpenSSL or using some other program. I used Netscape
and got a free S/MIME certificate from one of the big CA's on the
net. Netscape is able to export your private key and certificate in
PKCS #12 format. Use OpenSSL to convert this into a plain X.509
certificate in PEM format as follows.
| | $ openssl pkcs12 -in ns.p12 -clcerts -nodes > key+cert.pem
|
The `key+cert.pem' file should be pointed to from the
smime-keys variable. You should now be able to send signed mail.
Note! Your private key is now stored unencrypted in the file,
so take care in handling it. Storing encrypted keys on the disk are
supported, and Gnus will ask you for a passphrase before invoking
OpenSSL. Read the OpenSSL documentation for how to achieve this. If
you use unencrypted keys (e.g., if they are on a secure storage, or if
you are on a secure single user machine) simply press RET at
the passphrase prompt.
2.7.2 Using PGP/MIME
PGP/MIME requires an external OpenPGP implementation, such
as GNU Privacy Guard. Pre-OpenPGP
implementations such as PGP 2.x and PGP 5.x are also supported. One
Emacs interface to the PGP implementations, PGG (see section `PGG' in PGG Manual), is included, but Mailcrypt and Florian Weimer's
gpg.el are also supported.
Note, if you are using the gpg.el you must make sure that the
directory specified by gpg-temp-directory have permissions
0700.
Creating your own key is described in detail in the documentation of
your PGP implementation, so we refer to it.
If you have imported your old PGP 2.x key into GnuPG, and want to send
signed and encrypted messages to your fellow PGP 2.x users, you'll
discover that the receiver cannot understand what you send. One
solution is to use PGP 2.x instead (i.e., if you use pgg, set
pgg-default-scheme to pgp). If you do want to use
GnuPG, you can use a compatibility script called gpg-2comp
available from
http://muppet.faveve.uni-stuttgart.de/~gero/gpg-2comp/. You
could also convince your fellow PGP 2.x users to convert to GnuPG.
As a final workaround, you can make the sign and encryption work in
two steps; separately sign, then encrypt a message. If you would like
to change this behavior you can customize the
mml-signencrypt-style-alist variable. For example:
| | (setq mml-signencrypt-style-alist '(("smime" separate)
("pgp" separate)
("pgpauto" separate)
("pgpmime" separate)))
|
This causes to sign and encrypt in two passes, thus generating a
message that can be understood by PGP version 2.
(Refer to http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/pgp2x.html for more
information about the problem.)
2.8 Various Commands
- C-c C-r
-
Caesar rotate (aka. rot13) the current message
(
message-caesar-buffer-body). If narrowing is in effect, just
rotate the visible portion of the buffer. A numerical prefix says how
many places to rotate the text. The default is 13.
- C-c C-e
-
Elide the text between point and mark (
message-elide-region).
The text is killed and replaced with the contents of the variable
message-elide-ellipsis. The default value is to use an ellipsis
(`[...]').
- C-c C-z
-
Kill all the text up to the signature, or if that's missing, up to the
end of the message (
message-kill-to-signature).
- C-c C-v
-
Delete all text in the body of the message that is outside the region
(
message-delete-not-region).
- M-RET
-
Insert four newlines, and then reformat if inside quoted text.
Here's an example:
| | > This is some quoted text. And here's more quoted text.
|
If point is before `And' and you press M-RET, you'll get:
| | > This is some quoted text.
*
> And here's more quoted text.
|
`*' says where point will be placed.
- C-c M-r
-
Rename the buffer (
message-rename-buffer). If given a prefix,
prompt for a new buffer name.
- TAB
-
If non-
nil execute the function specified in
message-tab-body-function. Otherwise use the function bound to
TAB in text-mode-map or global-map.
2.9 Sending
- C-c C-c
-
Send the message and bury the current buffer
(
message-send-and-exit).
- C-c C-s
-
Send the message (
message-send).
- C-c C-d
-
Bury the message buffer and exit (
message-dont-send).
- C-c C-k
-
Kill the message buffer and exit (
message-kill-buffer).
2.10 Mail Aliases
The message-mail-alias-type variable controls what type of mail
alias expansion to use. Currently only one form is supported--Message
uses mailabbrev to handle mail aliases. If this variable is
nil, no mail alias expansion will be performed.
mailabbrev works by parsing the `/etc/mailrc' and
`~/.mailrc' files. These files look like:
| | alias lmi "Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen "
alias ding "ding@ifi.uio.no (ding mailing list)"
|
After adding lines like this to your `~/.mailrc' file, you should
be able to just write `lmi' in the To or Cc (and so
on) headers and press SPC to expand the alias.
No expansion will be performed upon sending of the message--all
expansions have to be done explicitly.
2.11 Spelling
There are two popular ways to have Emacs spell-check your messages:
ispell and flyspell. ispell is the older and
probably more popular package. You typically first write the message,
and then run the entire thing through ispell and fix all the
typos. To have this happen automatically when you send a message, put
something like the following in your `.emacs' file:
| | (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
|
If you're in the habit of writing in different languages, this can be
controlled by the ispell-message-dictionary-alist variable:
| | (setq ispell-message-dictionary-alist
'(("^Newsgroups:.*\\bde\\." . "deutsch8")
(".*" . "default")))
|
ispell depends on having the external `ispell' command
installed.
The other popular method is using flyspell. This package checks
your spelling while you're writing, and marks any mis-spelled words in
various ways.
To use flyspell, put something like the following in your
`.emacs' file:
| | (defun my-message-setup-routine ()
(flyspell-mode 1))
(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'my-message-setup-routine)
|
flyspell depends on having the external `ispell' command
installed.
3. Variables
3.1 Message Headers
Message is quite aggressive on the message generation front. It has to
be -- it's a combined news and mail agent. To be able to send combined
messages, it has to generate all headers itself (instead of letting the
mail/news system do it) to ensure that mail and news copies of messages
look sufficiently similar.
message-generate-headers-first
-
If
t, generate all required headers before starting to
compose the message. This can also be a list of headers to generate:
| | (setq message-generate-headers-first
'(References))
|
The variables message-required-headers,
message-required-mail-headers and
message-required-news-headers specify which headers are
required.
Note that some headers will be removed and re-generated before posting,
because of the variable message-deletable-headers (see below).
message-draft-headers
-
When running Message from Gnus, the message buffers are associated
with a draft group.
message-draft-headers says which headers
should be generated when a draft is written to the draft group.
message-from-style
-
Specifies how
From headers should look. There are four valid
values:
nil
- Just the address -- `king@grassland.com'.
parens
- `king@grassland.com (Elvis Parsley)'.
angles
- `Elvis Parsley <king@grassland.com>'.
default
- Look like
angles if that doesn't require quoting, and
parens if it does. If even parens requires quoting, use
angles anyway.
message-deletable-headers
-
Headers in this list that were previously generated by Message will be
deleted before posting. Let's say you post an article. Then you decide
to post it again to some other group, you naughty boy, so you jump back
to the
*post-buf* buffer, edit the Newsgroups line, and
ship it off again. By default, this variable makes sure that the old
generated Message-ID is deleted, and a new one generated. If
this isn't done, the entire empire would probably crumble, anarchy would
prevail, and cats would start walking on two legs and rule the world.
Allegedly.
message-default-headers
-
This string is inserted at the end of the headers in all message
buffers.
message-subject-re-regexp
-
Responses to messages have subjects that start with `Re: '. This
is not an abbreviation of the English word "response", but is
Latin, and means "in response to". Some illiterate nincompoops have
failed to grasp this fact, and have "internationalized" their software
to use abominations like `Aw: ' ("antwort") or `Sv: '
("svar") instead, which is meaningless and evil. However, you may
have to deal with users that use these evil tools, in which case you may
set this variable to a regexp that matches these prefixes. Myself, I
just throw away non-compliant mail.
Here's an example of a value to deal with these headers when
responding to a message:
| | (setq message-subject-re-regexp
(concat
"^[ \t]*"
"\\("
"\\("
"[Aa][Nn][Tt][Ww]\\.?\\|" ; antw
"[Aa][Ww]\\|" ; aw
"[Ff][Ww][Dd]?\\|" ; fwd
"[Oo][Dd][Pp]\\|" ; odp
"[Rr][Ee]\\|" ; re
"[Rr][\311\351][Ff]\\.?\\|" ; ref
"[Ss][Vv]" ; sv
"\\)"
"\\(\\[[0-9]*\\]\\)"
"*:[ \t]*"
"\\)"
"*[ \t]*"
))
|
message-subject-trailing-was-query
-
Controls what to do with trailing `(was: <old subject>)' in subject
lines. If
nil, leave the subject unchanged. If it is the symbol
ask, query the user what do do. In this case, the subject is
matched against message-subject-trailing-was-ask-regexp. If
message-subject-trailing-was-query is t, always strip the
trailing old subject. In this case,
message-subject-trailing-was-regexp is used.
message-alternative-emails
-
A regexp to match the alternative email addresses. The first matched
address (not primary one) is used in the
From field.
message-allow-no-recipients
-
Specifies what to do when there are no recipients other than
Gcc or Fcc. If it is always, the posting is
allowed. If it is never, the posting is not allowed. If it is
ask (the default), you are prompted.
message-hidden-headers
-
A regexp, a list of regexps, or a list where the first element is
not and the rest are regexps. It says which headers to keep
hidden when composing a message.
| | (setq message-hidden-headers
'(not "From" "Subject" "To" "Cc" "Newsgroups"))
|
3.2 Mail Headers
message-required-mail-headers
-
See section 3.4 News Headers, for the syntax of this variable. It is
(From Date Subject (optional . In-Reply-To) Message-ID Lines
(optional . User-Agent)) by default.
message-ignored-mail-headers
-
Regexp of headers to be removed before mailing. The default is
`^[GF]cc:\\|^Resent-Fcc:\\|^Xref:\\|^X-Draft-From:'.
message-default-mail-headers
-
This string is inserted at the end of the headers in all message
buffers that are initialized as mail.
3.3 Mail Variables
message-send-mail-function
-
Function used to send the current buffer as mail. The default is
message-send-mail-with-sendmail. Other valid values include
message-send-mail-with-mh, message-send-mail-with-qmail,
message-smtpmail-send-it, smtpmail-send-it and
feedmail-send-it.
message-mh-deletable-headers
-
Most versions of MH doesn't like being fed messages that contain the
headers in this variable. If this variable is non-
nil (which is
the default), these headers will be removed before mailing when sending
messages via MH. Set it to nil if your MH can handle these
headers.
message-qmail-inject-program
-
Location of the qmail-inject program.
message-qmail-inject-args
-
Arguments passed to qmail-inject programs.
This should be a list of strings, one string for each argument. It
may also be a function.
For e.g., if you wish to set the envelope sender address so that bounces
go to the right place or to deal with listserv's usage of that address, you
might set this variable to '("-f" "you@some.where").
message-sendmail-f-is-evil
-
Non-
nil means don't add `-f username' to the sendmail
command line. Doing so would be even more evil than leaving it out.
message-sendmail-envelope-from
-
When
message-sendmail-f-is-evil is nil, this specifies
the address to use in the SMTP envelope. If it is
nil, use user-mail-address. If it is the symbol
header, use the `From' header of the message.
message-mailer-swallows-blank-line
-
Set this to non-
nil if the system's mailer runs the header and
body together. (This problem exists on SunOS 4 when sendmail is run
in remote mode.) The value should be an expression to test whether
the problem will actually occur.
message-send-mail-partially-limit
-
The limitation of messages sent as message/partial. The lower bound
of message size in characters, beyond which the message should be sent
in several parts. If it is
nil, the size is unlimited.
3.4 News Headers
message-required-news-headers a list of header symbols. These
headers will either be automatically generated, or, if that's
impossible, they will be prompted for. The following symbols are valid:
From
-
This required header will be filled out with the result of the
message-make-from function, which depends on the
message-from-style, user-full-name,
user-mail-address variables.
Subject
-
This required header will be prompted for if not present already.
Newsgroups
-
This required header says which newsgroups the article is to be posted
to. If it isn't present already, it will be prompted for.
Organization
-
This optional header will be filled out depending on the
message-user-organization variable.
message-user-organization-file will be used if this variable is
t. This variable can also be a string (in which case this string
will be used), or it can be a function (which will be called with no
parameters and should return a string to be used).
Lines
-
This optional header will be computed by Message.
Message-ID
-
This required header will be generated by Message. A unique ID will be
created based on the date, time, user name and system name. For the
domain part, message will look (in this order) at
message-user-fqdn, system-name, mail-host-address
and message-user-mail-address (i.e. user-mail-address)
until a probably valid fully qualified domain name (FQDN) was found.
User-Agent
-
This optional header will be filled out according to the
message-newsreader local variable.
In-Reply-To
- This optional header is filled out using the
Date and From
header of the article being replied to.
Expires
-
This extremely optional header will be inserted according to the
message-expires variable. It is highly deprecated and shouldn't
be used unless you know what you're doing.
Distribution
-
This optional header is filled out according to the
message-distribution-function variable. It is a deprecated and
much misunderstood header.
Path
-
This extremely optional header should probably never be used.
However, some very old servers require that this header is
present.
message-user-path further controls how this
Path header is to look. If it is nil, use the server name
as the leaf node. If it is a string, use the string. If it is neither
a string nor nil, use the user name only. However, it is highly
unlikely that you should need to fiddle with this variable at all.
In addition, you can enter conses into this list. The CAR of this cons
should be a symbol. This symbol's name is the name of the header, and
the CDR can either be a string to be entered verbatim as the value of
this header, or it can be a function to be called. This function should
return a string to be inserted. For instance, if you want to insert
Mime-Version: 1.0, you should enter (Mime-Version . "1.0")
into the list. If you want to insert a funny quote, you could enter
something like (X-Yow . yow) into the list. The function
yow will then be called without any arguments.
If the list contains a cons where the CAR of the cons is
optional, the CDR of this cons will only be inserted if it is
non-nil.
If you want to delete an entry from this list, the following Lisp
snippet might be useful. Adjust accordingly if you want to remove
another element.
| | (setq message-required-news-headers
(delq 'Message-ID message-required-news-headers))
|
Other variables for customizing outgoing news articles:
message-syntax-checks
-
Controls what syntax checks should not be performed on outgoing posts.
To disable checking of long signatures, for instance, add
to this list.
Valid checks are:
subject-cmsg
- Check the subject for commands.
sender
-
Insert a new
Sender header if the From header looks odd.
multiple-headers
- Check for the existence of multiple equal headers.
sendsys
-
Check for the existence of version and sendsys commands.
message-id
- Check whether the
Message-ID looks ok.
from
- Check whether the
From header seems nice.
long-lines
-
Check for too long lines.
control-chars
- Check for invalid characters.
size
- Check for excessive size.
new-text
- Check whether there is any new text in the messages.
signature
- Check the length of the signature.
approved
-
Check whether the article has an
Approved header, which is
something only moderators should include.
empty
- Check whether the article is empty.
invisible-text
- Check whether there is any invisible text in the buffer.
empty-headers
- Check whether any of the headers are empty.
existing-newsgroups
- Check whether the newsgroups mentioned in the
Newsgroups and
Followup-To headers exist.
valid-newsgroups
- Check whether the
Newsgroups and Followup-to headers
are valid syntactically.
repeated-newsgroups
- Check whether the
Newsgroups and Followup-to headers
contains repeated group names.
shorten-followup-to
- Check whether to add a
Followup-to header to shorten the number
of groups to post to.
All these conditions are checked by default.
message-ignored-news-headers
-
Regexp of headers to be removed before posting. The default is
`^NNTP-Posting-Host:\\|^Xref:\\|^[BGF]cc:\\|^Resent-Fcc:\\|^X-Draft-From:'.
message-default-news-headers
-
This string is inserted at the end of the headers in all message
buffers that are initialized as news.
3.5 News Variables
message-send-news-function
-
Function used to send the current buffer as news. The default is
message-send-news.
message-post-method
-
Gnusish select method (see the Gnus manual for details) used for
posting a prepared news message.
3.6 Insertion Variables
message-ignored-cited-headers
-
All headers that match this regexp will be removed from yanked
messages. The default is `.', which means that all headers will be
removed.
message-cite-prefix-regexp
-
Regexp matching the longest possible citation prefix on a line.
message-citation-line-function
-
Function called to insert the citation line. The default is
message-insert-citation-line, which will lead to citation lines
that look like:
| | Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:
|
Point will be at the beginning of the body of the message when this
function is called.
Note that Gnus provides a feature where clicking on `writes:' hides the
cited text. If you change the citation line too much, readers of your
messages will have to adjust their Gnus, too. See the variable
gnus-cite-attribution-suffix. See section `Article Highlighting' in The Gnus Manual, for details.
message-yank-prefix
-
When you are replying to or following up an article, you normally want
to quote the person you are answering. Inserting quoted text is done
by yanking, and each line you yank will have
message-yank-prefix prepended to it (except for quoted and
empty lines which uses message-yank-cited-prefix). The default
is `> '.
message-yank-cited-prefix
-
When yanking text from an article which contains no text or already
cited text, each line will be prefixed with the contents of this
variable. The default is `>'. See also
message-yank-prefix.
message-indentation-spaces
-
Number of spaces to indent yanked messages.
message-cite-function
-
Function for citing an original message. The default is
message-cite-original, which simply inserts the original message
and prepends `> ' to each line.
message-cite-original-without-signature does the same, but elides
the signature. You can also set it to sc-cite-original to use
Supercite.
message-indent-citation-function
-
Function for modifying a citation just inserted in the mail buffer.
This can also be a list of functions. Each function can find the
citation between
(point) and (mark t). And each function
should leave point and mark around the citation text as modified.
message-mark-insert-begin
-
String to mark the beginning of some inserted text.
message-mark-insert-end
-
String to mark the end of some inserted text.
message-signature
-
String to be inserted at the end of the message buffer. If
t
(which is the default), the message-signature-file file will be
inserted instead. If a function, the result from the function will be
used instead. If a form, the result from the form will be used instead.
If this variable is nil, no signature will be inserted at all.
message-signature-file
-
File containing the signature to be inserted at the end of the buffer.
The default is `~/.signature'.
message-signature-insert-empty-line
-
If
t (the default value) an empty line is inserted before the
signature separator.
Note that RFC1036bis says that a signature should be preceded by the three
characters `-- ' on a line by themselves. This is to make it
easier for the recipient to automatically recognize and process the
signature. So don't remove those characters, even though you might feel
that they ruin your beautiful design, like, totally.
Also note that no signature should be more than four lines long.
Including ASCII graphics is an efficient way to get
everybody to believe that you are silly and have nothing important to
say.
3.7 Various Message Variables
message-default-charset
-
Symbol naming a MIME charset. Non-ASCII
characters in messages are assumed to be encoded using this charset.
The default is
nil, which means ask the user. (This variable
is used only on non-MULE Emacsen. See section `Charset Translation' in Emacs MIME Manual, for details on
the MULE-to-MIME translation process.
message-signature-separator
-
Regexp matching the signature separator. It is `^-- *$' by
default.
mail-header-separator
-
String used to separate the headers from the body. It is `--text
follows this line--' by default.
message-directory
-
Directory used by many mailey things. The default is `~/Mail/'.
message-auto-save-directory
-
Directory where Message auto-saves buffers if Gnus isn't running. If
nil, Message won't auto-save. The default is `~/Mail/drafts/'.
message-signature-setup-hook
-
Hook run when initializing the message buffer. It is run after the
headers have been inserted but before the signature has been inserted.
message-setup-hook
-
Hook run as the last thing when the message buffer has been initialized,
but before yanked text is inserted.
message-header-setup-hook
-
Hook called narrowed to the headers after initializing the headers.
For instance, if you're running Gnus and wish to insert a
`Mail-Copies-To' header in all your news articles and all messages
you send to mailing lists, you could do something like the following:
| | (defun my-message-header-setup-hook ()
(let ((group (or gnus-newsgroup-name "")))
(when (or (message-fetch-field "newsgroups")
(gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-address)
(gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-list))
(insert "Mail-Copies-To: never\n"))))
(add-hook 'message-header-setup-hook
'my-message-header-setup-hook)
|
message-send-hook
-
Hook run before sending messages.
If you want to add certain headers before sending, you can use the
message-add-header function in this hook. For instance:
| | (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'my-message-add-content)
(defun my-message-add-content ()
(message-add-header "X-In-No-Sense: Nonsense")
(message-add-header "X-Whatever: no"))
|
This function won't add the header if the header is already present.
message-send-mail-hook
-
Hook run before sending mail messages. This hook is run very late --
just before the message is actually sent as mail.
message-send-news-hook
-
Hook run before sending news messages. This hook is run very late --
just before the message is actually sent as news.
message-sent-hook
-
Hook run after sending messages.
message-cancel-hook
-
Hook run when canceling news articles.
message-mode-syntax-table
-
Syntax table used in message mode buffers.
message-strip-special-text-properties
-
Emacs has a number of special text properties which can break message
composing in various ways. If this option is set, message will strip
these properties from the message composition buffer. However, some
packages requires these properties to be present in order to work. If
you use one of these packages, turn this option off, and hope the
message composition doesn't break too bad.
message-send-method-alist
-
Alist of ways to send outgoing messages. Each element has the form
| | (type predicate function)
|
- type
- A symbol that names the method.
- predicate
- A function called without any parameters to determine whether the
message is a message of type type.
- function
- A function to be called if predicate returns non-
nil.
function is called with one parameter -- the prefix.
| | ((news message-news-p message-send-via-news)
(mail message-mail-p message-send-via-mail))
|
3.8 Sending Variables
message-fcc-handler-function
-
A function called to save outgoing articles. This function will be
called with the name of the file to store the article in. The default
function is
message-output which saves in Unix mailbox format.
message-courtesy-message
-
When sending combined messages, this string is inserted at the start of
the mailed copy. If the string contains the format spec `%s', the
newsgroups the article has been posted to will be inserted there. If
this variable is
nil, no such courtesy message will be added.
The default value is `"The following message is a courtesy copy of
an article\\nthat has been posted to %s as well.\\n\\n"'.
message-fcc-externalize-attachments
-
If
nil, attach files as normal parts in Fcc copies; if it is
non-nil, attach local files as external parts.
message-interactive
-
If non-
nil wait for and display errors when sending a message;
if nil let the mailer mail back a message to report errors.
3.9 Message Buffers
Message will generate new buffers with unique buffer names when you
request a message buffer. When you send the message, the buffer isn't
normally killed off. Its name is changed and a certain number of old
message buffers are kept alive.
message-generate-new-buffers
-
If non-
nil, generate new buffers. The default is t. If
this is a function, call that function with three parameters: The type,
the to address and the group name. (Any of these may be nil.)
The function should return the new buffer name.
message-max-buffers
-
This variable says how many old message buffers to keep. If there are
more message buffers than this, the oldest buffer will be killed. The
default is 10. If this variable is
nil, no old message buffers
will ever be killed.
message-send-rename-function
-
After sending a message, the buffer is renamed from, for instance,
`*reply to Lars*' to `*sent reply to Lars*'. If you don't
like this, set this variable to a function that renames the buffer in a
manner you like. If you don't want to rename the buffer at all, you can
say:
| | (setq message-send-rename-function 'ignore)
|
message-kill-buffer-on-exit
-
If non-
nil, kill the buffer immediately on exit.
3.10 Message Actions
When Message is being used from a news/mail reader, the reader is likely
to want to perform some task after the message has been sent. Perhaps
return to the previous window configuration or mark an article as
replied.
The user may exit from the message buffer in various ways. The most
common is C-c C-c, which sends the message and exits. Other
possibilities are C-c C-s which just sends the message, C-c
C-d which postpones the message editing and buries the message buffer,
and C-c C-k which kills the message buffer. Each of these actions
have lists associated with them that contains actions to be executed:
message-send-actions, message-exit-actions,
message-postpone-actions, and message-kill-actions.
Message provides a function to interface with these lists:
message-add-action. The first parameter is the action to be
added, and the rest of the arguments are which lists to add this action
to. Here's an example from Gnus:
| | (message-add-action
`(set-window-configuration ,(current-window-configuration))
'exit 'postpone 'kill)
|
This restores the Gnus window configuration when the message buffer is
killed, postponed or exited.
An action can be either: a normal function, or a list where the
CAR is a function and the CDR is the list of arguments, or
a form to be evaled.
4. Compatibility
Message uses virtually only its own variables--older mail-
variables aren't consulted. To force Message to take those variables
into account, you can put the following in your `.emacs' file:
This will initialize many Message variables from the values in the
corresponding mail variables.
5. Appendices
5.1 Responses
To determine where a message is to go, the following algorithm is used
by default.
- reply
- A reply is when you want to respond just to the person who
sent the message via mail. There will only be one recipient. To
determine who the recipient will be, the following headers are
consulted, in turn:
Reply-To
From
- wide reply
- A wide reply is a mail response that includes all entities
mentioned in the message you are responded to. All mailboxes from the
following headers will be concatenated to form the outgoing
To/Cc headers:
From
- (unless there's a
Reply-To, in which case that is used instead).
Cc
To
If a Mail-Copies-To header is present, it will also be included
in the list of mailboxes. If this header is `never', that means
that the From (or Reply-To) mailbox will be suppressed.
- followup
- A followup is a response sent via news. The following headers
(listed in order of precedence) determine where the response is to be
sent:
Followup-To
Newsgroups
If a Mail-Copies-To header is present, it will be used as the
basis of the new Cc header, except if this header is
`never'.
6. Index