The book is divided into seven parts. The MH Road Map explains the book's organization and suggests ways to read it. The following list describes each chapter and appendix.
This book is organized so that beginners don't have to read all the chapters to get the information they need. Therefore, information on some commands is spread across several chapters. Extensive cross-references point to other related information. The index lists topics and concepts.
First is information about using this book:
The Front Matter has overall information about the book, specialized tables of contents, etc.
The Preface has information about the book itself (including this file).
Part I has overall information that applies to MH and all three front-ends.
Chapter 1 provides a quick overview.
Chapter 2 shows how MH uses the UNIX filesystem.
Chapter 3 introduces MIME multimedia email.
Part II has detailed explanations and examples of MH commands. Because MH front-ends run MH commands, users will get insight here.
Chapter 4 makes sure that your account is set up for MH so you'll be ready for the tutorials in Chapters 5, 14, 17, and 20.
Chapter 5 gives a guided tour of basic MH. This is all you need to start using MH.
Chapter 6 covers commands that read messages.
Chapter 7 covers commands that send messages.
Chapter 8 contains lots of information and tips about MH folders, sequences, and commands that help you organize and find messages.
Part III describes customizing and programming MH. xmh, MH-E, and exmh users can take advantage of this, too, in customizing their environments.
Chapter 9 explains how to customize MH with configuration files.
Chapter 10 shows how to make new versions of existing MH commands easily. The chapter has lots of useful examples.
Chapter 11 explains the mysterious MH formatting syntax that lets you display messages and message summaries exactly as you want them.
Chapter 12 gives lots of detail and examples on the tersely-documented features in the mhook(1) and rcvstore(1) manual pages.
Chapter 13 has tips for programming with MH and interpreters such as the Bourne shell and Perl.
Part IV is about xmh.
Chapter 14 gives a guided tour through xmh -- all you need to start using it.
Chapter 15 describes buttons, windows, and other interactive features of xmh in detail.
Chapter 16 shows how you can customize xmh to change the way it looks and works.
Part V once covered MH-E, the GNU Emacs interface to the MH mail system in chapters 17-19; now, The MH-E Manual has 20 chapters and a handful of appendices of its own.
Part VI is about the exmh multimedia interface to MH.
Chapter 20 is a tutorial for emxh.
Chapter 21 covers exmh features in detail.
Chapter 22 explains how you can customize exmh.
Part VII, the Appendices, have related information.
Appendix A suggests ways to do more with MH.
Appendix B was written by people involved with MH and other front-ends.
Appendix C gives a list of reference books, articles, and other documents.
Appendix D shows how to get copies of many of the files and shell programs in this book. It also explains the operation of many of the programs in this book's online archive file.
Appendix E is a chart that lists MH, xmh, and exmh commands and features covered in this book. This chart once contained these things in MH-E, but they have been moved to the chapter introductions in the The MH-E Manual.