Preface

The MH Message Handling System is a set of electronic mail programs in the public domain. If your computer runs UNIX, it can probably run MH -- and it's more likely to be able to run nmh, a new and free version that generally builds more easily and has more bugs fixed. MH is free, powerful, flexible -- and the basics are easy to learn. nmh works like MH; in most places, you won't notice any difference -- and, where there are differences, we'll tell you.

This book starts with an introduction to electronic mail; if you've never used email, that's a good place to start. If you'll be using MIME multimedia email, read the introductory MIME chapter. Next is an overview and tour of MH 6.8.4 and nmh-1.0. You can start sending and reading mail with MH right away, by following the examples and step by step instructions in the tour. In just a few pages, you'll have the flavor of the system and a hint of the advanced features. After the tour, a series of chapters give detailed information about using and customizing MH.

This book also covers three popular interfaces, or front ends, to MH. There's a step-by-step tour for each interface that will have you sending and reading mail within a few pages.

• xmh is a way to use MH from the X Window System Version 11 Release 6. (xmh under X11 Release 3 is fairly different, but you shouldn't have much trouble using it with the instructions for Release 6. For a user, xmh with Release 4 and 5 is almost the same as the Release 6 version.) xmh runs MH commands with an X interface using windows, buttons, and a mouse.
• MH-E is an interface to MH that runs from the GNU Emacs editor. It gives a windowing interface to MH from almost any terminal. MH-E commands are generally short and powerful. If you already use GNU Emacs, MH-E lets you integrate the flexible MH mail system into your Emacs environment. (While the original documentation for MH-E did appear in this book, its documentation is now located in The MH-E Manual.)
• exmh is an MH interface written with Tcl/Tk. Like xmh, exmh works under the X Window System. But exmh has many more features -- including support for sending and receiving MIME multimedia messages.