Changing How Commands Work
As with all standard X applications, xmh may be customized
through entries in a resource file. The
Section Command-line Settings gives an
overview. Your online
xmh(1) manual page has a complete list of resources. (The
section is called "Application-Specific Resources.") Most of them
are pretty straightforward. A few resource file entries that
change the way commands work are explained in this section.
If HideBoringHeaders is on, then xmh will
attempt to skip uninteresting header fields within messages by
scrolling them off. The line at the top of the window will be the
first "interesting" field
(Date:, To:, From:,
or Subject:) in the message. You can use the scrollbar to
see the hidden fields. (The default is on.)
PrintCommand is the sh (Bourne shell) command to
execute to print a message. You have to specifically redirect
standard output (and standard error, in xmh Release 3).
When the print command is run, the full file path of each message
file is appended to the specified print command. (The default
is enscript >/dev/null 2>/dev/null.) For
more information and examples, see the
Section Changing the Print Command.
ReplyInsertFilter is a shell command to be executed when
you click the Insert button in a composition window. The
full path and filename of the source message is added to the end
of the command before being passed to sh(1). The default
filter is cat, which puts a copy of the message header and
body into the composition. This section shows two other
interesting filters. The first filter uses the sed stream
editor to include a copy of the original message, without the
header, with a right angle bracket and a space at the start of
each line, as in
the next Figure:
xmh*ReplyInsertFilter: sed -e "1,/^$/d" -e "s/^/> /"
Figure: Original message and reply with
special ReplyInsertFilter
Another useful filter is:
xmh*ReplyInsertFilter: /xxx/yyy/mhl -form mhl.body
(You'll need to replace the /xxx/yyy with
the pathname of
the MH library directory
where the mhl program is stored.) The mhl program is
for message formatting, and its standard
mhl.body format file extracts the body of a mail message.
For help, read the Section mhl.
NOTE: There's a bug in
some xmh app-defaults files. If your filter
doesn't seem to work, try using xmh.ReplyInsertFilter
instead of xmh*ReplyInsertFilter in your resource file.
Lines in a draft message that have more characters than the
SendBreakWidth will be broken when the draft is sent. The
default is 2000 in xmh Release 5 -- but only 85 in Release
4, which means that lines wider than 85 characters will be broken
in xmh R4. Setting a very large SendBreakWidth, such
as 2000, is a good idea when you're mailing source code or other
text that should never be broken. For a more detailed explanation,
see the Section
Line Wrapping.
After lines (wider than the SendBreakWidth, see the
previous section) in a draft message are broken, the widest
resulting line will be no wider than SendWidth. (The
default is lines 72 characters wide.) For a more detailed
explanation, see the Section
Line Wrapping.
By default, when you mark a message for deleting, moving, or copying
(actually, linking), the View Next Message and
View Previous Message commands skip over the message. For
instance, they'll skip over a message to be deleted if the
SkipDeleted value is true.
(By default, all three of these are true.)
If you want the View Next Message and the
View Previous Message commands to let you view messages
marked for copying (linking), set this entry in your resource
file:
xmh*SkipCopied: false
Messages marked for deleting and moving would still be skipped
because the
SkipDeleted and SkipMoved would default
to true.
TocGeometry is the initial geometry for new
main xmh windows. This geometry setting doesn't include the
master window that opens when you first start xmh (see the
Section
Command-line Settings). For example,
if you start xmh this way:
xmh -geometry 830x250+50+5 -xrm '*TocGeometry:475x440' -xrm '*CompGeometry: 660x460' &
you'll get a short, wide master window at the top of the screen
(830 pixels wide and 250 pixels high). Each time you click
on Open Folder in New Window, you'll get a 475x440-pixel
table of contents window.
It's important to make an entry
for CompGeometry to make sure that the composition windows
are no more than the normal 72 (or 80) characters wide -- this
keeps lines the right width in messages you send. These geometries
let you use setups like the one in
the Figure below, with windows onto
several folders at the same time.
Figure: Screen with new geometry
settings
Otherwise, the messages you send could have lines that are too
wide or too narrow for most peoples' terminals.
TocWidth sets the number of characters to generate for
each message in a folder's Table of Contents, which is stored in
the
.xmhcache file. (The default is 100.)
If your folders have thousands of messages, you can speed
up xmh by setting TocWidth to a smaller number than
100 -- just enough to fill your Table of Contents window. Try a
setting of 80 instead.
The Section Changing Table of Contents
shows how to change the format.
If your X setup can do it, xmh R4 and later will use
rounded buttons. (The figures in this book do.) Using rectangular
buttons can speed up your display, though. To do that, use the
entry:
xmh*ShapeStyle: Rectangle
The Table below is an alphabetical list
of xmh resources. It was adapted from the R6
xmh(1) manual page.
Table: xmh Resources
- banner (default: "xmh X Consortium R6")
- A short string that is the default label of the folder,
Table of Contents, and view.
- blockEventsOnBusy (default: true)
- Whether to disallow user input and show a busy cursor
while xmh is busy processing a command.
- busyCursor (default: "watch")
- The name of the symbol used to represent the position of the
pointer, displayed if blockEventsOnBusy is true,
when xmh is processing a time-consuming command.
- busyPointerColor
(default: XtDefaultForeground)
- The foreground color of the busy cursor.
- checkFrequency (default: 1)
- How often to check for new mail, make checkpoints, and
rescan the Table of Contents, in minutes. If checkNewMail
is true, xmh checks to see if you have new mail each
interval. If makeCheckpoints is true, checkpoints are
made every fifth interval. Also every fifth interval, the Table
of Contents is checked for inconsistencies with the file system,
and rescanned if out of date. To prevent all of these checks
from occurring, set CheckFrequency to 0. This resource is
retained for backward compatibility with user resource files;
see also checkpointInterval, mailInterval,
and rescanInterval.
- checkNewMail (default: true)
- If true, xmh will check at regular intervals to see
if new mail has arrived for any of the top level folders and any
opened subfolders. A visual indication will be given if new mail
is waiting to be incorporated into a top level folder. The
interval can be adjusted with mailInterval.
- checkpointInterval (default: 5 times the value
of checkFrequency)
- Specifies in minutes how often to make checkpoints of
volatile state, if makeCheckpoints is true.
- checkpointNameFormat (default: "%d.CKP")
- Specifies how checkpointed files are to be named. The value
of this resource will be used to compose a file name by
inserting the message number as a string in place of the
required single occurence of "%d". If the value of the
resource is the empty string, or if no
"%d" occurs in the string, or if "%d" is the
value of the resource, the default will be used instead.
Checkpointing is done in the folder of origin unless an absolute
pathname is given.
xmh does not assist the user in recovering checkpoints,
nor does it provide for removal of the checkpoint files.
- commandButtonCount (default: 0)
- The number of command buttons to create in a button box in
between the toc and the view areas of the main window.
xmh will create these buttons with the names button1,
button2 and so on, in a box with the name
commandBox.
xmh users can specify labels and actions for the buttons
in a private resource file; see the Section
A New Buttonbox for the Main
Windows.
- compGeometry
- Initial geometry for windows containing compositions.
- cursor (default: "left_ptr")
- The name of the symbol used to represent the pointer.
- debug (default: false)
- Whether or not to print information to stderr as xmh
runs. See the Section Use the
debug Resource.
- draftsFolder (default: "drafts")
- The folder used for message drafts.
- geometry (default: none)
- Default geometry to use.
- hideBoringHeaders (default: "on")
- If ``on'', then xmh will attempt to skip
uninteresting header lines within messages by scrolling them off
the top of the view. See the
Section HideBoringHeaders.
- initialFolder (default: "inbox")
- Which folder to display on startup. May also be set with the
command-line option -initial. See the
Section Initial Folder.
- initialIncFile (default: no value)
- The absolute path name of your incoming mail drop file. In
some installations, for example those using the Post Office
Protocol, no file is appropriate. In this
case, initialIncFile should not be specified, or may be
specified as the empty string, and inc will be invoked
without a -file argument. This resource is ignored if xmh
finds an .xmhcheck file (the
Section Incorporate New Mail).
- mailInterval (default: the value
of checkFrequency)
- Specifies the interval in minutes at which the mail should
be checked, if
mailWaitingFlag or checkNewMail is true.
- mailPath (default: the Path: MH profile
entry, or "$HOME/Mail" if none)
- The full path prefix for locating your mail folders. May
also be set with the command line option, -path. See the
Section MH Directory Path.
- mailWaitingFlag
- If true, xmh will attempt to set an indication in its
icon when new mail is waiting to be retrieved.
If mailWaitingFlag is true, then
checkNewMail is assumed to be true as well.
The -flag command line option is a quick way to turn on
this resource.
- makeCheckpoints (default: false)
- If true, xmh will attempt to save checkpoints of
volatile edits. The frequency of checkpointing is controlled by
the resource checkpointInterval. For the location of
checkpointing, see
checkpointNameFormat.
- mhPath (default: "/usr/local/mh6")
- What directory in which to find the MH commands. If a
command isn't found in the user's path, then the path specified
here is used.
- newMailBitmap (default: "black6")
- The bitmap to show in the folder button when a folder has
new mail.
- newMailIconBitmap (default: "flagup")
- The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the icon when
any folder has new mail.
- noMailBitmap (default: "box6")
- The bitmap to show in the folder button when a folder has no
new mail.
- noMailIconBitmap (default: "flagdown")
- The bitmap suggested to the window manager for the icon when
no folders have new mail.
- pickGeometry
- Initial geometry for pick windows.
- pointerColor (default: XtDefaultForeground)
- The foreground color of the pointer.
- prefixWmAndIconName (default: true)
- Whether to prefix the window and icon name with "xmh:
".
- printCommand (default: "enscript >/dev/null
2>/dev/null")
- An sh command to execute to print a message. See the
Section Changing the Print Command.
- replyInsertFilter (default: "cat")
- An sh command to be executed when the Insert
button is activated in a composition window. See the
Section ReplyInsertFilter.
- rescanInterval (default: 5 times the value
of checkFrequency)
- How often to check the Table of Contents of currently viewed
folders and of folders with messages currently being viewed, and
to update the Table of Contents if xmh sees
inconsistencies with the file system in these folders.
- reverseReadOrder (default: false)
- When true, the next message will be the message prior to the
current message in the table of contents, and the previous
message will be the message after the current message in the
table of contents.
- sendBreakWidth (default: 2000)
- When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer than
this value will be split into multiple lines, each of which is
no longer than SendWidth. See the
Section SendBreakWidth.
- sendWidth (default: 72)
- When a message is sent from xmh, lines longer
than SendBreakWidth characters will be split into
multiple lines, each of which is no longer than this value. See
the Section SendWidth.
- showOnInc (default: true)
- Whether to automatically show the current message after
incorporating new mail.
- skipCopied (default: true)
- Whether to skip over messages marked for copying when
using View Next Message and View Previous
Message. See the Section SkipCopied,
SkipDeleted, SkipMoved.
- skipDeleted (default: true)
- Whether to skip over messages marked for deletion when
using View Next Message and View Previous
Message. See the Section SkipCopied,
SkipDeleted, SkipMoved.
- skipMoved (default: true)
- Whether to skip over messages marked for moving to other
folders when using View Next Message and View
Previous Message. See the
Section SkipCopied, SkipDeleted,
SkipMoved.
- stickyMenu (default: false)
- If true, when popup command menus are used, the most
recently selected entry will be under the cursor when the menu
pops up. See the file clients/xmh/Xmh.sample for an
example of how to specify resources for popup command menus.
- tempDir (default: "/tmp")
- Directory for xmh to store temporary files. For
privacy, a user might want to change this to a private
directory.
- tocGeometry
- Initial geometry for main xmh toc and view windows.
See the Section TocGeometry.
- tocPercentage (default: 33)
- The percentage of the main window that is used to display
the Table of Contents.
- tocWidth (default: 100)
- How many characters to generate for each message in a
folder's table of contents. See the
Section TocWidth.
- viewGeometry
- Initial geometry for windows showing a view of a message.