MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers, 3rd Edition
By Jerry Peek
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Released: March 1995
Pages: 782
There are lots of mail programs in use these days, but MH is one of the most durable and flexible. MH gives users the ability to combine email and shell programming capabilities to create powerful and customized mail environments. Best of all, MH is freely available on almost all UNIX systems. MH has spawned a number of interfaces in addition to the shell command line, too. This book covers three popular interfaces: xmh (for the X environment), exmh (written with tcl/tk), and mh-e (for GNU Emacs users).
MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers first gives the reader the basic information needed to get started. The information in these "quick tour" chapters is expanded in later chapters so that users can go beyond the basic functions of a mailer and create a customized email environment. This book contains useful examples, tips, tricks, and documented and undocumented features that the author learned in thirteen years as an MH user, instructor, programmer, and system administrator. This book has been described as the "MH bible" because of its complete treatment of MH and its interfaces.
The book contains:
A quick tour through MH, xmh, exmh, and mh-e for new users
Configuration and customization information
Lots of tips and techniques for programmers -- and plenty of practical examples for everyone
Information beyond the manual pages, explaining how to make MH do things you never thought an email program could do
In addition, the third edition describes the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and how to use it with these mail programs. MIME is an extension that allows users to send graphics, sound, and other multimedia formats through mail between otherwise incompatible systems.
Title:
MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers, 3rd Edition
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers is an octopus, an eight-armed marine mollusk. An invertebrate with no shell or fins, the octopus moves by crawling across rocks and sand, using the double row of suckers on the underside of its tentacles to pull itself along, or by swimming ejecting spurts of water from a siphon near the base of its head which propel it forward. Found throughout the world, both in shallow water and deep, the octopus comes in a variety of sizes, from two inches across to monsters with arms 16 feet long. Octopi can change color quickly to blend in with their surroundings. When threatened they can eject a brown or black inky fluid which will block an enemy's vision and anesthetize its olfactory senses. Though very shy animals, octopi are also very curious. Divers frequently lure them out of hiding by blowing bubbles at them or showing them shiny objects. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks(R) help you tame them.
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Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.3 using the ITC Garamond font.
The inside layout was designed by Edie Freedman and Jennifer Niederst and implemented in gtroff by Lenny Muellner. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Aldus Freehand 4.0 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Michael Kalantarian.
