


MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


NAME
       mm  -  offline  mail reader for Blue Wave, QWK, OMEN, SOUP
       and OPX packets

SYNOPSIS
       mm [filename1] [filename2] [...]

DESCRIPTION
       MultiMail is an offline mail packet reader, supporting the
       Blue  Wave,  QWK,  OMEN, SOUP and OPX (Silver Xpress) for-
       mats. It uses a simple curses-based interface.

       SOUP is used for Internet email and Usenet. The others are
       used  primarily  by dialup (or telnet) BBSes, to save con-
       nect time, and to provide a better interface to  the  mes-
       sage base.

       This manpage is for version 0.32.

USAGE
       On most screens, the available keystroke commands are dis-
       played in the lower part  of  the  screen.  In  the  mail-
       reading window, pressing F1 or '?'  will show the commands
       available there.

       The navigation keys, most of  which  work  throughout  the
       program, are briefly summarized only on the packet screen,
       for lack of space. :-)  Basically,  they  consist  of  the
       standard  cursor  and keypad keys, with <Enter> to select.
       For terminals without full support for these keys, aliases
       are available for some of them:

       ESC   = Q
       PgDn  = B
       PgUp  = F
       Right = +
       Left  = -

       (Although   shown   in  capitals,  these  may  be  entered
       unshifted.)

       With "Lynx-style navigation", activated by  the  "UseLynx-
       Nav" option, the Left arrow key backs out from any screen,
       while the Right arrow key  selects.  It  also  makes  Left
       equivalent to selecting ".." in the packet list, except at
       the top level (where it's equivalent to  Quit).  The  plus
       and  minus  keys are no longer aliases for Right and Left,
       but perform the same functions as in the traditional navi-
       gation system.

       Of  special  note  is  the space bar. In most areas of the
       program, it functions as an alias for  PgDn;  but  in  the
       mail-reading  window, it works as a combination PgDn/Enter
       key, allowing you to page through an area with one key.



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       In the letter list, only unread messages are displayed, by
       default, but you can toggle this by pressing L.

       Multiple sort modes are available in the packet and letter
       lists; you can cycle through them  by  pressing  '$'.  The
       default sort modes are set in the .mmailrc.

       Packet names may be specified on the command line, bypass-
       ing the  packet  menu.  If  multiple  packets  are  named,
       they'll be opened sequentially.

       You can abort the program immediately from any screen with
       CTRL-X. You won't be prompted to confirm the exit, but you
       will  still  be  prompted  to  save  replies  and pointers
       (unless autosaving is set). Note that if you've  specified
       multiple packets on the command line, this is the only way
       to terminate the sequence prematurely.

       You can obtain  a  temporary  command  shell  anywhere  by
       pressing  CTRL-Z.  In  the  DOSish  ports  (MS-DOS,  OS/2,
       Win32), it spawns a command shell, and you return to  Mul-
       tiMail  via  the "exit" command. In Unix, it relies on the
       shell to put MultiMail in the background; you return  with
       "fg".  (This  has  always  been available in the Unix ver-
       sions; however, it won't work if MultiMail wasn't launched
       from an interactive shell, or if the shell doesn't support
       it.)

SEARCHING
       A case-insensitive search function  is  available  on  all
       screens. Press '/' to specify the text to look for, or '>'
       or '.' to repeat the last search.

       New searches (specified with  '/')  always  start  at  the
       beginning  of  the  list or message. Repeat searches (with
       '>' or '.') start with the line below the current one. You
       can take advantage of this to manually adjust the starting
       point for the next search.

       Searches started in the letter, area or packet lists allow
       the searches to extend below the current list. "Full text"
       searches all the way through the  text  of  each  message;
       "Headers"  searches  only  the message headers (the letter
       list), "Areas" only the area list, and "Pkt list" only the
       packet  list.  So,  a  "Full text" search started from the
       packet list will search every message in every packet (but
       only in the current directory).

       When  scanning  "Full  text", the automatic setting of the
       "Read" marker is disabled. However, if you find  a  search
       string in the header of a message and then select it manu-
       ally, the marker will be set. But if  you  start  scanning
       from  the  packet  list,  and exit the packet via a repeat
       search, the last-read markers won't be saved.



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       Scans of "Headers" or "Full text" that start from the area
       list  or  packet list will automatically expand the letter
       lists they descend into.  Similarly, scans that  start  at
       the packet list will expand the area lists.  Otherwise, if
       you're viewing the short list, that's  all  that  will  be
       searched.

       I hope the above makes some sense. :-) The searching func-
       tions are difficult to explain, but easy to use.

OFFLINE CONFIGURATION
       At present, offline config is limited to  subscribe  (add)
       and  unsubscribe  (drop)  functions.  The Blue Wave, OMEN,
       QWKE, and QWK Add/Drop (with  DOOR.ID)  methods  are  sup-
       ported.  (The QMAIL "CONFIG" method is not supported yet.)
       Offline config is not yet available in SOUP or OPX mode.

       In the area list, press 'U' or 'Del' to  unsubscribe  from
       the  highlighted  area.  To subscribe to a new conference,
       first expand the list ('L'), then highlight the  appropri-
       ate  area and press 'S' or 'Ins'. Dropped areas are marked
       with a minus sign ('-') in the first column;  added  areas
       with  a  plus  ('+').  In the expanded area list, already-
       subscribed areas are marked with an asterisk ('*').  (This
       and  also applies to the little area list.  With plain QWK
       packets, the asterisk should not  be  relied  upon;  other
       areas  may also be subscribed.) Added or dropped areas are
       highlighted in the "Area_Reply" color. Yeah, I'll have  to
       change that name now. ;-)

       Pressing 'S' on an area marked with '-', or 'U' on an area
       marked '+' turns the flag off again.

       In Blue Wave, OMEN or QWKE mode, the  list  of  added  and
       dropped  areas  is  read  back in when the reply packet is
       reopened. If the reply packet has already  been  uploaded,
       and  you're  reading  a packet with the altered area list,
       this is benign. If it's an older packet, you can alter the
       list  before  uploading,  as  with  reply messages. In QWK
       Add/Drop mode, the changed area  flags  are  converted  to
       reply  messages  when  the  reply  packet  is saved. Note:
       Adding or dropping areas sets the "unsaved replies"  flag,
       like  entering  a reply message, but does not invoke auto-
       matic reply packet saving until you exit the packet.

       Unfortunately, neither the QWKE mode nor the OMEN mode has
       actually  been  tested;  I no longer have access to a QWKE
       door, and the OMEN doors I've used don't  support  offline
       config.  But I believe these conform to the specs. Reports
       welcome.

HIDDEN LINES AND ROT13
       In the letter window, you can toggle  viewing  of  Fidonet
       "hidden" lines (marked with a ^A in the first position) by



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       pressing 'x'. The lines are shown as part of the text, but
       in  a different color. In Internet email and Usenet areas,
       the full headers of the messages are available in the same
       way  (if provided in the packet -- generally, full headers
       are available in SOUP, partial extra headers in Blue Wave,
       and none in OPX).

       Pressing  'd'  toggles  rot13 encoding, the crude "encryp-
       tion" method used for spoiler warnings and such, primarily
       on Usenet.

ANSI VIEWER
       If a message contains ANSI color codes, you may be able to
       view it as originally  intended  by  activating  the  ANSI
       viewer.  Press  'v'  to  start it.  Press 'q' to leave the
       ANSI viewer; the navigation keys are the same  as  in  the
       mail-reading window.

       The  ANSI  viewer  includes  support  for animation. While
       within the ANSI viewer, press 'v'  again  to  animate  the
       picture. Press any key to abort the animation.

       The ANSI viewer is also used to display the new files list
       and bulletins, if any are present.

CHARACTER SETS
       MultiMail supports two character  sets:  the  IBM  PC  set
       (Code Page 437), and Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1). Messages can be
       in either character set; the set is determined by the area
       attributes   --  Internet  and  Usenet  areas  default  to
       Latin-1, while all others default to IBM -- and by a  CHRS
       or  CHARSET  kludge, if one is present. OMEN packets indi-
       cate their character set in the INFOxy.BBS file. MultiMail
       automatically translates between these character sets when
       displaying messages and creating replies.

       The Unix versions of MultiMail  assume  that  the  console
       uses  Latin-1,  while  the DOSish versions (DOS, OS/2, and
       Win32) assume the IBM PC set. You can override this in the
       .mmailrc, or on a temporary basis by pressing 'c'.

REPLY SPLITTING
       Replies  may  be  split, either automatically, or manually
       via CTRL-B in the reply area. For automatic splitting, the
       default  maximum  number  of  lines per part is set in the
       .mmailrc. The split occurs whenever the  reply  packet  is
       saved.  This  allows  you to defer the split and still re-
       edit the whole reply as one. However,  with  autosave  on,
       the  split  will  occur immediately after entering a reply
       (because the save does,  too).  Setting  MaxLines  in  the
       .mmailrc  to 0 disables automatic splitting; manual split-
       ting is still allowed. Attempts to split at less  than  20
       lines are assumed to be mistakes and are ignored.




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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


ENVIRONMENT
       MultiMail  uses  the HOME or MMAIL environment variable to
       find its configuration file, .mmailrc; and EDITOR for  the
       default  editor.  MMAIL  is  takes precedence over HOME if
       it's defined. If neither is defined, the startup directory
       is used.

       Depending  on the implementation, TMP and/or TEMP may also
       be used to specify the directory for temporary files.  The
       use  of  EDITOR  can  be  overridden in .mmailrc; however,
       environment variables can't be used within .mmailrc.

       If you're using SOUP, you'll want to make sure  your  time
       zone is set correctly. On many systems, that means setting
       the TZ environment variable.  A  typical  value  for  this
       variable  is  of the form EST5EDT (that one's for the east
       coast of the U.S.A.).

FILES
       The  only  hardwired  file  is  the  configuration   file:
       .mmailrc  (mmail.rc  in DOS, OS/2 or Win32).  It's used to
       specify the pathnames to MultiMail's other files, and  the
       command  lines  for  external programs (the editor and the
       archivers).

       By default, the other permanent files are  placed  in  the
       MultiMail  home  directory  ($HOME/mmail or $MMAIL/mmail).
       For temporary directories and files,  MultiMail  uses  the
       tmpnam()  function  (the  location  is  system-dependent).
       Directories specified in the .mmailrc are created automat-
       ically; the default values are shown here:


       ~/mmail
              To  store  the  tagline  file, netmail addressbook,
              etc.

       taglines
              A plain text file, one tagline per line.

       addressbook (address.bk in DOS, OS/2 or Win32)
              A list of names and corresponding Fido  netmail  or
              Internet   email   addresses.  Note  that  Internet
              addresses are prefaced with an 'I'.

       colors Specifies the colors to use. (See README.col.)

       ~/mmail/down
              To store the packets as they came from the bbs.

       ~/mmail/up
              To store the reply  packet(s)  which  you  have  to
              upload to the bbs.




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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       ~/mmail/save
              The default directory for saving messages.

CONFIG FILE
       The  config  file  (see above) is a plain text file with a
       series of values, one per  line,  in  the  form  "KeyWord:
       Value". The case of the keywords is not signifigant. Addi-
       tional,  comment  lines  may  be  present,  starting  with
       replaced  by  the  defaults when you upgrade to a new ver-
       sion.) If any of the keywords are missing, default  values
       will be used. Here are the keywords and their functions:


       Version
              Specifies  the  version  of  MultiMail  which  last
              updated the file. This is used to check whether the
              file should be updated and the "new version" prompt
              displayed. Note that old values are preserved  when
              the  file  is  updated;  the update merely adds any
              keywords that are new. This keyword is also used in
              the colors file.

       UserName
              Your  name  in plain text, e.g., "UserName: William
              McBrine". This is used together  with  InetAddr  to
              create a default "From:" line for SOUP replies; and
              by itself in OMEN for display purposes (the  actual
              From  name is set on upload), and for matching per-
              sonal messages.

       InetAddr
              Your  Internet  email  address,  e.g.,   "InetAddr:
              wmcbrine@clark.net".  This  is  combined  with  the
              UserName  in   the   form   "UserName   <InetAddr>"
              ("William  McBrine <wmcbrine@clark.net>") to create
              a default "From:" line for SOUP replies. Note  that
              if neither value is specified, and nothing is typed
              manually into the From: field when creating a  mes-
              sage,  no  From: line will be generated -- which is
              perfectly acceptable to at  least  some  SOUP  pro-
              grams, like UQWK.

       QuoteHead, InetQuote
              These  strings  are  placed at the beginning of the
              quoted text  when  replying  in  normal  or  Inter-
              net/Usenet areas, respectively. (The distinction is
              made because the quoting conventions for BBSes  and
              the  Internet  are different.)  Replaceable parame-
              ters are indicated with a '%'  character,  as  fol-
              lows:

              %f = "From" in original message
              %t = To
              %d = Date (of original message)



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              %s = Subject
              %a = Area
              %n = newline (for multi-line headers)
              %% = insert an actual percent character

              Note that you can't put white space at the start of
              one of these strings (it will be eaten by the  con-
              fig parser), but you can get around that by putting
              a newline first.

       homeDir
              User's home directory.

       mmHomeDir
              MultiMail's home directory.

       signature
              Path to optional signature file, which should be  a
              simple text file. If specified, it will be appended
              to every message you write.  You  should  give  the
              full path, not just the name.

       editor The  editor  MultiMail uses for replies, along with
              any command-line options. This may also be  a  good
              place to insert spell-checkers, etc., by specifying
              a batch file here. Note that the default  value  is
              just  the  editor  that's (almost) guaranteed to be
              available, for a given OS (although the Unix  "EDI-
              TOR" environment variable is checked first), and is
              in no way a preferred editor; you  can  and  should
              change it.

       PacketDir
              Default packet directory.

       ReplyDir
              Default reply packet directory.

       SaveDir
              Default directory for saved messages.

       AddressBook
              Path  and  filename of the address book. (You might
              change this to share it with another  installation,
              but basically this keyword isn't too useful.)

       TaglineFile
              Path  and  filename of the tagline file. This could
              be altered from a batch file to swap  between  dif-
              ferent  sets of taglines. (But note that this value
              is only read at  startup.)  You  could  also  share
              taglines  with another program, but be careful with
              that; MultiMail truncates the lines at  76  charac-
              ters.



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       ColorFile
              Path   and   filename   of  the  colors  file.  See
              README.col.

       *UncompressCommand, *CompressCommand
              Command lines (program name, options,  and  option-
              ally  the  path)  for the archivers to compress and
              uncompress packets and reply packets. ZIP, ARJ, RAR
              and  LHA are recognized. The "unknown" values are a
              catch-all, attempted for anything that's not recog-
              nized  as  one of the other four types; if you have
              to deal with ARC or ZOO files, you might define the
              archiver for them here.

       PacketSort
              The  packet  list  can  be sorted either in inverse
              order of packet date and time (the  newest  at  the
              top), or in alphabetical order by filename.  "Time"
              specifies the former, and "Name" the latter. (Actu-
              ally  only the first letter is checked, and case is
              not signifigant. This applies to the other keywords
              of  this  type  (the  kind that have a fixed set of
              values to choose from)  as  well.)  The  sort  type
              specified here is only the default, and can be tog-
              gled from the packet window by pressing '$'.

       LetterSort
              The sort used by default in the letter list. Can be
              "Subject"  (subjects  sorted alphabetically, with a
              case-insensitive compare), "Number" (sorted by mes-
              sage number), "From" or "To". (This can be overrid-
              den, as in the packet list.)

       Charset
              The character set that the console  is  assumed  to
              use.  Either "CP437" (code page 437, the U.S. stan-
              dard for the IBM PC and clones) or  "Latin-1"  (aka
              ISO-8859-1,  the  standard for most other systems).
              Note that the character set of messages  is  deter-
              mined separately (q.v.).

       UseTaglines
              Yes/No.  If no, the tagline window is not displayed
              at all when composing a message.

       AutoSaveReplies
              Yes/No. If yes, the reply packet is saved automati-
              cally -- the equivalent of pressing F2, but without
              a confirmation prompt -- whenver  the  contents  of
              the reply area are changed. This can be convenient,
              and even a safety feature if your power  supply  is
              irregular, but it provides less opportunity to take
              back a change (like deleting  a  message).  If  no,
              you're  prompted  whether  to  save  the changes on



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              exiting the packet. Note that if you say no to that
              prompt,  nothing that you wrote during that session
              will be saved (unless you saved  it  manually  with
              F2).

       AutoSaveRead
              Yes/No. If yes, the read/marked/etc. indicators are
              saved automatically when exiting a packet.  If  no,
              you'll be prompted whether to save them; if you say
              no, the indicators will remain as they were  before
              you opened the packet.

       StripSoftCR
              Yes/No. Some messages on Fido-type networks contain
              spurious instances of character 141, which  appears
              as  an  accented  'i'  in  code page 437. These are
              really so-called soft returns,  where  the  message
              was wrapped when composing it, but not indicating a
              paragraph break. Unfortunately, the  character  can
              also  appear  legitimately as that accented 'i', so
              this option defaults to no. It can be toggled  tem-
              porarily  via the 'I' key in the letter window, and
              it doesn't apply to messages in the Latin-1 charac-
              ter set.

       BeepOnPers
              Yes/No.  If  yes,  MultiMail  beeps when you open a
              message addressed to or from yourself in the letter
              window.  (These  are  the  same  messages which are
              highlighted in the letter list.)

       UseLynxNav
              Yes/No. See the description under USAGE.

       UseScrollBars
              Yes/No. In list windows, when the number  of  items
              in the list exceeds the number of lines in the win-
              dow, MultiMail puts a scroll bar on the right  bor-
              der  of  the  window,  showing  the highlight bar's
              position relative to the entire  list.  Older  ver-
              sions of MultiMail (pre-0.29) didn't do this, and I
              figure some people may not like it, so you can dis-
              able it here.

       BuildPersArea
              Yes/No. By default, MultiMail now builds a personal
              area   automatically,   consisting   of    messages
              addressed  to  you,  for every packet format except
              SOUP. But there's  some  overhead  associated  with
              this,  so if you have a very slow computer -- or if
              you just don't want to see this  area  --  you  can
              disable  it  here.  Note  that  this option doesn't
              apply to QWK  packets  with  .NDX  files  in  them;
              there, the area only appears if personal.ndx exists



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


              in the packet.

       MakeOldFlags
              Yes/No. With Blue Wave packets, this  makes  Multi-
              Mail  store  its  last-read  flags in the .xti file
              format rather than in its native .red, for compati-
              bility with some other Blue Wave readers and utili-
              ties. (In the future, this option may also be  used
              to generate mail.fdx files for OPX, etc.; hence the
              generic name.)

       QuoteWrapCols
              Numeric. The right margin for  quoted  material  in
              replies (including the quote indicator).

       MaxLines
              Numeric. See the description under REPLY SPLITTING.

UPGRADING
       When you run a new version of MultiMail  (0.19  or  later)
       for the first time, it automatically updates your .mmailrc
       and ColorFile with any new keywords.  (Old  keywords,  and
       the  values  you've  set for them, are preserved. However,
       comments are lost.) Some notes on specific upgrades:

       Version 0.32 adds the .mmailrc options "BuildPersArea" and
       "MakeOldFlags". See above for descriptions.

       Version  0.30  adds  the  options  "UserName", "InetAddr",
       "QuoteHead", "InetQuote", and "QuoteWrapCols".

       Version 0.29 adds "UseScrollBars" and "UseLynxNav".

       Version 0.28 adds "MaxLines", "StripSoftCR", and  "BeepOn-
       Pers".

       Version  0.26  adds "AutoSaveReplies", "AutoSaveRead", and
       "UseTaglines".

       Version 0.25 adds "Charset",  "PacketSort",  and  "Letter-
       Sort".  The  default packet sort is now by time instead of
       name.

       If you're upgrading from 0.19 to 0.20 or  later,  and  you
       have  a  customized  ColorFile,  be  sure  to note the new
       options.

       The   ColorFile   is   new   in   0.19.   Check   it   out
       (~/mmail/colors, by default).

       As  of 0.16, the HOME environment variable can be overrid-
       den with MMAIL, or omitted altogether.

       If you're upgrading from a version  before  0.9,  and  you



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       have existing reply packets (.rep or .new) whose names are
       partly or wholly in uppercase, you  must  rename  them  to
       lowercase  before  version  0.9  or  higher will recognize
       them. (Downloaded packets are not at issue.)

       If you're upgrading from a version below 0.8, you may want
       to  manually delete the /tmp/$LOGNAME directory created by
       previous versions. (0.8 and higher  clean  out  their  own
       temp  directories,  and  use different names for each ses-
       sion.)

       If you're upgrading from a version prior  to  0.7,  please
       note  the  changes  in the default directories; previously
       they were "~/mmail/bwdown", etc.

NOTES
       I've reverse-engineered OPX, and I don't claim that Multi-
       Mail's  support  for  the  format is complete. So far I've
       only tested it with the Wildcat/WINS  version  of  the  SX
       door.

       OPX  reply  packets  are always created with a .rep exten-
       sion, which differs slightly from the behavior of  the  SX
       reader.  If  you switch from QWK packets to OPX packets on
       the same board, MultiMail will _not_ open an old QWK  .rep
       in OPX mode, nor vice versa. (It will try, and will termi-
       nate with Error opening reply packet.)

       SOUP reply  packets  are  created  with  the  name  "base-
       name.rep",  where  basename  is  the  part of the original
       packet name before the first period.  (Unlike  other  for-
       mats,  there's  no  actual  standard for this in SOUP, but
       this seems to be the most common form among the SOUP read-
       ers  I  surveyed.)   Also, not that I expect anyone to try
       this, but currently MultiMail is only able to  read  reply
       packets generated by other SOUP readers if the replies are
       in 'b' or 'B' mode, and are  one  to  a  file  within  the
       packet.   Most  readers meet the first criterion, but some
       of them batch all mail and news replies into a single file
       for  each type. A future version of MultiMail will be able
       to read these, too.

       When re-editing a reply, it gets pushed to end of the list
       of replies.

       The R)ename function in the packet window can also be used
       to move files between directories; however,  the  destina-
       tion filename must still be specified along with the path.

       If you're using the XCurses (PDCurses) version,  and  your
       editor isn't an X app, it will work better if you set Mul-
       tiMail's "editor" keyword to "xterm -e filename"  (instead
       of  just  "filename").  I decided not to do this automati-
       cally because someone might actually  use  it  with  an  X



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MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       editor.

       Editing  and deletion of old replies are available through
       the REPLY area, which always appears at  the  top  of  the
       area  list.  This  differs  from  Blue Wave and some other
       readers.

       The Escape key works to back out from  most  screens,  but
       after you press it, you'll have to wait a bit for it to be
       sensed (with ncurses; not true with PDCurses).

       Only Blue Wave style taglines (beginning with  "...")  are
       recognized  by  the  tagline  stealer. The tagline must be
       visible on the screen to be taken.

       Netmail only works in Blue Wave, OMEN and OPX  modes,  and
       is   still  slightly  limited.  Netmail  from  points  now
       includes the point address. Internet email is available in
       Blue  Wave and OPX modes, for those doors that support it,
       and in SOUP mode, using the same interface  as  Fido  net-
       mail.

AUTHORS
       MultiMail  was originally developed under Linux by Koloss-
       vary Tamas and Toth Istvan. John Zero was  the  maintainer
       for versions 0.2 through 0.6; since version 0.7, the main-
       tainer is William McBrine <wmcbrine@clark.net>.

       Additional code has been  contribued  by  Peter  Karlsson,
       Mark D. Rejhon, Ingo Brueckl, and Robert Vukovic.

BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
       If your editor produces automatic backup files, you should
       disable this feature, if possible, or wrap it with a batch
       file  to  delete  them when done. MultiMail will erase the
       temporary files it creates itself, but it doesn't know  to
       erase the backup files from an editor.

       The  Win32  version  is  reported  to be incompatible with
       4DOS: shelling to external programs (archivers or editors)
       fails.  Thanks  to  Tony  Summerfelt for figuring this one
       out. You can set the MultiMail session to use  COMMAND.COM
       while retaining 4DOS elsewhere.

       On some platforms, specifying a packet on the command line
       fails if the filename  is  exactly  10  characters.  (Both
       shorter  and longer names are OK.)  This appears to be due
       to strange bugs in the standard  library,  and  I  haven't
       found  a  satisfactory  solution. I noticed it now because
       all OMEN packets fit this description. :-( Packets  chosen
       from the packet menu are unaffected.

       SOUP  area type 'M' is not recognized yet. First I have to
       find a program that can generate one. :-)



                         October 30, 1999                      12





MultiMail(1)                                         MultiMail(1)


       The ANSI viewer eats up a huge amount  of  memory  --  the
       number  of  rendered  lines, times the screen width, times
       four bytes. (And when it's used as a file viewer, add  the
       length  of  the  disk file to that.) That wasn't much of a
       problem when viewing ANSI messages, but it can get  severe
       now  that  the  ANSI viewer is used for new file lists. (A
       list of several hundred K may require several megs of mem-
       ory.)

       The  new file list and bulletin viewer is, as yet, a hack.
       A better means of selecting which ones  to  view  will  be
       forthcoming, if I can ever decide just how it should look.
       (Your opinion is welcome.)

       If you find any  bugs,  or  have  ideas  for  improvement,
       please write to me.









































                         October 30, 1999                      13


