[net.news.b] Enhancement to readr.c

dvk (07/30/82)

I think this is the correct newsgroup...

Anyway, we use Rand's MH editor, and I know we are not the only ones. I find
it very frustrating to use the reply option, only to be dumped into the old
(translate - garbage) Unix mail, which accepts text, and then sends it: no
editin', no nuthin'. I checked the code, and the MAILER environment variable
allows you to be marginally clever (like if you define it to be "mail -subj %s"
instead of the default "mail", it puts the subject in place of your "%s". Semi-
cute, at best), but this just isn't enough. So I hacked (literally; I make no
claims as to speed or elegance) the code so that if MAILER == "mh", it sets
up a formfile in $HOME/Mail/net.$$, calls "comp -form $HOME/Mail/net.$$", and
then deletes the formfile. The formfile contains the filled in fields for
To: <name>, and Subject: <subj>, so you are never prompted for them, but instead
they get done automatically. You are now in MH, and you get all the neat
features that it supplies. (You might want to add a "Cc:" field to the formfile,
but you can aways edit your text, too...). Anyway, a diff listing follows for
those who would desire this interface. I know its ugly, so if you have
complaints, don't say I didn't warn you.

			Daniel Klein, Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh


492,495c492,493
< 			if (strcmp(MAILER,"mh")) {
< 				fprintf(ofp, "To: %s\n", rcbuf);
< 				fflush(ofp);
< 			}
---
> 			fprintf(ofp, "To: %s\n", rcbuf);
> 			fflush(ofp);
502,512c500,501
< 			if (strcmp(MAILER,"mh")) {
< 				sprintf(rcbuf, MAILER, hptr->title);
< 				sprintf(bfr, "%s %s", rcbuf, address);
< 			} else {
< 				sprintf(bfr,"cat >%s%s\nTo: %s\nSubject: %s\n%s\nETX\n%s%s%s",
< 					userhome,"/Mail/net.$$ << ETX",
< 					address,hptr->title,
< 					"----------",
< 					"comp -form net.$$;rm ",
< 					userhome,"/Mail/net.$$");
< 			}
---
> 			sprintf(rcbuf, MAILER, hptr->title);
> 			sprintf(bfr, "%s %s", rcbuf, address);

jerry (07/30/82)

General mechanisms for invoking mailers should be the goal
not modifications to news that are specific to a particular
editor/mailer.

You ought to have a shell script to do what ever you
want and then make MAILER "mymailer '%s' ..."  where the
three dots indicate the other information you might get
from readnews.  (I'm not sure what is available).

    Jerry Schwarz -- eagle!jerry -- BTL Murray Hill -- (201) 582-5926

mark (07/31/82)

This is why I think forced interactive mail senders are silly.  Your program
has to stuff them with input interactively or else fill out their form.

If I were fixing the news/MH bridge, I would add two flags to comp
that probably should have been there from the beginning:
	-subj %s	(specifies the subject)
	-to %s		(specifies the destination)
Then you wouldn't need any mods to news, and certainly news wouldn't
have to know about MH specifically as a mailer.  Probably an unrecognized
argument to comp should be treated as "-to", unless there is some
conflicting usage somewhere.  Then, you could set MAILER to
	comp -subj %s -to

	Mark