jayr@well.UUCP (Jay Roth) (12/31/85)
Does anyone know of any mail packages for UNIX that are much more user- friendly than the standard 'mail' package?
dat@hpcnof.UUCP (12/31/85)
> Does anyone know of any mail packages for UNIX that are much more user- > friendly than the standard 'mail' package? As a matter of fact, I've been working for about a year now on a mail system for HP-UX (= System V Unix) that I might consider distributing to people who are interested. IF you are interested, please drop me a line and I'll mail out a copy of the users guide, so you can see if you like it. Of course, it's designed so that you shouldn't need a manual, but the logic of sending the entire program just to see if you like it is pretty strange :-) -- Dave Taylor Hewlett Packard ihnp4!hpfcla!d_taylor -or- hpcnof!dat@HPLABS
jfinger@diablo.ARPA (12/31/85)
In article <407@well.UUCP> jayr@well.UUCP (Jay Roth) writes: >Does anyone know of any mail packages for UNIX that are much more user- >friendly than the standard 'mail' package? David Kashtan at SRI has been developing a Unix MM program with TOPS-20 COMND JSYS-like command recognition, help facilities. I have used it at a test site and have thoroughly enjoyed using it rather than the various Unix mail programs I have tried to date. -- Jeff Finger --
warren@pluto.UUCP (Warren Burstein) (01/16/86)
A pile of old news got reposted somehow, so excuse me if this has already been suggested... GNU Emacs' Rmail mode is a very good way to read your mail (if you think that Emacs is user friendly, people are very sharply divided on this issue and please let's not discuss it) especially when you have your mail in one window and Mail Summary in another. -- The Maxwell R. Mayhem Institute for Quandary Requiem and Maternal Sciamachy Accept no substitutes.
jayr@well.UUCP (Jay Roth) (02/02/86)
Here's a summary of the responses I got about good mail packages for UNIX. A hearty "thanks" to all who replied. --------- From: lll-crg!seismo!harvard!bu-cs!bzs (Barry Shein) You might consider playing with GnuEmacs (the editor) and its full-screen RMAIL and SENDMAIL modes (also a full-screen readnews) but you have to have enough machine (and probably 4.2bsd tho the SYSV port is imminent.) It's free source code and probably an excellent start on customizing an interface (front ends like mail are all written in EMACS' lisp, easy to play around with once you get started.) -Barry Shein, Boston University --------- From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!ries In the public domain area, try the "message handler" MH package (origionally developed by Rand Corp.) being supported/developed at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT IRVINE. Cost of a tape is $50. We use it here. Some third party vendors, like ALTOS, have their own friendly front-ends to mail. ALTOS calls theirs Altos Executive Mail. Marc Ries (TRW Operations and Support Group) -------- From: Bob Paver <hplabs!pyramid!ut-sally!mcc-db2!paver@milano> Dave Kashtan at SRI has ported MM from TOPS-20 to Unix. MM has a nice interface and lots of features. I don't know what the plans are for distribution, whether they will sell it, license it or what. His ARPA mail address is kashtan@sri-iu. I don't know what his UUCP address is, if any. Bob Paver ----> paver@mcc.arpa OR sally!im4u!milano!paver Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp (MCC) 9430 Research Blvd Austin, Texas 78759 (512) 834-3316 ---------- From: icca (Guy Scharf) System V has a new mail package called 'mailx'. It has LOTS more options. I haven't used it myself (yet), so don't know whether it is any friendlier. Certainly the manual is the usual Unix hieroglyphics. There is also a package called, I think, "AT&T Mail". It is supposed to be a user-friendly package for System V. I have seen it discussed in the trade press. The discussions have been along the line of "is it released or not", "what IS AT&T going to do", etc. AT&T has split up Unix into several parts on the 7300 and 3B1 series machines. One of those parts is "Unix Electronic Mail". I don't know what is in it. The old familiar 'mail' is in the basic Unix system, so that is not what is there. Guy ------ From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!smeagol!kwan (Richard Kwan) Depending on your time and energy, you might try getting "mh" (Mail Handler) from the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA. It ain't perfect, but I recall it was still better than anything else available at the time (about 2 years ago). The last I heard, "mh" and the RAND editor ("ned" or "e17"?) were being bundled into a single package, and being released into the public domain. However, since the sources are quite large, they probably never hit the net. The cost for a 1/2" tape from RAND was on the order of $350-450. Sorry I don't have more specifics of the address or who to contact. If you are still interested, I can try to get them. Rick Kwan JPL Spacecraft Data Systems ------- From: lll-crg!seismo!hadron!jsdy (Joseph S. D. Yao) snd/msg, hermes, mailx (SysV version of Mail), Mail, ms, mh, apt, smsg/rmsg (TOFACS/TAOS/Office Power screen-oriented snd/msg), and all those "integrated office system"s out there, not to mention the mail version of whatever your favourite news program is. Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP} -- From: Christer Lindh <lll-crg!seismo!enea!sems!clindh> Check out with ROOT Software (in England, perhaps they are in US too). They have a package called ROOT Mail that is VERY userfriendly, it has menues, helptexts and seems to be very easy to use. It uses the standard UNIX Mail in the bottom. They've also got other products for UNIX, such as ROOT Telex and ROOT Map. ROOT Telex sends and receives telex. An incoming telex is distributed via mail to right person. ROOT Map is a menu-shell with helptexts. These products doesn't require any special terminal. I don't know if it's running on BSD UNIX, but it shure does run on Sys III, V and UniPlus. You can reach ROOT in London at; ROOT Computers Limited Saunderson House Hayne Street London EC1A 9HH Telephone: +44 1 726 6501 Telex: 894519 UUCP: ...ukc!root44!mkt (Marketing) or ...ukc!root44!john (John Stewart) --------------- Path: well!ptsfa!qantel!lll-crg!ucdavis!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!glacier!diablo!jfinger David Kashtan at SRI has been developing a Unix MM program with TOPS-20 COMND JSYS-like command recognition, help facilities. I have used it at a test site and have thoroughly enjoyed using it rather than the various Unix mail programs I have tried to date. He is Kashtan@SRI-IU.ARPA. I do not have his phone number and NICNAME is down, but if you call (415) 326-6200 the operator will put you through to him. I doubt that they are selling ti yet, but rather, it is being tested at a few places now. There are still hunks of it missing, but what is there seems quite good to me. Good Luck, -- Jeff Finger -- ------- From hplabs!topaz!seismo!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!boris Wed Jan 15 23:53:51 1986 The address I have is: Rand Corp. 1700 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90406 213-399-0568 x7463 In a document called "MH, A Mail Handling System For UNIX." Here is the manual page: (Note: I removed all but page 1. Jay) MH(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual MH(1) NAME mh - Message Handler SYNOPSIS any MH command DESCRIPTION MH is the name of a powerful message handling system. Rather then being a single comprehensive program, MH con- sists of a collection of fairly simple single-purpose pro- grams to send, receive, save, and retrieve messages. The user should refer to the MH User's Manual and the pages for the MH programs in the Unix Programmers Manual. Unlike mail, the standard UNIX mail user interface program, MH is not a closed system which must be explicitly run, then exited when you wish to return to the shell. You may freely intersperse MH commands with other shell commands, allowing you to read and answer your mail while you have (for exam- ple) a compilation running, or search for a file or run pro- grams as needed to find the answer to someone's question before answering their mail. The rest of this manual entry is a quick tutorial which will teach you the basics of MH. You should read the manual entries for the individual programs for complete documenta- tion. To get started using MH, put the directory /usr/new/mh.6/bin on your $PATH. This is best done in one of the files: .pro- file, .login, or .cshrc in your home directory. (Check the manual entry for the shell you use, in case you don't know how to do this.) Run the inc command. If you've never used MH before, it will create the necessary default files and directories after asking you if you wish it to do so. inc moves mail from your system maildrop into your MH `+inbox' folder, breaking it up into separate files and con- verting it to MH format as it goes. It prints one line for each message it processes, containing the from field, the subject field and as much of the first line of the message as will fit. It leaves the first message it processes as your current message. You'll need to run inc each time you wish to incorporate new mail into your MH file. scan prints a list of the messages in your current folder. The commands: show, next, and prev are used to read specific messages from the current folder. show displays the current message, or a specific message, which may be specified by its number, which you pass as an argument to show. next and prev display, respectively, the message numerically after or [mh.6] 2 MH MH(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual MH(1) before the current message. In all cases, the message displayed becomes the current message. If there is no current message, show may be called with an argument, or next may be used to advance to the first message. rmm (remove message) deletes the current message. It may be called with message numbers passed as arguments, to delete specific messages. repl is used to respond to the current message (by default). It places you in the editor with a prototype response form. While you're in the editor, you may peruse the item you're responding to by reading the file @. After completing your response, type l to review it, or s to send it. comp allows you to compose a message by putting you in the editor on a prototype message form, and then lets you send it. All the MH commands may be run with the single argument: `-help', which causes them to print a list of the arguments they may be invoked with. Commands which take a message number as an argument (scan, show, repl, ...) also take one of the words: first, prev, cur, next, or last to indicate (respectively) the first, previous, current, next, or last message in the current folder (assuming they are defined). Commands which take a range of message numbers (rmm, scan, show, ...) also take any of the abbreviations: <num1>-<num2> - Indicates all messages in the range <num1> to <num2>, inclusive. The range must be nonempty. <num>:+N <num>:-N - Up to N messages beginning with (or ending with) message num. Num may be any of the pre-defined symbols: first, prev, cur, next or last. first:N prev:N next:N last:N - The first, previous, next or last N messages, if they exist. There are many other possibilities such as creating multiple folders for different topics, and automatically refiling messages according to subject, source, destination, or con- tent. These are beyond the scope of this manual entry. Following is a list of all the MH commands: MH is pretty nice, but I use RMAIL in gnu emacs myself. Boris ------- From hplabs!hpfcdc!hpfcla!hpcnof!veeger!hpcnou!dat Thu Jan 16 20:33:18 1986 Enclosed is the Users Guide for the Msg Mail System. Currently I plan on offering it for official release in about two weeks at the price of: Functional demo - $50 (with your own media) Working system - $250 (with your own media) Entire system + source - $500 (with your own media) The media cost, a reel-to-reel, will be a function of the local cost should you choose not to include your own. If you're interested in obtaining any of the above copies after having read the documentation (and I think you will be) please drop me another note including what type of system you're runnning on. Of course, if you find this mailer to be the exceptional value and excellent product that I believe it is, please feel free to refer other customers! I'll probably give a $25 dollar referral fee for each customer that says they're referred by an existing customer. Further note: This is all on the up-and-up with regards to my current employment at HP - in fact the two week delay in releasing the software is to ensure that the agreement that HP and I are working out will be signed. If you need it, my work address and phone number are: Dave Taylor HP - CNO - Mailstop 102 3404 Harmony Road Fort Collins CO 80525 (303) 229-2419 -- Dave Taylor (Dave sent me the entire manual. If anyone would like a copy of it, please mail me, and I'll be happy to send it out. I just didn't want to clutter up this summary file).