[comp.mail.misc] Mail User's Shell

wohler@sri-spam.istc.sri.com (Bill Wohler) (09/05/87)

In article <1700@fmsrl7.UUCP>, wayne@fmsrl7.UUCP (//ichael R. //ayne) writes:
> In article <8708270054.AA02979@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> lamy@ai.toronto.edu (Jean-Francois Lamy) writes:
> 
> >In fact, there is no real reason either why you can't have the best of all
> >worlds.  This message is composed in a MH mode in GNU-emacs (with roughly the
> >same features as mailtool), will be processed by the standard Unix sendmail,
> 						      ^^^^^^^
> Right.  "Standard" if you have BSD.  What about all the poor suckers out
> there that have System V (like me)?  We end up with a broken mailer that
> taunts us with wonderful promises but fails to deliver (pun intended).

(Using a friend's account -- please don't respond to this account; respond to
 island!argv@sun.com)

may I suggest "mush" -- the Mail User's Shell.  It is in queue to be posted
on comp.sources.unix, but who knows what's happened ...

anyway, I wrote this mailer and many of you might find it useful.  It
can run under sendmail, delivermail, execmail, smail ... I haven't seen
it run on anything else.  I mention this mailer here because I've seen a lot
of discussion lately on user interfaces being unacceptable or a general
desire to "have the best of all worlds."

I'm not claiming that my mailer is better than MH or Elm -- but if you're
frustrated with whatever you're running (Especially ucb-Mail or sun's
mail/mailtool) give mush a try and see what you think.

On sun's, it'll run in tool-mode under 2.0 and up (mailtool only runs 3.0+)
and is fully compatible with sun's mailer and ucb-Mail.  This interface is
only available on suns, but other computers running many flavors of unix
can successfully use mush's other two interfaces.

The screen oriented interface that has 'vi' style pattern searches and screen
movement between messages.  curses based commands are editable and function
keys or other key sequences may be bound to mail commands.

The line mode (which requires no terminal capabilities at all) is like 'csh'
in that you can create command line aliases, supports a subset of csh-style
command history reference and pattern matching, and has a piping mechanism
allowing you to pipe mail commands to one another.

More functions include sorting messages (plus subsorting), automatic
forwarding, filtering scripts, and unix command access without having
to fork a shell. If new mail comes in while you're in a mail session,
it is automatically appended to the end of your folder so you don't have
to update your mailbox or exit and re-enter mail just to read it.

There is much more than I have room to discuss here, but I thought I would
announce it's availability to those who wish to use it. You can get a copy
from anonymous ftp at spam.istc.src.com in ~ftp/pub/mush/mush.tar-5.6.Z

It _should_ be posted officially as soon as ... well, as soon as it happens :-)
I have no usenet access, so I can't followup to this article if any 
discussion is generated.  However, please feel free to mail me at the address
posted above.  Sorry, I can *not* send source via uucp at this time. This
restriction is indefinite at the moment.  If you do not have arpanet access
to obtain the sources yourself, I request you find someone on the net who
can uucp the source for you.

roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) (12/12/87)

Have there been any fixes posted to the Mail User's Shell?  The bug which is
biting me is a bug in alias expansion wherein addresses are separated by commas
in the return address.  Smail, in turn, sees the comma as part of the address
and gets quite confused.
-- 
 ///==\\   (Your message here...)
///        Roger B.A. Klorese, CELERITY (Northeast Area)
\\\        40 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701  +1 617 872-1552
 \\\==//   celtics!roger@necntc.nec.com - necntc!celtics!roger

dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Heller) (12/12/87)

In article <1903@celtics.UUCP> roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes:
>Have there been any fixes posted to the Mail User's Shell?  The bug which is
>biting me is a bug in alias expansion wherein addresses are separated by commas
>in the return address.  Smail, in turn, sees the comma as part of the address
>and gets quite confused.


The latest 6.0a diffs available on spam.istc.sri.com have compiler switches
which optionally remove commas between addresses.

The diffs on spam contain a complete list of the bugs fixed as well as a
new makefile for xenix machines.  version 6.0a also supports terminfo and
termio.

As always, if you have no access to spam, you can mail me here and I'll
mail them to you.  Please indicate if the path to your machine can't
handle files over size N.  Otherwise, I'll try mailing it in tarmail
format.

Dan Heller <island!argv@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
			...dan

allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (12/17/87)

As quoted from <1903@celtics.UUCP> by roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese):
+---------------
| Have there been any fixes posted to the Mail User's Shell?  The bug which is
| biting me is a bug in alias expansion wherein addresses are separated by commas
| in the return address.  Smail, in turn, sees the comma as part of the address
| and gets quite confused.
+---------------

This is a bug in Smail; RFC822 states that ',' is the separator between
addresses, spaces are basically ignored in RFC822 addresses.  Of course,
standard /bin/mail (all systems) is also broken in this way; it may be
/bin/mail rather than Smail which is causing your problems.
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery		      necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu
 {hoptoad,harvard!necntc,cbosgd,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery
			Moderator of comp.sources.misc