[net.unix-wizards] Mail Feature By Anyone ??

pkb@omsvax.UUCP (10/13/83)

	Has anyone added the following feature to the mailer OR
does it exist in 4.2 or V or whatever ???
	Something that will inform  the person who sent mail to one or
more users, that his(her) mail has been READ by the receipient(s). 
Just delivering mail and EXPECTING the other person to have read
is not good enough. 
	Such a thing may not work on a universal basis, but will like to have
on all internal systems.
	Any help or recommendations. Am running 4.1bsd.

	Praveen
	..hplabs!omsvax!pkb
	..decvax!microsoft!omsvax!pkb

greep%su-dsn@sri-unix.UUCP (10/25/83)

Re your question about having the sender of a message notified when the
recipient reads it: this can be trickier than it sounds.  For example, if
the recipient's secretary reads the message, does that count?  How about if
a program reads it (eg sometimes someone will set up a program to send out
a form reply saying "I'm out of town so don't expect a reply this week").
What if the recipient doesn't want you to know whether he's read it or not?
The most surefire way is probably to have a command in the the recipient's
mail system that lets him easily generate a reply saying "I've seen your
message about ...".  (You have to make sure this doesn't cause a loop by
having these things reply to each other.)

Further discussion along these lines probably belongs on MsgGroup, where
I think the subject has been discussed already.

By the way, your message mentions "the mailer" as if there were only
one mailer on Unix, which is not true.