brant@manta.pha.pa.us (Brant Cheikes) (10/06/88)
A couple weeks back, I asked for any and all info on programs that could automatically reply to mail in a user's absence. I received a few replies, which I summarize here. The indefatigable lenny@icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) informed me that Smail3.1, currently in alpha test and NOT GENERALLY AVAILABLE (so don't post articles asking for it!), would have the desired feature. That, of course, remains to be seen. From sewilco@datapg.MN.ORG (Scot E Wilcoxon) came the suggestion to look for "mailaway" or the Elm "filter" program. Both these programs apparently require a means to feed a mail message to a program. I'm not interested in Elm (quite happy with Gnu Emacs RMAIL, thanks), and I haven't tried to track down mailaway. Mail from denwa!jimmy (Jim Gottlieb) suggested that I use the vacation macro supposed with the AT&T Emacs available (to AT&T employees only, I presume) from The Store!. I haven't tracked this down either, but then I suspect that a macro supplied with an editor won't do what I want: *automatic* email reply when I'm away. Now Marnix <forgot last name, sorry> vanam@pttesac actually sent some C code. I won't post it (you can write to him if you're interested, or he can post it). It's a pretty simple program that doesn't look like it checks for mail bouncing back and forth, but it seems to be at least going in the right direction. I may use it as a jumping-off point for my own version. Finally, sadler@cs.wisc.edu (Jon B. Sadler) pointed out that the Vacation program is included with the Supplemental Programs Tape for Berkley UNIX (and may be available from the comp.sources.unix archives). However, it apparently requires sendmail, which I haven't tried to bring up on the 3b1. That's all the replies. Muchas gracias to all those who took time to respond to my inquiry. -- Brant Cheikes University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Internet: brant@manta.pha.pa.us, UUCP: bpa!manta!brant