ashley@cheops.EECS.UNSW.OZ (Ashley M. Aitken) (07/15/88)
Howdy !
I wonder if someone could please help me. I am having quite a
considerable amount of trouble with mail in general (and perhaps
elm in particular, but no accusations as yet).
I mainly use elm to mail, and reply to mail. My problem is that
what I see in the editing of the send file is not what gets sent,
usually. For example, I wish to reply to someone mail to me, so I
"r"eply and include the test of the mail. I then proceed to edit
the file responding to each point etc etc. After quite a bit of
work I then exit from the editor and choose to send the mail.
Everything seems fine, BUT on a large number of cases the mail
which gets delivered is just the original file with the included
text. On some occasions, I think, some of my changes get
included. It's a bit weird because I actually save the file
before sending it ie write it somewhere, but still it don't get
through. From seeing some of the mail that gets through it
appears that the mail may be getting sent prematurely,ie before I
finish. A number of things I can think of may be causing this,
for example, I often ^Z out of the mailer (the editor) to go and
get other information for the letter, and sometimes I exit
straight after sending the mail (having read of the problems with
elm killing the mailer).
It is really a pain. Any help or comments would be most
appreciated.
Thanks in Advance,
Ashley
P.S. I am using elm version 1.2 (but don't know what, if any, patches
have been done to it).
E-MAIL :
ashley@cheops.unsw.oz ACSnet
ashley%cheops.unsw.oz@uunet.uu.net ARPAnet
ashley@cheops.unsw.oz.au ARPAnet
{uunet,ukc,ubc-vision,mcvax}!munnari!cheops.unsw.oz!ashley UUCP
ashley%cheops.unsw.oz@australia CSnet
ashley%cheops.unsw.oz@uk.ac.ukc JAnet
POSTAL :
Academic Address: Residential Address:
Computer Science Department, EECS, c/o Basser College,
University of New South Wales, The Kensington Colleges,
Box 1,PO KENSINGTON,N.S.W.,2033, Box 24,PO KENSINGTON,3033.
AUSTRALIA. AUSTRALIA.
Ph. Aust (02) 697-4055 Ph. Aust (02) 663-8117rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) (07/20/88)
In article <792@cheops.EECS.UNSW.OZ> ashley@cheops.EECS.UNSW.OZ (Ashley M. Aitken) writes:
+I mainly use elm to mail, and reply to mail. My problem is that
+what I see in the editing of the send file is not what gets sent,
+usually. ...
+Everything seems fine, BUT on a large number of cases the mail
+which gets delivered is just the original file with the included
+text. On some occasions, I think, some of my changes get
+included. ...
+ A number of things I can think of may be causing this,
+for example, I often ^Z out of the mailer (the editor) to go and
+get other information for the letter, and sometimes I exit
+straight after sending the mail (having read of the problems with
+elm killing the mailer).
Well, I've had this problem, too, but in my case it was cockpit error.
Typical senario: I am replying to a letter and include it in mine.
I start adding my part to the quoted original, but inadvertently cut out
more of the quoted original than I wanted. I save what I have so far
to a temporary file, then do a ":e!" (I'm using vi) to re-read in the
quoted original, yank out if it what I cut out by accident, then switch
to the temporary file and re-establish that yanked portion. Then I
forget to change the name of the file that I'm editing and my letter is
only in the temporary file. I therefore unwittingly dispatch the original
letter in quoted format without my additions! I've done this with
e-mail and with net followup postings.
--
Rob Bernardo uucp: ...![backbone]!pacbell!rob internet: rob@PacBell.COM
Pacific Bell SRVAC Room 4E750 | R Bar JB (residence)
San Ramon, California (415) 823-2417 | Concord, California (415) 827-4301itkin@cup.portal.com (08/21/88)
> On some occasions, I think, some of my changes get > included. It's a bit weird because I actually save the file > before sending it ie write it somewhere, but still it don't get > through. From seeing some of the mail that gets through it > appears that the mail may be getting sent prematurely,ie before I > finish. > This is not a problem with ELM but rather with VI and its quirks. If you are editing a file and then save it TO ANOTHER FILE with ":w", VI now regards the file as saved (all changes recorded). If you then exit with "ZZ" without making any additional changes, VI will NOT WRITE YOUR CHANGES TO YOUR ORIGINAL FILE!!!!! Thus, all changes were indeed written to the backup/alternate, but none to the original. Make it a point to force-write your changes to both files with ":w" and ":wq".