mikej@dasys1.UUCP (Mike Johnston) (06/07/88)
I am relatively new to the world of mailers et al and would appreciate a short concise description of what elm is and what it does. I think it is an interactive mail program (I hope) but I am not sure. Anyone. -- Michael R. Johnston / cpmain!mrj Franchise Data Specialist ....cmcl2!phri!dasys1! Career Employment Services Inc. \ mikej
hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (06/08/88)
In article <4854@dasys1.UUCP> mikej@dasys1.UUCP (Mike Johnston) writes: >I am relatively new to the world of mailers et al and would appreciate a short >concise description of what elm is and what it does. Since the newsgroup is experiencing some newcomer growth, I think it is appropriate for the Elm newsgroups to use some of the net bandwidth. So, attached is the "Overview" file in the Elm distribution, by David Taylor. -- Greg An Overview of the Elm Mail System ---------------------------------- Introduction This file discusses the functionality of the Elm mail system and explains some of the motivation behind the creation and of various features. 1. What is Elm? Currently on Unix, there seems to be a preponderence of line-oriented software. This is most unfortunate as most of the software on Unix tends to be pretty darn hard to use! I believe that there is more than a slight correlation between the two, and, since I was myself having problems using "mailx" with high-volume mail, I created a new mail system. In the lingo of the mail guru, Elm is a "User Agent" system, it's designed to run with "sendmail" or "/bin/rmail" (according to what's on your system) and is a full replacement of programs like "/bin/mail" and "mailx". The system is more than just a single program, however, and includes programs like "from" to list a 'table of contents' of your mail, "printmail" to quickly paginate mail files (to allow 'clean' printouts), and "autoreply", a systemwide daemon that can autoanswer mail for people while they're on vacation without having multiple copies spawned on the system. 2. What's New about Elm? The most significant difference between Elm and earlier mail systems is that Elm is screen-oriented. Upon further use, however, users will find that Elm is also quite a bit easier to use, and quite a bit more "intelligent" about sending mail and so on. For example, say you're on "usenet" and receive a message from someone on the ARPANET. The sender also "cc'd" another person on ARPA. With Elm you can simply G)roup reply and it will build the correct return addresses. There are lots of subtleties like that in the program, most of which you'll probably find when you need them. 3. What systems does it work on? Elm was originally written on HP-UX, HP's proprietary version of Bell system V, with a little BSD thrown in. Since then, it has been ported to Bell, Berkeley, Sun, UTS and the Pyramid and should run on all these systems without any modifications (if there turn out to be modifications, please notify the author as soon as possible). Some people have expressed interest in porting the mail system to Xenix. If it is indeed 100% system V compatible it should be rather trivial... 4. Does it obey existing mail standards? Yes! That's another of the basic reasons the program was originally written! To ensure that the date field, the "From:" line and so on were all added in the correct format. The program is 100% correct according to the RFC-822 electronic mail header protocol guide. 5. What were the main motivating factors? The first two I've already mentioned, but here's a (somewhat partial) list; - To have a mail system that exploited the CRT instead of assuming I'm on a teletype. - To have a mailer that was 100% correct when dealing with network mail (ie RFC-822). - To create a system that needed no documentation for the casual user, but was still powerful enough and sophisticated enough for a mail expert. - To write a "significant" piece of software as a learning experience (I admit it!) - To find out how reasonable it is to try to modify a program to meet the expectations of the users, rather than vice-versa. - To basically correct some of the dumb things that the current mailers do, like letting you send mail to addresses that it could trivially figure out are going to result in 'dead.letter' - To tie in intimately with the pathalias program output, and allow users to specify machine!user or user@machine and have the COMPUTER do the work of figuring out addresses... 6. Is it reliable? The mailer, in various incarnations, has logged literally thousands upon thousands of hours without any problems that aren't now corrected. As new problems arise they're dealt with in as rapid a manner as possible... 7. What should I do now? The first step would be to install the mail system and have the "elm" mailbox/alias expand to my email address (hplabs!taylor). Then, once it's all up and running, drop me a line letting me know that your site is running the system (bookkeeping) and what you and your site think of it. REMEMBER: The product is evolving so if you'd like to have a something change, or have something new added, LET ME KNOW!!! I'd much rather make the change myself than start getting change reports mailed from around the world!! 8. Disclaimers The author of this program will deny all liability for any damages, either real or imagined, due to the execution of this program or anything related to either the software or the system. Furthermore, the entire system and all source within, including the presentation screens and commands, are legally copyrighted by the author, and while they can be used, and abused for public domain systems, will be in violation of the law if used in systems or programs sold for profit. By installing the mailer or even extracting it from the network, you are agreeing to the above disclaimer. 9. Finally I think it's a good program, and I can cite at least 75 people who would (begrudgingly, I'm sure) agree. You should most certainly install the program and try it!! -- Dave Taylor hplabs!taylor March 13th, 1986