schisto@popvax.harvard.edu (]none) (02/14/90)
Greetings net.friends,
I would very much like to control the "biff" command. As i've
seen in the 4.3BSD manual and our on-line Ultrix 3.0 manual, i only
have the option of turning biff on or off. The control i seek would
ideally allow me to set biff to write to screen as much of the incoming
message as i would like. If the ideal isn't possible, then perhaps
someone knows how to get biff to simply beep with either a simple
message saying "you have mail" or no message at all.
Thanks for your attention,
______
\ / LTD
\/\/ Internet: schisto@popvax.harvard.edu
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Note: these addresses (along with the address in the header) apply
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in the "Subject" line. Thanks.eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (02/15/90)
In article <1579@husc6.harvard.edu> schisto@popvax.harvard.edu (]none) writes: > I would very much like to control the "biff" command. As i've >seen in the 4.3BSD manual and our on-line Ultrix 3.0 manual, i only >have the option of turning biff on or off. This is because all biff does is set or clear a permission bit on your login terminal. RTFM for comsat--that's what's actually doing the notification. If you find it a bit inflexible, look in the comp.sources.unix archives for "improved" replacements. [Yes, they'd need to be installed by a superuser.] -=EPS=-
chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) (02/15/90)
According to schisto@popvax.harvard.edu (]none): > I would very much like to control the "biff" command. As i've >seen in the 4.3BSD manual and our on-line Ultrix 3.0 manual, i only >have the option of turning biff on or off. The control i seek would >ideally allow me to set biff to write to screen as much of the incoming >message as i would like. As usual, you can do it with Deliver 2.0. My .deliver file -- the shell script that controls mail delivery, each user can create one -- notifies me when mail arrives. Here it is: # Delivery for Chip PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/u/local/bin ; export PATH user="$1" echo $user for tty in `who | awk '$1 == "'"$user"'" { print $2 }'` do f="`header -f from $HEADER`" [ "" != "$f" ] || f="$SENDER" m="Hey! You have new mail from $f." echo "\n>>> $m <<<\n" >>/dev/$tty 2>/dev/null done If you want the header, or specific fields thereof, you can add some commands. Use: cat $HEADER >>/dev/$tty for the whole header, or: header -n -f from -f to -f subject $HEADER >>/dev/$tty for those specific fields. Possible actions on mail delivery are limited only by the imagination. Deliver 2.0, at finer archive sites everywhere. Not Just Another Deliver Hacker, -- Chip Salzenberg at ComDev/TCT <chip@tct.uucp>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip> "The Usenet, in a very real sense, does not exist."
towfiq@interlan.Interlan.COM (Mark Towfigh) (02/17/90)
In article <1579@husc6.harvard.edu> schisto@popvax.harvard.edu (LTD) writes: I would very much like to control the "biff" command. As i've seen in the 4.3BSD manual and our on-line Ultrix 3.0 manual, i only have the option of turning biff on or off. The control i seek would ideally allow me to set biff to write to screen as much of the incoming message as i would like. If the ideal isn't possible, then perhaps someone knows how to get biff to simply beep with either a simple message saying "you have mail" or no message at all. You would have to modify the program comsat to perform the first action you desire. Biff is just a program which tells comsat if you would like to be informed of incoming mail or not. I would suggest that you do not want to bother doing this, however, because there is another program, sysline, which notifies you of mail in just the way you want: it displays only on the status line of your terminal, and tries to display as much of the message as possible when it arrives. Check out sysline, and seen if that isn't what you want; it doesn't even mess up your screen! You can't run it on a vt100, unfortunately, but if you're running a vt100-clone, like a wyse85, that might have such a capability built-in. -- Mark Towfigh, Racal Interlan, Inc. towfiq@interlan.Interlan.COM W: (508) 263-9929 H: (617) 488-2818 uunet!interlan!towfiq "The Earth is but One Country, and Mankind its Citizens" -- Baha'u'llah