Changes to mblaze.7

- Bump the date, due to -s/-S change in EXAMPLES
- Delete '^to ' in the list of tools
- Change 'write' to 'compose'
- Remove 'related to'
- List MTAs and Maildir tools alphabetically
- big -> large
- big pile -> large corpus
- Change wording for EXAMPLES intro
- Change some wording in EXAMPLES
- Change 'msort -s' (by subject) to 'msort -S' (by size) in example
pull/49/merge
Larry Hynes 7 years ago committed by Leah Neukirchen
parent 8d198d4d4d
commit 477ad637b7

@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
.Dd June 20, 2017
.Dd June 30, 2017
.Dt MBLAZE 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
@ -17,89 +17,90 @@ System, but it is a complete implementation from scratch.
consists of these Unix tools that each do one job:
.Bl -tag -width 11n -compact
.It Xr maddr 1
to extract addresses from mail
extract addresses from mail
.It Xr magrep 1
to find mails matching a pattern
find mails matching a pattern
.It Xr mcom 1
to write and send mail
compose and send mail
.It Xr mdeliver 1
to deliver messages or import mailboxes
deliver messages or import mailboxes
.It Xr mdirs 1
to find Maildir
find Maildir folders
.It Xr mexport 1
to export mailboxes
export Maildir folders as mailboxes
.It Xr mflag 1
to change flags (marks) of mail
change flags (marks) of mail
.It Xr mfwd 1
to forward mail
forward mail
.It Xr mgenmid 1
to generate Message-IDs
generate Message-IDs
.It Xr mhdr 1
to extract mail headers
extract mail headers
.It Xr minc 1
to incorporate new mail
incorporate new mail
.It Xr mless 1
to conveniently read mail in
conveniently read mail in
.Xr less 1
.It Xr mlist 1
to list and filter mail messages
list and filter mail messages
.It Xr mmime 1
to create MIME messages
create MIME messages
.It Xr mmkdir 1
to create new Maildir
create new Maildir
.It Xr mpick 1
to filter mail
advanced mail filter
.It Xr mrep 1
to reply to mail
reply to mail
.It Xr mscan 1
to generate single line summaries of mail
generate one-line summaries of mail
.It Xr msed 1
to manipulate mail headers
manipulate mail headers
.It Xr mseq 1
to manipulate mail sequences
manipulate mail sequences
.It Xr mshow 1
to render mail and extract attachments
render mail and extract attachments
.It Xr msort 1
to sort mail
sort mail
.It Xr mthread 1
to arrange mail into discussions
arrange mail into discussions
.El
.Sh PRINCIPLES
.Nm
is a classic command line MUA and has no features related to receiving
and transferring mail;
is a classic command line MUA and has no features
for receiving or transferring mail;
you are expected to fetch your mail using
.Xr offlineimap 1 ,
.Xr fdm 1 ,
.Xr procmail 1 ,
.Xr getmail 1
or similar
.Xr offlineimap 1 ,
.Xr procmail 1 ,
or similar ,
and send it using
.Xr dma 8 ,
.Xr msmtp 1 ,
.Xr sendmail 8 ,
as provided by
OpenSMTPD,
Postfix,
.Xr msmtp 1 ,
.Xr dma 8
or similar.
.Nm
expects your mail to reside in Maildir folders.
.Pp
.Nm
operates directly on Maildir and doesn't use its own caches or databases.
operates directly on Maildir folders and doesn't
use its own caches or databases.
There is no setup needed for many uses.
All tools have been written with performance in mind.
Enumeration of all mails in a Maildir is avoided unless necessary,
and then optimized to limit syscalls.
Parsing mail metadata is optimized to limit I/O requests.
Initial operations on big Maildir may feel slow, but as soon as they
Initial operations on a large Maildir may feel slow, but as soon as they
are in the file system cache, everything is blazingly fast.
The tools are written to be memory efficient (i.e. not wasteful), but
whole messages are assumed to fit into RAM easily (one at a time).
.Pp
.Nm
has been written from scratch and tested on a big pile of personal mail,
but is not actually 100% RFC conforming
has been written from scratch and tested on a large corpus of personal mail,
but is not actually 100% RFC-conforming
(which is neither worth it nor desirable).
There may be issues with very old, nonconforming, messages.
.Pp
@ -113,35 +114,45 @@ can decode).
It assumes you work in a UTF-8 environment.
.Nm
works well together with other Unix mail tools such as
.Xr offlineimap 1 ,
.Xr mairix 1 ,
.Xr mu 1 ,
or
.Xr mu 1 .
.Xr offlineimap 1 .
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Nm
tools are designed to be composed together in a pipe.
It is suitable for interactive use and for scripting.
It integrates well into a Unix workflow.
They are suitable for interactive use and for scripting,
and integrate well into a Unix workflow.
.Pp
For example, you could decide you want to look at all unseen mail in your
INBOX, oldest first.
.Dl mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mscan
To operate on a set of mails in multiple steps, you can save a list of mail
as a sequence.
E.g. add a call to
.Pp
To operate on a set of mails in multiple steps,
you can save it as a sequence,
e.g. add a call to
.Ql mseq -S
to the above command:
.Dl mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mseq -S | mscan
.Pp
Now mscan will show message numbers and you could look at the first
five mails at once, for example:
.Dl mshow 1:5
Likewise, you could decide to look at all freshly received mail in all
folders, thread it and look at it interactively:
.Pp
Likewise, you could decide to incorporate (by moving from
.Pa new
to
.Pa cur )
all new mail in all folders,
thread it and look at it interactively:
.Dl mdirs ~/Maildir | xargs minc | mthread | mless
Or you could look at the attachments of the 20 largest mails in your INBOX:
.Dl mlist ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -s | tail -20 | mshow -t
.Pp
Or you could list the attachments of the 20 largest mails in your INBOX:
.Dl mlist ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -S | tail -20 | mshow -t
.Pp
Or apply the patches from the current mail:
.Dl mshow -O . '*.diff' | patch
.Pp
As usual with pipes, the sky is the limit.
.Sh CONCEPTS
.Nm

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