When a program (or a person) wants to respond to a message -- reply,
follow up, forward, cancel -- the program (or person) should just put
point in the buffer where the message is and call the required command.
Message will then pop up a new message mode buffer with
appropriate headers filled out, and the user can edit the message before
sending it.
The message-mail command pops up a new message buffer.
Two optional parameters are accepted: The first will be used as the
To header and the second as the Subject header. If these
are nil, those two headers will be empty.
The message-news command pops up a new message buffer.
This function accepts two optional parameters. The first will be used
as the Newsgroups header and the second as the Subject
header. If these are nil, those two headers will be empty.
The message-reply function pops up a message buffer that's a
reply to the message in the current buffer.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where replies are to go
(see section 5.1 Responses), but you can change the behavior to suit your needs
by fiddling with the message-reply-to-function variable.
If you want the replies to go to the Sender instead of the
From, you could do something like this:
(setq message-reply-to-function
(lambda ()
(cond ((equal (mail-fetch-field "from") "somebody")
(list (cons 'To (mail-fetch-field "sender"))))
(t
nil))))
This function will be called narrowed to the head of the article that is being replied to.
As you can see, this function should return a string if it has an
opinion as to what the To header should be. If it does not, it should
just return nil, and the normal methods for determining the To
header will be used.
This function can also return a list. In that case, each list element
should be a cons, where the car should be the name of an header
(eg. Cc) and the cdr should be the header value
(eg. `larsi@ifi.uio.no'). All these headers will be inserted into
the head of the outgoing mail.
The message-wide-reply pops up a message buffer that's a wide
reply to the message in the current buffer. A wide reply is a
reply that goes out to all people listed in the To, From
(or Reply-to) and Cc headers.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where wide replies are to go,
but you can change the behavior to suit your needs by fiddling with the
message-wide-reply-to-function. It is used in the same way as
message-reply-to-function (see section 1.3 Reply).
Addresses that match the message-dont-reply-to-names regular
expression will be removed from the Cc header.
The message-followup command pops up a message buffer that's a
followup to the message in the current buffer.
Message uses the normal methods to determine where followups are to go,
but you can change the behavior to suit your needs by fiddling with the
message-followup-to-function. It is used in the same way as
message-reply-to-function (see section 1.3 Reply).
The message-use-followup-to variable says what to do about
Followup-To headers. If it is use, always use the value.
If it is ask (which is the default), ask whether to use the
value. If it is t, use the value unless it is `poster'. If
it is nil, don't use the value.
The message-cancel-news command cancels the article in the
current buffer.
The message-supersede command pops up a message buffer that will
supersede the message in the current buffer.
Headers matching the message-ignored-supersedes-headers are
removed before popping up the new message buffer. The default is
`^Path:\\|^Date\\|^NNTP-Posting-Host:\\|^Xref:\\|^Lines:\\|
^Received:\\|^X-From-Line:\\|Return-Path:\\|^Supersedes:'.
The message-forward command pops up a message buffer to forward
the message in the current buffer. If given a prefix, forward using
news.
message-forward-ignored-headers
message-make-forward-subject-function
message-forward-subject-author-subject
message-forward-subject-fwd
message-wash-forwarded-subjects
t, the subjects of forwarded messages have
the evidence of previous forwards (such as `Fwd:', `Re:',
`(fwd)') removed before the new subject is
constructed. The default value is nil.
message-forward-as-mime
t (the default), forwarded messages are
included as inline MIME RFC822 parts. If it's nil, forwarded
messages will just be copied inline to the new message, like previous,
non MIME-savvy versions of gnus would do.
The message-resend command will prompt the user for an address
and resend the message in the current buffer to that address.
Headers that match the message-ignored-resent-headers regexp will
be removed before sending the message. The default is
`^Return-receipt'.
The message-bounce command will, if the current buffer contains a
bounced mail message, pop up a message buffer stripped of the bounce
information. A bounced message is typically a mail you've sent
out that has been returned by some mailer-daemon as
undeliverable.
Headers that match the message-ignored-bounced-headers regexp
will be removed before popping up the buffer. The default is
`^\\(Received\\|Return-Path\\):'.
Sometimes while posting to mailing lists, the poster needs to direct followups to the post to specific places. The Mail-Followup-To (MFT) was created to enable just this. Two example scenarios where this is useful:
Gnus honors the MFT header in other's messages (i.e. while following up to someone else's post) and also provides support for generating sensible MFT headers for outgoing messages as well.
The first step in getting Gnus to automagically generate a MFT header in posts you make is to give Gnus a list of the mailing lists addresses you are subscribed to. You can do this in more than one way. The following variables would come in handy.
message-subscribed-addresses
nil. Example:
(setq message-subscribed-addresses
'("ding@gnus.org" "bing@noose.org"))
message-subscribed-regexps
nil. Example: If you
want to achieve the same result as above:
(setq message-subscribed-regexps
'("[bd]ing@\\(gnus\\|noose\\)\\.org"))
message-subscribed-address-functions
nil.
message-subscribed-address-file
You can use one or more of the above variables. All their values are "added" in some way that works :-)
Now you are all set. Just start composing a message as you normally do. And just send it; as always. Just before the message is sent out, Gnus' MFT generation thingy kicks in and checks if the message already has a MFT header. If there is one, the header is left alone. If not then the list of recipient addresses (in the To: and Cc: headers) is checked to see if one of them is a list address you are subscribed to. If none of them is a list address, then no MFT is generated; otherwise, a MFT is added to the other headers and set to the value of all addresses in To: and Cc:
Hm. "So", you ask, "what if I send an email to a list I am not subscribed to?" Well, the kind folks at Gnus Towers are working on a database of all known mailing list addresses that can be used for this purpose. Till then, you could, like, insert a MFT header manually, with the help of C-c C-f m !!
When you followup to a post on a mailing list, and the post has a MFT
header, Gnus' action will depend on the value of the variable
message-use-mail-followup-to. This variable can be one of:
t
nil
ask
It is considered good nettiquette to honor MFT, as it is assumed the fellow who posted a message knows where the followups need to go better than you do.
You most often end up in a Message buffer when responding to some other message of some sort. Message does lots of handling of quoted text, and may remove signatures, reformat the text, or the like--depending on which used settings you're using. Message usually gets things right, but sometimes it stumbles. To help the user unwind these stumblings, Message sets the undo boundary before each major automatic action it takes. If you press the undo key (usually located at C-_) a few times, you will get back the un-edited message you're responding to.
All these commands move to the header in question (except for the `Importance:' related commands). If it doesn't exist, it will be inserted.
To header (message-goto-to).
From header (message-goto-from). (The "o"
in the key binding is for Originator.)
Bcc header (message-goto-bcc).
Fcc header (message-goto-fcc).
Cc header (message-goto-cc).
Subject header (message-goto-subject).
Reply-To header (message-goto-reply-to).
Newsgroups header (message-goto-newsgroups).
Distribution header (message-goto-distribution).
Followup-To header (message-goto-followup-to).
Keywords header (message-goto-keywords).
Summary header (message-goto-summary).
message-goto-body).
message-goto-signature).
message-yank-original).
message-yank-buffer).
message-fill-yanked-message). Warning:
Can severely mess up the yanked text if its quoting conventions are
strange. You'll quickly get a feel for when it's safe, though. Anyway,
just remember that C-x u (undo) is available and you'll be
all right.
message-insert-signature).
message-insert-headers).
message-insert-disposition-notification-to).
This means that if the recipient support RFC 2298 she might send you a
notification that she received the message.
Message is a MIME-compliant posting agent. The user generally
doesn't have to do anything to make the MIME happen--Message will
automatically add the Content-Type and
Content-Transfer-Encoding headers.
The most typical thing users want to use the multipart things in
MIME for is to add "attachments" to mail they send out. This can
be done with the C-c C-a command, which will prompt for a file
name and a MIME type.
You can also create arbitrarily complex multiparts using the MML language (see section `Composing' in The Emacs MIME Manual).
Using the MML language, Message is able to create digitally signed and
digitally encrypted messages. Message (or rather MML) currently
support PGP (RFC 1991), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and S/MIME.
Instructing MML to perform security operations on a MIME part is done
using the C-c C-m s key map for signing and the C-c C-m
c key map for encryption, as follows.
These commands do not immediately sign or encrypt the message, they merely insert proper MML tags to instruct the MML engine to perform that operation when the message is actually sent. They may perform other operations too, such as locating and retrieving a S/MIME certificate of the person you wish to send encrypted mail to.
Since signing and especially encryption often is used when sensitive
information is sent, you may want to have some way to ensure that your
mail is actually signed or encrypted. After invoking the above
sign/encrypt commands, it is possible to preview the raw article by
using C-u C-m P (mml-preview). Then you can verify that
your long rant about what your ex-significant other or whomever actually
did with that funny looking person at that strange party the other
night, actually will be sent encrypted.
Note! Neither PGP/MIME nor S/MIME encrypt/signs RFC822 headers. They only operate on the MIME object. Keep this in mind before sending mail with a sensitive Subject line.
Actually using the security commands above is not very difficult. At least not compared with making sure all involved programs talk with each other properly. Thus, we now describe what external libraries or programs are required to make things work, and some small general hints.
Note! This section assume you have a basic familiarity with modern cryptography, S/MIME, various PKCS standards, OpenSSL and so on.
The S/MIME support in Message (and MML) require OpenSSL. OpenSSL perform the actual S/MIME sign/encrypt operations. OpenSSL can be found at http://www.openssl.org/. OpenSSL 0.9.6 and later should work. Version 0.9.5a cannot extract mail addresses from certificates, and it insert a spurious CR character into MIME separators so you may wish to avoid it if you would like to avoid being regarded as someone who send strange mail. (Although by sending S/MIME messages you've probably already lost that contest.)
To be able to send encrypted mail, a personal certificate is not
required. Message (MML) need a certificate for the person to whom you
wish to communicate with though. You're asked for this when you type
C-c C-m c s. Currently there are two ways to retrieve this
certificate, from a local file or from DNS. If you chose a local file,
it need to contain a X.509 certificate in PEM format. If you chose DNS,
you're asked for the domain name where the certificate is stored, the
default is a good guess. To my belief, Message (MML) is the first mail
agent in the world to support retrieving S/MIME certificates from DNS,
so you're not likely to find very many certificates out there. At least
there should be one, stored at the domain simon.josefsson.org.
LDAP is a more popular method of distributing certificates, support for
it is planned. (Meanwhile, you can use ldapsearch from the
command line to retrieve a certificate into a file and use it.)
As for signing messages, OpenSSL can't perform signing operations
without some kind of configuration. Especially, you need to tell it
where your private key and your certificate is stored. MML uses an
Emacs interface to OpenSSL, aptly named smime.el, and it contain
a custom group used for this configuration. So, try M-x
customize-group RET smime RET and look around.
Currently there is no support for talking to a CA (or RA) to create your own certificate. None is planned either. You need to do this manually with OpenSSL or using some other program. I used Netscape and got a free S/MIME certificate from one of the big CA's on the net. Netscape is able to export your private key and certificate in PKCS #12 format. Use OpenSSL to convert this into a plain X.509 certificate in PEM format as follows.
$ openssl pkcs12 -in ns.p12 -clcerts -nodes > key+cert.pem
The key+cert.pem file should be pointed to from the
smime-keys variable. You should now be able to send signed mail.
Note! Your private key is store unencrypted in the file, so take care in handling it.
PGP/MIME requires an external OpenPGP implementation, such as GNU
Privacy Guard (http://www.gnupg.org/). It also requires an Emacs
interface to it, such as Mailcrypt (available from
http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt.html) or
Florian Weimer's gpg.el.
Note, if you are using the gpg.el you must make sure that the
path specified by gpg-temp-directory have permissions 0700.
Creating your own OpenPGP key is described in detail in the documentation of your OpenPGP implementation, so we refer to it.
message-caesar-buffer-body). If narrowing is in effect, just
rotate the visible portion of the buffer. A numerical prefix says how
many places to rotate the text. The default is 13.
message-elide-region).
The text is killed and replaced with the contents of the variable
message-elide-ellipsis. The default value is to use an ellipsis
(`[...]').
message-kill-to-signature).
message-delete-not-region).
> This is some quoted text. And here's more quoted text.If point is before `And' and you press M-RET, you'll get:
> This is some quoted text. * > And here's more quoted text.`*' says where point will be placed.
To header that contains the Reply-To or
From header of the message you're following up
(message-insert-to).
Newsgroups header that reflects the Followup-To
or Newsgroups header of the article you're replying to
(message-insert-newsgroups).
message-rename-buffer). If given a prefix,
prompt for a new buffer name.
message-send-and-exit).
message-send).
message-dont-send).
message-kill-buffer).
The message-mail-alias-type variable controls what type of mail
alias expansion to use. Currently only one form is supported--Message
uses mailabbrev to handle mail aliases. If this variable is
nil, no mail alias expansion will be performed.
mailabbrev works by parsing the `/etc/mailrc' and
`~/.mailrc' files. These files look like:
alias lmi "Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no>" alias ding "ding@ifi.uio.no (ding mailing list)"
After adding lines like this to your `~/.mailrc' file, you should
be able to just write `lmi' in the To or Cc (and so
on) headers and press SPC to expand the alias.
No expansion will be performed upon sending of the message--all expansions have to be done explicitly.
There are two popular ways to have Emacs spell-check your messages:
ispell and flyspell. ispell is the older and
probably more popular package. You typically first write the message,
and then run the entire thing through ispell and fix all the
typos. To have this happen automatically when you send a message, put
something like the following in your `.emacs' file:
(add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
If you're in the habit of writing in different languages, this can be
controlled by the ispell-message-dictionary-alist variable:
(setq ispell-message-dictionary-alist
'(("^Newsgroups:.*\\bde\\." . "deutsch8")
(".*" . "default")))
ispell depends on having the external `ispell' command
installed.
The other popular method is using flyspell. This package checks
your spelling while you're writing, and marks any mis-spelled words in
various ways.
To use flyspell, put something like the following in your
`.emacs' file:
(defun my-message-setup-routine () (flyspell-mode 1)) (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'my-message-setup-routine)
flyspell depends on having the external `ispell' command
installed.
Message is quite aggressive on the message generation front. It has to be -- it's a combined news and mail agent. To be able to send combined messages, it has to generate all headers itself (instead of letting the mail/news system do it) to ensure that mail and news copies of messages look sufficiently similar.
message-generate-headers-first
nil, generate all required headers before starting to
compose the message.
The variables message-required-mail-headers and
message-required-news-headers specify which headers are required.
Note that some headers will be removed and re-generated before posting,
because of the variable message-deletable-headers (see below).
message-from-style
From headers should look. There are four valid
values:
nil
parens
angles
default
angles if that doesn't require quoting, and
parens if it does. If even parens requires quoting, use
angles anyway.
message-deletable-headers
*post-buf* buffer, edit the Newsgroups line, and
ship it off again. By default, this variable makes sure that the old
generated Message-ID is deleted, and a new one generated. If
this isn't done, the entire empire would probably crumble, anarchy would
prevail, and cats would start walking on two legs and rule the world.
Allegedly.
message-default-headers
message-subject-re-regexp
(setq message-subject-re-regexp
"^\\(\\(\\([Rr][Ee]\\|[Ss][Vv]\\|[Aa][Ww]\\): *\\)+\\))
message-alternative-emails
From field.
message-required-mail-headers
(From Date Subject (optional . In-Reply-To) Message-ID Lines
(optional . User-Agent)) by default.
message-ignored-mail-headers
message-default-mail-headers
message-send-mail-function
message-send-mail-with-sendmail. Other valid values include
message-send-mail-with-mh, message-send-mail-with-qmail,
smtpmail-send-it and feedmail-send-it.
message-mh-deletable-headers
nil (which is
the default), these headers will be removed before mailing when sending
messages via MH. Set it to nil if your MH can handle these
headers.
message-send-mail-partially-limit
message-required-news-headers a list of header symbols. These
headers will either be automatically generated, or, if that's
impossible, they will be prompted for. The following symbols are valid:
From
message-make-from function, which depends on the
message-from-style, user-full-name,
user-mail-address variables.
Subject
Newsgroups
Organization
message-user-organization variable.
message-user-organization-file will be used if this variable is
t. This variable can also be a string (in which case this string
will be used), or it can be a function (which will be called with no
parameters and should return a string to be used).
Lines
Message-ID
system-name to determine the name of the system. If
this isn't a fully qualified domain name (FQDN), Message will use
mail-host-address as the FQDN of the machine.
User-Agent
message-newsreader local variable.
In-Reply-To
Date and From
header of the article being replied to.
Expires
message-expires variable. It is highly deprecated and shouldn't
be used unless you know what you're doing.
Distribution
message-distribution-function variable. It is a deprecated and
much misunderstood header.
Path
message-user-path further controls how this
Path header is to look. If it is nil, use the server name
as the leaf node. If it is a string, use the string. If it is neither
a string nor nil, use the user name only. However, it is highly
unlikely that you should need to fiddle with this variable at all.
In addition, you can enter conses into this list. The car of this cons
should be a symbol. This symbol's name is the name of the header, and
the cdr can either be a string to be entered verbatim as the value of
this header, or it can be a function to be called. This function should
return a string to be inserted. For instance, if you want to insert
Mime-Version: 1.0, you should enter (Mime-Version . "1.0")
into the list. If you want to insert a funny quote, you could enter
something like (X-Yow . yow) into the list. The function
yow will then be called without any arguments.
If the list contains a cons where the car of the cons is
optional, the cdr of this cons will only be inserted if it is
non-nil.
Other variables for customizing outgoing news articles:
message-syntax-checks
(signature . disabled)to this list. Valid checks are:
subject-cmsg
sender
Sender header if the From header looks odd.
multiple-headers
sendsys
message-id
Message-ID looks ok.
from
From header seems nice.
long-lines
control-chars
size
new-text
signature
approved
Approved header, which is
something only moderators should include.
empty
invisible-text
empty-headers
existing-newsgroups
Newsgroups and
Followup-To headers exist.
valid-newsgroups
Newsgroups and Followup-to headers
are valid syntactically.
repeated-newsgroups
Newsgroups and Followup-to headers
contains repeated group names.
shorten-followup-to
Followup-to header to shorten the number
of groups to post to.
message-ignored-news-headers
message-default-news-headers
message-send-news-function
message-send-news.
message-post-method
message-ignored-cited-headers
message-cite-prefix-regexp
message-citation-line-function
message-insert-citation-line, which will lead to citation lines
that look like:
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:Point will be at the beginning of the body of the message when this function is called. Note that Gnus provides a feature where clicking on `writes:' hides the cited text. If you change the citation line too much, readers of your messages will have to adjust their Gnus, too. See the variable
gnus-cite-attribution-suffix. @xref{Article Highlighting, , Article Highlighting, gnus}, for details.
message-yank-prefix
message-yank-prefix prepended to it (except for quoted and
empty lines which uses message-yank-cited-prefix). The default
is `> '.
message-yank-cited-prefix
message-yank-prefix.
message-indentation-spaces
message-cite-function
message-cite-original, which simply inserts the original message
and prepends `> ' to each line.
message-cite-original-without-signature does the same, but elides
the signature. You can also set it to sc-cite-original to use
Supercite.
message-indent-citation-function
(point) and (mark t). And each function
should leave point and mark around the citation text as modified.
message-signature
t
(which is the default), the message-signature-file file will be
inserted instead. If a function, the result from the function will be
used instead. If a form, the result from the form will be used instead.
If this variable is nil, no signature will be inserted at all.
message-signature-file
Note that RFC1036bis says that a signature should be preceded by the three characters `-- ' on a line by themselves. This is to make it easier for the recipient to automatically recognize and process the signature. So don't remove those characters, even though you might feel that they ruin your beautiful design, like, totally.
Also note that no signature should be more than four lines long. Including ASCII graphics is an efficient way to get everybody to believe that you are silly and have nothing important to say.
message-default-charset
nil,
which means ask the user. (This variable is used only on non-MULE
Emacsen.
See section `Charset Translation' in Emacs MIME Manual, for details on the MULE-to-MIME
translation process.
message-signature-separator
mail-header-separator
message-directory
message-signature-setup-hook
message-setup-hook
message-header-setup-hook
(defun my-message-header-setup-hook ()
(let ((group (or gnus-newsgroup-name "")))
(when (or (message-fetch-field "newsgroups")
(gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-address)
(gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-list))
(insert "Mail-Copies-To: never\n"))))
(add-hook 'message-header-setup-hook
'my-message-header-setup-hook)
message-send-hook
message-add-header function in this hook. For instance:
(add-hook 'message-send-hook 'my-message-add-content) (defun my-message-add-content () (message-add-header "X-In-No-Sense: Nonsense") (message-add-header "X-Whatever: no"))This function won't add the header if the header is already present.
message-send-mail-hook
message-send-news-hook
message-sent-hook
message-mode-syntax-table
message-send-method-alist
(TYPE PREDICATE FUNCTION)
nil.
function is called with one parameter -- the prefix.
((news message-news-p message-send-via-news) (mail message-mail-p message-send-via-mail))
message-fcc-handler-function
message-output which saves in Unix mailbox format.
message-courtesy-message
nil, no such courtesy message will be added.
The default value is `"The following message is a courtesy copy of
an article\\nthat has been posted to %s as well.\\n\\n"'.
Message will generate new buffers with unique buffer names when you request a message buffer. When you send the message, the buffer isn't normally killed off. Its name is changed and a certain number of old message buffers are kept alive.
message-generate-new-buffers
nil, generate new buffers. The default is t. If
this is a function, call that function with three parameters: The type,
the to address and the group name. (Any of these may be nil.)
The function should return the new buffer name.
message-max-buffers
nil, no old message buffers
will ever be killed.
message-send-rename-function
(setq message-send-rename-function 'ignore)
message-kill-buffer-on-exit
nil, kill the buffer immediately on exit.
When Message is being used from a news/mail reader, the reader is likely to want to perform some task after the message has been sent. Perhaps return to the previous window configuration or mark an article as replied.
The user may exit from the message buffer in various ways. The most
common is C-c C-c, which sends the message and exits. Other
possibilities are C-c C-s which just sends the message, C-c
C-d which postpones the message editing and buries the message buffer,
and C-c C-k which kills the message buffer. Each of these actions
have lists associated with them that contains actions to be executed:
message-send-actions, message-exit-actions,
message-postpone-actions, and message-kill-actions.
Message provides a function to interface with these lists:
message-add-action. The first parameter is the action to be
added, and the rest of the arguments are which lists to add this action
to. Here's an example from Gnus:
(message-add-action `(set-window-configuration ,(current-window-configuration)) 'exit 'postpone 'kill)
This restores the Gnus window configuration when the message buffer is killed, postponed or exited.
An action can be either: a normal function, or a list where the
car is a function and the cdr is the list of arguments, or
a form to be evaled.
Message uses virtually only its own variables--older mail-
variables aren't consulted. To force Message to take those variables
into account, you can put the following in your .emacs file:
(require 'messcompat)
This will initialize many Message variables from the values in the corresponding mail variables.
To determine where a message is to go, the following algorithm is used by default.
Reply-To
From
To/Cc headers:
From
Reply-To, in which case that is used instead).
Cc
To
Mail-Copies-To header is present, it will also be included
in the list of mailboxes. If this header is `never', that means
that the From (or Reply-To) mailbox will be suppressed.
Followup-To
Newsgroups
Mail-Copies-To header is present, it will be used as the
basis of the new Cc header, except if this header is
`never'.
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