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How To Use Mail

The email program you'll be using on MINDS> is called 'mutt'. It's simple enough to learn, and easy to use thereafter. First of all, we'll deal with sending mail (as you may not yet have received any!).

Sending Mail in Mutt

This is very simple - when you type 'mail' at the command prompt:

MINDS> mail

and hit return, you are dropped into mutt's main screen. (You can also type 'mutt' at the prompt.) Here, you simply type 'm' to send a mail - note the options along the top of the screen. When you hit 'm', the text 'To:' appears in the bottom left hand of the screen. Type in the username or email address you want to send to here, for example your own, and press return. Now the text changes to 'Subject:'. Type the subject of your mail here, for example "A mail about using mail", and press return. You will now be dropped into the text editor. Type in the text of your mail, eg. "Hi. This is my first mail to myself." When you're finished, hold down the Control key (marked Ctrl on your keyboard) and hit 'x'. This will allow you to save the mail and exit the editor.

You are now back in 'mutt'. The options at the top of the screen are different, as this is actually the "send mail" section of the program. If you're happy with what you've written, you can just hit 'y' here, which will send the mail and drop you back into mutt's main screen. Alternatively, you can press 'q' here and you'll be asked if you want to postpone the message. Press 'n' here, and the message will have been cancelled.

Reading Mail in Mutt

If you've just sent a mail to yourself, it should be waiting for you back in the main screen. If there were more mails, you could scroll up and down them using either the up and down arrows on the keyboard or the 'j' and 'k' keys, just like in 'less', the program you're using to read this help file. When you've selected the mail you're interested in, hit 'return' to read it. 'mutt' shows the mails slightly differently than 'less' shows files - you use 'return' to go down a line and 'backspace' to go up one. Space still goes through the file page by page, but to go up a whole page you use the '-' key. When you've finished reading the mail, you can press 'q' to go back to the main menu.

Replying to Mail in Mutt

Well, now you've read a mail, what if you want to reply directly to whoever sent it? With the mail still highlighted, press 'r'. This is just like sending a mail from hereon in, except that default values for the 'To:' and 'Subject:' fields are filled in, which you can just press 'return' on to accept. You'll also be asked if you want to include the message you're replying to in your reply, so that you can quote your correspondent on things they said. Generally it's a good idea to hit 'y' here, and include the mail. When you're dropped into the editor, your correspondent's mail will be there, quoted with '>' characters. Just type in your mail as before, delete the extraneous bits of the original, and quit & save as before. It's more or less exactly like sending a mail normally.

Well, if you have any more questions about 'mutt' and it's uses, post on the 'minds.help' newsgroup, and someone in the know will answer you. A lucky lead in, that, since the next topic is how to use the newsgroups. :o)

Cian, pooka@minds.cs.may.ie
Sat Oct 9 00:02:43 IST 1999

PS: If anyone finds any part of these helpfiles unhelpful or hard to understand, please mail me about it, so that I can fix it or make it clearer. Thanks.

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