NAME
prompter - prompting editor front-end for nmh
SYNOPSIS
prompter [-erase chr] [-kill chr] [-prepend | -noprepend] [-rapid |
-norapid] [-doteof | -nodoteof] file [-version] [-help]
DESCRIPTION
Prompter is an editor front-end for nmh which allows rapid composition
of messages. This program is not normally invoked directly by users
but takes the place of an editor and acts as an editor front-end. It
operates on an RFC-822 style message draft skeleton specified by file,
normally provided by the nmh commands comp, dist, forw, or repl.
Prompter is particularly useful when composing messages over slow
network or modem lines. It is an nmh program in that it can have its
own profile entry with switches, but it is not invoked directly by the
user. The commands comp, dist, forw, and repl invoke prompter as an
editor, either when invoked with -editor prompter, or by the profile
entry “Editor: prompter”, or when given the command edit prompter at
the “What now?” prompt.
For each empty component prompter finds in the draft, the user is
prompted for a response; A <RETURN> will cause the whole component to
be left out. Otherwise, a ‘\’ preceding a <RETURN> will continue the
response on the next line, allowing for multiline components.
Continuation lines must begin with a space or tab.
Each non-empty component is copied to the draft and displayed on the
terminal.
The start of the message body is denoted by a blank line or a line of
dashes. If the body is non-empty, the prompt, which isn’t written to
the file, is
--------Enter additional text
or (if -prepend was given)
--------Enter initial text
Message-body typing is terminated with an end-of-file (usually CTRL-D).
With the -doteof switch, a period on a line all by itself also
signifies end-of-file. At this point control is returned to the
calling program, where the user is asked “What now?”. See whatnow (1)
for the valid options to this query.
By using the -prepend switch, the user can add type-in to the beginning
of the message body and have the rest of the body follow. This is
useful for the forw command.
By using the -rapid switch, if the draft already contains text in the
message-body, it is not displayed on the user’s terminal. This is
useful for low-speed terminals.
The line editing characters for kill and erase may be specified by the
user via the arguments -kill chr and -erase chr, where chr may be a
character; or ‘\nnn’, where “nnn” is the octal value for the character.
An interrupt (usually CTRL-C) during component typing will abort
prompter and the nmh command that invoked it. An interrupt during
message-body typing is equivalent to CTRL-D, for historical reasons.
This means that prompter should finish up and exit.
The first non-flag argument to prompter is taken as the name of the
draft file, and subsequent non-flag arguments are ignored.
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile
/tmp/prompter* Temporary copy of message
PROFILE COMPONENTS
prompter-next: To name the editor to be used on exit from .B prompter
Msg-Protect: To set mode when creating a new draft
SEE ALSO
comp(1), dist(1), forw(1), repl(1), whatnow(1)
DEFAULTS
‘-prepend’
‘-norapid’
‘-nodoteof’
CONTEXT
None
HELPFUL HINTS
The -rapid option is particularly useful with forw, and -noprepend is
useful with comp -use.
The user may wish to link prompter under several names (e.g., “rapid”)
and give appropriate switches in the profile entries under these names
(e.g., “rapid: -rapid”). This facilitates invoking prompter
differently for different nmh commands (e.g., “forw: -editor rapid”).
BUGS
Prompter uses stdio(3), so it will lose if you edit files with nulls in
them.