[NOTE: This file is out-of-date. Updating it every time new features are added
to nmh forevermore is a pain. Perhaps we should limit it to
documentation of _incompatibilities_ with MH (which should be rare).]
The following are the differences between nmh and MH-6.8.3. UCI has
since released MH-6.8.4. Most of the new features it adds have
also been added to nmh, but those differences are not listed here.
There are a few new features in MH-6.8.4 that are missing from nmh,
but they are primarily undocumented in MH-6.8.4 (and no one has
ever asked me for them).
GENERAL
-------
*) nmh has been converted to autoconf (configure) and should be
more portable and easier to install than MH. In particular, nmh
will now compile on Linux.
*) All of MH's Makefiles have been rewritten for nmh. You can now
use GNU make without any problems. Also, if your make supports
the VPATH variable (such as GNU make), you can now compile in a
different directory from the one containing the source code.
*) The source code for nmh has been substantially cleaned up.
It now requires an ANSI C compiler (gcc is fine) to compile.
*) A new option `-version' has been added to all the commands.
*) The POP server (popd) has been removed from the distribution.
RPOP on the client side is not currently supported.
*) The support for MH-style bulletin boards has been removed
(NNTP makes this obsolete anyway).
*) Currently nmh doesn't support using shared libraries for libmh.
This may return in the future, but is not a high priority, since
the nmh commands are not that large, and disk space gets cheaper
every day.
*) Almost all of the commands in nmh have been modified to accept
an arbitrary number of command line arguments (most MH commands
will not accept more than 1000 arguments on the command line).
*) nmh should be more secure than MH. Hundreds of buffer overflow
problems have been fixed in the source code. Of course, I still
don't make any guarantees.
DOCUMENTATION
-------------
*) Many of the man pages have been cleaned up or clarified.
*) The mhook man page has been split into separate man pages for
rcvtty, rcvdist, and rcvpack.
*) Added new man page `mh-draft' which discusses the nmh draft
folder facility.
*) The various `procs' (rmmproc, moreproc, showmimeproc, etc...)
are now documented in the "mh-profile" man page. Many of these
were previously undocumented.
FORMATTING
----------
*) Added a new formatting string escape %(decode) to decode and
display RFC-2047 encoded header fields.
SEQUENCES
---------
*) The is no longer a limitation on the length of lines in the file
containing your public sequences (.mh_sequences). That should be
the end of the error message ".mh_sequences is poorly formatted".
ANNO
----
*) The switch -inplace is now on by default.
CONFLICT
--------
*) Conflict now works on systems that define more
than 100 groups.
DIST
----
*) The switch -inplace is now on by default.
FLIST
-----
*) A new command `flist' has been added to nmh, that will list the
folders that contain messages in a given sequence (such as the
unseen sequence). This was a much needed command in the MH suite
of programs.
FOLDER
------
*) `folder -all' now dynamically allocates space for folder names and can
handle more than 300 folders.
*) `folder' now uses the standard Unix trick of looking at the number of
links to a directory entry, in order to avoid doing a stat(2) call
on messages in folders with no subfolders. This greatly increases
the speed of `folder -all -recurse' on large mail setups.
*) The switches `-header' and `-total' are more orthogonal. The command
`folder -all -noheader -nototal' now does the right thing.
FORW
----
*) The switch -inplace is now on by default.
*) Added switches `-dashstuffing' and `-nodashstuffing', to determine
whether forwarded messages are RFC934 quotes (dashstuffed).
(This corresponds to the undocumented switch "nodashmunging"
in MH).
INC
---
*) If compiled with RPATHS, a Delivery-Date header is now added to all
messages incorporated with `inc'.
*) Using the new format string escape %(decode), the scan lines for `inc'
will correctly decode RFC-2047 encoded headers.
MARK
----
*) If neither of the switches -public/-nopublic are specified, then
existing sequences will retain their current public/private status,
instead of being changed to public.
*) The command "mark -list -sequence foo" will now indicate if the
sequence "foo" is a private sequence.
MHBUILD
-------
*) The functionality in `mhn' to create MIME messages, has been cleaned
up substantially, and moved to separate command `mhbuild'.
*) If given a file argument of "-", mhbuild will now accept the MIME
composition file on the standard input, and output the new MIME
message to the standard output. This makes it much easier to use
this functionality in shell scripts.
*) The switch -norfc934mode is now the default.
MHL
---
*) There is a new variable "decode" which instructs `mhl' to decode
a component as a RFC-2047 encoded header field.
MHLIST
------
*) The functionality of `mhn -list' has been moved to the new
command `mhlist'.
MHN
---
*) mhn is now obsolete. It has been split into the commands mhbuild,
mhlist, mhshow, mhstore, and viamail. mhn still exists for
backward compatibility, but the new commands should be preferred.
*) Changed the profile entry automhnproc to automimeproc
(which has slightly different semantics).
MHPATH
------
*) `mhpath all' will no longer abort if the folder has more than
998 messages.
MHSHOW
------
*) The functionality of `mhn -show' has been moved to the new
command `mhshow'.
*) mhshow now correctly treats unknown subtypes of text as
text/plain, as specified by RFC-2046.
*) mhshow now correctly treats unknown subtypes of multipart as
multipart/mixed, as specified by RFC-2046.
*) You can now override the default method by which mhshow handles
subtypes of multipart that are known internally (mixed, alternate,
etc...). Previously the behavior on these types could not be
changed.
MHSTORE
-------
*) The functionality of `mhn -store' has been moved to the new
command `mhstore'.
*) mhstore will now correctly identify a formatting string of "-"
and send the content to stdout.
PACKF
-----
*) When packing a folder, the default format is now `mbox' format, rather
than `mmdf' format. The options -mbox and -mmdf have been added to
`packf' so you can choose the desired format.
PACKMBOX
--------
*) The script packmbox has been removed from the nmh distribution, since
its functionality has been added to the command packf.
PICK
----
*) If neither of the switches -public/-nopublic are specified, then
existing sequences will retain their current public/private status,
instead of being changed to public.
RCVPACK
-------
*) The default format for `rcvpack' is now `mbox' format, rather than
`mmdf' format. The options -mbox and -mmdf have been added to
`rcvpack' so you can choose the desired format.
*) Rcvpack no longer adds the field "Delivery-Date", as that is added
by `slocal'.
RCVSTORE
--------
*) Added new switches -unseen/-nounseen to control whether new messages
are added to the Unseen-Sequence.
RCVTTY
------
*) The option `-width' has been added.
REFILE
------
*) If an conflict occurs when using the `-preserve' switch,
then refile will search for and use the next available
message number above the one you wish to preserve, rather
than aborting with an error.
*) Added new options `-unlink' and `-nounlink' which specify
that that messages "removed" from the source folder should
just be unlinked, rather than moved to name with prefix.
REPL
----
*) Added new options `-format' and `-noformat'. The switch `-format'
will filter the message to which you are replying with a standard
message filter "mhl.reply" which is included in the distribution.
The switch `-noformat' will negate `-format' and `-filter', so that
the message to which you are replying is not included in the draft.
*) Added new options `-group' and `-nogroup'. These switches direct
repl as to whether or not this is a group reply. A group reply uses
a different forms (components) file (default is replgroupcomps).
*) The standard forms files "replcomps" and "replgroupcomps" now have
support for the "Mail-Reply-To:" and "Mail-Followup-To:" header fields.
*) The switch -inplace is now on by default.
RMM
---
*) Added new options `-unlink' and `-nounlink' which specify
that that "removed" messages should just be unlinked, rather
than moved to name with prefix.
SCAN
----
*) Using the new format string escape %(decode), the scan lines created
by `scan' will correctly decode RFC-2047 encoded headers.
SHOW/NEXT/PREV
--------------
*) Added new options `-checkmime' and `-nocheckmime' which allow you
to enable and disable the test for MIME messages.
*) The "mhnproc" profile entry has been changed to "showmimeproc".
*) Added `-showmimeproc' switch to specify the showmimeproc at the
command line.
*) The default "showproc" has been changed to `mhl'.
*) The default "showmimeproc" is now `mhshow'.
*) `show' is better at handling alternate character sets. It knows that
US-ASCII is a subset of any ISO-8859-X character set.
SLOCAL
------
*) Added new action `folder' or `+' to slocal, which adds new message
to a nmh folder. Currently, this is handled by piping the new
message to rcvstore, although this may change in the future.
*) The action `mbox' now delivers to a file in mbox format. Previously
it delivered to a file in mmdf format.
*) Added new action `mmdf' to deliver to a file in mmdf format.
*) Added new options -[no]suppressdup to slocal to check for duplicate
messages. The code for suppression of duplicate messages (MH config
was MSGID) is now always built into slocal.
*) Improved the debugging of slocal ".maildelivery" files. It will now
warn when an entry in this file is skipped because there are not
enough fields. Also the debugging output of slocal has been cleaned up,
so that it is much easier to read.
*) Slocal now adds the Delivery-Date header to all delivered messages.
Previously it only added them to messages delivered to a file.
VIAMAIL
-------
*) The functionality of this new command, was formerly part of
`mhn' as the (undocumented) option `mhn -viamail'.
WHATNOW
-------
*) Added new action "mime" to whatnow, which causes whatnow to call
program specified by "buildmimeproc" profile entry, to process
MIME composition files (default is mhbuild).
*) Added new action "delete" to whatnow, which deletes draft file
and exits.
