# # NEWS - Release notes for nmh 1.6 # Welcome to nmh, the new version of the classic MH mail handling system. It's been nearly two years since the last release of nmh, and there have been a number of significant changes since the last release. Long-time MH and nmh uses should read careful the NOTEABLE CHANGES section, as there are some significant changes to nmh behavior. Otherwise, please see the README and INSTALL files for help on getting started with nmh. ------------ NEW FEATURES ------------ The following are new features for the 1.6 release of nmh: - All nmh programs will now warn about multiple profile entries for the same non-null, non-comment component. In previous versions, all but the first were silently ignored. - mhmail now supports all post(8) options, or optionally can use send(1) with all of its options. Its formerly undocumented -resent switch has been documented. And it has new -attach, -headerfield, and -send/-nosend switches. - Default to flock() locking on OpenBSD and Darwin. - Added -directives support to mhbuild(1) to control whether or not mhbuild will honor MIME directives by default. And added support for special #on/#off/#pop directives to control the MIME directive processing state. - Added -messageid switch to send(1) and post(8). This allows selection of the style to use for generated Message-ID and Content-ID header fields. The default localname style is pid.time@localname, where time is in seconds, and matches previous behavior. The random style replaces the localname with some (pseudo)random bytes and uses microsecond-resolution time. - Added -clobber switch to mhstore(1) to control overwriting of existing files. - Added -outfile switch to mhstore(1). - Added -noall/-all switches to sortm(1). sortm -noall requires a messages argument. - $PAGER overrides the compiled-in default pager command. - Added etc/scan.highlighted format file, as an example of how to highlight/colorize the output of scan(1). - inc(1) now supports a -port switch to specify the port used by the POP server. - pick(1) now decodes MIME-encoded header fields before searching. - The VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables are now supported as fallbacks if the user does not configure an editor entry in their profile. - The format engine (mh_format(5)) now properly accounts for multibyte characters when accounting for column widths. - burst(1) now can burst MIME-formatted digests (messages that contain message/rfc822 parts instead of messages formatted with RFC 934). - All proc entries (showproc, moreproc, etc) can now accept entries that contain spaces and shell metacharacters. If found, such entries will either be space-splitted or processed by /bin/sh. - A new program, fmttest(1) is included to help debug format files. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - mhshow/mhstore now have support for RFC-2017 (access-type=url) for external message bodies. - Added -retainsequences switch to refile(1). - A new program, mhfixmsg(1), is included to rewrite MIME messages with various transformations. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - Added -[no]rmmproc switches to rmm(1). - Added support for Content-Disposition header (RFC 2183) to mhstore(1) and mhn(1) when used with -auto. - All nmh commands now support transactional locking for sequence files. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - There is no longer a per-folder maximum number of sequences. - For the SMTP MTA TLS can now be negotiated at the beginning of the connection with the -initialtls switch. - Messages can now be selected using a relative offset from some other message, or from the start or end of a sequence. See mh-sequence(5). - The -changecur and -nochangecur switches have been added to mhlist(1). - mhbuild(1) can now encode 8-bit message headers using RFC-2047 encoding rules. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - The whatnow(1) attach feature will determine the content type of an attachment using a program such as file --mime-type, if available at configuration time. If not, it will use mhshow-suffix- entries as before. The -v switch to attach causes it to display the mhbuild directive that send(1) will use. - mhbuild(1) now supports the -auto/-noauto flags (to be used by send(1) when invoking mhbuild automatically). - mhbuild(1) now is automatically run by send, to insure that all outgoing messages have proper MIME formatting. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - A new header, "Attach", is supported by mhbuild; it is used to replace previous functionality (which by default used a header named Nmh-Attachment). See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - The default Content-Transfer-Encoding for text parts is now 8bit. - mhbuild(1) now supports a selectable Content-Transfer-Encoding - If nmh was configured with iconv(3) support, mhshow will convert, if necessary, the charset of text/plain content to match the user's locale setting. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - Added support for %{charset} display string escape to mhshow(1). - The MIME parsing and generating routines now support RFC 2231 extended parameter information. - mh-mime(7) now provides an introduction to nmh's MIME handling. - mhshow(1) will now by default display all text content under one pager, and display markers for non-text and non-inline content. The content markers are changeable via mh-format(5). See NOTABLE CHANGES bellow. ----------------- OBSOLETE FEATURES ----------------- - Changed exit status of each nmh command's -version and -help switches from 1 to 0. - The following environment variables were deprecated in nmh 1.5 and removed from this release: MHPOPDEBUG (use -snoop command line switch instead) MM_NOASK (use -nolist and -nopause command line switches instead) NOMHNPROC (use -nocheckmime command line switch instead) FACEPROC (undocumented faceproc feature removed) - Changed repl and dist default to -noatfile. The default of -atfile was deprecated in nmh 1.5. If there are no requests to maintain -atfile, it will be removed in the future. - The undocumented -queue switch to mhmail has been removed. - spost(8) has been merged into post(8). Its functionality is enabled by selecting the sendmail/pipe mail transport method, described in the mh-tailor(5) man page. The spost -noalias, -backup/-nobackup, -push/-nopush, and -remove/-noremove switches are not supported by post. Note that spost did not support -whom or Dcc, and neither does post when using sendmail/pipe. And spost would expand blind aliases and send them in the message; post with sendmail/pipe refuses to do that. For backward compatibility, spost has been replaced by a simple shell script that exec's post -mts sendmail/pipe. See NOTABLE CHANGES below. - Support for the undocumented and deprecated --enable-nmh-debug configure flag has been removed. - Support for encoding some characters designated as EBCDIC-unsafe via the -ebcdicsafe and -noebcdicsafe switches to mhbuild has been removed. - The configure flag --with-pager has been removed; the default pager is now hardcoded as "more". Users are still free to override the default using the PAGER environment variable or entries in .mh_profile. - The configure flag --with-editor has been removed; the fallback editor if none is configured is "vi". - The support for the undocumented NOPUBLICSEQ preprocessor definition to disable public sequence support has been removed. - Support for the -normalize and -nonormalize switches to the ali(1) and ap(8) commands has been removed. - "make install" no longer strips executables. Use "make install-strip" instead. - The environment variable MM_CHARSET to indicate the native character set is no longer supported. The native character set will be solely determined by the locale settings. - Temporary files are stored in the first non-null location of {MHTMPDIR environment variable, TMPDIR environment variable, MH Path}. They are no longer be stored in the location specified by the TMP environment variable. - Instead of printing PostScript attachments, by default, from mhshow, try to find a suitable viewer. - Support for parallel display of multipart/parallel content has been removed from mhshow; all multipart content will be displayed in serial. - Support for -pause/-nopause switches on mhshow has been removed. ------------------- DEPRECATED FEATURES ------------------- - The undocumented -queue switch to post is deprecated/obsolete and will be removed in the next release. It supports the SMTP XQUE verb, which is obsolete according to http://smtpfilter.sourceforge.net/esmtp.html - conflict(8) is deprecated and will be removed from the next release. - mhtest(8) is deprecated and will be removed from the next release. - msh(1) is deprecated and will be removed from the next release. - Support in alias files for the the "*" address-group is obsolescent and will be removed in a future release. --------- BUG FIXES --------- - Replaced utilities that operate on pbm files with those that operate on pnm files in etc/mhn.defaults [Bug #15152]. - Removed obsolete BUGS section at end of rcvstore(1) man page [Bug #4361]. - Fixed -nocc me doesn't account for Alternate-Mailboxes [Bug #36635]. - Propagate Mail-Followup-To [Bug #5571]. - "mark -sequence cur -delete all" now works for cur as well as any other sequence, to allow clearing of the current message indication. - The first alias contained in a blind list is now expanded. The mh-alias(5) man page was updated to show that blind lists must not be terminated with, or contain, a trailing semicolon [Bug #15604]. - Fixed sendfiles(1) to always provide a From: address. Also, updated its switches. - Fixed pick(1) to properly unfold multiple-line header fields by removing newlines instead of replacing them with spaces [Bug #15215]. - Removed the artificial limit of 1000 messages at a time for rmmproc. - Fixed decoding of header fields when they contain a character that can't be converted. - post(8) -sasl now honours username in .netrc [Bug #23168]. whom(1), send(1), inc(1), and msgchk(1) also benefit from this fix. And, nmh now supports specification of any valid filename in place of $HOME/.netrc. - Added quoting of local part of invalid address in message being replied to [Bug #26780]. - Fix segmentation faults for %(putlit) and %(zputlit) format escapes when the "str" register was NULL. - Encode and decode text MIME types with canonical line breaks properly. - mhstore(1) now obeys its -noverbose switch. - Properly report the input filename when mhbuild encounters errors. - Set the content-transfer-encoding properly when attaching message/rfc822 content. --------------- NOTABLE CHANGES --------------- The biggest changes in this release are in the arena of MIME handling. Specifically relating to MIME composition and display. On the composition front, mhbuild(1) will now automatically be run by send(1) for all drafts. Specifically, mhbuild is now run with the new -auto flag, which will suppress the processing of mhbuild directives and cause mhbuild to silently exit if the draft is already MIME-formatted. When invoking mhbuild manually via the "mime" command at the WhatNow? prompt, mhbuild will behave as before and process mhbuild directives. In both cases (automatic and manual invocation) mhbuild will encode email headers according to RFC-2047 rules. Mhbuild also will use RFC 2231 encoding rules for MIME parameters when appropriate. In addition, the attach system has been substantially reworked; the new header name is now "Attach" (to better align with other MUA behavior) and cannot be changed by the end-user. The existing "attach" command simply adds the filename(s) to the draft in new Attach: headers, and the actual file processing is done by mhbuild; this attachment processing will take place in either automatic or manual mode. On the display front, mhshow(1) will now automatically convert text into the user's native character set using iconv, if nmh was built with iconv support. Also, mhshow will now by default only display text content that was not marked as an attachment. By default all displayed content wll be run under one pager, as opposed to individual pagers for each part as was in the past. Non-displayed parts will be indicated using a marker string, which can be customized by a new mh-format(5) string. All nmh utilites now understand RFC 2231-encoded MIME parameters and will automatically convert the encoded parameters into the native character set, when appropriate (again, assuming nmh was built with iconv support). In other changes, sequence files are now locked using transactional locks: locks that are held across sequence file reading, modification, and writing. The locking algorithm used for spool files and nmh data files is now runtime configurable. For people that struggle with mh-format(5) files, a new utility for testing them has been developed: fmttest(1). It includes the ability to trace the execution of format instructions. For users that wish to use Unix utilities on their mail, a new utility to transform MIME messages to more easily-digestable format is now available: mhfixmsg(1). It supports a number of options to control the message transformation. For users of spost(8), the support for spost has been rolled into post(8) under a new sendmail/pipe MTS. A shell script emulating the old behavior of spost has been provided. As always, feedback is welcome. -- The nmh team nmh-workers@nongnu.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # NEWS - Release notes for nmh 1.5 # Welcome to nmh, the new version of the classic MH mail handling system. Long-time MH and nmh users should read carefully the NOTABLE CHANGES section, as there are some subtle but significant changes to the way nmh now behaves. Otherwise, please see the README and INSTALL files for help on getting started with nmh. ------------ NEW FEATURES ------------ The following are new features for the 1.5 release of nmh. - Improved performance for TLS encryption of the SMTP protocol. - MH-E and POP support are now always compiled in. - The selection of a locking directory for dot-locking files is now controllable via configure. - fileproc and mhlproc mh-profile are now obeyed by send, rcvdist, and whatnow. - New mh-format instructions have been implemented: %(putlit), %(concataddr), %(myhost), %(myname), %(localmbox). See mh-format(5) for more details. - Nmh's idea of the local mailbox is now configurable via a new profile entry, Local-Mailbox. See mh-profile(5) for more details. - comp, forw, and dist now process all component templates through mh-format(5), and now all support new command line arguments -from, -to, -cc, -fcc, and -subject. - burst(1) now supports any valid message delimiter according to RFC 934. - post(8) now requires a From: header in all drafts that it processes; see NOTABLE CHANGES below for more details. - post(8) can now explicitly control the SMTP envelope address either via the Sender: header or the new Envelope-From: header. - The -attach option is now the default for send (using the header Nmh-Attachment) and -attachformat 1 is the default attachment type. - repl and dist now support new switches -atfile and -noatfile to control the creation of the ./@ link to the message being replied or redistributed. The current default is -atfile. - Support (if available) for readline editing and filename completion at the WhatNow? prompt. - Support for using an external command to filter the body of a message through in mhl. See mhl(1) for more details, specifically, the "format" keyword, the "formatproc" entry in mh-profile(5), and the -fmtproc switch for mhl and repl. - Preliminary support for improved MIME handling when replying to messages! Yes, a long requested feature has a solution. A perl script called replyfilter is available; it is designed to act as a mhl external filter to process MIME messages in a more logical way. It is available in $(srcdir)/docs/contrib/replyfilter or is typically installed as $(prefix)/share/doc/nmh/contrib/replyfilter. See the comments at the top of replyfilter for usage information; it will likely require some adjustment for your site. replyfilter requires the MIME-Tools and MailTools perl modules. ---------------------------- OBSOLETE/DEPRECATED FEATURES ---------------------------- The following features have either been removed completely or marked as officially deprecated for removal in a future release of nmh. - The creation of the ./@ link to the message being replied or redistributed is deprecated; -noatfile will be the default in the next release. If there are no requests to maintain -atfile it will be removed in a future release. - Old code enabled by the UCI preprocessor definition has been removed. - All configuration options that were formerly only adjustable by editing config.h have either been moved into configure or removed completely. - Support for the built-in ftp client (used when dealing with external-body message parts in MIME messages) has been removed. - The following environment variables are marked as obsolete/deprecated. Support for them will be removed from the next nmh release: MHPOPDEBUG (use -snoop command line switch instead) MM_NOASK (use -nolist and -nopause command line switches instead) NOMHNPROC (use -nocheckmime command line switch instead) FACEPROC (undocumented faceproc feature to be removed) - The hostable option of mts.conf is no longer needed and has been removed. --------------- NOTABLE CHANGES --------------- The largest change is that post(8) now requires a From: header in all drafts that it processes. The impetus for this change has been the evolution of email and client systems. When MH was first developed the norm was to have tightly managed clients that were part of the same domain as a user's email address. This is no longer a valid assumption, and the algorithm used by nmh to determine the user's local mailbox is no longer a reasonable default. Unfortunately, the way that nmh uses the user's local mailbox used to happen very late in the message process; it was handled by post during message submission. If no From: header exists in the current draft post would insert one based on it's idea of the local mailbox, which was frequently wrong. After a long discussion within the nmh development community, it was decided that the only reasonable way forward was to move the local mailbox handling up a level and place it under more direct control of the end user. post(8) no longer will try to determine the local mailbox name; it will take that information from the draft message. Thus a From: header is now required in all drafts. As part of these changes, all message composition utilities now process their component files using mh-format. All of the default component files have been modified to include a From: header in them; this will give the user a chance to see nmh's idea of the local mailbox and modify it if desired. The new mh-profile(5) entry Local-Mailbox can be used to adjust the local mailbox name if the system default is not appropriate. So how should end-users adapt to these changes? Here are some suggestions: 1) If you use the default component files, everything should basically work the same for you. You should see a From: header in the drafts of your messages. If the address you see in the From: header is incorrect you can change it via the Local-Mailbox profile entry. You can also use the -from switch to change it on a per-command basis. 2) If you have custom component files that include a From: header or you perform custom processing on drafts that end up placing a From: header in the draft message, everything should work as before. 3) If you have custom component files that do NOT include a From: header then you will have to adapt then to include a From: header. You can either simply hard-code the correct From: header or use the default component files as a guide (see mh-format(5) for more details, specifically the %(localmbox) function). The other significant change is the support for filters in mhl. Included in the distribution is replyfilter, a filter designed for sane processing of MIME messages during replies. Since this isn't as integrated into nmh as we would prefer, it's included in the contrib directory as an optional component. Please try it out and give us feedback. -- The nmh team nmh-workers@nongnu.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # NEWS - Release notes for nmh 1.4 # This releases contains numerous bugfixes and a number of new features. The new features include: - SASL security layers (encryption) are now supported for the SMTP MTA. - TLS is now supported for the SMTP MTA. - inc can now incorporate mail from Maildir drops. - You can now select the SMTP server and port from either "send" or a user's mh_profile (you could always select the server; that option is now documented). These are available via the -server and -port switches. - All networking code has been modified to use the new networking APIs (getaddrinfo and friends). All networking code (with the exception of the built-in ftp client) now supports IPv6. - New commands 'new', 'fnext', 'fprev', and 'unseen' for showing folders with unseen mail (or mail in any specified sequence), changing to next such folder, changing to previous such folder, and scanning all such folders, respectively. This is based on Luke Mewburn's 'new': http://www.mewburn.net/luke/src/new - nmh will no longer attempt to install a mhn.defaults file that causes mhshow to open its own xterms. A large chunk of old code has been garbage collected. Specifically, support for APOP, RPOP, NNTP (including bboards) and MPOP is now gone. Also gone is support for prefixing a \01 in the "servers" entry in mts.conf to iterate over all servers on a named network. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # NEWS - Release notes for nmh 1.3 # It's been over two years since the 1.2 release; but the changes here are mostly minor; largely bugfixes. You should note that we have changed the default configuration to allow all supported forms of address masquerading. For more details please see the --enable-masquerade option to configure, and the mh-tailor and post man pages.