notmuch help: Review and augment all of the "notmuch help" documentation.

The big addition here is the first description of the syntax for
the query strings for "notmuch search", (and, by reference, for
"notmuch tag").

diff --git a/notmuch.c b/notmuch.c
index 4b16a71eb7352321f657fb08f8de7e6d88f0ff3a..1f5898949cac9153158bd227dcc3f0023a3c99d3 100644 (file)
--- a/notmuch.c
+++ b/notmuch.c
@@ -1037,12 +1037,16 @@ help_command (int argc, char *argv[]);
 command_t commands[] = {
     { "setup", setup_command,
       "Interactively setup notmuch for first use.",
+      "\t\tThe setup command is the first command you will run in order\n"
+      "\t\tto start using notmuch. It will prompt you for the directory\n"
+      "\t\tcontaining your email archives, and will then proceed to build\n"
+      "\t\ta database to allow fast searching of that mail.\n\n"
       "\t\tInvoking notmuch with no command argument will run setup if\n"
       "\t\tthe setup command has not previously been completed." },
     { "new", new_command,
       "Find and import any new messages.",
       "\t\tScans all sub-directories of the database, adding new messages\n"
-      "\t\tthat are found. Each new message will be tagges as both\n"
+      "\t\tthat are found. Each new message will be tagged as both\n"
       "\t\t\"inbox\" and \"unread\".\n"
       "\n"
       "\t\tNote: \"notmuch new\" will skip any read-only directories,\n"
@@ -1051,16 +1055,40 @@ command_t commands[] = {
     { "search", search_command,
       "<search-term> [...]\n\n"
       "\t\tSearch for threads matching the given search terms.",
-      "\t\tOnce we actually implement search we'll document the\n"
-      "\t\tsyntax here." },
+      "\t\tNote that the individual mail messages will be matched\n"
+      "\t\tagainst the search terms, but the results will be the\n"
+      "\t\tthreads containing the matched messages.\n\n"
+      "\t\tCurrently, the supported search terms are as follows, (where\n"
+      "\t\t<brackets> indicate user-supplied values):\n\n"
+      "\t\t\ttag:<tag>\n"
+      "\t\t\tid:<message-id>\n"
+      "\t\t\tthread:<thread-id>\n\n"
+      "\t\tValid tag values include \"inbox\" and \"unread\" by default\n"
+      "\t\tfor new messages added by \"notmuch new\" as well as any other\n"
+      "\t\ttag values added manually with \"notmuch tag\".\n\n"
+      "\t\tMessage ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID:\n"
+      "\t\theader of email messages, but without the '<','>' delimiters.\n\n"
+      "\t\tThread ID values are generated internally by notmuch but can\n"
+      "\t\tbe seen in the output of \"notmuch search\" for example.\n\n"
+      "\t\tIn addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be\n"
+      "\t\tcombined with Boolean operators (\"and\", \"or\", \"not\", etc.).\n"
+      "\t\tEach term in the query will be implicitly connected by a\n"
+      "\t\tlogical AND if no explicit operator is provided.\n\n"
+      "\t\tParentheses can also be used to control the combination of\n"
+      "\t\tthe Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from\n"
+      "\t\tinterpretation by the shell, (such as by putting quotation\n"
+      "\t\tmarks around any parenthesized expression)." },
     { "show", show_command,
       "<thread-id>\n\n"
+      "\t\tNote: The \"notmuch show\" command is not implemented yet.\n\n"
       "\t\tShow the thread with the given thread ID (see 'search').",
-      "" },
+      "\t\tThread ID values are given as the first column in the\n"
+      "\t\toutput of the \"notmuch search\" command. These are the\n"
+      "\t\trandom-looking strings of 32 characters." },
     { "tag", tag_command,
       "+<tag>|-<tag> [...] [--] <search-term> [...]\n\n"
       "\t\tAdd/remove tags for all messages matching the search terms.",
-      "\t\tThe search terms are handled texactly as in 'search' so one\n"
+      "\t\tThe search terms are handled exactly as in 'search' so one\n"
       "\t\tcan use that command first to see what will be modified.\n\n"
       "\t\tTags prefixed by '+' are added while those prefixed by '-' are\n"
       "\t\tremoved. For each message, tag removal is before tag addition.\n\n"
@@ -1068,7 +1096,13 @@ command_t commands[] = {
       "\t\targument that begins with neither '+' nor '-'. Support for\n"
       "\t\tan initial search term beginning with '+' or '-' is provided\n"
       "\t\tby allowing the user to specify a \"--\" argument to separate\n"
-      "\t\tthe tags from the search terms." },
+      "\t\tthe tags from the search terms.\n\n"
+      "\t\tNote: If you run \"notmuch new\" between reading a thread with\n"
+      "\t\t\"notmuch show\" and removing the \"inbox\" tag for that thread\n"
+      "\t\twith \"notmuch tag\" then you create the possibility of moving\n"
+      "\t\tsome messages from that thread out of your inbox without ever\n"
+      "\t\treading them. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to not\n"
+      "\t\trun \"notmuch new\" between reading and removing tags." },
     { "dump", dump_command,
       "[<filename>]\n\n"
       "\t\tCreate a plain-text dump of the tags for each message.",
@@ -1077,15 +1111,20 @@ command_t commands[] = {
       "\t\tthat can't be recreated from the messages themselves.\n"
       "\t\tThe output of notmuch dump is therefore the only\n"
       "\t\tcritical thing to backup (and much more friendly to\n"
-      "\t\tincremental backup than the native database files." },
+      "\t\tincremental backup than the native database files.)" },
     { "restore", restore_command,
       "<filename>\n\n"
       "\t\tRestore the tags from the given dump file (see 'dump').",
-      "" },
+      "\t\tNote: The dump file format is specifically chosen to be\n"
+      "\t\tcompatible with the format of files produced by sup-dump.\n"
+      "\t\tSo if you've previously been using sup for mail, then the\n"
+      "\t\t\"notmuch restore\" command provides you a way to import\n"
+      "\t\tall of your tags (or labels as sup calls them)." },
     { "help", help_command,
       "[<command>]\n\n"
       "\t\tThis message, or more detailed help for the named command.",
-      "" }
+      "\t\tExcept in this case, where there's not much more detailed\n"
+      "\t\thelp available." }
 };
 
 static void