1 [[!meta date="2010-11-01"]]
3 Notmuch 0.4 (2010-11-01)
4 ========================
5 New command-line features
6 -------------------------
7 notmuch search --output=(summary|threads|messages|tags|files)
9 This new option allows for particular items to be returned from
10 notmuch searches. The "summary" option is the default and behaves
11 just as "notmuch search" has historically behaved.
13 The new option values allow for thread IDs, message IDs, lists of
14 tags, and lists of filenames to be returned from searches. It is
15 expected that this new option will be very useful in shell
18 for file in $(notmuch search --output=files <search-terms>); do
19 <operations-on> "$file"
22 notmuch show --format=mbox <search-specification>
24 This new option allows for the messages matching a search
25 specification to be presented as an mbox. Specifically the "mboxrd"
26 format is used which allows for reversible quoting of lines
27 beginning with "From ". A reader should remove a single '>' from the
28 beginning of all lines beginning with one or more '>' characters
29 followed by the 5 characters "From ".
31 notmuch config [get|set] <section>.<item> [value ...]
33 The new top-level "config" command allows for any value in the
34 notmuch configuration file to be queried or set to a new value. Both
35 single-valued and multi-valued items are supported, as our any
36 custom items stored in the configuration file.
38 Avoid setting Bcc header in "notmuch reply"
40 We decided that this was a bit heavy-handed as the actual mail
41 user-agent should be responsible for setting any Bcc option. Also,
42 see below for the notmuch/emacs user-agent now setting an Fcc by
43 default rather than Bcc.
47 Add notmuch_query_get_query_string and notmuch_query_get_sort
49 These are simply functions for querying properties of a
50 notmuch_query_t object.
54 Enable Fcc of all sent messages by default (to "sent" directory)
56 All messages sent from the emacs interface will now be saved to the
57 notmuch mail store where they will be incorporated to the database
58 by the next "notmuch new". By default, messages are saved to the
59 "sent" directory at the top-level of the mail store. This directory
60 can be customized by means of the "Notmuch Fcc Dirs" option in the
61 notmuch customize interface.
63 Ability to all open messages in a thread to a pipe
65 Historically, the '|' keybinding allows for piping a single message
66 to an external command. Now, by prefixing this key with a prefix
67 argument, (for example, by pressing "Control-U |"), all open
68 messages in the current thread will be sent to the external command.
70 Optional support for detecting inline patches
72 This hook is disabled by default but can be enabled with a checkbox
73 under "Notmuch Show Insert Text/Plain Hook" in the notmuch customize
74 interface. It allows for inline patches to be detected and treated
75 as if they were attachments, (with context-sensitive highlighting).
77 Automatically tag messages as "replied" when sending a reply
79 Messages replied to within the emacs interface will now be tagged as
80 "replied". This feature can easily be customized to add or remove
81 other tags as well. For example, a user might use a tag of
82 "needs-reply" and can configure this feature to automatically remove
83 that tag when replying. See "Notmuch Message Mark Replied" in the
84 notmuch customize interface.
86 Allow search-result color specifications to overlay each other
88 For example, one tag can specify the background color of matching
89 lines, while another can specify the foreground. With this change,
90 both settings will now be visible simultaneously, (which was not the
91 case in previous releases). See "Notmuch Search Line Faces" in the
92 notmuch customize interface.
94 Make hidden author names still available for incremental search.
96 When there is insufficient space to display all authors of a thread
97 in search results, the names of hidden authors are now still made
98 available to emacs' incremental search commands. As the user
99 searches, matching lines will temporarily expand to show the hidden
102 New binding of Control-TAB (works like TAB in reverse)
104 Many notmuch nodes already use TAB to navigate forward through
105 various items allowing actions, (message headers, email attachments,
106 etc.). The new Control-TAB binding operates similarly but in the
109 New build-system features
110 -------------------------
111 Various portability fixes have been applied
113 These include fixes for build failures on at least Solaris, FreeBSD,
114 and Fedora systems. We're hopeful that the notmuch code base is now
115 more portable than ever before.
117 Arrange for libnotmuch to be found automatically after make install
119 The notmuch build system is now careful to help the user avoid
120 errors of the form "libnotmuch.so could not be found" immediately
121 after installing. This support takes two forms:
123 1. If the library is installed to a system directory,
124 (configured in /etc/ld.so.conf), then "make install" will
125 automatically run ldconfig.
127 2. If the library is installed to a non-system directory, the
128 build system adds a DR_RUNPATH entry to the final binary
129 pointing to the directory to which the library is installed.
131 When this support works, the user should be able to run notmuch
132 immediately after "make install", without any errors trying to find
133 the notmuch library, and without having to manually set environment
134 variables such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
136 Check compiler/linker options before using them
138 The configure script now carefully checks that any desired
139 compilation options, (whether for enabling compiler warnings, or for
140 embedding rpath, etc.), are supported. Only supported options are
141 used in the resulting Makefile.
143 New test-suite features
144 -----------------------
145 New modularization of test suite.
147 Thanks to a gracious relicensing of the test-suite infrastructure
148 from the git project, notmuch now has a modular test suite. This
149 provides the ability to run individual sections of the test suite
150 rather than the whole things. It also provides better summary of
151 test results, with support for tests that are expected to fail
152 (BROKEN and FIXED) in addition to PASS and FAIL. Finally, it makes
153 it easy to run the test suite within valgrind (pass --valgrind to
154 notmuch-test or to any sub-script) which has been very useful.
156 New testing of emacs interface.
158 The test suite has been augmented to allow automated testing of the
159 emacs interfaces. So far, this includes basic searches, display of
160 threads, and tag manipulation. This also includes a test that a new
161 message can successfully be sent out through a (dummy) SMTP server
162 and that said message is successfully integrated into the notmuch
163 database via the FCC setting.
167 Fix potential corruption of database when "notmuch new " is interrupted.
169 Previously, an interruption of "notmuch new" would (rarely) result
170 in a corrupt database. The corruption would manifest itself by a
171 persistent error of the form:
173 document ID of 1234 has no thread ID
175 The message-adding code has been carefully audited and reworked to
176 avoid this sort of corruption regardless of when it is interrupted.
178 Fix failure with extremely long message ID headers.
180 Previously, a message with an extremely long message ID, (say, more
181 than 300 characters), would fail to be added to notmuch, (triggering
182 Xapian exceptions). This has now been fixed.
184 Fix for messages with "charset=unknown-8bit"
186 Previously, messages with this charset would cause notmuch to emit a
187 GMime warning, (which would then trip up emacs or other interfaces
188 parsing the notmuch results).
190 Fix notmuch_query_search_threads function to return NULL on any exception
192 Fix "notmuch search" to return non-zero if notmuch_query_search_threads fails
194 Previously, this command could confusingly report a Xapian
195 exception, yet still return an error code of 0. It now correctly
196 returns a failing error code of 1 in this case.
200 Fix to handle a message with a subject containing, for example "[1234]"
202 Previously, a message subject containing a sequence of digits within
203 square brackets would cause the emacs interface to mis-parse the
204 output of "notmuch search". This would result in the message being
205 mis-displayed and prevent the user from manipulating the message in
208 Fix to correctly handle message IDs containing ".."
210 The emacs interface now properly quotes message IDs to avoid a
211 Xapian bug in which the ".." within a message ID would be
212 misinterpreted as a numeric range specification.
216 The python bindings for notmuch have been updated to work with python3.
218 Debian-specific fixes
219 ---------------------
220 Fix emacs initialization so "M-x notmuch" works for users by default.
222 Now, a new Debian user can immediately run "emacs -f notmuch" after
223 "apt-get install notmuch". Previously, the user would have had to
224 edit the ~/.emacs file to add "(require 'notmuch)" before this would