+<!-- -*- mode: text; indent-tabs-mode: nil -*- -->
+
[[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
#Tips and Tricks for using notmuch with Emacs
-The main client based on notmuch is notmuch.el, which is included in the notmuch package. It is might, and allows you to configure a lot of things, however, it might not be immediately obvious how, and how the general workflow generally looks like. This [first section](#typical_workflow) will describe a typical workflow and setup, while the section [Advanced tips and tweaks](#advanced_tips) below, focuses on more specific questions.
+[[!toc levels=2]]
+
+The main Notmuch message reading client is **notmuch.el**, which is an
+[emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) major mode, and is
+included in the notmuch package.
+
+## Setup
-<h2 id="typical_workflow">Typical setup and workflow</h2>
+To use the Notmuch emacs mode, first add the following line to your
+`.emacs` rc file:
-### Set up & receiving mails
+ (require 'notmuch)
-Notmuch requires either a MailDir or a "mh"-style maildirectory to operate on. (It basically requires any setup in which each mail is in a file of it's own.) Most people use "[offlineimap](http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/offlineimap)" or "[mbsync](http://isync.sourceforge.net/)" in order to synchronize their IMAP or pop mail server with a local mail store. offlineimap is quite useful and widely tested, it also offers a handy hook that will come in useful a bit later in our setup.
+or you can load the package via autoload:
-So go install and configure offlineimap so you can simply run offlineimap and have an updated maildir. In the [Account xxx] section of your .offineimaprc file your can specify a "presynchook" and "postsynchook" command that will get run whenever you sync. Point _postsynchook_ to a script that gets run on every sync and that will do the automatic tagging and updating of your notmuch database.
+ (autoload 'notmuch "notmuch" "notmuch mail" t)
-The script will look somewhat like this:
+Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch", or execute the command `M-x
+notmuch` from within a running emacs.
-> #/bin/sh
-> # incorporate all new mails in the database
-> notmuch new > /dev/null
-> #apply some automatic tags
-> notmuch tag +notmuch from:notmuch@notmuchmail.org and not tag:notmuch
-> ...more tag rules...
+## Navigating & reading mails
-If you don't need automatic tagging, just use "notmuch new > /dev/null" as your synchook. One advanced setup with automatic tagging has been described by James Vasile here (id: _87hbp5j9dv.fsf@hackervisions.org_). Carl Worth has described his script in this mail (id: _87r5o8stbj.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org_) in the same thread.
+When first starting notmuch in emacs, you will be presented with the
+notmuch "hello" page. From here you can do searches, see lists of
+recent searches, saved searches, message tags, help information, etc.
-> __A note on message ids__: Confused by those message ids? Get used to them, because they are an importance part of the notmuch workflow. Every send message has a unique message id, just like a website has a unique url. On the notmuch mailing list people will throw around message ids and expect people to just find the right mails, as this is what notmuch makes easy. In order to find a specific message, hit 's' for search and type: "id:messageidhere". If you incorporated the notmuch mail archive, you can e.g. try to find id:87r5o8stbj.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org. Don't have the notmuch archive back to Feb 25, 2010? Fortunately gmane (and probably others allow to search for message id in their archives as well. You'll find this message under [http://mid.gmane.org/87r5o8stbj.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org](http://mid.gmane.org/87r5o8stbj.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org) (incidentally, this server seems to be down right now).
+Executing a search will open a new buffer in `notmuch-search-mode`
+displaying the search results. Each line in the search results
+represents a message thread. Hitting the '?' key will show help for
+this mode.
-### Synchronizing notmuch tags with maildir flags
-IMAP users rely on maildir flags that convey the status "seen", "replied", "trashed", in order to synchronize the status of their mail across mail clients (a [maildir flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) is simply a defined part of their filename). notmuch will by default happily ignore those flags and will never modify them either. If you want to use your mail with non-notmuch clients too, please check out the entry on "[how to sync notmuch tags and maildir flags](#sync_maildir_flags)".
+In general, the 'q' will kill the current notmuch buffer and return
+you to the previous buffer (sort of like a 'pop').
-### Navigating & reading mails
-OK, messages are now in your maildir and they have the tags you want them to have (of course you will be assigning more tags manually as you parse through your mail.). Now, on to actually using notmuch in emacs. If you added the correct bits to your .emacs file you will be able to start notmuch by typing "M-x notmuch" (or M-x notmuch-folder). If you want to start notmuch immediately when starting emacs you can also call emacs as "emacs -f notmuch" (and create a handy shortcut on your desktop for that).
+In search mode, navigating to a thread and hitting return will then
+open a new buffer in `notmuch-show-mode`, which will show the actual
+message contents of the thread.
-notmuch (the search view) and notmuch-folder are the 2 main views that can be used to navigate through your mail.
-The default notmuch "home" is a notmuch-search view with all all mail threads in which a message has been tagged as "inbox". Just navigate that page and read threads by hitting <RETURN> on one of them. This will open a notmuch thread view with all messages in this thread. Threads are a powerful construct in notmuch as a thread really represents a discussion around a single topic. In difference to other mail applications, you will often find very long threads in notmuch mail conversations, or people reviving very old threads with a reply.
+## Sending mail
-The second way of navigating notmuch mails, is by using the notmuch-folder view which you can invoke with `M-x notmuch-folder` (or using the F key if you applied the patch from mail id: 1265889583-25406-1-git-send-email-dme@dme.org (Feb 11st, 2010)). For information on how to customize your notmuch-folder views, see [here](#customize_notmuch_folder). This view provides you with "virtual folders" that allow you to browse all emails topic-by-topic. For example, if you want to browse all notmuch related mail every 10 minutes, but check out mails from your boss only once a day, this will be one convenient way to do it. It will also give you a nice overview of how many (unread) emails you have for each folder. Those folders are virtual in that a mail can easily be part of several folders at the same time and the folders will be updated on-the-fly every time you hit `=`.
+In any notmuch mode, you can start a new message by hitting the 'm'
+key. To reply to a message or thread, just hit the 'r' key.
-Last but not least, you can always search for a specific mail. Notmuch provides very powerful search possibilities which allows you to find mail threads easily without having to file them away into umpteenth mail folders as you might have been doing in your Thunderbird, Mail.app, or Outlook.
+When composing new messages, you will be entered in emacs's
+`message-mode`, which is a powerful mode for composing and sending
+messages. When in message mode, you can type `C-c ?` for help.
-### search strategies
-__[TODO, describe s, f, t keys and some exemplary searches]__.
-__[TODO: describe common search strategies that notmuch users use]__
+If you would like to use address autocompletion when composing
+messages, see [address completion](#address_completion).
-###Sending mail
-Notmuch itself does not provide any facilities for sending mail. Fortunately, emacs comes with "message mode" which offers that functionality. This also means that there are various methods to invoke the mail sending command. One possibility is to use "CTRL-x m" which will invoke a new "message mail" window. The second possibility is to type 'm' when you are in a notmuch window. And finally, when looking at a message or thread in notmuch you can type 'r' to start a reply.
+When you are ready to send a message, type `C-c C-c`. By default
+message mode will use your sendmail command to send mail, so make sure
+that works. One annoying standard configuration of message mode is
+that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will
+not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will
+accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can
+avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)`
+in your `.emacs` file (or doing `M-x
+customize-variable<RET>message-kill-buffer-on-exit<RET>`) which will
+really close the mail window after sending it.
-If you want to use mail address autocompletion, check out [bbdb](http://bbdb.sourceforge.net) which works nicely together with message mode.
+## Attaching files
-Type your message and send it off with ctrl-c ctrl-c. By default message mode will use your /usr/sbin/sendmail command to send a mail, so make sure that works.
-One annoying standard configuration of message mode is that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)` in your .emacs file which will really close the mail window after sending it.
+Using the `M-x mml-attach-file` command, you can attach any file to be
+sent with your mail. By default this command is bound to the menu item
+*Attachments--Attach File* with the key binding `C-c C-a`. The
+variable `mml-dnd-attach-options` (`M-x
+customize-variable<RET>mml-dnd-attach-options<RET>`) can be set to
+allow the prompting for various attachment options (such as
+inline/attachment) if you want to do that.
-Currently, there is a slight problem with copying the sent mail into your "outbox". While conventional MUAs will automatically copy your sent mail to a "Sent" folder, notmuch will never touch your mail store and your sent mails will not be searchable by default. When replying with 'r' notmuch will insert a BCC header to yourself, but when sending a mail with 'm' or 'ctrl-x m', it will not (and can not as ctrl-x m does not involve notmuch at all). Please see the specific advice on "[how to do FCC/BCC](#fcc)" for more details on how to set up notmuch to obey your preferences.
+For those who prefer a more graphical interface, you can also simply
+drag and drop files from a file manager into a mail composition window
+to have them attached. In Ubuntu this works without any modifications
+if files are dragged from the file manager.
-###3rd party application
+And for those who prefer working from command line, the following
+script opens new emacs window with empty message and attaches files
+mentioned as script arguments. (Note: The script expects that you have
+`(server-start)` in your `.emacs` file.)
-As its name implies, notmuch isn't really doing that much (which is part of its appeal to many of us). However, it enables a whole ecosystem of surrounding scripts to work in conjunction with notmuch
+ #!/bin/sh
+ attach_cmds=""
+ while [ "$1" ]; do
+ fullpath=$(readlink --canonicalize "$1")
+ attach_cmds="$attach_cmds (mml-attach-file \"$fullpath\")"
+ shift
+ done
+ emacsclient -a '' -c -e "(progn (compose-mail) $attach_cmds)"
-* [notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/)
- notmuchsync is a python tool that allows synchronization of maildir flags to/from notmuch tags.
-* [cnotmuch](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/cnotmuch) python bindings for the notmuch shared library. Extensive API documentation available.
-* [addrlookup](http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch) vala spplication that can be used for interactive email address completion.
-* gitmuch?
-* ...
-----
-<h2 id="advanced_tips">Advanced tips and tweaks</h2>
-* <span id="fcc">**How to do FCC/BCC...**</span>
-
- Any notmuch reply will automatically include your primary email
- address in a BCC so that any messages you send will (eventually) end
- up in your mail store as well. But this doesn't do anything for
- messages that you compose that are not replies.
-
- Another method is described in [this
- mail](http://mid.gmane.org/878wbj4nfq.fsf@servo.finestructure.net)
- (id:878wbj4nfq.fsf@servo.finestructure.net). It involves a trivial
- python script (which should be rewritten in lisp and integrated into
- the notmuch frontend, really, but is not difficult to setup.
-
- This is the code I needed in my .emacs file to make it work with
- the python wrapper that I called mddeliver.py:
-
- ;; fcc handler
- (defun maildir-deliver-region(destdir)
- (shell-command-on-region
- (point-min) (point-max)
- (concat "/usr/local/bin/mddeliver.py -c -s -d " destdir)))
- (setq message-fcc-handler-function 'maildir-deliver-region)
- (defun my-message-header-setup ()
- (message-add-header "Fcc: ~/mail/INBOX.Sent"))
- (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'my-message-header-setup)
-
-* <span id="customize_notmuch_folder">How to customize notmuch-folders</span>
-
- There's a "notmuch-folder" command available in the emacs client
- that displays a list of "folders" and the number of messages in
- each. Each folder is simply a named search specification. To
- configure this mode, edit your ${HOME}/.emacs file and include text
- something like the following:
-
- (setq notmuch-folders '(("inbox" . "tag:inbox")
- ("unread" . "tag:inbox AND tag:unread")
- ("notmuch" . "tag:inbox AND to:notmuchmail.org")))
-
- Of course, you can have any number of folders, each configured
- with any supported search terms (see "notmuch help search-terms").
-
- Personally, I find it fairly useful to add "not tag:delete" to those
- views as I use that tag to mark messages as deleted and it
- automatically removes them from my standard views. Use whatever
- seems most useful to you.
-
-* Viewing HTML messages with an external viewer
-
- The emacs client can often display an HTML message inline, but it
- sometimes fails for one reason or another, (or is perhaps inadequate
- if you really need to see the graphical presentation of the HTML
- message).
-
- In this case, it can be useful to display the message in an external
- viewer, such as a web browser. Here's a little script that Keith
- Packard wrote, which he calls view-html:
-
- #!/bin/sh
- dir=3D`mktemp -d`
- trap "rm -r $dir" 0
- cat "$@" > "$dir"/msg
- if munpack -C "$dir" -t < "$dir"/msg 2>&1 | grep 'Did not find'; then
- sed -n '/[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]/,$p' "$dir"/msg > $dir/part1.html
- rm "$dir"/msg
- fi
- for i in "$dir"/part*; do
- if grep -q -i -e '<html>' -e 'text/html' "$i"; then
- iceweasel "$i" &
- sleep 3
- exit 0
- fi
- done
-
- Save that script somewhere in your ${PATH}, make it executable, and
- change the invocation of iceweasel to any other HTML viewer if
- necessary. Then within the emacs client, press "|" to pipe the
- current message, then type "view-html".
-
- Keith mentions the following caveat, "Note that if iceweasel isn't
- already running, it seems to shut down when the script exits. I
- don't know why."
-
-* msmtp, message mode and multiple accounts
-
- As an alternative to running a mail server such as sendmail or
- postfix just to send email, it is possible to use
- [msmtp](http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/). This small application will
- look like /usr/bin/sendmail to a MUA such as emacs message mode, but
- will just forward the email to an external SMTP server. It's fairly
- easy to set up and it support several account for using different
- SMTP servers. The msmtp pages have several examples.
-
- A typical scenario is that you want to use the company SMTP server
- for email coming from your company email address, and your personal
- server for personal email. If msmtp is passed the envelope address
- on the command line (the -f/--from option) it will automatically
- pick the matching account. The only trick here seems to be getting
- emacs to actually pass the envelope from. There are a number of
- overlapping configuration variables that control this, and it's a
- little confusion, but setting these three works for me:
-
- - mail-specify-envelope-from: t
-
- - message-sendmail-envelope-from: header
-
- - mail-envelope-from: header
-
- With that in place, you need a .msmtprc with the accounts configured
- for the domains you want to send out using specific SMTP servers and
- the rest will go to the default account.
-
-* <span id="sync_maildir_flags">how to sync notmuch tags and maildir
- flags</span>
-
- There is no built-in support for sunchronizing your notmuch tags
- with your imap maildir flags (seen, replied, trashed, etc). However
- there are currently 2 ways in which you can achieve
- synchronization. In order to sync new notmuch tags to maildir flags,
- there is a python tool called
- [notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/) that allows
- synchronization in either direction or pruning of deleted files.
-
- The second solution allows for fast maildir flag to notmuch tag
- synchronization (and only in that direction) requires patching the
- notmuch source code. The patch has been posted in this mail
- *id:1267450136-31749-1-git-send-email-Sebastian@SSpaeth.de* and can
- be viewed as a [source diff in this git
- repository](http://github.com/spaetz/notmuch-all-feature/commit/df3b087cefb85e9d16fd17540e348bcb854dd7ee).
-
-* <span id="address_completion">**how to get email address completion**</span>
- There are 2 solutions. Use "bbdb" which allows you to maintain a mail database and gives you mail address completion with the tab key.
-
- Alternatively, you use the notmuch database as a mail address book
- itself. You need a command line tool that outputs likely address
- candidates based on a search string. There is a python tool
- [notmuch_address.py](which can be fetched with `git clone
- http://jkr.acm.jhu.edu/git/notmuch_addresses.git`) (slower, but no
- compilation required so good for testing the setup) or the
- vala-based addrlookup (faster, but needs compiling). This is how
- you compile the (3rd party) tool "addrlookup" to give you address
- completion:
-
- - you need the addrlookup binary, first of all. Grab http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch/raw/static-sources/src/addrlookup.c and build it with *cc -o addrlookup addrlookup.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gobject-2.0` -lnotmuch*. That should give you the binary that you can test already.
-
- - EUDC is integrated into emacs and can be used for tab completion
- of email addresses. The code I use is here
- http://gist.github.com/359425. It was announce in [this
- mail](http://mid.gmane.org/87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu)
- (id:87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu) which contains links to the git
- repositories which contain the files.
-
-* <span id="insert_user_agent">**how to insert a user agent header**</span>
-
- Sometimes it is good to let the world know which email client you use, so others know which quirks to expect. And it is no shame to let others know that you are way ahead of mail2.0. Notmuch is mail3.0 (at least)!
-
- [This mail](http://mid.gmane.org/87y6gtnkch.fsf@SSpaeth.de) (id:87y6gtnkch.fsf@SSpaeth.de) posted some code, that -when inserted in your .emacs file- will add a User-Agent header (which is hidden during composing and in notmuch show, but which can be seen when viewing all headers of a mail):
-
- If you insert this slab of code, you will get a User-Agent header for notmuch
- ;; set the User-Agent string whenever we invoke message mode
- (add-hook 'message-mode-hook '(lambda()
- ;; check if User-Agent is a required header and set it if not
- (if (not (memq 'User-Agent message-required-mail-headers))
- (setq message-required-mail-headers
- (append message-required-mail-headers '(User-Agent))))
- ;; hide the User-Agent header if not already hidden
- (if (not (memq '"^User-Agent:" message-hidden-headers))
- (setq message-hidden-headers
- (append message-hidden-headers '("^User-Agent:"))))
- ;; create user agent string
- (let ((notmuch-user-agent (concat
- (substring (shell-command-to-string (concat notmuch-command " --version")) 0 -1)
- " (Emacs " emacs-version "/"
- system-configuration ")")))
- (setq message-newsreader notmuch-user-agent))
- ))
+# Advanced tips and tweaks
+
+## Use separate emacs lisp file for notmuch configuration
+
+Instead of adding notmuch configuration code to `.emacs`, there
+is an option to collect those to a separate file (which is only
+loaded when `notmuch` is invoked). To do this, write, for example
+a file called `~/.emacs.d/my-notmuch.el`:
+
+ ;; my-notmuch.el -- my notmuch mail configuration
+ ;;
+
+ ;; add here stuff required to be configured *before*
+ ;; notmuch is loaded;
+
+ ; uncomment and modify in case some elisp files are not found in load-path
+ ; (add-to-list 'load-path "~/vc/ext/notmuch/emacs")
+
+ ;; load notmuch
+ (require 'notmuch)
+
+ ;; add here stuff required to be configured *after*
+ ;; notmuch is loaded;
+
+ ;(setq user-mail-address (notmuch-user-primary-email)
+ ; user-full-name (notmuch-user-name))
+
+ ; uncomment & modify if you want to use external smtp server to send mail
+ ; (setq smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.server.tld"
+ ; message-send-mail-function 'message-smtpmail-send-it)
+
+Then, adto `.emacs`:
+
+ (autoload 'notmuch "~/.emacs.d/my-notmuch" "notmuch mail" t)
+
+
+## Add a key binding to add/remove/toggle a tag
+
+The `notmuch-{search,show}-{add,remove}-tag` functions are very useful
+for making quick tag key bindings. For instance, here's an example
+of how to make a key binding to add the "spam" tag and remove the
+"inbox" tag in notmuch-show-mode:
+
+In notmuch versions up to 0.11.x
+
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S"
+ (lambda ()
+ "mark message as spam"
+ (interactive)
+ (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
+ (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
+
+Starting from notmuch 0.12 (not released yet) the functions
+`notmuch-show-add-tag` and `notmuch-show-remove-tag` have changed to
+be more versatile and lost noninteractive use. When upgrading to 0.12
+the above needs to be changed to this:
+
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S"
+ (lambda ()
+ "mark message as spam"
+ (interactive)
+ (notmuch-show-tag-message "+spam" "-inbox")))
+
+You can do the same for threads in `notmuch-search-mode` by just
+replacing "show" with "search" in the called functions.
+
+(Starting from notmuch 0.12 use `notmuch-search-tag-thread` instead)
+
+The definition above makes use of a lambda function, but you could
+also define a separate function first:
+
+ (defun notmuch-show-tag-spam()
+ "mark message as spam"
+ (interactive)
+ (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
+ (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S" 'notmuch-show-tag-spam)
+
+(See above for analogy how to apply this for notmuch 0.12 and later)
+
+Here's a more complicated example of how to add a toggle "deleted"
+key:
+
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d"
+ (lambda ()
+ "toggle deleted tag for message"
+ (interactive)
+ (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
+ (notmuch-show-remove-tag "deleted")
+ (notmuch-show-add-tag "deleted"))))
+
+And version for notmuch 0.12 (not released yet)
+
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d"
+ (lambda ()
+ "toggle deleted tag for message"
+ (interactive)
+ (notmuch-show-tag-message
+ (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
+ "-deleted" "+deleted"))))
+
+## Restore reply-to-all key binding to 'r'
+
+Starting from notmuch 0.12 the 'r' key is bound to reply-to-sender instead of
+reply-to-all. Here's how to swap the reply to sender/all bindings in show mode:
+
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "r" 'notmuch-show-reply)
+ (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "R" 'notmuch-show-reply-sender)
+
+And in search mode:
+
+ (define-key notmuch-search-mode-map "r" 'notmuch-search-reply-to-thread)
+ (define-key notmuch-search-mode-map "R" 'notmuch-search-reply-to-thread-sender)
+
+
+## How to do FCC/BCC...
+
+The Emacs interface to notmuch will automatically add an `Fcc`
+header to your outgoing mail so that any messages you send will also
+be saved in your mail store. You can control where this copy of the
+message is saved by setting the variables `message-directory` (which
+defines a base directory) and `notmuch-fcc-dirs` which defines the
+subdirectory relative to `message-directory` in which to save the
+mail. Enter a directory (without the maildir `/cur` ending which
+will be appended automatically). To customize both variables at the
+same time, use the fancy command:
+
+ M-x customize-apropos<RET>\(notmuch-fcc-dirs\)\|\(message-directory\)
+
+This mechanism also allows you to select different folders to be
+used for the outgoing mail depending on your selected `From`
+address. Please see the documentation for the variable
+`notmuch-fcc-dirs` in the customization window for how to arrange
+this.
+
+## How to customize `notmuch-saved-searches`
+
+When starting notmuch, a list of saved searches and message counts is
+displayed, replacing the older `notmuch-folders` command. The set of
+saved searches displayed can be modified directly from the notmuch
+interface (using the `[save]` button next to a previous search) or by
+customising the variable `notmuch-saved-searches`.
+
+An example setting might be:
+
+ (setq notmuch-saved-searches '(("inbox" . "tag:inbox")
+ ("unread" . "tag:inbox AND tag:unread")
+ ("notmuch" . "tag:inbox AND to:notmuchmail.org")))
+
+Of course, you can have any number of saved searches, each configured
+with any supported search terms (see "notmuch help search-terms").
+
+Some users find it useful to add `and not tag:delete` to those
+searches, as they use the `delete` tag to mark messages as
+deleted. This causes messages that are marked as deleted to be removed
+from the commonly used views of messages. Use whatever seems most
+useful to you.
+
+## Viewing HTML messages with an external viewer
+
+The emacs client can display an HTML message inline using either the
+`html2text` library or some text browser, like w3m or lynx. This is
+controlled by the `mm-text-html-renderer` variable.
+
+The first option is theorically better, because it can generate
+strings formatted for emacs and do whatever you want, e.g., substitute
+text inside <b> tags for bold text in the buffer. The library, however
+is still in a very early development phase and cannot yet process
+properly many elements, like tables and <style> directives, and even
+the generated text is often poorly formatted.
+
+Among the available browsers, w3m seems to do a better job converting
+the html, and if you have the w3m emacs package, you can use it,
+instead of the w3m-standalone, and thus preserve the text formatting.
+
+But if the rendering fails for one reason or another, or if you really
+need to see the graphical presentation of the HTML message, it can be
+useful to display the message in an external viewer, such as a web
+browser. Here's a little script that Keith Packard wrote, which he
+calls `view-html`:
+
+ #!/bin/sh
+ dir=`mktemp -d`
+ trap "rm -r $dir" 0
+ cat "$@" > "$dir"/msg
+ if munpack -C "$dir" -t < "$dir"/msg 2>&1 | grep 'Did not find'; then
+ sed -n '/[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]/,$p' "$dir"/msg > $dir/part1.html
+ rm "$dir"/msg
+ fi
+ for i in "$dir"/part*; do
+ if grep -q -i -e '<html>' -e 'text/html' "$i"; then
+ iceweasel "$i" &
+ sleep 3
+ exit 0
+ fi
+ done
+
+Save that script somewhere in your `${PATH}`, make it executable,
+and change the invocation of `iceweasel` to any other HTML viewer if
+necessary. Then within the emacs client, press '|' to pipe the
+current message, then type "view-html".
+
+Keith mentions the following caveat, "Note that if iceweasel isn't
+already running, it seems to shut down when the script exits. I
+don't know why."
+
+## msmtp, message mode and multiple accounts
+
+As an alternative to running a mail server such as sendmail or postfix
+just to send email, it is possible to use
+[msmtp](http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/). This small application will
+look like `/usr/bin/sendmail` to a MUA such as emacs message mode, but
+will just forward the email to an external SMTP server. It's fairly
+easy to set up and it supports several accounts for using different
+SMTP servers. The msmtp pages have several examples.
+
+A typical scenario is that you want to use the company SMTP server
+for email coming from your company email address, and your personal
+server for personal email. If msmtp is passed the envelope address
+on the command line (the -f/--from option) it will automatically
+pick the matching account. The only trick here seems to be getting
+emacs to actually pass the envelope from. There are a number of
+overlapping configuration variables that control this, and it's a
+little confusion, but setting these three works for me:
+
+ - `mail-specify-envelope-from`: `t`
+
+ - `message-sendmail-envelope-from`: `header`
+
+ - `mail-envelope-from`: `header`
+
+With that in place, you need a `.msmtprc` with the accounts configured
+for the domains you want to send out using specific SMTP servers and
+the rest will go to the default account.
+
+If you have a hard time getting the above to work for you, as I did,
+it's also possible to add a message-send-mail-hook in your .emacs to
+send the from header explicitly as an argument to msmtp as described
+[here](http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/GnusMSMTP#toc2) on the
+emacswiki.
+
+
+## <span id="address_completion">Address completion when composing</span>
+
+There are currently two solutions to this:
+
+[bbdb](http://bbdb.sourceforge.net) is a contact database for emacs
+that works quite nicely together with message mode, including
+address autocompletion.
+
+You can also use the notmuch database as a mail address book itself.
+To do this you need a command line tool that outputs likely address
+candidates based on a search string. There are currently three
+available:
+
+ * The python tool `notmuch_address.py` (`git clone
+ http://commonmeasure.org/~jkr/git/notmuch_addresses.git`) (slower, but
+ no compilation required so good for testing the setup)
+
+ * The vala-based
+ [addrlookup](http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch) (faster, but
+ needs compiling). The addrlookup binary needs to be compiled.
+ Grab
+ `http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch/raw/static-sources/src/addrlookup.c`
+ and build it with:
+
+ cc -o addrlookup addrlookup.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gobject-2.0` -lnotmuch
+
+ * Shell/fgrep/perl combination [nottoomuch-addresses.sh](http://www.iki.fi/too/nottoomuch/nottoomuch-addresses/).
+ This tools maintains it's own address "database" gathered from email
+ files notmuch knows and search from that "database" is done by fgrep(1).
+
+You can perform tab-completion using any of these programs. Just add the following to your .emacs:
+
+ (require 'notmuch-address)
+ (setq notmuch-address-command "/path/to/address_fetching_program")
+ (notmuch-address-message-insinuate)
+
+
+## How to sign/encrypt messages with gpg
+
+Messages can by signed using gpg by invoking `M-x
+mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` (or `M-x
+mml-secure-encrypt-pgpmime`). These functions are available via the
+standard `message-mode` keybindings `C-c C-m s p` and `C-c C-m c
+p`. To sign outgoing mail by default, use the `message-setup-hook`
+in your `.emacs` file:
+
+ ;; Sign messages by default.
+ (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'mml-secure-sign-pgpmime)
+
+This inserts the required `<#part sign=pgpmime>` into the beginning
+of the mail text body and will be converted into a pgp signature
+when sending (so one can just manually delete that line if signing
+is not required).
+
+Alternatively, you may prefer to use `mml-secure-message-sign-pgpmime` instead
+of `mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` to sign the whole message instead of just one
+part.
+
+### Troubleshooting message-mode gpg support
+
+- If you have trouble with expired subkeys, you may have encountered
+ emacs bug #7931. This is fixed in git commit 301ea744c on
+ 2011-02-02. Note that if you have the Debian package easypg
+ installed, it will shadow the fixed version of easypg included with
+ emacs.
projects / notmuch-wiki / blobdiff