HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: qq11@liverpool.ac.uk (Alan Thew)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Empty message problems.
Summary: Empty messages and space bar problems
Date: 25 Jan 93 21:56:04 GMT
Organization: The University of Liverpool
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Most of our users use a locally modified version of uE with PC style
function key support. One problem that has been noticed as more people
use elm is a tendency to hit the wrong key in the editor and exit
without typing a message or hit the equivalent of vi's :q!

While I realise that this may well reflect on the choice of keys of our
editor, it would be nice if Elm issued a warning, something like

"Warning: your mail message is empty, press "f" to exit or "e" to edit"

This would be in the same spirit as the rather anoyong message telling
me that I have no Subject line and IMHO much more useful.

Another point is that users who use the builtin pager, which we recomend
over "less" are finding that they would prefer to have another key
("n" is already bound for this anyway) to take them to the next msg
so that if they press <SPACE> to many times they are not taken into the
next msg or even the one after that without wanting to.

2.4.20 does not appear to do anything in this area. What do others
think?
-- 
Alan Thew
alan.thew@liverpool.ac.uk   ...!uknet!liv!alan.thew   +44 51 794 3735
From: fruechtl@pctc.chemie.uni-erlangen.de (Herbert Fruechtl)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: group id not restored
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:34:00 GMT
Organization: Physikalische Chemie, Uni Erlangen
Distribution: world
Reply-To: fruechtl@pctc.chemie.uni-erlangen.de (Herbert Fruechtl)
NNTP-Posting-Host: pctc.chemie.uni-erlangen.de


The problem:
After viewing mail with elm the error message
'Problems restoring permissions of folder /usr/spool/mail/username!'
occurs. Afterwards the group id of this file is set to the group of the user
instead of 'mail'. Incoming mail is no longer delivered. The problem can only
be removed by 'su root' and 'chgrp'.

Details of installation:
I have installed elm 2.4 on a network of IBM RS/6000 workstations. Having
started with PL3 I applied all patches up to PL20. I tried it using my own id
and root, answering the 'setgid' question in Configure with yes and no:
no difference! What's wrong?
Another strange thing (no problem as such, but maybe connected with the error
above): Although I enter a different directory during 'Configure' the binaries
are created in the elm/bin directory. Afterwards the directory I enter is
stored in 'config.sh'. Is it nevertheless ignored?

Elm is the most comfortable mailer I know, and I really would like to install
it on our system. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

  Herbert
From: mendez@taliesin.greco-prog.fr (Mendez Marc)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Tag and uuencoded files
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:35:12 GMT
Organization: LMI (LaBRI University Bordeaux France)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]

I would like to uudecode files I receive by mail. But I need to keep
the order of the files (which is not respected all the time in the mail
list). Can I tag files in the order I want and then uudecode them
(with a pipe, I suppose) ? If yes, how ?

--

WARNING : 
-------
	Now  : mendez@taliesin.greco-prog.fr
	Soon : mendez@taliesin.emi.u-bordeaux.fr

------------------------------------*--------------------------------------
MENDEZ Marc    			    |	E-Mail :mendez@taliesin.greco-prog.fr
------------------------------------*--------------------------------------
Residence Le Mail		    | 	Licence d'informatique
Bat B, Appt 414			    | 	UFR d'informatique
Rue Louis JOUVET  		    | 	Universite de BORDEAUX 1
33600 PESSAC - FRANCE		    | 	351, cours de la Liberation
Home Phone : (33) 56 46 14 52	    |   33405 TALENCE, FRANCE
------------------------------------*--------------------------------------
"The trouble with computers is they do everything we tell them to do, but not 
 what we would like them to do."
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: serini@ghost.dsi.unimi.it (Piero Serini)
Subject: ELM FAQ
Organization: Computer Science Dep. - Milan University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 20:48:54 GMT

Hi all.

As the Elm FAQs and documentation still seems hard to find,
(even if I finally got it), to keep folks @dsi.com less busy, 
and to lessen overseas net traffic, I will try and keep FAQ
up-to-date.

I'm still collecting infos to work on, so please send me
all infos about Elm you already have.

Bug lists, on-topic collections, questions and so on are welcome.

I will NOT answer questions before the first release of FAQs,
which should appear on February 15th.

Elm FAQs will be monthly posted on news.answers and comp.mail elm,
as is now, and will be available upon mail-request.

On February 1st the latest version of Elm and documentation
should become available via anonymous ftp from ghost.dsi.unimi.it,
but this is not sure yet and will be announced in a future
posting on comp.mail.elm

Please remember it's the first time I do such a work.


------------------------------------------ Piero Serini -----------------
Computer Science Dept.            E-mail: serini@ghost.dsi.unimi.it   
Univ. Statale - Milano - ITALY    or: piero@strider.st.dsi.unimi.it
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: qq11@liverpool.ac.uk (Alan Thew)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Solaris and Elm 2.4pl20
Date: 24 Jan 93 20:35:42 GMT
Organization: The University of Liverpool
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

On 20 Jan 93 20:46:01 GMT , Rob Kooper (kooper@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl) wrote:
: I tried to compile Elm 2.4pl20 on Solaris 2.1. It compiled alright but when
: I tried it hang and went dead. One of the system maintainers told me there
: was a problem with locking. Could this be it? Anyone experience with compiling
: elm under Solaris.

: I know there was a posting about elm and solaris with gcc but we don't have
: gcc so I want to compile with the normal C compiler.

I have built elm 2.3.11 on Solaris 2.0 with Sun's ANSI C compiler OK. Am yet
to try 2.4.x and Solaris 2.1. My main problem was libraries...
-- 
Alan Thew
alan.thew@liverpool.ac.uk   ...!uknet!liv!alan.thew   +44 51 794 3735
From: syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Yet another enhancement suggestion...RETURN to confirm
Date: 28 Jan 1993 23:23:51 -0500
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc., Huntingdon Valley, PA
Reply-To: syd@DSI.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: dsinc.dsi.com

ophof@SERVER.uwindsor.ca (Scott Ophof) writes:
>Normally, replies *should* by default go to the address in the
>Reply-To:, Sender:, or From: field (in descending order of
>priority).  But here one could override that with "-n" (for mail
>from a newsgroup), or "-s) for the sender address, or "-f" for the
>"From:" address.

>Note btw that Elm v2.3 does *not* adhere to the above-mentioned
>priority re Reply-To:/Sender:/From: as specified in RFC-822.
>(Syd?)  Is this also the case for v2.4?
Well, I think you mis read RFC-822, and I quote:
  For systems which automatically  generate  address  lists  for
        replies to messages, the following recommendations are made:

            o   The "Sender" field mailbox should be sent  notices  of
                any  problems in transport or delivery of the original
                messages.  If there is no  "Sender"  field,  then  the
                "From" field mailbox should be used.

            o   The  "Sender"  field  mailbox  should  NEVER  be  used
                automatically, in a recipient's reply message.

            o   If the "Reply-To" field exists, then the reply  should
                go to the addresses indicated in that field and not to
                the address(es) indicated in the "From" field.


     Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages


            o   If there is a "From" field, but no  "Reply-To"  field,
                the  reply should be sent to the address(es) indicated
                in the "From" field.

Thus:
The sender field should NEVER be used for a reply address, and Elm
does that. (Their capitalization, not mine)

The Reply-to should be used before From, and if no Reply-To, use From...
Elm half heartly follows this in that Reply-To traditionally occurs later
in the headers than From and Elm uses the last it finds of From and Reply-to
if so configured to honor them at all.  2.4 is like 2.3 in this regard.
-- 
========================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP          Elm Coordinator - Current 2.4PL20
Datacomp Systems, Inc.                 Projected 3.0 Release: ??? ?,1994
syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd      Voice: (215) 947-9900, FAX: (215) 938-0235
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: mlevin@teal.csn.org (Marshall Levin)
Subject: filter: forward AND save?
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 21:17:08 GMT

OK, I think the problem is that filter cannot perform 2 actions on 1 piece of
mail.  It can't save the piece in the mailbox AND send a reply to the sender,
can it?  I think, through experimenting, it can only do one or the other.
Does anyone know of a sneaky way of doing this?

I want ALL incoming mail to be saved but ONLY mail that is not from a list to
receive the vacation message.  This problem stems from the fact that autoreply
blindly replies to all messages, and I don't want my mailing lists getting
these silly vacation notices.

ANYBODY, what can I do?  HELP!

Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: spenser@fudd.jsc.nasa.gov (S. Spenser Aden)
Subject: Re: Elm 2.4PL20: Floating Point Exeption reading alias folder from cmd-line
Organization: Flight Data and Evaluation Office
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 16:46:09 GMT

In article <1k376fINN5oq@coli-gate.coli.uni-sb.de> fuenf@aldebaran.cs.uni-sb.de (Stefan Fuenfrocken) writes:
>
>i just installed elm 2.4 PL20, upgrading from elm 2.3PL11.
>Environment: SunOS4.1.1, Sun SparkStation II
>
>There were two things:
>
>1) elm refuses to compile with:
>        
>     redeclaration of utimbuf in leavembox.c
>  
>  i had to '#define UTIMBUF' in config.h
>  So the Configure-script doesn't seem correctly set up the configuration file.

i had this same problem with my SPARC 2 running 4.1.2. While There's nothing
really wrong with what you did, you might try changing d_utimbuf to 'define'
in the config.sh instead, and then re-running that.

>  i tryed to read from a folder ('abc' in maildirectory) for alias 'xyz' from cmd-line
>  with:
>     elm -f @xyz
>  which gave me:
>
>
>    Floating Point Exception signal!
>
>
>    Emergency exit taken! All temp files intact!
>
>  If i try to read the folder with the correct foldername:
>    elm -f =abc
>  everything is fine.

I haven't tried this.  Will check it out.

-Spenser

-- 
S. Spenser Aden --- Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co. --- (713) 483-2028
NASA --- Flight Data and Evaluation Office --- Johnson Space Center, Houston
spenser@fudd.jsc.nasa.gov    (Internet) ---  Opinions herein are mine alone.
aden@vf.jsc.nasa.gov (if above bounces) ---  "Eschew obfuscation." - unknown
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: maklinm@cognos.com (Max Maklin)
Subject: Re: when will Elm 2.4 PL21 be available?
Organization: Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa CANADA
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 02:45:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan28.151100.27359@gmuvax2.gmu.edu> rjackson@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (Richard L Jackson Jr) writes:
:^()  Is there an estimate on when Elm 2.4 PL21 will be available?
:^()  

Given that we have heard little from Syd of late, I am sure he and
his crew is diligently going over and over it.  He has indicated that
he does not plan to release to many more PLs.  PL21 should be pretty
encompassing and hopefully stabilize enough for me to go and snar
my first 2.4 version

Max
-- 
Max Maklin                                                P.O. Box 9707 
Technical Analyst	                           3755 Riverside Drive
Cognos Incorporated                              Ottawa, Ontario CANADA
Internet: maklinm@cognos.COM                 UUNet: maklinm@cognos.UUCP
From: david@wal6000b.udc.upenn.edu (R. David Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Filter and From header line
Date: 28 Jan 93 15:02:34 GMT
Reply-To: david@penndrls.upenn.edu
Organization: University Data Center, University of Pennsylvania

In article <9301280325.AA16613@SERVER.uwindsor.ca>, ophof@SERVER.uwindsor.ca (Scott Ophof) writes:
> Ronald Harichandran said:
> ]Use of "from" in filter-rules currently matches text on the From: line.
> ]With some of the automatic LISTSERVers, the original poster's address is
> ]retained in the From: line, and the only way to know that the message is
> ]from a particular LISTSERVer is to look at the very first From header
> ]line.  Is there any way to instruct the filter program to scan the very
> ]first From header line in mail?
> 
> The original poster's addr is *always* retained in the "From:" line
> when such an item is distributed by LISTSERV.  "LISTSERV" of course 

A possible answer to the question, though, is that, at least in the case
of the few LISTSERV lists I am on, the To: header contains the name of
the list.  I have, for example, 'if to contains IBM-KERM then save ...'
in my filter rules file, and that seems to work well.  It does not work
quite so well for some Internet mailing lists; there, the To: field is
not as consistent; sometimes the mailing list name only shows up in the
'Apparently To:' header.  

Which brings me to a question/suggestion.  It seems to me that a filter
rule refering to the To field also 'sees' text in the cc: field.  Why not
be consistent and also look at 'Apparently To:'?  Or has all this changed
in the new versions (I'm running ELM 2.3 PL11)?
-- 
david			david@staff.udc.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: guckes@math.fu-berlin.de (Sven Guckes)
Subject: Re: Editing aliases in Elm
Originator: guckes@medusa
Organization: Free University of Berlin, Germany
Distribution: us
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 02:11:40 GMT

luethel@ucs.orst.edu (LLL) writes:

>How do you edit/change/addto an already existing alias in elm?

1) Delete it and (re)create it:
	a		jump into alias menu
	<num> | j | k	select the alias to be changed
	d		delete - mark alias for deletion
	$		synchronize (update) alias table
			(deletes aliases marked for deletion)
	n		new alias - create a new alias
	$		synchronize (update) alias table
			[will add the new ("changed") alias to become
			effective]

2) Make changes to the alias file ($HOME/.elm/aliases.text) using your
   favourite editor and then update the hash table with "newalias".

-- 
Sven@simple.solutions.please :) |
A new user can ask more question than all sys admins may answer.
From: ce095@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey Scott Traigle)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Problem creating lock file
Date: 26 Jan 1993 19:23:20 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: ce095@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey Scott Traigle)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) says:

>ce095@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey Scott Traigle) writes:
>
>
>>I'm attempting to get elm running on an Evans & Sutherland machine.
>>It is essentially a MIPS machine and OS frolm what I can gather.
>>I finally managed to get elm compiled, but when I try to run it,
>>I get the following message:
>
>>Can't create lock file! Need write permission in "/usr/mail/".
>
>>The mail directory has the following permissions:
>
>>drwxrwxr-x   bin   mail   /usr/mail
>
>>and I ran Configure to be setgid. (In fact, I tried running it as
>>non-setgid as well trying to figure out what was wrong.) The only
>>other thing that I could think of to try was only using one of flock
>>or fcntrl locking, but that didn't help either. Anybody get it running
>>on one of these machines?
>
>You must be root to install Elm, so that elm gets installed setgid
>and set to group mail.  Check the permissions on Elm.

I was root when I installed it. The permissions on Elm are

-rwxr-sr-x   1 root     mail      685924 Jan 26 14:22 elm

which looks right for a setgid program.
From: mjo@iao.ford.com (Mike O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Yet another enhancement suggestion...RETURN to confirm
Date: 25 Jan 1993 12:57:32 GMT
Organization: Not an official spokesperson for Ford Motor Company
Reply-To: Mike O'Connor <mjo@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost

In article <C194wA.4A6@compsci.liverpool.ac.uk> rkl@csc.liv.ac.uk
(Richard Lloyd) writes:

:There are several users at our site who don't like the way Elm only requires
:a single keypress (without RETURN to confirm) for its operations, often leading

This sounds like a good idea, but after having had an "opportunity" to
look at Elm source code recently, it looks like it'd be evil to implement!

						...Mike


-- 
 Michael J. O'Connor           |  Internet:  mjo@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com
 Ford Motor Company, OPEO      |  UUCP:      ...!{backbone}!fmsrl7!mjo
 20000 Rotunda, Bldg. 1-3001   |  Phone:     +1 (313) 248-1260
 Dearborn, MI  48121           |  Fax:       +1 (313) 323-6277
From: nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk (Nigel Metheringham)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Problem creating lock file
Date: 27 Jan 93 11:17:07 GMT
Organization: Electronics Department, University of York, UK

In <1k29p5INNrdh@dsinc.dsi.com> syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) writes:

>ce095@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey Scott Traigle) writes:


>>I'm attempting to get elm running on an Evans & Sutherland machine.
>>It is essentially a MIPS machine and OS frolm what I can gather.
>>I finally managed to get elm compiled, but when I try to run it,
>>I get the following message:

>>Can't create lock file! Need write permission in "/usr/mail/".

>>The mail directory has the following permissions:

>>drwxrwxr-x   bin   mail   /usr/mail

>>and I ran Configure to be setgid. (In fact, I tried running it as
>>non-setgid as well trying to figure out what was wrong.) The only
>>other thing that I could think of to try was only using one of flock
>>or fcntrl locking, but that didn't help either. Anybody get it running
>>on one of these machines?

True MIPs machines cannot do gid swapping, and I think E&S machines
will be the same.  You need to change the $d_savegrpmboxid answer in
COnfigure to be $undef

	Nigel.
-- 
#   Nigel Metheringham  -- (NeXT) EMail: nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk    #
#   System Administrator, Electronics Dept, University of York    #
#   York YO1 5DD. Phone: +44 904 432374, Fax: +44 904 432335      #
From: syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: reliability of 2.4-pl17
Date: 23 Jan 1993 12:56:22 -0500
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc., Huntingdon Valley, PA
Reply-To: syd@DSI.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: dsinc.dsi.com

tunison@is.rice.edu (Jeffrey R Tunison) writes:
>We are currently using 2.3-pl11 to serve over a thousand users. I
>have skimmed comp.mail.elm in an attempt to determine whether 2.4
>is stable enough to install. It appears that patch level 17 is a
>possible stable release point. However, no versions of 2.4 have
>been posted to comp.sources.unix (as far as I can tell), despite it's
>having been released back in October 92. Is it too buggy to post or
>have Syd and company simply been too busy? Should we wait for the
>release of 3.0 over the summer?   Thanks.
I am not happy with pl17 or pl20, pl21 probably won't be much
better due to the large amount of cleanup work in it.  However,
pl22 should be pretty stable.  (Actually PL21 is pretty stable,
but who knows what we broke)...

Pl21 should be out in a week or so, PL22, who knows, but not
too much after 21 (its only going to fix things we broke in 21)
and then I hope to stop issuing patches except for major bugs.

If you are waiting for 3.0, better re-read my signature, it
says 1994, not 1993, and I make no committment as to when in
1994, so its at least a year off.
-- 
========================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP          Elm Coordinator - Current 2.4PL20
Datacomp Systems, Inc.                 Projected 3.0 Release: ??? ?,1994
syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd      Voice: (215) 947-9900, FAX: (215) 938-0235
From: syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: reliability of 2.4-pl17
Date: 23 Jan 1993 12:57:31 -0500
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc., Huntingdon Valley, PA
Reply-To: syd@DSI.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: dsinc.dsi.com

tunison@is.rice.edu (Jeffrey R Tunison) writes:
>However, no versions of 2.4 have
>been posted to comp.sources.unix (as far as I can tell), despite it's
>having been released back in October 92. Is it too buggy to post or
>have Syd and company simply been too busy?
forgot to respond to this comment.... I submitted PL0 to c.s.u the
same day I posted its announcement that it was available, back
in October.  I have no control over c.s.u, and frankly I am glad
they haven't posted it yet.  Lets get it stable first.
-- 
========================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP          Elm Coordinator - Current 2.4PL20
Datacomp Systems, Inc.                 Projected 3.0 Release: ??? ?,1994
syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd      Voice: (215) 947-9900, FAX: (215) 938-0235
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: mathias@solomon.technet.sg (Mathias Koerber)
Subject: Re: Diff. Headers per Alias ?
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 05:03:44 GMT

In reply to my suggestion Scott Ophof (ophof@SERVER.uwindsor.ca) wrote:

: BTW, may I request that one NOT include CONTROL-codes in email items
: (unless it's sure to end up on a Un*x machine..)?  It can mess up
: the display in a terrible way...
Yup, sorry. I wanted to do a ^A, but my mind was somewhere else at 
the time :-(.


: I like the idea of allowing prompts (*I* wouldn't use it, but can
: imagine others would want to).  But as an alternative to inserting
: control characters (which might not be visible!), what about:
:    .?fieldname: The query text
: to indicate a query is requested after display of the query text?

This is really much better. Second that for prompts !!


Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
From: dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (DWT)
Subject: Re: Tag and uuencoded files
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 05:30:23 GMT
Organization: Contributor Account at ddsw1, Chicago, Illinois  60657

mendez@taliesin.greco-prog.fr (Marc Mendez) wrote in
<1993Jan21.183512.26171@greco-prog.fr>:

| I would like to uudecode files I receive by mail. But I need to keep
| the order of the files (which is not respected all the time in the mail
| list). Can I tag files in the order I want and then uudecode them
| (with a pipe, I suppose) ? If yes, how ?

First, there should be no need to uudecode the files in any particular order.
The "begin" header of a uuencode gives the name that the uudecoded file will
have, and if the uuencodes were part of a single distribution every single
one will have a unique name in its "begin" header for the uudecoded version
of its own contents.

Second, tagging and piping won't work with uudecode.  It's not Elm's fault:
it's uudecode's problem.  If you tag and pipe, Elm assembles a text of all
tagged messages (in the order of the current display) separated by a row of
hyphens between each two messages and pipes that to one invocation of the
program you specify.  uudecode sees the "end" directive at the bottom of the
first message, exits, and ignores the rest of the pipe.  There is no provision 
in the uuencode standard for "next" or "continue" to mean 'close off the file
you've been writing but look for another file's "begin" line coming up.'

formail, which is part of the procmail distribution, can split up a pipe or
an input file into separate messages.  I take care of the task by tagging the
messages and piping them to formail -s uudecode.

David W. Tamkin   Box 59297   Northtown Station, Illinois  60659-0297
dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com    CompuServe: 73720,1570    MCI Mail: 426-1818
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm