This chapter leaves the tutorial style and goes into more detail about
every mh-e command. The default, or "out of the box," behavior is
documented. If this is not to your liking (for instance, you print with
something other than lpr), see the associated section in
section Customizing mh-e which is organized exactly like this chapter.
There are many commands, but don't get intimidated. There are command
summaries at the beginning of each section. In case you have or would
like to rebind the keys, the command summaries also list the associated
Emacs Lisp function. Furthermore, even if you're stranded on a desert
island with a laptop and are without your manuals, you can get a summary
of all these commands with GNU Emacs online help: use C-h m
(describe-mode) for a brief summary of commands or C-h i to
read this manual via Info. The online help is quite good; try running
C-h C-h C-h. This brings up a list of available help topics, one
of which displays the documentation for a given key (like C-h k
C-n). In addition, review section GNU Emacs Terms and Conventions, if any of the GNU Emacs
conventions are strange to you.
Let's get started!
The mh-e entry point for reading mail is M-x mh-rmail. This
command incorporates your mail and creates a buffer called `+inbox'
in MH-Folder mode. The M-x mh-rmail command shows you only new
mail, not old mail. (7) The `+inbox' buffer contains scan lines,
which are one-line summaries of each incorporated message. You can
perform most MH commands on these messages via one-letter commands
discussed in this chapter. See scan(1) for a description of the
contents of the scan lines, and see the Figure in section Receiving Mail, for an example.
mh-show).
mh-page-msg).
mh-previous-page).
mh-header-display).
mh-page-digest).
mh-page-digest-backwards).
mh-burst-digest).
mh-next-undeleted-msg).
mh-previous-undeleted-msg).
mh-goto-msg).
mh-first-msg).
mh-last-msg).
mh-toggle-showing).
The RET (mh-show) command displays the message that the
cursor is on. If the message is already displayed, it scrolls to the
beginning of the message. Use SPC (mh-page-msg) and
DEL (mh-previous-page) to move forwards and backwards one
page at a time through the message. You can give either of these
commands a prefix argument that specifies the number of lines to scroll
(such as 10 SPC). mh-e normally hides a lot of the
superfluous header fields that mailers add to a message, but if you wish
to see all of them, use the , (comma; mh-header-display)
command.
A digest is a message that contains other messages. Special mh-e
commands let you read digests conveniently. You can use SPC and
DEL to page through the digest as if it were a normal message, but
if you wish to skip to the next message in the digest, use M-SPC
(mh-page-digest). To return to a previous message, use
M-DEL (mh-page-digest-backwards).
Another handy command is M-b (mh-burst-digest). This
command uses the MH command burst to break out each message in
the digest into its own message. Using this command, you can quickly
delete unwanted messages, like this: Once the digest is split up, toggle
out of MH-Folder Show mode with t (see section Moving Around) so that
the scan lines fill the screen and messages aren't displayed. Then use
d (see section Deleting Your Mail) to quickly delete messages that you don't
want to read (based on the `Subject:' header field). You can also
burst the digest to reply directly to the people who posted the messages
in the digest. One problem you may encounter is that the `From:'
header fields are preceded with a `>' so that your reply can't
create the `To:' field correctly. In this case, you must correct
the `To:' field yourself. This is described later in section Editing Textual Messages.
MH has the ability to read MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) messages. Unfortunately, mh-e does not yet have this
ability, so you have to use the MH commands show or mhn
from the shell to read MIME messages. (8)
To move on to the next message, use the n
(mh-next-undeleted-msg) command; use the p
(mh-previous-undeleted-msg) command to read the previous message.
Both of these commands can be given a prefix argument to specify how
many messages to skip (for example, 5 n). You can also move to a
specific message with g (mh-goto-msg). You can enter the
message number either before or after typing g. In the latter
case, Emacs prompts you. Finally, you can go to the first or last
message with M-< (mh-first-msg) and M->
(mh-last-msg) respectively.
You can also use the Emacs commands C-p (previous-line) and
C-n (next-line) to move up and down the scan lines in the
MH-Folder window. These commands can be used in conjunction with
RET to look at deleted or refiled messages.
The command t (mh-toggle-showing) switches between
MH-Folder mode and MH-Folder Show mode. (9) MH-Folder mode
turns off the associated show buffer so that you can perform operations
on the messages quickly without reading them. This is an excellent way
to prune out your junk mail or to refile a group of messages to another
folder for later examination.
You can send a mail message in several ways. You can call M-x mh-smail directly, or from the command line like this:
% emacs -f mh-smail
From within mh-e's MH-Folder mode, other methods of sending mail are available as well:
mh-send).
mh-reply).
mh-forward).
mh-redistribute).
mh-extract-rejected-mail).
mh-edit-again).
From within a MH-Folder buffer, you can simply use the command m
(mh-send). However you invoke mh-send, you are prompted
for the `To:', `cc:', and `Subject:' header fields. Once
you've specified the recipients and subject, your message appears in an
Emacs buffer whose mode is MH-Letter (see the Figure in section Sending Mail to see what the buffer looks like). MH-Letter mode allows you to
edit your message, to check the validity of the recipients, to insert
other messages into your message, and to send the message. We'll go
more into depth about editing a draft (10) (a message you're composing)
in just a moment.
mh-smail always creates a two-window layout with the current
buffer on top and the draft on the bottom. If you would rather preserve
the window layout, use M-x mh-smail-other-window.
To compose a reply to a message, use the r (mh-reply)
command. If you supply a prefix argument (as in C-u r), the
message you are replying to is inserted in your reply after having first
been run through mhl with the format file `mhl.reply'. See
mhl(1) to see how you can modify the default `mhl.reply'
file.
When you reply to a message, you are first prompted with `Reply to whom?'. You have several choices here.
Response Reply Goes To
from The person who sent the message. This is the default,
so RET is sufficient.
to Replies to the sender, plus all recipients in the
`To:' header field.
all
cc Forms a reply to the sender, plus all recipients.
Depending on your answer, repl is given a different argument to
form your reply. Specifically, a choice of from or none at all
runs repl -nocc all, and a choice of to runs repl -cc
to. Finally, either cc or all runs repl -cc all
-nocc me.
Two windows are then created. One window contains the message to which you are replying. Your draft, in MH-Letter mode (described in section Editing a Draft), is in the other window.
If you wish to customize the header or other parts of the reply draft,
please see repl(1) and mh-format(5).
To forward a message, use the f (mh-forward) command. You
are given a draft to edit that looks like it would if you had run the MH
command forw. You are given a chance to add some text (see
section Editing a Draft).
You can forward several messages by using a prefix argument; in this
case, you are prompted for the name of a sequence, a symbolic name
that represents a list or range of message numbers (for example,
C-u f forbob RET). All of the messages in the sequence are
inserted into your draft. By the way, although sequences are often
mentioned in this chapter, you don't have to worry about them for now;
the full description of sequences in mh-e is at the end in
section Using Sequences. To learn more about sequences in general, please see
mh-sequence(5).
The command M-d (mh-redistribute) is similar in function to
forwarding mail, but it does not allow you to edit the message, nor does
it add your name to the `From:' header field. It appears to the
recipient as if the message had come from the original sender. For more
information on redistributing messages, see dist(1). Also
investigate the M-a (mh-edit-again) command in section Editing Old Drafts and Bounced Messages, for another way to redistribute messages.
If you don't complete a draft for one reason or another, and if the
draft buffer is no longer available, you can pick your draft up again
with M-a (mh-edit-again). If you don't use a draft folder,
your last `draft' file will be used. If you use draft folders,
you'll need to visit the draft folder with M-f drafts RET,
use n to move to the appropriate message, and then use M-a
to prepare the message for editing.
The M-a command can also be used to take messages that were sent to you and to send them to more people.
Don't use M-a to re-edit a message from a Mailer-Daemon who
complained that your mail wasn't posted for some reason or another. In
this case, use M-e (mh-extract-rejected-mail) to prepare
the message for editing by removing the Mailer-Daemon envelope and
unneeded header fields. Fix whatever addressing problem you had, and
send the message again with C-c C-c.
When you edit a message that you want to send (called a draft in this case), the mode used is MH-Letter. This mode provides several commands in addition to the normal Emacs editing commands to help you edit your draft.
mh-yank-cur-msg).
mh-insert-letter).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-fcc).
mh-to-field).
mh-check-whom).
mh-insert-signature).
mh-mhn-compose-forw).
mh-mhn-compose-anon-ftp).
mh-mhn-compose-external-compressed-tar).
mh-mhn-compose-insertion).
mhn before sending (mh-edit-mhn).
mhn (mh-revert-mhn-edit).
mh-send-letter).
mh-fully-kill-draft).
The following sections show you how to edit a draft. The commands described here are also applicable to messages that have multimedia components.
It is often useful to insert a snippet of text from a letter that
someone mailed to provide some context for your reply. The command
C-c C-y (mh-yank-cur-msg) does this by yanking a portion of
text from the message to which you're replying and inserting `> '
before each line.
You can control how much text is included when you run this command. If you run this command right away, without entering the buffer containing the message to you, this command will yank the entire message, as is, into your reply. (11) If you enter the buffer containing the message sent to you and move the cursor to a certain point and return to your reply and run C-c C-y, then the text yanked will range from that point to the end of the message. Finally, the most common action you'll perform is to enter the message sent to you, move the cursor to the beginning of a paragraph or phrase, set the mark with C-SPC or C-@, and move the cursor to the end of the paragraph or phrase. The cursor position is called the point, and the space between the mark and point is called the region. Having done that, C-c C-y will insert the region you selected.
Messages can be inserted with C-c C-i (mh-insert-letter).
This command prompts you for the folder and message number and inserts
the message, indented by `> '. Certain undesirable header fields
are removed before insertion. If given a prefix argument (like C-u
C-c C-i), the header is left intact, the message is not indented, and
`> ' is not inserted before each line.
Because the header is part of the message, you can edit the header
fields as you wish. However, several convenience functions exist to
help you create and edit them. For example, the command C-c C-f
C-t (mh-to-field; alternatively, C-c C-f t) moves the
cursor to the `To:' header field, creating it if necessary. The
functions to move to the `cc:', `Subject:', `From:',
`Bcc:', and `Dcc:' header fields are similar.
One function behaves differently from the others, namely, C-c C-f
C-f (mh-to-fcc; alternatively, C-c C-f f). This function
will prompt you for the folder name in which to file a copy of the draft.
Be sure to leave a row of dashes or a blank line between the header and the body of the message.
The C-c C-w (mh-check-whom) command expands aliases so you
can check the actual address(es) in the alias. A new buffer is created
with the output of whom.
You can insert your signature at the current cursor location with the
C-c C-s (mh-insert-signature) command. The text of your
signature is taken from the file `~/.signature'.
mh-e has the capability to create multimedia messages. It uses the
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) protocol. The
MIME protocol allows you to incorporate images, sound, video,
binary files, and even commands that fetch a file with `ftp' when
your recipient reads the message! If you were to create a multimedia
message with plain MH commands, you would use mhn. Indeed, the
mh-e MIME commands merely insert mhn directives which are
later expanded by mhn.
Each of the mh-e commands for editing multimedia messages or for incorporating multimedia objects is prefixed with C-c C-m .
Several MIME objects are defined. They are called content types. The table in section Editing a Draft contains a list of the content types that mh-e currently knows about. Several of the mh-e commands fill in the content type for you, whereas others require you to enter one. Most of the time, it should be obvious which one to use (e.g., use image/jpeg to include a JPEG image). If not, you can refer to RFC 1521, (12) which defines the MIME protocol, for a list of valid content types.
You are also sometimes asked for a content description. This is simply an optional brief phrase, in your own words, that describes the object. If you don't care to enter a content description, just press return and none will be included; however, a reader may skip over multimedia fields unless the content description is compelling.
Remember: you can always add mhn directives by hand.
Mail may be forwarded with MIME using the command C-c C-m C-f
(mh-mhn-compose-forw). You are prompted for a content
description, the name of the folder in which the messages to forward are
located, and the messages' numbers.
You can even have your message initiate an ftp transfer when the
recipient reads the message. To do this, use the C-c C-m C-e
(mh-mhn-compose-anon-ftp) command. You are prompted for the
remote host and pathname, the content type, and the content description.
If the remote file (see section Including an ftp reference) is a compressed tar file, you can use
C-c C-m C-t (mh-mhn-compose-external-compressed-tar).
Then, in addition to retrieving the file via anonymous ftp, the
file will also be uncompressed and untarred. You are prompted for the
remote host and pathname and the content description. The pathname
should contain at least one `/' (slash), because the pathname is
broken up into directory and name components.
Images, sound, and video can be inserted in your message with the
C-c C-m C-i (mh-mhn-compose-insertion) command. You are
prompted for the filename containing the object, the content type, and a
content description of the object.
When you are finished editing a MIME message, it might look like this:
3 24Aug root received fax files on Wed Aug 24 11:00:13
4+ 24Aug To:wohler Test<<This is a test message to get the wh
--%%-{+inbox} 4 msgs (1-4) (MH-Folder Show)--Bot-------------------
To: wohler
cc:
Subject: Test of MIME
--------
#@application/octet-stream [Nonexistent ftp test file] \
access-type=anon-ftp; site=berzerk.com; name=panacea.tar.gz; \
directory="/pub/"
#audio/basic [Test sound bite] /tmp/noise.au
--**-{draft} (MH-Letter)--All--------------------------------------
mh-e MIME draft
The lines added by the previous commands are mhn directives and
need to be converted to MIME directives before sending. This is
accomplished by the command C-c C-e (mh-edit-mhn), which
runs mhn on the message. The following screen shows what those
commands look like in full MIME format. You can see why mail user
agents are usually built to hide these details from the user.
To: wohler
cc:
Subject: Test of MIME
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa0"
Content-ID: <1623.777796162.0@newt.com>
------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="anon-ftp";
site="berzerk.com"; name="panacea.tar.gz"; directory="/pub/"
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-ID: <1623.777796162.1@newt.com>
Content-Description: Nonexistent ftp test file
------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: audio/basic
Content-ID: <1623.777796162.2@newt.com>
Content-Description: Test sound bite
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Q3JlYXRpdmUgVm9pY2UgRmlsZRoaAAoBKREBQh8AgwCAgH9/f35+fn59fX5+fn5+f39/f39/f3
f4B/f39/f39/f39/f39/f39+f39+f39/f39/f4B/f39/fn5/f39/f3+Af39/f39/gH9/f39/fn
-----{draft} (MH-Letter)--Top--------------------------------------
mh-e MIME draft ready to send
This action can be undone by running C-c C-m C-u
(mh-revert-mhn-edit). It does this by reverting to a backup
file. You are prompted to confirm this action, but you can avoid the
confirmation by adding an argument (for example, C-u C-c C-m C-u).
When you are all through editing a message, you send it with the
C-c C-c (mh-send-letter) command. You can give an argument
(as in C-u C-c C-c) to monitor the first stage of the delivery.
If for some reason you are not happy with the draft, you can kill it
instead with C-c C-q (mh-fully-kill-draft). Emacs then
kills the draft buffer and deletes the draft message.
This section covers how messages and folders can be moved about or
manipulated. Messages may be incorporated into your `+inbox',
deleted, and refiled. Messages containing shar or
uuencode output can be stored. Folders can be visited, sorted,
packed, or deleted. Here's a list of the available commands to do these
things:
mh-inc-folder).
mh-delete-msg).
mh-delete-msg-no-motion).
mh-search-folder).
mh-refile-msg).
mh-copy-msg).
mh-write-msg-to-file).
mh-refile-or-write-again).
lpr (mh-print-msg).
mh-pipe-msg).
uudecode or shar
(mh-store-msg).
mh-list-folders).
mh-visit-folder).
mh-rescan-folder).
mh-pack-folder).
mh-kill-folder).
mh-execute-commands).
mh-undo).
mh-undo-folder).
mh-quit).
If at any time you receive new mail, incorporate the new mail into your
`+inbox' buffer with i (mh-inc-folder). Note that
i will display the `+inbox' buffer, even if there isn't any
new mail. You can incorporate mail from any file into the current
folder by specifying a prefix argument; you'll be prompted for the name
of the file to use (for example, C-u i ~/mbox RET).
Emacs can notify you when you have new mail by displaying `Mail' in the mode line. To enable this behavior, and to have a clock in the mode line besides, add the following to `~/.emacs':
(display-time)
To mark a message for deletion, use the d (mh-delete-msg)
command. A `D' is placed by the message in the scan window, and
the next message is displayed. If the previous command had been
p, then the next message displayed is the message previous to the
message just deleted. If you specify a prefix argument, you will be
prompted for a sequence (see section Using Sequences) to delete (for example,
C-u d frombob RET). The x command actually carries out the
deletion (see section Finishing Up). C-d
(mh-delete-msg-no-motion) marks the message for deletion but
leaves the cursor at the current message in case you wish to perform
other operations on the message.
mh-e has analogies for each of the MH folder and refile
commands. To refile a message in another folder, use the o
(mh-refile-msg) (mnemonic: "output") command. You are prompted
for the folder name.
If you are refiling several messages into the same folder, you can use
the ! (mh-refile-or-write-again) command to repeat the last
refile or write (see the description of C-o in section Files and Pipes). Or, place the messages into a sequence (section Using Sequences) and
specify a prefix argument to o, in which case you'll be prompted
for the name of the sequence (for example, C-u o search RET).
If you wish to copy a message to another folder, you can use the c
(mh-copy-msg) command (see the -link argument to
refile(1)). You are prompted for a folder, and you can specify a
prefix argument if you want to copy a sequence into another folder. In
this case, you are then prompted for the sequence. Note that unlike the
o command, the copy takes place immediately. The original copy
remains in the current folder.
When you want to read the messages that you have refiled into folders,
use the M-f (mh-visit-folder) command to visit the folder.
You are prompted for the folder name.
Other commands you can perform on folders include: M-l
(mh-list-folders), to list all the folders in your mail
directory; M-k (mh-kill-folder), to remove a folder;
M-x mh-sort-folder, to sort the messages by date (see
sortm(1) to see how to sort by other criteria); M-p
(mh-pack-folder), to pack a folder, removing gaps from the
numbering sequence; and M-r (mh-rescan-folder), to rescan
the folder, which is useful to grab all messages in your `+inbox'
after processing your new mail for the first time. If you don't want to
rescan the entire folder, give M-r or M-p a prefix argument
and you'll be prompted for a range of messages to display (for instance,
C-u M-r last:50 RET).
Printing mail is simple. Enter l (mh-print-msg) (for
line printer or lpr). The message is formatted with mhl
and printed with the lpr command. You can print all the messages
in a sequence by specifying a prefix argument, in which case you are
prompted for the name of the sequence (as in C-u l frombob RET).
mh-e does offer a couple of commands that are not a part of MH. The
first one, C-o (mh-write-msg-to-file), writes a message to
a file (think of the o as in "output"). You are prompted for the
filename. If the file already exists, the message is appended to it.
You can also write the message to the file without the header by
specifying a prefix argument (such as C-u C-o /tmp/foobar RET).
Subsequent writes to the same file can be made with the !
command.
You can also pipe the message through a Unix shell command with the
| (mh-pipe-msg) command. You are prompted for the
Unix command through which you wish to run your message. If you
give an argument to this command, the message header is included in the
text passed to the command (the contrived example C-u | lpr
would be done with the l command instead).
If the message is a shell archive shar or has been run through
uuencode use M-n (mh-store-msg) to extract the body
of the message. The default directory for extraction is the current
directory, and you have a chance to specify a different extraction
directory. The next time you use this command, the default directory is
the last directory you used.
If you've deleted a message or refiled it, but changed your mind, you
can cancel the action before you've executed it. Use u
(mh-undo) to undo a refile on or deletion of a single message.
You can also undo refiles and deletes for messages that belong to a
given sequence by specifying a prefix argument. You'll be prompted for
the name of the sequence (as in C-u u frombob RET).
Alternatively, you can use M-u (mh-undo-folder) to undo all
refiles or deletes in the current folder.
If you've marked messages to be deleted or refiled and you want to go
ahead and delete or refile the messages, use x
(mh-execute-commands). Many mh-e commands that may affect the
numbering of the messages (such as M-r or M-p) will ask if you
want to process refiles or deletes first and then either run x for
you or undo the pending refiles and deletes, which are lost.
When you want to quit using mh-e and go back to editing, you can use the
q (mh-quit) command. This buries the buffers of the
current mh-e folder and restores the buffers that were present when you
first ran M-x mh-rmail. You can later restore your mh-e session
by selecting the `+inbox' buffer or by running M-x mh-rmail
again.
You can search a folder for messages to or from a particular person or
about a particular subject. In fact, you can also search for messages
containing selected strings in any arbitrary header field or any string
found within the messages. Use the M-s (mh-search-folder)
command. You are first prompted for the name of the folder to search
and then placed in the following buffer in MH-Pick mode:
From: # To: Cc: Date: Subject: -------- --**-Emacs: pick-pattern (MH-Pick)------All---------------------------- Pick window
Edit this template by entering your search criteria in an appropriate
header field that is already there, or create a new field yourself. If
the string you're looking for could be anywhere in a message, then place
the string underneath the row of dashes. The M-s command uses the
MH command pick to do the real work, so read pick(1) to
find out more about how to enter the criteria.
There are no semantics associated with the search criteria--they are
simply treated as strings. Case is ignored when all lowercase is used,
and regular expressions (a la ed) are available. It is all right
to specify several search criteria. What happens then is that a logical
and of the various fields is performed. If you prefer a logical
or operation, run M-s multiple times.
As an example, let's say that we want to find messages from Ginnean about horseback riding in the Kosciusko National Park (Australia) during January, 1994. Normally we would start with a broad search and narrow it down if necessary to produce a manageable amount of data, but we'll cut to the chase and create a fairly restrictive set of criteria as follows:
From: ginnean To: Cc: Date: Jan 1994 Subject: horse.*kosciusko --------
As with MH-Letter mode, MH-Pick provides commands like C-c C-f C-t to help you fill in the blanks.
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-to-field).
mh-do-pick-search).
To perform the search, type C-c C-c (mh-do-pick-search).
The selected messages are placed in the search sequence, which you
can use later in forwarding (see section Forwarding Mail), printing
(see section Printing Your Mail), or narrowing your field of view (see section Using Sequences).
Subsequent searches are appended to the search sequence. If,
however, you wish to start with a clean slate, first delete the
search sequence (how to do this is discussed in section Using Sequences).
If you're searching in a folder that is already displayed in a MH-Folder buffer, only those messages contained in the buffer are used for the search. Therefore, if you want to search in all messages, first kill the folder's buffer with C-x k or scan the entire folder with M-r.
For the whole scoop on MH sequences, refer to mh-sequence(5). As
you've read, several of the mh-e commands can operate on a sequence,
which is a shorthand for a range or group of messages. For example, you
might want to forward several messages to a friend or colleague. Here's
how to manipulate sequences.
mh-put-msg-in-seq).
mh-msg-is-in-seq).
mh-list-sequences).
mh-delete-msg-from-seq).
mh-delete-seq).
mh-narrow-to-seq).
mh-widen).
To place a message in a sequence, use % (mh-put-msg-in-seq)
to do it manually, or use the MH command pick or the mh-e version
of pick (section Searching Through Messages) which create a sequence automatically.
Give % a prefix argument and you can add all the messages in one
sequence to another sequence (for example, C-u % SourceSequence
RET).
Once you've placed some messages in a sequence, you may wish to narrow
the field of view to just those messages in the sequence you've created.
To do this, use C-x n (mh-narrow-to-seq). You are prompted
for the name of the sequence. What this does is show only those
messages that are in the selected sequence in the MH-Folder buffer. In
addition, it limits further mh-e searches to just those messages. When
you want to widen the view to all your messages again, use C-x w
(mh-widen).
You can see which sequences a message is in with the ?
(mh-msg-is-in-seq) command.
Or, you can list all sequences in a selected folder (default is current
folder) with M-q (mh-list-sequences).
If you want to remove a message from a sequence, use M-%
(mh-delete-msg-from-seq), and if you want to delete an entire
sequence, use M-# (mh-delete-seq). In the latter case you
are prompted for the sequence to delete. Note that this deletes only
the sequence, not the messages in the sequence. If you want to delete
the messages, use C-u d (see section Deleting Your Mail above).
Two sequences are maintained internally by mh-e and pushed out to MH when you type either the x or q command. They are the sequence specified by your `Unseen-Sequence:' profile entry and cur. However, you can also just update MH's state with the command M-x mh-update-sequences. See section Viewing Your Mail for an example of how this command might be used.
With the exceptions of C-x n and C-x w, the underlying MH
command dealing with sequences is mark.
One other command worth noting is M-x mh-version. Since there were a few changes in command letters between Versions 3 and 4, use this command to see which version you are running. This command didn't exist before Version 4, so the message `[No match]' indicates that it's time to upgrade (see section Getting mh-e). In the meantime, use the older commands that are listed in section Changes to mh-e. The output of M-x mh-version should also be included with any bug report you send (see section Bug Reports).