phpman > man > PROMPTER(1mh)

PROMPTER(1mh)                                                                          PROMPTER(1mh)



NAME
       prompter - nmh's prompting editor front-end

SYNOPSIS
       prompter [-help] [-version] [-erase chr] [-kill chr] [-prepend | -noprepend] [-rapid | -no‐‐
            rapid] [-doteof | -nodoteof] file

DESCRIPTION
       prompter is an editor front-end for nmh which allows rapid  composition  of  messages.   This
       program  is  not normally invoked directly by users but takes the place of an editor and acts
       as an editor front-end.  It operates on an RFC 822-style message draft skeleton specified  by
       file, normally provided by the nmh commands comp, dist, forw, or repl.

       prompter is particularly useful when composing messages over slow network or modem lines.  It
       is an nmh program in that it can have its own profile entry with switches, but it is not  in‐
       voked  directly  by  the user.  The commands comp, dist, forw, and repl invoke prompter as an
       editor,  either  when  invoked  with  -editor  prompter,  or  by  the  profile  entry   “Edi‐
       tor: prompter”, or when given the command edit prompter at the “What now?” prompt.

       For  each empty component prompter finds in the draft, the user is prompted for a response; A
       <RETURN> will cause the whole component to be left out.  Otherwise, a `\'  preceding  a  <RE‐
       TURN>  will  continue the response on the next line, allowing for multiline components.  Con‐
       tinuation lines must begin with a space or tab.

       Each non-empty component is copied to the draft and displayed on the terminal.

       The start of the message body is denoted by a blank line or a line of dashes.  If the body is
       non-empty, the prompt, which isn't written to the file, is

            --------Enter additional text

       or (if -prepend was given)

            --------Enter initial text

       Message-body  typing  is  terminated  with an end-of-file (usually CTRL-D).  With the -doteof
       switch, a period on a line all by itself also signifies end-of-file.  At this  point  control
       is  returned to the calling program, where the user is asked “What now?”.  See whatnow(1) for
       the valid options to this query.

       By using the -prepend switch, the user can add type-in to the beginning of the  message  body
       and have the rest of the body follow.  This is useful for the forw command.

       By using the -rapid switch, if the draft already contains text in the message-body, it is not
       displayed on the user's terminal.  This is useful for low-speed terminals.

       The line editing characters for kill and erase may be specified by the user via the arguments
       -kill  chr  and -erase chr, where chr may be a character; or `\nnn', where “nnn” is the octal
       value for the character.

       An interrupt (usually CTRL-C) during component typing will abort prompter and the nmh command
       that  invoked  it.  An interrupt during message-body typing is equivalent to CTRL-D, for his‐
       torical reasons.  This means that prompter should finish up and exit.

       The first non-flag argument to prompter is taken as the name of the draft  file,  and  subse‐
       quent non-flag arguments are ignored.

FILES
       $HOME/.mh_profile          The user profile
       /tmp/prompter*             Temporary copy of message

PROFILE COMPONENTS
       prompter-next:       To name the editor to be used on exit from .B prompter
       Msg-Protect:         To set mode when creating a new draft

SEE ALSO
       comp(1), dist(1), forw(1), repl(1), whatnow(1)

DEFAULTS
       `-prepend'
       `-norapid'
       `-nodoteof'

CONTEXT
       None

HELPFUL HINTS
       The -rapid option is particularly useful with forw, and -noprepend is useful with comp -use.

       The  user  may wish to link prompter under several names (e.g., “rapid”) and give appropriate
       switches in the profile entries under these names (e.g., “rapid: -rapid”).  This  facilitates
       invoking prompter differently for different nmh commands (e.g., “forw: -editor rapid”).

BUGS
       prompter uses stdio(3), so it will lose if you edit files with nulls in them.



nmh-1.7.1                                    1999-04-30                                PROMPTER(1mh)