94 lines
5.0 KiB
HTML
94 lines
5.0 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<TITLE>TkGoodStuff Biff</TITLE>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.26 i586) [Netscape]">
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</HEAD>
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<BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#800080" ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H1>TkGoodStuff Biff</H1>
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<H2>Description </H2>
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<P>The Biff client is a new-mail notifier. It provides a button on your
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tkgoodstuff panel that can display an icon indicating the presence of new
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mail, a text message indicating "No Mail"/"New Mail",
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or both (optionally, "New Mail" is replaced by a counter of new
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messages). A more detailed display is available in multiple-mailbox mode
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(below).</P>
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<P>Biff watches one or more "mailboxes": mail files, MH folders,
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or mailboxes on remote IMAP servers. For each mailbox, at a set interval
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Biff looks for unread messages in the mailbox and flags the presence of
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new mail by beeping and changing the icon and/or label of the Biff button.
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Each mailbox is assigned an "alert level", and the new-mail icon
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indicates the maximum alert-level of all mailboxes with new mail. </P>
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<P>If you configure Biff to watch just one mailbox, it will display on
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the Biff button the number of new messages in it, if any, and mouse button
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3 fetches a list of the messages. If you use multiple mailboxes, then mouse
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button 3 produces a menu that indicates how many new messages are in each
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mailbox, and which allows you to fetch a list of the messages in any of
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them. You can click on a message in the message list to view the message
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in full. If you like, Biff can also post a list of new messages in a mailbox
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when they arrive. Also, if you use multiple mailboxes, you can replace
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the normal Biff button in the tkgoodstuff panel with the menu of mailboxes,
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allowing you to see at a glance how much new mail you have in all of your
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mailboxes. You can also "tear off" the mailboxes menu to position
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elsewhere on the screen.</P>
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<P>Clicking mouse button 1 on the Biff button launches your mailer program
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(the button stays depressed and inoperative until you exit the mailer program).
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Button 2 instructs Biff to regard as old mail any current new mail (displaying
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a no-mail icon and/or the label "No Mail"), and to wait until
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you get yet more mail before notifying you. </P>
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<P>For each mailbox, you can choose (in the preferences manager) between
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several "methods" of testing for new mail: there are special
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methods for mailboxes on IMAP servers and for MH mailboxes (you don't know
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if your mailbox is MH-style? then it's almost certainly not), and three
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methods for detecting new mail in standard mail files (including spool
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files, such as the default mailbox /usr/spool/mail/<B>username</B>): "atime",
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"filesize", and "internal". With the method "atime"
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(the default), Biff decides that there's new mail when the file has been
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modified when or after it has last been accessed (its mtime is no less
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than its atime). With the method "filesize", Biff decides that
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there's new mail when the file is nonempty. The "internal" method
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scans the message headers for "Status:" lines, and treats messages
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with a status of "N" or with no "Status:" line as new.
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The "atime" or "internal" method is probably best for
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those who keep old mail in their spool file. The "filesize" method
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is better for those who normally regard all mail in the spool file as new
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mail. </P>
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<P>The MH method is only for those using MH mailboxes AND automatic incorporation
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of new mail (e.g., by slocal or procmail), and is automatically used if
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the folder to be checked starts with a "+". With the mh method,
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we assume a message is new if it is in the "u" sequence in the
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.mh_sequences file in the folder or if its atime isn't after its mtime.
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NOTE: for automatic incorporation of new mail into MH folders, you must
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pipe messages (using slocal or procmail or deliver) into the MH program
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rcvstore, so that the MH unseen sequence is correctly updated. An example
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from my .procmailrc: </P>
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<PRE>MHLIB=/usr/lib/mh
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:0
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* ^(To|Cc|Subject):.*tkgoodstuff.*
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|$MHLIB/rcvstore +tkg</PRE>
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<P>The IMAP method is for mailboxes on remote IMAP servers. You need to
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supply the mailbox name and your user name (at the server). Note: if you
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are unsure about the mailbox name, very likely your mailbox at the server
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is called "INBOX". You can supply your password (at the server)
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in the preferences manager, <B>in which case it will be stored in your
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.tkgrc file (which it's up to you to protect!!)</B>, or you can leave your
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password blank in the preferences manager, in which case tkgoodstuff will
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ask you for it when the mailbox is first accessed. </P>
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<P>All parameters are adjustable in the preferences manager. </P>
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<ADDRESS>Thanks to G. Dezern. </ADDRESS>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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