newmail

     NAME
          newmail,wnewmail - programs to asynchronously notify of new
          mail

     SYNOPSIS
          newmail [-d] [-i interval] [-w] file-spec {file-spec...}
          wnewmail [-d] [-i interval] [-w] file-spec {file-spec...}

     DESCRIPTION
          Newmail is a program to allow monitoring of mailboxes in an
          intelligent fashion.  It is based loosely on biff(1) and the
          version of newmail that was distributed with Elm 1.7.

          The basic operation is that the program will check the list
          of specified mailboxes each interval seconds and will list
          any new mail that has arrived in any of the mailboxes,
          indicating the sender name, and the subject of the message.

          Each entry displayed can be in a number of different formats
          depending on the mode of the program, the number of folders
          being monitored, and the status of the message.  If you're
          running it as a window (e.g. ``-w'' or invoked as wnewmail)
          then the output will be similar to:

             sender name - subject of message
             Priority: sender name - subject of message

          where  is either the name of the person sending
          it, if available (the ARPA 'From:' line) or some other brief
          indication of origin.   If you are the sender, 
          will be replaced by "to ".  If there is no
          subject, the message "" will appear on the
          screen.

          Folders are indicated by having the folder name appear first
          on the output line, as in:

             folder: sender name - subject of message

          If you're running newmail without the windows option, then
          the output is more suitable for popping up on an otherwise
          active screen, and will be formatted:

             >> New mail from sender name - subject of message
             >> Priority mail from sender name - subject of message

          Again, with folder names indicated as a prefix.

          The flags available are:

          -d        This will turn on the debugging, verbose output
                    mode.  It is not recommended that you use this
                    option unless you're interested in actually
                    debugging the program.

          -i interval
                    This will change the frequency that the program
                    checks the folders to the interval specified, in
                    seconds.  The default interval for the program is
                    60 seconds.  Note: if you change the interval to
                    less than 10 seconds, the program will warn you
                    that it isn't recommended.

          -w        Use of the ``-w'' flag will simulate having the
                    program run from within a window (e.g. the more
                    succinct output format, and so on).  Most likely,
                    rather than using this option you should be simply
                    invoking wnewmail instead.

          File specs are made up of two components, the folder name
          and the prefix string, the latter of which can always be
          omitted.  The format is foldername=prefixstring, and you can
          specify folders by full name, by simply the name of the user
          whose mailbox should be monitored, or by the standard Elm
          metacharacters to specify your folder directory (e.g. ``+'',
          ``='', or ``%'').

          Folders that cannot be opened due to permission mismatches
          will cause the program to immediately abort.  On the other
          hand, files that do not exist will continue to be checked
          every interval seconds, so some care should be exercised
          when invoking the program.

          The program will run until you log out or explicitly kill
          it, and can internally reset itself if any of the folders
          shrink in size and then grow again.

          The default folder to monitor is always your incoming
          mailbox.

     EXAMPLES
          Some example invocations:

               $ newmail

          will check your incoming mailbox every 60 seconds.

               $ newmail  -i  15  joe  root

          will monitor the incoming mailboxes for ``joe'' and
          ``root'', checking every 15 seconds for new mail.

               $ newmail  "mary=Mary"  +postmaster=POBOX

          will monitor the incoming mailbox for user ``mary'',
          prefixing all messages with the string ``Mary'', and the
          folder in the users maildir directory called ``postmaster'',
          prefixing all of those messages with ``POBOX''.

          You can also have more complex monitoring too, for example:

               $ newmail  -i  30  $LOGNAME=me  ${LOGNAME}su=myroot   /tmp/mbox

          will check every 30 seconds for the users mailbox, a mailbox
          that is the users login-name with ``su'' appended (e.g.
          ``joe'' would become ``joesu'') and the file /tmp/mbox,
          prefixing new mail for each with ``me'', ``myroot'' and
          ``mbox'' respectively.

     AUTHOR
          Elm Development Group

     SEE ALSO
          notify in sh(1) or csh(1)

     BUG REPORTS TO
          Syd Weinstein  elm@DSI.COM    (dsinc!elm)

     COPYRIGHTS
          Copyright 1988-1992 by The USENET Community Trust
          Derived from Elm 2.0,  Copyright 1986, 1987 by Dave Taylor