The `mail' Mode
The
mail mode of
jedit is intended for composing email.
This document describes the
mail mode available with version 4.1/4.4 of
jedit.
The
mail mode provides a modespecific `Mail' menu and buttonbar each
of which provides a `Sign' command which inserts the contents
of your
~/.signature file at the bottom of your mail. (The signature is automatically
inserted in a fixedpitch font, in case you normally use a proportional
font and you have ASCII graphics in your
.signature, not that I recommend that practise. :-) The `Mail' menu also
duplicates the `Done' command found under `File'.
By default, the
mail mode displays breaks in long lines at character boundaries
rather than just at word boundaries; this makes it a little
easier to see if you have a line that's too long for email (assuming
your window itself isn't too wide and you use a fixedpitch font).
Also,
mail mode will automatically insert newlines for you as you approach
the right margin. (There are two different concepts here -
whether
real newlines are inserted, creating a new line even if you didn't
hit the
Return key, and how long lines are
displayed on the screen. When you're composing email, it's a good
idea not to let your lines get any longer than about 72 characters.)
Of course, you can change these preferences on
jedit's
ModeSpecific Preferences panel.
The `mh' Mode
The `exmh' Mode
Evolution
Future Directions
* The
mail mode is extremely minimal right now; I'd like to extend it
a bit. For instance, it should let you choose among several
signature files, and maybe it should know how to reformat paragraphs
of quoted text (preceded with `>').
* I'd also like to add MIME support at some point, but I'm not
sure how to do that in a generic way, since most mail programs
that the
mail mode would be used with don't provide access to the headers.
(MH does, but there's a separate mode for MH.)