mh-e: Miscellaneous Commands and Options
6.9 Miscellaneous Commands and Options
======================================
This section contains a few more miscellaneous commands and options.
There are times when you need to edit a message. For example, you
may need to fix a broken Content-Type header field. You can do this
with the command ‘M’ (‘mh-modify’). It displays the raw message in an
editable buffer. When you are done editing, save and kill the buffer as
you would any other.
Commands such as ‘mh-pack-folder’ prompt to confirm whether to
process outstanding moves and deletes or not before continuing. Turning
on the option ‘mh-do-not-confirm-flag’ means that these actions will be
performed—which is usually desired but cannot be retracted—without
question(1).
The option ‘mh-summary-height’ controls the number of scan lines
displayed in the MH-Folder window, including the mode line. The default
value of this option is ‘Automatic’ which means that the MH-Folder
buffer will maintain the same proportional size if the frame is resized.
If you’d prefer a fixed height, then choose the ‘Fixed Size’ option and
enter the number of lines you’d like to see.
Normally the buffer for displaying messages is buried at the bottom
at the buffer stack. You may wish to disable this feature by turning
off the option ‘mh-bury-show-buffer-flag’. One advantage of not burying
the show buffer is that one can delete the show buffer more easily in an
electric buffer list because of its proximity to its associated
MH-Folder buffer. Try running ‘M-x electric-buffer-list’ to see what I
mean.
Before we leave this section, I’ll include a function that I use as a
front end to MH-E(2). It toggles between your working window
configuration, which may be quite involved—windows filled with source,
compilation output, man pages, and other documentation—and your MH-E
window configuration. Like the rest of the customization described in
this section, simply add the following code to ‘~/.emacs’.
(defvar my-mh-screen-saved nil
"Set to non-nil when MH-E window configuration shown.")
(defvar my-normal-screen nil "Normal window configuration.")
(defvar my-mh-screen nil "MH-E window configuration.")
(defun my-mh-rmail (&optional arg)
"Toggle between MH-E and normal screen configurations.
With non-nil or prefix argument, include mailbox as well
when going into mail."
(interactive "P") ; user callable function, P=prefix arg
(setq my-mh-screen-saved ; save state
(cond
;; Bring up MH-E screen if arg or normal window configuration.
;; If arg or +inbox buffer doesn’t exist, run mh-rmail.
((or arg (null my-mh-screen-saved))
(setq my-normal-screen (current-window-configuration))
(if (or arg (null (get-buffer "+inbox")))
(mh-rmail)
(set-window-configuration my-mh-screen))
t) ; set my-mh-screen-saved to ‘t’
;; Otherwise, save MH-E screen and restore normal screen.
(t
(setq my-mh-screen (current-window-configuration))
(set-window-configuration my-normal-screen)
nil)))) ; set my-mh-screen-saved to nil
(global-set-key "\C-x\r" 'my-mh-rmail) ; call with C-x <RET>
Starting MH-E
If you type an argument (‘C-u’) or if ‘my-mh-screen-saved’ is ‘nil’
(meaning a non-MH-E window configuration), the current window
configuration is saved, either the ‘+inbox’ buffer is displayed or
‘mh-rmail’ is run, and the MH-E window configuration is shown.
Otherwise, the MH-E window configuration is saved and the original
configuration is displayed.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) In previous versions of MH-E, this option suppressed the
confirmation in ‘mh-kill-folder’. Since this kept most users from
setting this option, ‘mh-kill-folder’ was modified in version 6.0 to
always ask for confirmation subject to
‘mh-kill-folder-suppress-prompt-hook’. 
Folders.
(2) Stephen Gildea’s favorite binding is ‘(global-set-key "\C-cr"
'mh-rmail)’.
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