What's in the xmh Window

Here's a description of the parts of the xmh window and what they're for. Your window should look something like the Figure below, but your window will be emptier unless you've used MH before.

Figure: xmh first master window

The window is split into four areas. (Or, if xmh has been customized, there may be five areas -- see the Figure Display (not customized yet) with *CommandButtonCount:5.) Let's take a look at them. For more detail, see the Figure xmh main window with parts labeled; it has every area of the master window labeled.)

1. Command menu bar. The top pane has buttons that give commands to xmh. These buttons have drop-down menus.

   For example, when you point to the Sequence button and hold down the first mouse button, a menu will drop down. As you slide the pointer down, different commands on this Sequence menu are highlighted. Commands that aren't available use gray letters; you can't highlight them. In the Figure below, I've highlighted the Pick command for finding messages and sequences. Because the folder doesn't have any sequences, most commands are grayed. Try it yourself with your folder.

   If you release the mouse button while that command is highlighted, the command will be executed. But, if you slide the pointer off that menu item (say, to the right) before you release the button, the command won't be executed.

   Figure: Selecting a command

   

2. Folder buttonbox. These buttons let you select a folder of messages. (The Section Using Another Folder explains how to select another folder.) There's one button for each folder. X users call this set of buttons a buttonbox. You'll start with at least two buttons -- for your inbox and drafts folders -- and there might be more if you've used MH (or xmh) before. If a folder has subfolders, a folder menu will drop down when you click the button -- but most xmh beginners don't need to bother with subfolders. The label above the buttons tells the name of your selected folder.

   When I use the term "click a button" in the chapters about xmh, here's what I mean: Point to it with the mouse, then quickly press and release the first mouse button. It's also possible to "click on" a button in the window with another mouse button, but the results may be different. If you should "click" with a button other than the first, I'll say so.

3. Table of Contents. The titlebar over the third area shows the folder name followed by a colon (:) and the sequence name. In the Figure xmh first master window, the folder is named inbox and the sequence is all. Under the titlebar is a summary list of the messages in your inbox folder (empty if you're a new user). If the list of messages in your Table of Contents is longer than the window, a scrollbar will let you control your view of the list. (Section Scrollbars has more.) There's no scrollbar now because there are just a few messages.
4. Viewed message. The top pane of this area is a titlebar that shows the folder name (here, inbox) and message number (here, 1). The message is shown under the titlebar. There's a scrollbar at the left-hand edge.
5. Grips. The squares close to the right-hand side of the window are for adjusting the size of each area.

[Table of Contents] [Index] [Previous: Running xmh] [Next: Sending Mail]

This file is from the third edition of the book MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers, ISBN 1-56592-093-7, by Jerry Peek. Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. This file is freely-available; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. For more information, see the file copying.htm.