There are lots of mail programs in use these days, but MH is one of the most durable and flexible. MH gives users the ability to combine email and shell programming capabilities to create powerful and customized mail environments. Best of all, MH is freely available on almost all UNIX systems. MH has spawned a number of interfaces in addition to the shell command line, too. This book covers three popular interfaces: "xmh" (for the X environment), "exmh" (written with tcl/tk), and "mh-e" (for GNU Emacs users). "MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers" first gives the reader the basic information needed to get started. The information in these "quick tour" chapters is expanded in later chapters so that users can go beyond the basic functions of a mailer and create a customized email environment. This book contains useful examples, tips, tricks, and documented and undocumented features that the author learned in thirteen years as an MH user, instructor, programmer, and system administrator.

This book has been described as the "MH bible" because of its complete treatment of MH and its interfaces. The book contains: A quick tour through MH, "xmh," "exmh," and "mh-e" for new users Configuration and customization information Lots of tips and techniques for programmers -- and plenty of practical examples for everyone Information beyond the manual pages, explaining how to make MH do things you never thought an email program could do In addition, the third edition describes the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and how to use it with these mail programs. MIME is an extension that allows users to send graphics, sound, and other multimedia formats through mail between otherwise incompatible systems.