prompter(1)						      General Commands Manual						       prompter(1)

NAME

       prompter - prompting editor front-end (only available within the message handling system, mh)

SYNOPSIS

       prompter [options] file

OPTIONS

       Adds  text  to  the beginning of the message body, so that the rest of the body follows. This is useful for the forw command.  You can sup-
       press this behavior by using the -noprepend option.  Causes the text not to be displayed on your terminal if  the  draft  already  contains
       text  in  the message-body. This is useful for low-speed terminals. You can suppress this behavior by using the -norapid option.  Specifies
       the line-editing characters, where char may be a character or 
nn, where nnn is the octal value for the character.   Specifies	the  line-
       editing characters, where char may be a character or 
nn, where nnn is the octal value for the character.

       The  first  argument  to  prompter  which  is not an option is taken as the name of the draft file, and subsequent non-option arguments are
       ignored.

       The default settings for prompter are:

       -prepend -norapid

DESCRIPTION

       The prompter editor is a rudimentary editor provided by comp, dist, forw, and repl. It is automatically called by the above  commands;  you
       do not need to specify it.

       The  prompter  editor allows rapid composition of messages.  It is particularly useful to network and low-speed (less than 2400 baud) users
       of MH.

       The prompter editor is an MH program. Although is not invoked directly, it can have its own profile entry with options; see  mh_profile(4).
       The comp, dist, forw, and repl commands invoke prompter in one of three ways: when invoked with the -editor prompter option; by an entry in
       the file; or by a command at the What now?  prompt. If you do not specify an editor in any of these  ways,  MH  provides  prompter  as  the
       default editor for all of these commands.

       For  information  on how to use a different editor with MH commands, see the reference pages for the appropriate commands, and also mh_pro-
       file(4).

   Composing a Message with prompter
       When you create a message with an MH command, the mail system provides a message template for you to fill in. This template consists of two
       parts:  the message header, comprising a number of header fields; and the body of the message, which is the area where you type the text of
       your message.

       The prompter editor displays each header field, one at a time, for you to fill in. Fill in the component by typing the text that you  want.
       Type <RETURN> to move onto the next component. Once you have moved on from a header field, you cannot edit what you have entered.

       If  you want to leave a header field empty, simply type <RETURN>.  You can continue a header field over one line by typing a back-slash ()
       before the <RETURN>. Continuation lines must start with a blank (a space or a tab).

       The start of the message body is indicated by a blank line or a line of dashes. If you are creating a new message,  the	cursor	is  placed
       beneath	this line to allow you to enter text. If there is already some body text in the message (for example, if you are using an existing
       draft, or if you are forwarding a message), you will receive a prompt:
	   --------Enter additional text

       or:
	   --------Enter initial text

       The cursor is placed under the prompt to allow you to enter text.

       To finish the message, type <CTRL/D>. You will then receive a prompt asking What now?. See whatnow(1) for more details of responses.

       An interrupt, usually <CTRL/C>, during component typing will abort prompter and the MH command that invoked it. An  interrupt  during  mes-
       sage-body typing is equivalent to <CTRL/D>, for historical reasons.

RESTRICTIONS

       The prompter editor will not work with files with nulls in them.

PROFILE COMPONENTS

       prompter-next: To name the editor to be used on exit from prompter

       Msg-Protect: To set protections when creating a new draft

FILES

       The user profile.  Temporary copy of message.

SEE ALSO

       comp(1), dist(1), forw(1), repl(1), whatnow(1), mh_profile(4)

																       prompter(1)