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man.1: A big update of the notmuch manual page.

Browse source 
I set out merely to add documentation for the recently-added options
for "notmuch search" (--first, --max-threads, and --sort), but ended
up revamping a lot. A significant change is a new SEARCH SYNTAX
section separate from "notmuch search" that is referred to in the
documentation of search, show, reply, and tag.

Also many sections were updated to reflect recent changes, (such as
the dropping of the NOTMUCH_BASE environment variable, the addition of
the .notmuch-config file, etc.)
This commit is contained in:
Carl Worth 2009-11-17 22:16:35 -08:00
parent 544df2f517
commit 4443bb15e6
1 changed files with 260 additions and 130 deletions
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@ -40,159 +40,182 @@ interface, or more likely, on top of the notmuch library
interface. See http://notmuchmail.org for more about alternate
interfaces to notmuch.
.SH COMMANDS
All commands need to know where your mail (and the notmuch database)
are stored. This is ${HOME}/mail by default. An alternate location can
be specified with the
.B NOTMUCH_BASE
environment variable.
The
.BR setup " and " new
commands are used to add new mail messages to the notmuch database.
.BR setup
command is used to configure Notmuch for first use, (or to reconfigure
it later).
.RS 4
.TP 4
.B setup
Interactively sets up notmuch for first use.
The setup command will prompt for the directory containing your email
archives, and will then proceed to build a database that indexes the
mail to allow for fast search of the archive.
The setup command will prompt for your full name, your primary email
address, any alternate email addresses you use, and the directory
containing your email archives. Your answers will be written to a
configuration file in ${HOME}/.notmuch-config . This configuration
file will be created with descriptive comments, making it easy to edit
by hand later to change the configuration. Or you can run
.B "notmuch setup"
again to change the configuration.
This directory can contain any number of sub-directories and should
primarily contain only files with indvidual email messages
(eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there are other,
non-email files (such as indexes maintained by other email programs)
then notmuch will do its best to detect those and ignore them.
The mail directory you specify can contain any number of
sub-directories and should primarily contain only files with individual
email messages (eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there are
other, non-email files (such as indexes maintained by other email
programs) then notmuch will do its best to detect those and ignore
them.
Mail storage that uses mbox format, (where one mbox file contains many
messages), will not work with notmuch. If that's how your mail is
currently stored, it is recommended you first convert it to maildir
format with a utility such as mb2md before running
.BR "notmuch setup" .
.B "notmuch setup" .
Invoking
.B notmuch
with no command argument will run
.B setup
if the setup command has not previously been completed.
.RE
.TP
The
.B new
command is used to incorporate new mail into the notmuch database.
.RS 4
.TP 4
.B new
Find and import any new messages to the database.
The
.B new
command scans all sub-directories of the database, adding new messages
that are found. Each new message will automatically be tagged with
both the
.BR inbox and unread
command scans all sub-directories of the database, performing
full-text indexing on new messages that are found. Each new message
will automatically be tagged with both the
.BR inbox " and " unread
tags.
You should run
.B "notmuch new"
once after first running
.B "notmuch setup"
to create the initial database. The first run may take a long time if
you have a significant amount of mail (several hundred thousand
messages or more). Subsequently, you should run
.B "notmuch new"
whenever new mail is delivered and you wish to incorporate it into the
database. These subsequent runs will be much quicker than the initial
run.
Note:
.B notmuch new
will skip any read-only directories, so you can use that to mark
directories that will not receive any new mail (and make
runs (other than the first run) will skip any read-only directories,
so you can use that to mark directories that will not receive any new
mail (and make
.B notmuch new
faster).
even faster).
Invoking
.B notmuch
with no command argument will run
.B new
if
.B "notmuch setup"
has previously been completed, but
.B "notmuch new"
has not previously been run.
.RE
Several of the notmuch commands accept search terms with a common
syntax. See the
.B "SEARCH SYNTAX"
section below for more details on the supported syntax.
The
.BR search " and "show
commands are used to query the email database.
.RS 4
.TP 4
.BR search " <search-term>..."
.BR search " [options] <search-term>..."
Search for messages matching the given search terms, and display as
results the threads containing the matched messages.
The output consists of one line per thread, giving a thread ID, the
date of the oldest matched message in the thread, and the subject from
that message.
date of the newest (or oldest, depending on the sort option) matched
message in the thread, the number of matched messages and total
messages in the thread, the names of all participants in the thread,
and the subject of the newest (or oldest) message.
Currently, in addition to free text (and quoted phrases) which match
terms appearing anywhere within an email, the following prefixes can
be used to search specific portions of an email, (where <brackets>
indicate user-supplied values):
from:<name-or-address>
to:<name-or-address>
subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
tag:<tag>
id:<message-id>
thread:<thread-id>
The from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of
an email message.
The to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
Any term prefixed with subject: will match only text from
the subject of an email. Quoted phrases are supported when
searching with: subject:\"this is a phrase\".
Valid tag values include
.BR inbox " and " unread
by default for new messages added by
.B notmuch new
as well as any other tag values added manually with
.BR "notmuch tag" .
Message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID: header
of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.
Thread ID values are generated internally by notmuch but can be seen
in the first column of output from
.B notmuch search
for example.
In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be
combined with Boolean operators (
.BR and ", " or ", " not
, etc.). each term in the query will be implicitly connected by a
logical AND if no explicit operator is provided, (except that terms
with a common prefix will be implicitly combined with OR until we get
Xapian defect #402 fixed).
Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean
operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the
shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
expression).
.TP
.BR reply " <search-term>..."
Constructs a reply template for a set of messages.
See the documentation of
Supported options for
.B search
for deatils of the supported syntax of search terms.
include
.RS 4
.TP 4
.BR \-\-max\-threads= <value>
To make replying to email easier,
.B notmuch reply
takes an existing set of messages and constructs a suitable mail
template, taking From: and To: messages and using those for the new
To: address; copying Cc: addresses, building a suitable new subject
including Re: at the front, adding the old message IDs to the
References list and setting the In-Reply-To: field correctly.
Restricts displayed search results to a subset of the complete results
that would match the terms. With this option, no more than <value>
thread results will be displayed. If this option is not used, then all
matching threads will be displayed. See also the
.B \-\-first
option.
The resulting message template is output to stdout.
.TP
.BR \-\-first= <value>
Omits the first <value> threads from the search results that would
otherwise be displayed. Together with the
.BR \-\-max\-threads
option, this can be used to perform incremental searches. For example,
the first 50 thread results can be displayed with
.B "\-\-first=0 \-\-max\-threads=50"
and the next 50 could be displayed with
.B "\-\-first=50 \-\-max\-threads=50"
etc.
.TP
.BR \-\-sort= ( newest\-first | oldest\-first )
This option can be used to present results in either chronological order
.RB ( oldest\-first )
or reverse chronological order
.RB ( newest\-first ).
Note: The thread order will be distinct between these two options
(beyond being simply reversed). When sorting by
.B oldest\-first
the threads will be sorted by the oldest message in each thread, but
when sorting by
.B newest\-first
the threads will be sorted by the newest message in each thread.
By default, results will be displayed in reverse chronological order,
(that is, the newest results will be displayed first).
See the
.B "SEARCH SYNTAX"
section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
.RE
.TP
.BR show " <search-term>..."
Shows all messages matching the search terms.
See the documentation of
.B search
for details of the supported syntax of search terms.
The messages will be grouped and sorted based on the threading (all
replies to a particular message will appear immediately after that
message in date order). The output is not indented by default, but
depth tags are printed so that proper indentation can be performed by
a post-processor (such as the emacs interface to notmuch).
The output format is plain-text, with all text-content MIME parts
decoded. Various components in the output,
.RB ( message ", " header ", " body ", " attachment ", and MIME " part ),
will be delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each marker consists of a
Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12), the name of the marker, and
then either an opening or closing brace, ('{' or '}'), to either open
or close the component.
A common use of
.B notmuch show
@ -202,14 +225,50 @@ column of output from the
.B notmuch search
command.
All messages will be displayed in date order. The output format is
plain-text, with all text-content MIME parts decoded. Various
components in the output,
.RB ( message ", " header ", " body ", " attachment ", and MIME " part ),
will be delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each marker consists of a
Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12), the name of the marker, and
then either an opening or closing brace, ('{' or '}'), to either open
or close the component.
See the
.B "SEARCH SYNTAX"
section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
.RE
The
.B reply
command is useful for preparing a template for an email reply.
.TP
.BR reply " <search-term>..."
Constructs a reply template for a set of messages.
To make replying to email easier,
.B notmuch reply
takes an existing set of messages and constructs a suitable mail
template. It take the content of the Reply-to header (if any,
otherwise From:) and places it int the To: header. It also copies any
value from the To: and CC: lists, but avoids including any of the
current user's email addresses (as configured in primary_mail or
other_email in the .notmuch-config file) in the recipient list
It also builds a suitable new subject, including Re: at the front (if
not already present), and adding the message IDs of the messages being
replied to to the References list and setting the In-Reply-To: field
correctly.
Finally, the original contents of the emails are quoted by prefixing
each line with '> ' and included in the body.
The resulting message template is output to stdout.
See the
.B "SEARCH SYNTAX"
section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
Note: It is most common to use
.B "notmuch reply"
with a search string matching a single message, (such as
id:<message-id>), but it can be useful to reply to several messages at
once. For example, when a series of patches are sent in a single
thread, replying to the entire thread allows for the reply to comment
on issue found in multiple patches.
.RE
The
@ -223,12 +282,9 @@ contents.
Add/remove tags for all messages matching the search terms.
The search terms are handled exactly as in
.B "notmuch search"
so one can use that command first to see what will be modified.
Tags prefixed by '+' are added while those prefixed by '-' are
removed. For each message, tag removal is before tag addition.
removed. For each message, tag removal is performed before tag
addition.
The beginning of <search-terms> is recognized by the first
argument that begins with neither '+' nor '-'. Support for
@ -236,17 +292,9 @@ an initial search term beginning with '+' or '-' is provided
by allowing the user to specify a "--" argument to separate
the tags from the search terms.
Caution: If you run
.B "notmuch new"
between reading a thread with
.B "notmuch show"
and removing the "inbox" tag for that thread with
.B "notmuch tag"
then you create the possibility of moving some messages from that
thread out of your inbox without ever reading them. The easiest way to
avoid this problem is to not run
.B "notmuch new"
between reading mail and removing tags.
See the
.B "SEARCH SYNTAX"
section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
.RE
The
@ -278,12 +326,87 @@ So if you've previously been using sup for mail, then the
.B "notmuch restore"
command provides you a way to import all of your tags (or labels as
sup calls them).
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.B NOTMUCH_BASE
Set to the directory which contains the user's mail to be indexed and
searched by notmuch. Notmuch will create a directory named
.B .notmuch
at the toplevel of this directory where it will store its database.
.SH SEARCH SYNTAX
Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases)
which will match all messages that contain all of the given
terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or
recipient headers.
In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force
terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where
<brackets> indicate user-supplied values):
from:<name-or-address>
to:<name-or-address>
subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
attachment:<word>
tag:<tag>
id:<message-id>
thread:<thread-id>
The
.B from:
prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of an email
message.
The
.B to:
prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any recipient of an
email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
Any term prefixed with
.B subject:
will match only text from the subject of an email. Searching for a
phrase in the subject is supported by including quotation marks around
the phrase, immediately following
.BR subject: .
The
.B attachment:
prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or extensions) of
attachments to email messages.
For
.BR tag: ,
valid tag values include
.BR inbox " and " unread
by default for new messages added by
.B notmuch new
as well as any other tag values added manually with
.BR "notmuch tag" .
For
.BR id: ,
message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID: header
of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.
The
.B thread:
prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are generated
internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages). These
thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from
.B "notmuch search"
In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be
combined with Boolean operators (
.BR and ", " or ", " not
, etc.). Each term in the query will be implicitly connected by a
logical AND if no explicit operator is provided, (except that terms
with a common prefix will be implicitly combined with OR until we get
Xapian defect #402 fixed).
Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean
operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the
shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
expression).
.SH SEE ALSO
The emacs-based interface to notmuch (available as
.B notmuch.el
@ -291,3 +414,10 @@ in the Notmuch distribution).
The notmuch website:
.B http://notmuchmail.org
.SH CONTACT
Feel free to send questions, comments, or kudos to the notmuch mailing
list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org> . Subscription is not required before
posting, but is available from the notmuchmail.org website.
Real-time interaction with the Notmuch community is available via IRC
(server: irc.freenode.net, channel: #notmuch).