mailbox(1)
mailbox - mail notification
As shipped in IRIX 6.5.19. Unchanged since IRIX 6.5.
NAME mailbox - mail notification SYNOPSIS mailbox [ -clbd ] [ -u user ] [ -s size ] [ -L latitude ] [ -M longitude ] [ -S label ] [ -m mail-program ] [ -f mail-file ] [ -C envelope-counter ] [ -B beeper ] [ -D directory ] [ -g XxY ] [ -N window name ] DESCRIPTION mailbox watches your mailbox, and notifies you when you have mail. It displays a small picture of a mailbox to perform notification. The flag on the mailbox rises whenever new mail messages appear in your mailbox. You can open the mailbox and read your mail by clicking on the mailbox window with the left mouse button. If one of the shift keys is held down, or if you have no mail, the mailbox door simply opens without running the mail reading program. Once you have finished reading your mail, the mailbox flag goes down and the door closes. The number of envelopes in the mailbox corresponds to the number of messages in your mailbox. Manila envelopes represent five messages each. Each normal letter-sized envelope represent one message. mailbox knows how to count messages written by Berkeley and AT&T mail, and by mh. mailbox also understands Content-Length headers. The MAIL environment variable is used to determine where to watch for mail. If this variable does not exist, the USER environment variable is appended to the string "/usr/mail", and this file is used. OPTIONS -c Run in colormap mode. Ordinarily, the decision to display in colormap mode is made on the basis of available graphics hardware. -l Run in lighted, RGB mode. This is currently a no-op. -b Don't beep when mail arrives. -d Print out longitude and latitude on startup. -u user Watch the mail of a user other than yourself. -m mail_program Execute the specified program when requested to. The argument following the option must be a single string. This is generally accomplished by putting double quotes around the string. If an empty string is passed, mailbox simply opens and closes the mailbox door when the window is clicked on. The program string is executed by system(3S), so environment variables and other shell substitutions can be used in this string. Note that the program that is started by mailbox probably should not be a program that reads from standard input and output, since it tries to run in the shell window that started it. If such a behavior is desired, the -m option starts a wsh(1G) window to contain the program. The default -m command used by mailbox is /usr/sbin/xwsh -fg 7 -bg 97 -bold 230 -cursorfg 95 \ -geom 80x40 -name Mail -holdonerror -e /usr/sbin/Mail The environment variable MAILBOXPROG can be set to specify a mail program in the same manner as specifying the -m switch. If the environment variable is set and the -m switch is not specified, the environment variable determines the mail program. If the environment variable is set and the -m switch is also specified, the command line mail program overrides the setting of the environment variable. -s size Set the size of the window, in points. The default size is 96 points, or 1.33 inches. The mailbox window is always square. -g position Set the position of the window in pixels. The position has the following form: <X>x<Y> or <X>X<Y> where <X> is the X position in pixels and <Y> is the Y position in pixels for the lower left corner of the window. The origin is the lower left corner of screen. -L latitude Specify the latitude where the mailbox is located. This is used to determine the direction of the sun, and the times of sunset and sunrise. Latitudes south of the equator are specified as a negative number. If no latitude is specified, 37 degrees 30' N is assumed. The latitude can also be specified through the environment variable LATITUDE, which overrides the default latitude, but is overridden by command-line options. -M longitude Specify the longitude where the mailbox is located. This is used to determine the direction of the sun, and the times of sunset and sunrise. The default longitude is 122 degrees west. Longitudes are expressed as degrees west of Greenwich, England. Longitudes east of Greenwich are specified as negative numbers. The longitude can also be specified through the environment variable LONGITUDE, which operates in the same way as LATITUDE. -S label Put a small sign on top of the mailbox with the specified label printed on it. Unfortunately, the sign is hard to read if the window is small, due to resolution limits. If this bothers you, make the mailbox bigger with the -s option. -N window name The window name is any string to be given the program as the name or title. X resources can then be specified for <name> and refer to this window. -f file Specify that mailbox watch a file other than your system mailbox, as though it were a mailbox. Note that mailbox only puts up the flag if it determines that actual mail messages have been added to the file, by counting the number of messages. However, the -C option can be used to change the way that mailbox counts messages. -C envelope-counter mailbox usually counts the number of envelopes in your mailbox every time that it notices that the mailbox has been touched. If the number of envelopes is greater than the last time it checked, it raises the flag. However, you can change mailbox's concept of how to count envelopes by specifying an "envelope-counting" program. The name of the mail file being watched is appended to the specified string, and the result is passed to system(3S). The job of the counting program is to call exit(2) with an argument that is equal to the number of envelopes. If the counting program exits with a negative status, or if it is stopped by a signal, the number of envelopes is assumed to be zero. Because exit status is modulo 256, this is really only useful for mailboxes with less than 256 messages. This option can be used to turn mailbox into a more general file- watching program, in conjunction with the -f and -m options. -B beeper mailbox usually beeps whenever it determines that new mail has arrived. You can override this action by providing a "beeper" program. Typical beeping programs might send data to /dev/audio. The beeping program is a string that is passed to system(3S). -D directory This option tells mailbox to watch the named directory instead of a file. When in this mode, mailbox assumes that each file in the directory (except files whose names start with '.') is a mail message. This mode is useful for users of the mh and xmh(1) mail handling programs who choose to have messages delivered directly into folders using the features of slocal. For example the following command tells mailbox to watch the mh folder called inbox and to use xmh as the mail reader. mailbox -D ~/Mail/inbox -S inbox -m "xmh -initial inbox" The arguments to xmh tell it to start with inbox as its initial folder. This is its default. The arguments are included here for illustration only. When xmh starts it reads each message in the folder in order to look at its subject line. This fools mailbox into thinking you have read the message, and thus the flag can be lowered prematurely. FILES /usr/sbin/Mail Default mail program if the -m switch is not specified and $MAILBOXPROG is not set. $MAILBOXPROG Default mail program if the -m switch is not specified. /usr/mail/$USER Default mail file if the -f switch is not specified and $MAIL is not set. $MAIL Default mail file if the -f switch is not specified. AUTHOR Andrew Myers SEE ALSO chkconfig(1M), mail_att(1), mail_bsd(1), su(1M).