Mail Modes

There are two different ways to use MAIL8: interactive mode and command mode.

In interactive mode, you enter the MAIL8 subsystem, then type in MAIL8 commands. You stay inside the MAIL8 subsystem until you explicitly quit MAIL8.

In command mode, you invoke MAIL8 and give it a single MAIL8 command. When MAIL8 has carried out this command, it terminates and returns you to whatever you were doing before you called MAIL8.

To use MAIL8 in interactive mode, type

          mail

in response to the TSS "*" prompt. Upon entering this mode, MAIL8 tells you about any messages in your mailbox. MAIL8 then displays

          Mail?

to prompt for a MAIL8 command. Each time you enter a command, MAIL8 executes the command and then prompts for a new command with "Mail?". To leave interactive MAIL8, type

          done

          quit

To use MAIL8 in command mode, type

          mail COMMAND

where COMMAND is any MAIL8 command. MAIL8 carries out that single command then returns to TSS.

You can put several commands on the MAIL8 command line, separating those commands with semicolon ";" characters, as in

          mail COMMAND ; COMMAND ; COMMAND ; ...

With this type of command line, MAIL8 executes the given commands in the order they appear on the command line, then enters interactive mode to take more MAIL8 commands. As usual in interactive mode, MAIL8 keeps prompting you for new commands with "Mail?" until you quit with DONE or Quit.

If you don't want to go into interactive mode, you can put DONE or Quit as the last command on the command line that invokes MAIL8, as in

          mail COMMAND ; COMMAND ; quit

In this case, MAIL8 executes the two commands that appear on the command line, then quits (without entering interactive mode).