REPLY - reply to a Saved message.

The Reply Command

Syntax:

          Reply [options]
          Reply_Delete [options]

Examples:

          r
          3 rep +conf
          $reply bcc=mmurdock s="New Subject"

Description:

Reply sends a reply to a Saved message. If you specify a single message reference, MAIL8 looks through your Saved drawer, finds out who sent you that message, and sends your reply to that person. If you do not specify a message reference, MAIL8 sends your reply to the person who sent you the current Saved message. If you are at end-of-drawer, MAIL8 gives you an error.

As shown in the examples, options can give characteristics to your Outbound reply or add information lines.

By default, the Subject information line of your reply will be the Subject line of the original message with "Re:" in front of it. For example, if the subject line of the original message was

          Subject: Your Report

the subject line of your reply is

          Subject: Re: Your Report

You can get a different subject using the Subject= option on the Reply command line.

By default, MAIL8 ignores the Cc: line in the original message. This means that copies are only sent to people mentioned with explicit CC=user options on the Reply command line. However, the +All option for Reply tells MAIL8 to send copies to all the people mentioned in the original Cc: list as well as to new CC=user recipients. Even with +All, MAIL8 won't send a copy of the message to your own userid; if you want to keep a copy, you have to add a CC= option for yourself.

Because you do not know who received blind copies of the original message, those people do not receive copies of your reply. However, you can specify a Bcc: list of your own using the BlindCarbonCopies= option.

When MAIL8 is ready for the text of your message, it displays your input prompt if you have set one with Option InputPrompt=. (See "expl mail option input" for more details.) MAIL8 then gathers lines for the text of the message until you enter a line that only consists of a dot "." followed by carriage return.

When MAIL8 has created the Outbound message and put the notification(s) in the correct Unread drawer(s), MAIL8 writes messages of the form

          Message sent to jsmith

for each intended recipient.

Possible Options:

+All

sends copies to all the people named in the information lines at the beginning of the original message including the sender, people in the To: list, and people on the Cc: list. You do not receive a copy yourself (unless you explicitly put your name on the userid list).

+AnswerBack

puts the AnswerBack characteristic on the Outbound message.

+Attached_Files

sends out files that were attached to the original message. If this option is not specified, attached files are not sent.

BlindCarbonCopies=user

sends a "blind" copy of the message to the specified user. Other recipients are not told that this person received a copy of the message. To send blind copies to several people, specify several BCC= options, as in

        bcc=name1 bcc=name2 ...

CarbonCopies=user

sends a copy of the message to the specified user. Recipients are told that this person received a copy of the message. To send copies to several people, specify several CC= options, as in

        cc=name1 cc=name2 ...

COMMent="string"

attaches a Comments line to the message. This line appears with the other header lines in the message.

+Confidential

puts the Confidential characteristic on the Outbound message.

File=filename

attaches the contents of the given file to your message. For further information, see "expl mail attach".

Keywords="string"

attaches a Keywords header line to the message. A Keywords header line is typically used to list some of the important topics mentioned in the message.

Message="string"

supplies the body of the message directly. In this case, MAIL8 does not prompt you for the body of the message; MAIL8 simply uses the supplied string. The Message= option is useful when your message is very short. Note that MAIL8 still prompts for a Subject unless you specify the Subject= argument or have Option -AskSubject in effect.

+MUTE

sends the message without displaying any information messages. You will not see the usual "Message sent to user" message, nor will you see any advisory messages set up by recipients. MAIL8 still displays error messages. You may wish to use +MUTE to reduce the amount of output sent to your screen or to a command file. If you want to determine whether a +MUTE message was sent successfully, use Summary +Outbound.

+Registered

puts the Registered characteristic on the Outbound message.

-Registered

sends an unregistered message. This option is useful if the +Register_All option is in effect.

SeNder="string"

gives additional information about the sender (e.g. full name instead of just the userid). This overrides any sender name you may have specified with the Option SeNder command (see "expl mail option sender").

Subject="string"

attaches a new Subject information line to the message. The string must be enclosed in single or double quotes if it contains blanks.

<filename

obtains the message from the given file instead of prompting for terminal input.

Reply_Delete:

The Reply_Delete command works like Reply and takes the same options. The difference is that RD deletes the message to which you are replying, once the reply has been sent off. RD is useful for back-and-forth conversations between people who are both signed on to the system, since the automatic deletion saves time and accumulation of unneeded messages.