PMDF User's Guide
OpenVMS Edition

When you first invoke PMDF MAIL you can specify which commands always invoke the editor and whether or not to include the message header in the editor buffer. This is done with the /EDIT qualifier of the PMDF MAIL command.

The /EDIT qualifier accepts the following keyword values:

ALL

Always invoke the editor in conjunction with all commands that accept the /EDIT qualifier.

DIRECTORY

Always invoke the editor to display DIRECTORY and DIRECTORY/FOLDER listings.

FORWARD

Always invoke the editor to edit messages being forwarded with the FORWARD command.

HEADER

NOHEADER

By default the message's header is always displayed in the editor. To inhibit this, specify /EDIT=NOHEADER.

KEPT[=editor-process-name]

Attach to an editor subprocess to perform editing operations. See Section 8.9.3 for further details

NONE

Never invoke the editor unless explicitly requested to do so with the /EDIT qualifier.

READ

Always invoke the editor to display messages being read with the READ, CURRENT, BACK, NEXT, FIRST, and LAST commands.

REPLY[=EXTRACT[=quote]]

Always invoke the editor to edit messages being replied to with the ANSWER or REPLY commands. If the optional EXTRACT keyword is specified, then the content of the message being replied to will be included in the reply. To specify a text string to use to quote each line of the extracted message text, specify a value for the EXTRACT keyword. For instance, to quote each line with the two characters "> ", invoke PMDF MAIL with the command

$ PMDF MAIL/EDIT=REPLY=EXTRACT="> "

SEND

Always invoke the editor to compose messages being sent with the MAIL or SEND commands.

For instance, to cause the editor to always be invoked for messages you send or reply to, and to not include the message header in the editor, you could invoke PMDF MAIL with the command

$ PMDF MAIL/EDIT=(SEND,REPLY=EXTRACT="> ",NOHEADER)

You might even consider defining in your LOGIN.COM command procedure a command which will always invoke PMDF MAIL using your editing choices. For example, the DCL command

$ PMAIL == "PMDF MAIL/EDIT=(SEND,REPLY=EXTRACT=""> "",NOHEADER)

makes it so that whenever you issue the command PMAIL, PMDF MAIL is invoked with /EDIT=(SEND,REPLY=EXTRACT="> ",NOHEADER).

Remember the following when you use the /EDIT qualifier:

• When you do not specify any keywords with /EDIT, the default is /EDIT=(SEND,REPLY).
• After you save your edits and exit from the editor, you complete your SEND, REPLY, or FORWARD operation.
• When you want to cancel a SEND, REPLY, or FORWARD operation, exit from the editor without saving your changes.