Read me first

Mew is an interface to integrate

• Email
• NetNews
• MIME(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
• PGP(Pretty Good Privacy)

and to make it easy to view and compose them. With Mew you can send a picture of a birthday cake with the song "Happy Birthday to you" to your friend, which is encrypted by strong cryptograph. NetNews is supposed to be integrated in version 2.xx or later.

Mew is an acronym of "Messaging in the Emacs World". You should spell it with the first letter capitalized and pronounce it as it is(i.e. meow of cats). When the author started programming it, he chose a cute word from his English dictionary. So, Mew.

The features of Mew version 1.9x are as follows:

• You can easily display a very complicated structured message. What you should do to view messages is just type `SPC'.
• If you know file operations such as copy, you can compose a very complicated message without any troubles.
• You can start to read messages before the termination of listing of messages.
• Since Mew preserves lists of messages in Summary mode, you can list up the gap between the last and current incrementally when you move into
• Mew neatly guesses a default folder for refiling(Those who receives many messages cannot live without this feature).
• In Draft mode, you can complete field names, Email addresses, receiver's names, domain names, and folder names.
• You can easily pick up messages which you want by specifying conditions such as Subject: and Date:.
• Useful marks are provided. You can handle "encoded with uuencode then split" messages with one operation.
• Mew automatically decodes a message encrypted with PGP. It also automatically verifies a signed message.
• You can easily encrypt or sign a message with PGP.
• It takes a time to analyze MIME syntax or to verify a PGP signature. While a user read a message, Mew processes the next message so as to display the next message faster. Analyzed messages are cached for a while.
• You can give a single view for multiple folders.
• If you use Mew on XEmacs, you can enjoy icon-based interface which is equivalent to key-based interface.

Mew is officially supposed to run on Emacs 19.28, 19.34, and 20.3 or later, Mule 2.3 or later, and XEmacs 20.4 or later. Emacs other than described, such as Emacs 18, Nemacs, Mule 1, and XEmacs 19 and 20.3 are not and will not be supported in the future. Mew may support beta versions of Emacs but Mew conforms the spec of official release when available.

Throughout this manual, "Emacs" means all supported platforms. "Mule" indicates multi-lingual platforms such as Mule 2, Emacs 20, and XEmacs 20.4 complied with the --with-mule option while "Bilingual Emacs" means English-and-Latin1 platforms including Emacs 19 and XEmacs 20.4 complied without the --with-mule option. "XEmacs" indicates graphical platforms such as XEmacs 20.4 whereas text-only platforms are called "Text Emacs".