


POPPY(1)						 POPPY(1)


NAME
       poppy  -	 client	 to perform simple tasks with a POP3/IMAP
       server

SYNOPSIS
       poppy [options] [server_name]

       poppy [options] [username@server_name]

DESCRIPTION
       poppy retreives mail headers one by one from a mail server
       using  the  POP3	 or  IMAP mail transfer protocol and then
       allows you to perform simple tasks on those  messages.  It
       is  primarily  used  by	systems	 that have limited system
       resources, such as slow ppp connections, low  disk  space,
       or  limited  graphical support. It is written to work with
       version 4 and 5 of Perl. When  started,	poppy  looks  for
       configuration  information  in  the ~/.poppyrc file. Check
       the FILES section for information on this file.

       poppy will individually	read  the  header  to  each  mail
       message	on  the	 POP3/IMAP  server  and then allow you to
       view, save, delete or reply to these messages.

       poppy was written to fill a specific need.  Most POP3 mail
       readers	simply	download  and  delete all emails from the
       mail server or download them and don't delete them at all.
       There is usually no way to tell the mail server afterwards
       to delete only specific emails.	poppy allows you to go in
       and  delete  emails specifically.  This way one could read
       all their email from one	 location,  say	 work,	and  then
       delete  all  but	 the  important	 message so that they can
       later  download	them  all,  say	 from  home.	This   is
       especially  nice	 since	you are able to make the best use
       out of your high speed internet connections to improve the
       time spent on your low speed connection.

       Programs	 that support IMAP are usually a little better in
       that they will only retrieve the mail headers but there is
       currently  very	few  programs that fully support multiple
       email accounts that are both IMAP and POP3 accounts.

       A second use is to speed your  downloading  times.   poppy
       works well along with other mail readers.  Most other POP3
       mail readers download all your mail first and then let you
       view each one.  If you get large emails it can take a long
       download period before you can read your mail.	Also,  on
       unreliable  connections,	 it  is	 sometimes  impossible to
       download your email when someone sends you a  large  email
       if  the	long  download	aborts.	 Using poppy you can read
       just the headers to see which are important and then  read
       the  interesting	 ones and possible delete any exsessively
       large ones. You can then later use your main mail  program
       to download the bulk of email during idle computer use.

       And  lastly, you can create simple replies to the original
       author of the email if you have defined an SMTP host to be
       used to relay the message.  Poppy can even use a different
       From address for each mail account you have.

       poppy is a very simple program written in perl(1)  and  is
       easily modified. Note that you must have perl Version 4 or
       higher installed on your system	to  use	 this  verion  of
       poppy.

OPTIONS
       After  a	 message  header  is  displayed you are given the
       following options

       [V]iew message
	      Display  the  current  message,  using  $PAGER   if
	      defined in your enviornment.

       [T]op of message
	      Display a specified number of lines from top of the
	      message. Note: all of the message	 header	 will  be
	      displayed	 even if less than the number of lines in
	      the header  are  requested.   If	a  value  is  not
	      present  with  the command then it will be prompted
	      for.

       [D]elete message
	      Delete the current message from  server.	 You  may
	      optionally specify a range of messages to delete by
	      adding the range to the option (example: "D  1-4").

       [S]ave message
	      Save/Append  current message to a specified file in
	      standard unix mailbox format.  If a filename is not
	      specified	  after	 the  command  then  it	 will  be
	      prompted for. If the user specifies a  filename  of
	      "!" then poppy will save the message to th filename
	      as set by POPPY_MBOX environment	variable  or  the
	      mbox line in the configuration file.

       [N]ext message
	      Skip to the next message on the server.

       [P]revious message
	      Go to the previous message on the server.

       [G]o to a message
	      Allows  you  to  jump  to	 a different message.  If
	      message number is not  specified	along  with  this
	      option  (example:	 "G  2") then it will be prompted
	      for.

       [R]eply
	      Send a reply back to  the	 author	 of  the  current
	      message.

       [A]bort
	      Quit  and	 do not delete any previous messages from
	      the POP3/IMAP server.  Note that	on  IMAP  servers
	      other  mail  programs could have marked messages to
	      be  deleted  but	didn't	actually  use  the  Purge
	      command to delete them.  Using the [A]bort function
	      in poppy will cause these messages to  be	 unmarked
	      for deletion.

       [Q]uit Quit  program  and  possibly  delete  all specified
	      messages from POP3/IMAP server.

       [Enter]
	      Go to next message on the server.

       [-]    Go to the previous message on the server.

       [|]    Pipe the current message	to  an	external  program
	      specifed after the pipe option (example: "| more").

       [!]    Shell to an external program.  If no parameters are
	      given with the option then it runs a shell program.
	      If parameters are given then it attempts to execute
	      the parameters.

       The following Command Line options are supports.


       -a     Work with all messages.  Overrides the -g option.

       -c name
	      Use specified configuration filename instead of the
	      default.

       -f     Enter "From" Mode.  Display all messages	From  and
	      Subject	fields.	  Similar  to  the  unix  command
	      "from".  This command can be used	 along	with  the
	      "-g"  option to display a short listing of all your
	      new email or with the "-a" option to display all of
	      your email headers.

       -g     Goto  first  new	message at startup.  Not all POP3
	      servers support tracking the last read message.

       -h     Print short help message

       -l     Display Long Mail Headers.

       -s     Display Short Mail Headers.

       -v     Verbose Mode.  Print out debuging messages

       -q     Quiet Mode.  Print out less messages then usual.

       server_name
	      The full name or a substring to search for in  your
	      .poppyrc	file.	If  found, it will log in to this
	      server  to  read	mail.	If  no	 server_name   is
	      specified	 then  poppy  will  log	 in  to the first
	      server listed in your the .poppyrc file.

       user_name@server_name
	      A combination of the user name and server	 name  to
	      search  for  in your .poppyrc file.  This is useful
	      if you have multiple user accounts on a single mail
	      server. Substrings can still be used for the server
	      name.

FILES
       ~/.poppyrc
	      Per user configuration  file.  This  file	 contains
	      multiple	lines  of  data,  each	starting  with	a
	      keyword and followed by parameters.  There must  be
	      at  least	 one  line that contains the POP3 or IMAP
	      keyword.

       The format of the  pop  and  imap  keyword  lines  are  as
       follows:

       pop server_name server_port login_name password

       imap server_name server_port login_name password

	      server_name is the name of the host from which mail
	      is to be retrieved.  This machine must be running a
	      pop3 or imap daemon.

	      server_port  is  the port number of the server port
	      of the POP3/IMAP	service	 on  this  host,  and  is
	      typically port 110 for POP3 or 143 for IMAP.

	      login login name used on server.

	      password	password  on  the  server. If password is
	      left of the line then poppy will	prompt	the  user
	      each  time  it  is  ran.	 The password may contain
	      spaces.

       smtp smtp_host smtp_port email_address server_name user

	      smtp_host is the hostname of the SMTP host.

	      smtp_port is the port address of the SMTP host.  It
	      is almost always port 25.

	      email_address   is  the  address	to  use	 for  all
	      outgoing emails on this SMTP host.

	      server_name user is the server name and  user  name
	      of  the  POP3  or	 IMAP server associated with this
	      STMP host.  It is valid to have one stmp line  that
	      does  not	 include  the  server_name  and	 user  it
	      associated with.	This will be used  as  a  default
	      SMTP  server  for accounts that do not specifically
	      associate	 an  SMTP  server  with	  it.	 If   the
	      server_name and user field is left off then it must
	      be the last smtp line in the configuration file.

       editor program
	      program is the name  of  the  editor  to	run  with
	      creating email messages to send.

       pager program
	      program  is  the	name  of the pager program to use
	      when view emails.

       shell program
	      program is the external program  to  run	when  the
	      command is used.

       mbox filename
	      Default  filename	 to  use when saving messages and
	      the user specifies "!"

       gonew  Add this keyword with no parameters when you  would
	      like  to	start up poppy by default to start at new
	      messages.

       You may have multiple lines containing  the  pop	 or  imap
       keyword if you need to access multiple mail servers.

       You may have multiple lines containing the smtp keyword to
       associate a different SMTP server  and  From  address  for
       each  POP3  or  IMAP  account.	A  line containing just a
       default SMTP server and From address is	also  valid.   If
       you  have  multiple  connections	 to  the  internet  it is
       suggested to create multiple .poppyrc files to get  around
       firewall problems associated with SMTP servers.

       Since  it  contains  sensitive  data, ~/.poppyrc must have
       permissions  600	 (chmod	 600  ~/.poppyrc).   poppy   will
       complain and exit if ~/.poppyrc has the wrong permissions.

       If the file ~/.poppyrc does not exist  poppy  will  prompt
       for the host, port and login information interactively and
       then save this data to ~./poppyrc.

       Note that under Win95/NT, you may wish to use a	different
       name  than ~/.poppyrc as your configuration file.  This is
       changable inside the poppy script.

ENVIROMENT
       PAGER  If set it	 will  use  this  program  to  view  mail
	      messages.	  It  can  also	 be  defined  inside  the
	      script.

       EDITOR If set it will use this program when creating email
	      messages.

       SHELL  If  set  it will use this program as the default to
	      run when a user uses the shell command ("!").

       POPPY_MBOX
	      Default filename to be used  when	 saving	 messages
	      and user specifies "!".

AUTHORS
       Chris Bagwell (cbagwell@sprynet.com)

SEE ALSO
       The  POP3  protocol is documented in RFC 1939 and the IMAP
       protocol is documented in  RFC  1730.   SMTP  protocol  is
       documented in RFC821.






























