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mh-e

1.2 Getting Started

Because there are many old versions of mh-e out there, it is important to know which version you have. I'll be talking about Version 5 which is similar to Version 4 and vastly different from Version 3.

First, enter M-x load-library RET mh-e RET. (5) The message, `Loading mh-e...done', should be displayed in the minibuffer. If you get `Cannot open load file: mh-e', then your Emacs is very badly configured, or mh-e is missing. You may wish to have your system administrator install a new Emacs or at least the latest mh-e files.

Having loaded mh-e successfully, enter M-x mh-version RET. The version of mh-e should be displayed. Hopefully it says that you're running Version 5.0.2 which is the latest version as of this printing. If instead Emacs beeps and says `[No match]', then you're running an old version of mh-e.

If these tests reveal a non-existent or old version of mh-e, please consider obtaining a new version. You can have your system administrator upgrade the system-wide version, or you can install your own personal version. It's really quite easy; instructions for getting and installing mh-e are in A.4 Getting mh-e.

Also, older versions of mh-e assumed that you had already set up your MH environment. Newer versions set up a new MH environment for you by running install-mh and notifying you of this fact with the message in a temporary buffer:

I'm going to create the standard MH path for you.

Therefore, if you've never run MH before and you're using an old version of mh-e, you need to run install-mh from the shell before you continue the tour. If you don't, you'll be greeted with the error message: `Can't find MH profile'.

If, during the tour described in this chapter, you see a message like: `Searching for program: no such file or directory, /usr/local/bin/mhpath', it means that the MH programs and files are kept in a nonstandard directory. In this case, simply add the following to `~/.emacs' and restart emacs.

(setq mh-progs "/path/to/MH/binary/directory/") (setq mh-lib "/path/to/MH/library/directory/")

The `~' notation used by `~/.emacs' above represents your home directory. This is used by the bash and csh shells. If your shell does not support this feature, you could use the environment variable `$HOME' (such as `$HOME/.emacs') or the absolute path (as in `/home/wohler/.emacs') instead.

At this point, you should see something like the screen in the figure in 1.4 Receiving Mail. We're now ready to move on.