[VM] VM and message-mode

[Robert Goldman]

I note that the VM manual states that it uses mail-mode, rather than message-mode for composing email.

I'm using Emacs 24, where message mode is the default, which means that a rash keystroke can send me into message-mode, and message mode is better supported than mail-mode.

I was thinking of trying to use message-mode with VM, but if that's A Bad Idea, please let me know. OTOH, if it is not ABI, any suggestions for how to use message mode would be appreciated. I would undertake to write up such suggestions for the VM manual.

cheers,
r

[Uday S Reddy]

Post by Robert Goldman
I note that the VM manual states that it uses mail-mode, rather than
message-mode for composing email.

Not exactly. When you use VM, you get to use what you might call
vm-mail-mode, which is built on top of mail-mode. To "use" message-mode
with VM, VM has to be modified to do that, which is on our To-do list but it
is of low priority at this point.

VM doesn't really "need" message-mode because it does its own MIME
processing. So, until the basic SMTP protocol changes, we will be fine with
the existing mail-mode. If Emacs stops shipping mail-mode, we will ship it
ourselves with VM, which is allowed under the GPL licensing.

Post by Robert Goldman
I'm using Emacs 24, where message mode is the default, which means that a
rash keystroke can send me into message-mode, and message mode is better
supported than mail-mode.

What keystroke can send you into message-mode? You mean, if you run `C-x m'
before you load VM, you get message-mode? If that is an issue, you might
want to bind `C-x m' in your .emacs.

Cheers,
Uday

[Robert Goldman]

Post by Uday S Reddy

Post by Robert Goldman
I note that the VM manual states that it uses mail-mode, rather than
message-mode for composing email.

Not exactly. When you use VM, you get to use what you might call
vm-mail-mode, which is built on top of mail-mode. To "use" message-mode
with VM, VM has to be modified to do that, which is on our To-do list but it
is of low priority at this point.

Thanks. I didn't fully understand what "use" meant in this context.

Post by Uday S Reddy

Post by Robert Goldman
I'm using Emacs 24, where message mode is the default, which means that a
rash keystroke can send me into message-mode, and message mode is better
supported than mail-mode.

What keystroke can send you into message-mode? You mean, if you run `C-x m'
before you load VM, you get message-mode? If that is an issue, you might
want to bind `C-x m' in your .emacs.

I see that it is even easier than that: I need to customize (or, for an
old-schooler like me), the mail-user-agent variable to be sendmail-user-agent,
instead of the default message-user-agent, and that controls what C-x m does.

Question: should one do something different to get a vm-ified mail mode? Or
should the VM community offer its own value for mail-user-agent that would be
vm-mail-user-agent?

Thanks for the help!
Robert

[Uday S Reddy]

Post by Robert Goldman
Question: should one do something different to get a vm-ified mail mode? Or
should the VM community offer its own value for mail-user-agent that would be
vm-mail-user-agent?

Yes, you need to set mail-user-agent to 'vm-user-agent.

Cheers,
Uday