Most of MH's multi-media-related functions are implemented in one program, mhn. Mhn performs four functions: message composition, message display, message scanning, and message decomposition.
Using mhn, you can create and read e-mail messages containing
these things:
Certain hardware and software resources are needed in conjunction with mhn to make images and sounds from multi-media messages available to you. An X terminal makes it possible to view certain standard image types. A workstation with audio capabilities makes it possible to hear certain audio formats. (Unfortunately, as of this writing, the X Window System specification doesn't accommodate audio data, and only certain types of workstations will play sounds for you.)
If you don't have these resources, well...you're probably not going to have quite as much fun, but you can still use some of the most useful multi-media features of MH.
You'll also need correspondents who can send and receive multi-media e-mail in MIME format. Anyone using MH 6.8 will do; even if you're just corresponding with yourself for test purposes.
MH version 6.8 was the first major release of MH to contain the MIME extensions. To find out whether your version of MH supports MIME, try running this command:
mhn -helpIf you see the mhn help message, then you've got multi-media MH. The help message should look something like this:
syntax: mhn [+folder] [msgs] [switches] switches are: -[no]auto -[no]ebcdicsafe -(form) formfile -[no]headers -[no]list -part number -[no]realsize -[no]rfc934mode -[no]serialonly -[no]show -[no]store -type content -[no]verbose -(help)
If the mhn command isn't available, then you'll see something like this:
mhn: Command not found.
In this tutorial, we're going to dive right into some examples, and save the more detailed explanations for later.