fetchMailTIFFs - automatically retrieve MailTIFFs from the NEXTTOYOU MailTIFFs database
convertMailTIFFs - convert MailTIFF names to the correct format
fetchMailTIFFs [ -h -l -t timeout ]
mailDBupdate.in creates and maintains the aliases and passwd files that are normally found in the directory /LocalLibrary/Images/People. The contents of these two files appear in the Users, Groups, and Login Names components of Mail's Addresses panel. They enable Mail.app and some newsreaders to display pictures of users in the upper right corner of the mailbox window if a TIFF file named like their mail address is stored in /LocalLibrary/Images/People. To get detailed information about the possible options, use the -h option for help. Look at /LocalLibrary/Images/People/log to get logging information.
mailDBupdate.in is a zsh script. If you use NEXTSTEP < v3.3 and don't have installed zsh, you need to install it in /usr/bin.
Contrary to mailDBupdate, mailDBupdate.in lists only "real" users from NetInfo in passwd. Virtual system users (with a user ID < 100) or user templates (with a home directory in the /usr/template hierarchy) won't get listed. This way, the Login Names browser of Mail's Addresses panel becomes easier to handle.
Contrary to mailDBupdate, mailDBupdate.in lists only the user names and strips off the remaining NetInfo information. This is sufficient for the purpose of /LocalLibrary/Images/People/passwd and makes it easier to read.
Contrary to mailDBupdate, mailDBupdate.in registers users of both the root and the local NetInfo domain of the computer which it is running on. Local users of other hosts of the NetInfo network might be registered as well by adding the hostnames of these computers as parameters for mailDBupdate.in.
In case the user's mail address includes a different name for host rather than the hostname of the computer mailDBupdate.in is running on, mailDBupdate.in allows to specify an alternative hostname as a parameter to the option -a and then enters aliases with this alternative hostname, too. In particular, -a "" may be entered for no hostname at all in the mail address, i.e. user@domain (note that there must be a space between -a and "" in this case!).
mailDBupdate.in adds all users from the internet it finds MailTIFFs for in /LocalLibrary/Images/People to the passwd file. This is necessary because Mail.app will display pictures only from users listed in passwd. Note that Mail.app registers new users only after a restart!
For users from the internet who write from different addresses, aliases may be manually entered in a file named /LocalLibrary/Images/People/aliases.in in the form of newuser@newhost.newdomain: user@host.domain, given that the user's picture is named user@host.domain.tiff. mailDBupdate.in will add entries in this file to aliases. You may also enter manually any other aliases you may want into aliases.in. Especially, if different users of a local network need different alternative hostnames, the -a option will not be sufficient and the aliases needed must be entered manually into aliases.in.
For MailTIFFs retrieved from the NEXTTOYOU MailTIFFs database (see below), if there are according aliases files listing all aliases of the user, mailDBupdate.in will register these aliases files, import their data into aliases.in automatically and delete them afterwards. This way the aliases.in file gets updated automatically if you get your MailTIFFs from the NEXTTOYOU database.
MailTIFFs which have been stored by EnhanceMail.bundle (version >= 2.0 beta7) will be imported into /LocalLibrary/Images/People thereby allowing newsreaders to benefit from the data. For the correct translation of file names mailDBupdate.in makes use of the file aliases.tiffs which is produced by EnhanceMail in every directory it stores MailTIFFs in. Note that Mail.app will register these new users only after a restart so that MailTIFFs received via EnhanceMail will "vanish" between a run of mailDBupdate.in and the next restart of Mail.app!
mailDBupdate.in will delete MailTIFFs from users who have been stored neither in a mailbox nor in PersonalINN or another inn installation for a certain period (default 6 months). Note that this period starts with the time when no mail and no posting of this user have been stored on your local computer anymore, not with the time when they arrived. Since this function puts a heavy load on the computer, it is executed only every 10 days (changeable with the -d option).
If you already have a lot of MailTIFFs in the old format user.host.domain (as used by NewsGrazer), use convertMailTIFFs to convert them.
Note that if you haven't posted on usenet for a long time, you might want to resend your MailTIFF to the NEXTTOYOU MailTIFFs database since your MailTIFF is probably deleted from most people's machines by mailDBupdate.in's automatic delete function.
mailDBupdate.in expects the MailTIFFs database to be in LocalLibrary/Images/People of the computer it is installed on and the users' mailboxes to be in ~/Mailboxes. These paths cannot be configured but by editing mailDBupdate.in.
mailDBupdate.in's function to delete old MailTIFFs cannot cope with more than approx. 8000 newsgroups. Contact the author if you run into problems regarding this number.
fetchMailTIFFs expects the MailTIFFs database to be in LocalLibrary/Images/People of the computer it is installed on. This path cannot be configured.