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Commands

Header Commands

All these commands move to the header in question. If it doesn't exist, it will be inserted.

C-c ?
Describe the message mode.
C-c C-f C-t
Go to the To header (message-goto-to).
C-c C-f C-b
Go to the Bcc header (message-goto-bcc).
C-c C-f C-f
Go to the Fcc header (message-goto-fcc).
C-c C-f C-c
Go to the Cc header (message-goto-cc).
C-c C-f C-s
Go to the Subject header (message-goto-subject).
C-c C-f C-r
Go to the Reply-To header (message-goto-reply-to).
C-c C-f C-n
Go to the Newsgroups header (message-goto-newsgroups).
C-c C-f C-d
Go to the Distribution header (message-goto-distribution).
C-c C-f C-o
Go to the Followup-To header (message-goto-followup-to).
C-c C-f C-k
Go to the Keywords header (message-goto-keywords).
C-c C-f C-u
Go to the Summary header (message-goto-summary).

Movement

C-c C-b
Move to the beginning of the body of the message (message-goto-body).
C-c C-i
Move to the signature of the message (message-goto-signature).

Insertion

C-c C-y
Yank the message that's being replied to into the message buffer (message-yank-original).
C-c C-q
Fill the yanked message (message-fill-yanked-message).
C-c C-w
Insert a signature at the end of the buffer (message-insert-signature).
message-ignored-cited-headers
All headers that match this regexp will be removed from yanked messages. The default is `.', which means that all headers will be removed.
message-citation-line-function
Function called to insert the citation line. The default is message-insert-citation-line.
message-yank-prefix
When you are replying to or following up an article, you normally want to quote the person you are answering. Inserting quoted text is done by yanking, and each quoted line you yank will have message-yank-prefix prepended to it. The default is `> '. If it is nil, just indent the message.
message-indentation-spaces
Number of spaces to indent yanked messages.
message-cite-function
Function for citing an original message. The default is message-cite-original. You can also set it to sc-cite-original to use Supercite.
message-indent-citation-function
Function for modifying a citation just inserted in the mail buffer. This can also be a list of functions. Each function can find the citation between (point) and (mark t). And each function should leave point and mark around the citation text as modified.
message-signature
String to be inserted at the end of the message buffer. If t (which is the default), the message-signature-file file will be inserted instead. If a function, the result from the function will be used instead. If a form, the result from the form will be used instead. If this variable is nil, no signature will be inserted at all.
message-signature-file
File containing the signature to be inserted at the end of the buffer. The default is `~/.signature'.

Note that RFC1036 says that a signature should be preceded by the three characters `-- ' on a line by themselves. This is to make it easier for the recipient to automatically recognize and process the signature. So don't remove those characters, even though you might feel that they ruin your beautiful design, like, totally.

Also note that no signature should be more than four lines long. Including ASCII graphics is an efficient way to get everybody to believe that you are silly and have nothing important to say.

Various Commands

C-c C-r
Caesar rotate (aka. rot13) the current message (message-caesar-buffer-body). If narrowing is in effect, just rotate the visible portion of the buffer. A numerical prefix says how many places to rotate the text. The default is 13.
C-c C-e
Elide the text between point and mark (message-elide-region). The text is killed and an ellipsis (`[...]') will be inserted in its place.
C-c C-t
Insert a To header that contains the Reply-To or From header of the message you're following up (message-insert-to).
C-c C-n
Insert a Newsgroups header that reflects the Followup-To or Newsgroups header of the article you're replying to (message-insert-newsgroups).
C-c M-r
Rename the buffer (message-rename-buffer). If given a prefix, prompt for a new buffer name.

Sending

C-c C-c
Send the message and bury the current buffer (message-send-and-exit).
C-c C-s
Send the message (message-send).
C-c C-d
Bury the message buffer and exit (message-dont-send).
C-c C-k
Kill the message buffer and exit (message-kill-buffer).

Mail Aliases

Message uses mailabbrev to handle mail aliases. mailabbrev works by parsing the `/etc/mailrc' and `~/.mailrc' files. These files look like:

alias lmi "Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no>"
alias ding "ding@ifi.uio.no (ding mailing list)"

After adding lines like this to your `~/.mailrc' file, you should be able to just write `lmi' in the To or Cc (and so on) headers and press SPC to expand the alias.

No expansion will be performed upon sending of the message--all expansions have to be done explicitly.


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