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- From: tierna@agora.rdrop.com (Britt )
- Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,news.answers
- Subject: FAQ on making and using a .signature file
- Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
- Date: 21 Nov 1996 21:13:47 GMT
- Organization: SunDial Earth Station, Portland Or
- Lines: 160
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.edu
- Message-ID: <572gmb$s95@hermes.rdrop.com>
- Reply-To: tierna@agora.rdrop.com
- NNTP-Posting-Host: agora.rdrop.com
- Summary: A short informational on getting your .signature to work.
- Keywords: sig .sig signature .signature footer
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.newusers.questions:403730 news.answers:87706
-
- Archive-name: usenet/signature-faq
- News-newusers-questions-archive-name: signature-faq
- Last-modified: 1996/5/27
- Author: tierna@agora.rdrop.com - with tips gathered from posts
- and submissions and credited wherever possible
- Comment: Available for FTP from rtfm.mit.edu in usenet/news/newusers/questions
- from agora.rdrop.com /pub/users/tierna
- and by email from tierna@agora.rdrop.com
-
- FAQ on making and using a .signature file
- by Britt Klein
-
- Last updated: 27 May 1996
-
- (NOTICE: To send a reply in email to the writer of this post, use the "r"
- key. Personal correspondence and complete reposts without comment should
- _not_ be posted to the newsgroups.)
-
- Available for FTP from rtfm.mit.edu in usenet/news/newusers/questions
- by email from tierna@agora.rdrop.com, and by ftp from agora.rdrop.com
- in /pub/users/tierna.
-
- What follows are the bare basics on how to create a .signature file and get
- it to append to your news posts and email. It *should* work for most shell
- account users.
- Mail programs covered are Elm, Pine, mail and mailx, and mailtool.
-
- Anything in quotes is a prompt-line command and should work verbatim.
- (Also, the terminology herein is quite near the lowest level of enduser.
- This is on purpose, as the last thing new users need is to be confused by
- too much technicalese.)
-
- This is formulated for *nix-based systems, outside of that realm I'm
- out of my level of expertise big-time. I never claimed to know everything,
- just enough to get around. Also, the best information I have on Netscape
- is that there is no way to have it automatically append a .signature file.
- You'll have to manually read it in. (And that's _all_ I know of Netscape.)
-
- Yes, DO email for clarification or further information or advice. I've
- troubleshot this function on shell accounts many times and might be able
- to help if you have trouble.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- THE ABSOLUTE BASICS:
- Get thee to thy home directory and therein edit thyself a file. Name it
- `.signature'. Remember that inews and other news systems (the ones that
- make up the majority of the news software on Usenet, actually) will cut
- off everything after the fourth line, so it's good to stay below that limit.
- Also, don't use ANSI. It might look good on your screen, but zillions of
- people across the Net will see it as nothing more than a bunch of control
- characters and very likely underestimate your intelligence.
- If you've never used an editor, I suggest pico, as it's infinitely
- user-friendly. ("pico .signature") Save it.
- Make sure the .signature file is world readable ("chmod 644 .signature").
-
- Now, your news posting software _should_ look for and automatically append
- it to your posts. If you're using Elm or Pine for email, they ought to do
- same. Some versions of mail and mailx will, also.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- ELM:
- If you are using Elm and it doesn't automatically read on the end of your
- messages, go to your .elm directory ("cd .elm") and edit your elmrc to get
- the pointers looking for a .signature file (often the problem is that line
- is commented out with a #, delete it). This assumes your Elm, as mine,
- supplies a .elm directory and elmrc file when invoked. If not, the
- following section should be the answer:
- - - - - -
- 1. If you do not yet have a .elm/elmrc file, create one with the
- following steps:
- elm (start elm)
- o (options)
- > (save)
- q (quit elm)
-
- 2. Edit the .elm/elmrc file with your favorite text editor (newer
- versions create a .elm directory and put the file `elmrc' into it.
- If that doesn't happen, you'll need to create it at this point, then
- edit), and insert the two lines
- localsignature = $HOME/.signature
- remotesignature = $HOME/.signature
- according to the comment lines in that file
- (Remember, to have those lines read, take out the #'s at the beginning.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- PINE:
- Torsten Dreier kindly supplied the information on getting things working
- in Pine:
- In your home directory you should have a file called '.pinerc'. Check
- with 'ls -alg'. This file is the pine configuration. Edit it and search for
- the section 'feature list'. To this section add the command
- 'signature-at-bottom' which will move the signature in replies to the end
- of the original (quoted) text.
-
- Zoli <fekete@bc.edu> also supplied the following information:
- Pine handles news exactly as email - so this works for both; on the
- other hand, recent versions do not require manually editing .pinerc: the
- feature-list (and other) settings can be changed from within its main
- menu via Setup-Config - not only this avoids messing up .pinerc, but also
- provides a neat context-sensitive help.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- MAIL and MAILX:
- Thomas Okken <tokken@cs.ruu.nl> gives the following assistance for people
- who use mail or mailx but still want a .signature on their email:
- The FAQ says that some versions of mail and mailx will automatically append
- the .signature file. My experience is only with systems where this does *not*
- work, so I thought I'd contribute the solution I found. I have tried and used
- this with BSD mail on SunOS 4.1.1 and with mailx on HP-UX 9.01; it should
- work with lots of other systems too. Here's what to do:
- Make a file called "addsig" and put it in your private bin directory or some
- other convenient place. (Convenient = out of the way; it will work
- automatically, after all.) My home directory is "/users/tokken", so the file
- I create is called "/users/tokken/bin/addsig".
- This is what the file should look like:
-
- #!/bin/csh
- if (-f /users/tokken/.signature) then
- (cat - ; echo -- ; cat /users/tokken/.signature) | /usr/lib/sendmail $*
- else
- /usr/lib/sendmail $*
- endif
-
- Replace "/users/tokken/.signature" with "/your/home/dir/.signature". Make
- the file "addsig" executable (chmod +x addsig).
- Finally, edit your .mailrc file, or make a new one, and add this line:
-
- set sendmail=/users/tokken/bin/addsig
-
- Of course, "/users/tokken/bin/addsig" should be changed to whatever you
- called the file created earlier.
- That's it! From now on, your signature will be appended to mail you send
- with BSD mail or mailx. Note: this will not work if your system mailer is
- not "/usr/lib/sendmail". It could also be "/usr/bin/sendmail", but you'd
- best ask your system administrator if "addsig" does not work.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- NOTE: Newsposting software normally does *not* show your .signature when
- it asks about sending. The only sure way to know is to post to a TEST
- newsgroup to see. Don't append manually thinking it's not there until you
- know for certain.
- And remember, to test your .signature, send email to yourself or a friend,
- and send your posts to alt.test or misc.test with the Subject: ignore
- so you don't clutter up areas not meant for such things. That way you'll
- not get floods of email chiding you for improper newsgroup use.
- Worldwide test groups send automatic replies to posts unless you include
- the words "ignore" or "no reply" in the body of the message.
-
- (Recommended reading: Professor Timo Salmi's FAQ on test posts periodically
- posted to news.newusers.questions.)
-
- - Britt
- --
- And so it came to pass |\ _,,,---,,_ |\ _,,,---,,_
- that on Yom Kippur at /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_
- one hour past noon did |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-'
- Boots beget Alef and '---''(_/--' `-'\_) '---''(_/--' `-'\_)
- Beth, Gimel and |\ _,,,---,,_ |\ _,,,---,,_
- Daleth; and the /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_
- family rejoiced |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-'
- and it was good. '---''(_/--' `-'\_) '---''(_/--' `-'\_)
-