10.18.3 Reply to Message Prefix Action

Depending on the kinds of messages one tends to handle, the user may find himself usually replying to everyone who receives a certain message, or he may find that this is only desired occasionally. In either case, the user can set up his MH profile to do one thing by default, using the Reply to Message Prefix Action variable in combination with a prefix argument to the Reply to Message command to get the other effect.

For example, the following line in one’s MH profile will cause MH to reply to everyone receiving a certain message (except for the user himself since he saves personal copies with the -fcc switch):

repl: -cc all -nocc me -fcc out-copy

This user can set Reply to Message Prefix Action to be :no-cc-all. Then whenever he invokes Reply to Message with a prefix argument, instead of replying to everyone, the draft will be set up in reply only to the person who sent the mail.

As an alternative example, not specifying anything in one’s MH profile and setting this variable to :cc-all will have a default effect of replying only to the sender of a piece of mail. Then invoking Reply to Message with a prefix argument will cause everyone who received the mail to get a copy of the reply. If the user does not want a cc: copy, then he can add -nocc me as a default switch and value in his MH profile.