URL:         http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/vim/mail.html
URL:         http://www.vim.org/mail.html (mirror)
Created:     Fri Dec  1 00:00:00 MET 1995
Last update: Sat Feb 26 15:00:00 MET 2000

VIM - Mailing Lists

991104: Mailing list about Macintosh development has been moved to vim-mac@vim.org - so you can (un)subscribe by email now.

990811: Currently there are six maillist on Vim.

990825: Many mailers break the threading in maillists. Please use a mailer which gives a reference to the previous mail! I suggest to use highly customizable mailers which can be used on *every* terminal: elm, pine, and most of all, mutt.

Here is two sample screenshots, the first presenting my vim maillist and the second showing a mail colorized by the internal pager:

[a sample mail viewed by the internal pager]

About a hundred people on the vim maillists are using mutt with vim already. :-)

VIM Maillists - Overview

VIM Maillists - Maillist on vim.org

There are five mailing lists about VIM on vim.org:

	 vim-announce@vim.org  Vim Announcements
	          vim@vim.org  Vim Help List
	      vim-dev@vim.org  Vim Development List
	      vim-mac@vim.org  Vim Development on the Macintosh
	vim-multibyte@vim.org  Vim Development of Multibyte Support

NOTE: Before sending mail to the lists, you must subscribe ! Mails from unsubscribed *addresses* are rejected. Yes, that's a feature. Hope you understand.

To get help in an email - send a mail to vim-help@vim.org.

VIM Maillists - Maillist not on vim.org

There is one more lists not on vim.org:

	       vim-fr@club.voila.fr      Vim for French users

For subscription to vim-fr take a look at the info page to vim-fr:
http://www.egroups.com/list/vim-fr/info.html

VIM Maillists - List Descriptions

vim-announce@vim.org: Purpose: Announcements only. New releases, important patches and bug reports. Change of important mail and web addresses.; Status In:; Subscription required to post: yes - but posting is allowed only for *some* people. If you want to post then please ask the maintainer for permission.; Status Out:; All mails are sent to its subscribers *and* all subscribers of the other maillists ("vim", "vim-dev", and "vim-multibyte").
vim@vim.org: Purpose: The "Vim help List".; Status In: Subscription required to post: yes. Everyone is welcome to join and ask questions about Vim and its usage. You are especially welcome to answer questions, too. :-) But to avoid frustration for readers you are advised to read both the VI FAQ and the VIM FAQ before you post. Thank you!; Status Out: All mails are sent to subscribers.
vim-dev@vim.org: Purpose: Discussion of Vim Development.; Discussion of new features and possible bugs. Development of macros, patches and setup files.; Status In: Subscription required to post: yes. You should be able to use a compiler and try to avoid asking FAQs. You know about termcap and terminfo. You can write an OS kernel with "cat > kernel". You do not use Emacs. ;-); Status Out: All mails are sent to subscribers.
vim-mac@vim.org: Purpose: Discussion of Vim Development on the Macintosh.; Status In: Subscription required to post: yes.; Status Out: All mails are sent to subscribers.
vim-multibyte@vim.org: Purpose: Discussion of Vim Development for Multibyte Support.; Status In: Subscription required to post: yes.; Status Out: All mails are sent to subscribers.

Vim Maillists - Subscribing and Unsubscribing

Before you are allowed to post to any of the mailing lists you must first "subscribe" to them. Subscribing and unsubscribing to any of the three mailing lists is done by sending a mail (empty one suffices) to an address which is similar to the listname:

	listname-subscribe@vim.org
eg      vim-subscribe@vim.org

If you are using UNIX then these commands should be easiest to (un)subscribe:

Subscribing to "vim": echo vim rules | mail vim-subscribe@vim.org
Unsubscribing to "vim": echo seeya | mail vim-unsubscribe@vim.org

Commands to subscribe and unsubscribe to the other lists are left to the reader as an exercise. :-)

VIM Maillists - Maintenance

The maintainer of the Vim mailing lists is

	Özgür "Öç/Oetsch" Kesim oec@vim.org

Please note that Oetsch is working fulltime and his maintenance of the lists is a just a hobby. Responses to emails about the mailing lists might take a while. Please be patient! Thankyou.

Please do not contact the maintainer to subscribe ot unsubscribe you. There are so many subscriptions that it cannot be processed by one person. That's exactly the reason why an maillist software is being used. Please use it! Thankyou.

However, as posting to vim-announce requires special permission from the maintainer. So there's a reason for you to contact him.

The mailing lists are managed with qmail and ezmlm; the following page has some info on this:

http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~kesim/ezmlm/

Vim Mailing Lists - Talk Convention

Edit your mails!
Important: Please take a little time to "edit your mails". Remove superfluous data, and get the context right. Please read my Guide on Editing Emails to understand why and for some tips on editing. Thanks!

Then, please notice that the following text occurs quite often:

Attach patches - but only if they are small! [000119]
You can always send your patches to the author. If the patch applies to requests or bug reports on one of the mailing lists then you can add it to your (public) response on the mailing list.
Whenever possible, *attach* the patch - so it can easily be removed on replies or even just to save some space on the disk.
If the patch is big then please do not distribute it on the lists - but send them to the author directly.

Give references!

	:help tag
	:set options=value
	RTFFAQ
	RTFM

And this is what it means:

:help tagname: This means "enter this help command and you shall find an explanatory text which contains the answer to your question". This is often used to answer the request to some feature that already exists. In these cases we just answer by pointing to the section in the help file which describes this feature. So just enter ":help tagname" and read the stuff there. If you do not like the feature the way it is then we ask you to give a definition and a few examples of the way you like it to be. This helps a lot when redesigning a feature!
":set option=value": This means "enter the command to set the option "option" to the value "value". This change should then change the behaviour of a command and thus enable you to do with it what you desired.
RTFFAQ: RTFFAQ means "read the fine [list of] frequently asked questions [and answers] in the "VIM FAQ"". Read it and you shall find the answer!; URL of VIM FAQ:; http://www.vim.org/faq/
RTFM: RTFM means "read the friendly manual". Usually used when someone repeatedly asked for info which is in the manual and some other help text (such as the Vi FAQ and Vim FAQ). Please take a look at them again and you will probably find the answer. And if you should use it then please add a pointer. Thanks!

Thank you for understanding! :-)

VIM Mailing List FAQs

Some questions get asked much too often on the mailing lists. Please try to avoid them by reading the answers here. Thanks!

VIM Distribution: Q: Where can I get VIM?; A: You get VIM from several sites. These are all listed in the VIM Distribution page:; URL: http://www.vim.org/dist.html
Rejected Posts: Q: Why are my mails rejected?; A: You may be sending as "another one", ie with your name but with a different address. This happens when you have subscribed as user@hostA.domain - but you may be sending mails as user@hostB.domain, ie sending from another host. The mailing list software treats this as different addresses and thus as different people. In that case you need to subscribe from hostB, too, before mails from that address are accepted. The best way is to send the subscription command and all further mails *without* the host name. Some mailers can be configured to drop the host names which is very convenient and thus recommended. Ask your postmaster about this!
Changing accounts [970818,990303]
Subscribe Check - Automatic Unsubscription: Q: Am I still on one of the vim mailing list?; A: First off, do not send requests to the mailing list manager! Although the easiest way to find out about your subscription is to send a mail to the mailing lists and see if these bounce back to you - do not send test messges to the list - this is annoying.; Q: But my account will be terminated soon - I really need to know. How can I find out NOW?; A: Relax. Mails sent out to you will bounce back to the mailing list software, and if and a bounced mail from you will unsubscribe you from the mailing list automagically. But you need to worry much about unsubscribing - if your account should terminate then the mailing list software will unsubcribe you automagically after it was not able to deliver mails to you for two weeks.
Posting announcements: Q: How can I post an announcement (send a mail to "vim-announce")?; A: Only a few people can send mail to vim-announce; if you need to so, too, then please contact the list maintainer !
Mailing List Archive: Situation: You are not subscribed to any of the mailing lists but you want to take a look at them just the same. Or you have unsubscribed for a while and you want to catch up with the latest posts.; Q: Is there an archive of the mailing lists?; A: Yes, for each mailing list there is an archive. See the section about "VIM Mailing List Archive" below.
Mailing List Digests [971027]: Situation: You don't want to be disturbed by lots of mails from the mailing lists. Instead, you prefer to get all posted mails once a week - as a digest.; Q: Can I get vim mails as a digest?; A: Yes - instead of subscribing to vim@vim.org and/or vim-dev@vim.org, subscribe to vim-digest@vim.org or vim-dev-digest@vim.org respectively.
Licence to post [970910]: Situation: You want to be able to post to the mailing list, but you do not want to receive all those replies.; Q: Can I get a licence to post - but not receive any replies from the list?; A: No. Repeat: NO! This would defaet the very purpose of a mailing list - a simply reply to the list shall notify *all* members on the list. We know this could be done if we used "group reply" and all that, but it simply imposes more problems. Please take the time to subscribe and unsubscribe as needed - it has been made sooo simple. It's no more than sending an empty mail to the correct address. Thank you for your consideration!
Mailing List Software [971008]: Q: Which sotware is used to handle the vim mailing lists?; A: EZMLM and qmail.
Mailing List Host [971008]: Q: What kind of machine do the mailing lists run on?; A: The lists are processed on and sent out from babayaga.math.fu-berlin.de, a 386SX-25 PC running Linux. The name "babayaga" refers to a witch that appears in fairy tales from Russia as the machine babayaga resides in the student cafe of the department nicknamed "the witches' cellar" as it is "wizard friendly". :-)
Subject field [990101]: Q: Couldn't you add STRING to the Subject line of the mailing list?; A: Yes - but we won't, as this will introduce more problems than it solves. If you need such a string as your mailer is not smart enough to filter out mails from vim.org then you either need a *real* filter or a better mailer. Sorry.
prz and babayaga addresses [970716,990311]: Q: Why do my mails bounce when I send them to vim@prz.tu-berlin.de or vim@babayaga.math.fu-berlin.de?; A: The mailing lists once ran on the domain prz.tu-berlin.de - but that had changed in July 1997. Since then babayaga.math.fu-berlin.de serves the mailing lists. You are asked, however, to use the official addresses to make it easier for your fellow subscribers to filter email. Please update your email aliases! Thankyou.

VIM Mailing List Archive

[981104] The Vim Maillists are archived at "egroups.com":

	http://www.egroups.com/list/vim
	http://www.egroups.com/list/vimdev
	http://www.egroups.com/list/vimannounce

For the record: Some time ago there was an archive for vim mailing lists at the "Insitute of Informatikk" (institute of computer science) at the University of Bergen, Norway. However, this archive is no longer in function. This archive was maintained by Eivind Gjelseth eivind@ii.uib.no using the software MHonArc which is based on perl. Thanks for this, Eivind!

Problems and Solutions

Broken Threading

Threading just works when each reply has a reference to the previous mail. Unfortunately, people are using mailers with drop this information or do not give any at all. This mostly seems due to mailers by MicroSoft. I therefore discourage their use. Please use a good mailer[tm] such as elm, pine, or (best!) mutt. Thankyou!

I wish I could name these mailers - but they apparently do not identify themselves with "X-Mailer" (are they afraid of anything?) or point to a DOS/Windows mailer that does it correctly, but I know none. Anyone?

Mailers that break the threading:

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51C-SGI [en] (X11; I; IRIX 6.5 IP22)

Unknown mailers - example: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Incognito-SN: 599 X-Incognito-Version: 4.10.130 X-Mailer: Neoplanet Version: 2.0.1.398 X-mailer: Claris Emailer 1.1 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2377.0

VIM MailList - Active Members

I recently took another look at the Vim MailLists, using the sort method "sort by From:" within mutt. This easily revealed the active members on the lists:

Bram Moolenaar <bram@vim.org> <bram@moolenaar.net> "Dr. Charles E. Campbell Jr." <cec@gryphon.gsfc.nasa.gov> Darren Hiebert <darren@hiebert.com> Hermann Rochholz <Hermann.Rochholz@faidor.de> Jim Battle <jb@chromatic.com> Leiming Qian <lqian@platypus.csl.uiuc.edu> Mun Johl <mj@aurora.rose.hp.com> Olaf Seibert <rhialto@polder.ubc.kun.nl> Paul Slootman <paul@wau.mis.ah.nl> Preben Guldberg <c928400@student.dtu.dk> Robert Webb <RobertW@beam.com.au> Ron Aaron <ron@mossbayeng.com> Ronald Schild <rs@dps.de> Stefan Roemer <roemer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> Thomas Köhler <jean-luc@picard.franken.de> Vikas Agnihotri <VikasA@att.com> "Zbynek Vyskovsky (Krysa)" <rat@mail.kolej.mff.cuni.cz>

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Sven Guckes guckes@vim.org