OK, messages are now in your maildir and they have the tags you want them to have (of course you will be assigning more tags manually as you parse through your mail.). Now, on to actually using notmuch in emacs. If you added the correct bits to your .emacs file you will be able to start notmuch by typing "M-x notmuch" (or M-x notmuch-folder). If you want to start notmuch immediately when starting emacs you can also call emacs as "emacs -f notmuch" (and create a handy shortcut on your desktop for that).
notmuch (the search view) and notmuch-folder are the 2 main views that can be used to navigate through your mail.
-__[TODO: to be continued...]__
-See information on how to customize your notmuch-folder view [here](#customize_notmuch_folder).
+The default notmuch "home" is a notmuch-search view with all all mail threads in which a message has been tagged as "inbox". Just navigate that page and read threads by hitting <RETURN> on one of them. This will open a notmuch thread view with all messages in this thread. Threads are a powerful construct in notmuch as a thread really represents a discussion around a single topic. In difference to other mail applications, you will often find very long threads in notmuch mail conversations, or people reviving very old threads with a reply.
+
+The second way of navigating notmuch mails, is by using the notmuch-folder view which you can invoke with `M-x notmuch-folder` (or using the F key if you applied the patch from mail id: 1265889583-25406-1-git-send-email-dme@dme.org (Feb 11st, 2010)). For information on how to customize your notmuch-folder views, see [here](#customize_notmuch_folder). This view provides you with "virtual folders" that allow you to browse all emails topic-by-topic. For example, if you want to browse all notmuch related mail every 10 minutes, but check out mails from your boss only once a day, this will be one convenient way to do it. It will also give you a nice overview of how many (unread) emails you have for each folder. Those folders are virtual in that a mail can easily be part of several folders at the same time and the folders will be upated on-the-fly every time you hit `=`.
+
+Last but not least, you can always search for a specific mail. Notmuch provides very powerful search possibilities which allows you to find mail threads easily without having to file them away into umpteenth mail folders as you might have been doing in your Thunderbird, Mail.app, or Outlook.
+
+### search strategies
+__[TODO, describe s, f, t keys and some expemplary searches]__.
+__[TODO: describe common search strategies that notmuch users use]__
###Sending mail
Notmuch itself does not provide any facilities for sending mail. Fortunately, emacs comes with "message mode" which offers that functionality. This also means that there are various methods to invoke the mail sending command. One possibility is to use "CTRL-x m" which will invoke a new "message mail" window. The second possibility is to type 'm' when you are in a notmuch window. And finally, when looking at a message or thread in notmuch you can type 'r' to start a reply.
Type your message and send it off with ctrl-c ctrl-c. By default message mode will use your /usr/sbin/sendmail command to send a mail, so make sure that works.
One annoying standard configuration of message mode is that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)` in your .emacs file which will really close the mail window after sending it.
-Currently, there is a slight problem with copying the sent mail into your "outbox". While conventional MUAs will automatically copy your sent mail to a "Sent" folder, notmuch will never touch your mail store and your sent mails will not be searchable by default. When replying with 'r' notmuch will insert a BCC header to yourself, but when sending a mail with 'm' or 'ctrl-x m', it will not (and can not as ctrl-x m does not involve notmuch at all). Please see the specific advice on "[fcc](how to do FCC/BCC)" for more details on how to set up notmuch to obey your preferences.
+Currently, there is a slight problem with copying the sent mail into your "outbox". While conventional MUAs will automatically copy your sent mail to a "Sent" folder, notmuch will never touch your mail store and your sent mails will not be searchable by default. When replying with 'r' notmuch will insert a BCC header to yourself, but when sending a mail with 'm' or 'ctrl-x m', it will not (and can not as ctrl-x m does not involve notmuch at all). Please see the specific advice on "[how to do FCC/BCC](fcc)" for more details on how to set up notmuch to obey your preferences.
+
+===3rd party application
+
+As its name implies, notmuch isn't really doing that much (which is part of its appeal to many of us). However, it enables a whole ecosystem of surrounding scripts to work in conjunction with notmuch
+
+* [notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/)
+ notmuchsync is a python tool that allows
+* gitmuch?
+* ...
+
+-----
<h2 id="advanced_tips">Advanced tips and tweaks</h2>
* <span id="fcc">How to do FCC/BCC...</span>
projects / obsolete / notmuch-wiki / blobdiff