From: Carl Worth Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 17:44:32 +0000 (-0700) Subject: INSTALL/README: Clean up the description of how to run the emacs interface. X-Git-Tag: 0.4~147 X-Git-Url: https://git.notmuchmail.org/git?p=notmuch;a=commitdiff_plain;h=ecfc8df47627fde618a338b88d10e710a5611d3b INSTALL/README: Clean up the description of how to run the emacs interface. The INSTALL file still had old information about the "make install-emacs" command which no longer exists. README was also giving pointers on how to develop a real interface, (which is not the right thing since README should be addressed to users, not coders). So remove the stale and misplaced information, and instead add a new "Running notmuch" section to the README describing how to run the notmuch command-line interface and how to run the emacs interface. --- diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL index 9cf328ee..e51b397c 100644 --- a/INSTALL +++ b/INSTALL @@ -18,16 +18,6 @@ will call configure for you). See this command: for detailed documentation of the things you can control at the configure stage. -notmuch.el installation ------------------------ -Installing the notmuch.el emacs lisp function systemwide: - - sudo make install-emacs - -Each user needs to add (require 'notmuch) in his ~/.emacs to make it -available and then start emacs running notmuch with "emacs -f notmuch" -or start notmuch from within emacs with "M-x notmuch". - Dependencies ------------ Notmuch depends on three libraries: Xapian, GMime 2.4, and Talloc diff --git a/README b/README index 5f029c82..3a003ad9 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -12,6 +12,48 @@ Building notmuch ---------------- See the INSTALL file for notes on compiling and installing notmuch. +Running notmuch +--------------- +After installing notmuch, start by running "notmuch setup" which will +interactively prompt for configuration information such as your name, +email address, and the directory which contains your mail archive to +be indexed. You can change any answers later by running "notmuch +setup" again or by editing the .notmuch-config file in your home +directory. + +With notmuch configured you should next run "notmuch new" which will +index all of your existing mail. This can take a long time, (several +hours) if you have a lot of email, (hundreds of thousands of +files). When new mail is delivered to your mail archive in the future, +you will want to run "notmuch new" again. These runs will be much +faster as they will only index new messages. + +Finally, you can prove to yourself that things are working by running +some command-line searches such as "notmuch search +from:someone@example.com" or "notmuch search subject:topic". See +"notmuch help search-terms" for more details on the available search +syntax. + +The command-line search output is not expected to be particularly +friendly for day-to-day usage. Instead, it is expected that you will +use an email interface that builds on the notmuch command-line tool or +the libnotmuch library. + +Notmuch installs a full-featured email interface for use within +emacs. To use this, first add the following line to your .emacs file: + + (require 'notmuch) + +Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch" or execute the command "M-x +notmuch" from within a running emacs. + +If you're interested in a non-emacs-based interface to notmuch, then +please join the notmuch community. Various other interfaces are +already in progress, (an interface within vim, a curses interface, +graphical interfaces based on evolution, and various web-based +interfaces). The authors of these interfaces would love further +testing or contribution. See contact information below. + Contacting users and developers ------------------------------- The website for Notmuch is: @@ -33,39 +75,3 @@ developing notmuch: IRC server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #notmuch - -Interface options ------------------ -Notmuch includes a "notmuch" command-line interface to the system. -This is not a very convenient interface and it is not expected that -users will find it satisfying. Instead, there are two option for -obtaining a more sophisticated interface: - - 1. Build on top of the "notmuch" command-line interface. - - This might be a reasonable option for a very text-oriented - client environment. For example, an emacs-based interface for - notmuch is already under development and is available in the - notmuch.el file in this distribution. - - If someone were to write a curses-based interface, or similar, - it might also be reasonable to build on the "notmuch" - command-line interface. - - 2. Build on top of the notmuch library interface. - - This is a better choice for developing an interface that has - full control of the presentation of email threads and - messages. It is expected that anyone integrating Notmuch into - an existing, graphical email program use the notmuch library - interface. - - The public interface to the notmuch library is contained in - the notmuch.h header file. The "notmuch" command-line program - in notmuch.c can be used as good example code, since it is a - simple program that is written on top of the library - interface. - -As can be seen, alternate interfaces to the Notmuch mail system are -still in development. We would appreciate any contributions to these -efforts.