10/21/83  Changes to the send_mail qedx request

Several important, incompatible changes have been made to send_mail's
qedx request in MR10.2.


Auto-writing disabled by default:
In prior releases, the quit (q) request would automatically reflect any
changes made to the message back to send_mail.  In MR10.2, however, the
quit request no longer does this automatic update by default.  Two new
control arguments -- -auto_write and -no_auto_write (the default) --
are available for the send_mail command and the qedx request to change
this behavior for all invocations of qedx or for a single invocation of
qedx, respectively.

If -auto_write is in effect, the quit request will automatically
reflect any changes made to the message back to send_mail as in prior
releases.  When -no_auto_write (the defualt) is in effect, the
write (w) request must be used to reflect any changes back to
send_mail.  In eihter case, the write request may be used as often as
desired to checkpoint the editing process.


If the quit request is issued with -no_auto_write in effect and the
message has been modified since it was last written, qedx will query
for permission to exit.  If permission is given, any changes to the
message since the last write request (if any) will be lost.  The new
quit-force (qf) request may be used to abort unwanted editing of the
message without being queried.


Pathnames in the read (r) and write (w) requests:
As in prior releases, the read (r) request can be used to insert a
segment into the message and the write (w) request can be used to save
a copy of the message in a segment for later use.

In MR10.2, however, use of the read and write requests with a pathname
will not change the default pathname of buffer 0 (the message).  Using
either read or write without a pathname will always refer to
send_mail's copy of the message.


Use of 1,$dr:
In prior releases, the request line

     1,$dr

would always restore the original message text to the buffer.

In MR10.2, however, this request line will only restore the original
text if given before a write request.  If given after a write request,
this request line will restore the message text as saved by the last
write request given in the buffer.


New quit-force request:
As mentioned above, a new quit-force request is now available within
send_mail's qedx editor.  The description of quit-force as given in the
Multics qedx info segment follows--

quit force (qf) (Q)
   qf exits the editor without checking for modified buffers.  If any
      modified buffers are present, all changes made to those buffers
      since they were last written will be lost.


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Historical Background

This edition of the Multics software materials and documentation is provided and donated
to Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Group BULL including BULL HN Information Systems Inc. 
as a contribution to computer science knowledge.  
This donation is made also to give evidence of the common contributions of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Bell Laboratories, General Electric, Honeywell Information Systems Inc., Honeywell BULL Inc., Groupe BULL
and BULL HN Information Systems Inc. to the development of this operating system. 
Multics development was initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC (1963-1970),
renamed the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the mid 1970s, under the leadership
of Professor Fernando Jose Corbato. Users consider that Multics provided the best software architecture 
for managing computer hardware properly and for executing programs. Many subsequent operating systems 
incorporated Multics principles.
Multics was distributed in 1975 to 2000 by Group Bull in Europe , and in the U.S. by Bull HN Information Systems Inc., 
as successor in interest by change in name only to Honeywell Bull Inc. and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. .

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Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute these programs and their documentation for any purpose and without
fee is hereby granted,provided that the below copyright notice and historical background appear in all copies
and that both the copyright notice and historical background and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation, and that the names of MIT, HIS, BULL or BULL HN not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining
to distribution of the programs without specific prior written permission.
    Copyright 1972 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Honeywell Information Systems Inc.
    Copyright 2006 by BULL HN Information Systems Inc.
    Copyright 2006 by Bull SAS
    All Rights Reserved