AERC-TUTORIAL(7)       Miscellaneous Information Manual       AERC-TUTORIAL(7)

NAME
       aerc-tutorial - tutorial for aerc(1)

INTRODUCTION
       Welcome to aerc! This tutorial will guide you through your first steps
       in using the client. This tutorial is a man page - you can read it
       again later with :help tutorial from aerc, or man aerc-tutorial from
       your terminal.

       First, let's introduce some basic keybindings. For convention, we'll
       use <C-p> to represent Ctrl+p, which matches the convention used for
       writing keybindings for aerc.

       <C-p>, <C-n>
           Cycles to the previous or next tab

       Try using these now to switch between your message list and the
       tutorial. In your message list, we use vim-style keys to get around.

       k, j
           Scrolls up and down between messages

       <C-u>, <C-d>
           Scrolls half a page up or down

       g, G
           Selects the first or last message, respectively

       K, J
           Switches between folders in the sidebar

       <Enter>
           Opens the selected message

       You can also search the selected folder with /, or filter with \ . When
       searching you can use n and p to jump to the next and previous result.
       Filtering hides any non-matching message.

THE MESSAGE VIEWER
       Press <Enter> to open a message. By default, the message viewer will
       display your message using less(1). This should also have familiar,
       vim-like keybindings for scrolling around in your message.

       Multipart messages (messages with attachments, or messages with several
       alternative formats) show a part selector on the bottom of the message
       viewer.

       <C-k>, <C-j>
           Cycle between parts of a multipart message

       q
           Close the message viewer

       To show HTML messages, uncomment the text/html filter in your aerc.conf
       file (which is probably in ~/.config/aerc/) and install its
       dependencies: w3m and dante-utils.

       You can also do many tasks you could do in the message list from here,
       like replying to emails, deleting the email, or view the next and
       previous message (J and K).

COMPOSING MESSAGES
       Return to the message list by pressing q to dismiss the message viewer.
       Once there, let's compose a message.

       C
           Compose a new message

       rr
           Reply-all to a message

       rq
           Reply-all to a message, and pre-fill the editor with a quoted
           version of the message being replied to

       Rr
           Reply to a message

       Rq
           Reply to a message, and pre-fill the editor with a quoted version
           of the message being replied to

       For now, let's use C to compose a new message. The message composer
       will appear. You should see To, From, and Subject lines, as well as
       your $EDITOR. You can use <Tab> or <C-j> and <C-k> to cycle between
       these fields (tab won't cycle between fields once you enter the editor,
       but <C-j> and <C-k> will).

       Let's send an email to yourself. Note that the To and From headers
       expect RFC 5322 addresses, e.g. John Doe <john@example.org>, or simply
       <john@example.org>. Separate multiple recipients with commas. Go ahead
       and fill out an email, then close the editor.

       The message review screen is shown next. You have a chance now to
       revise the email before it's sent. Press y to send the email if it
       looks good.

       Note: when using the terminal in the message view, you can summon
       aerc's ex command line by using <C-x>. : is sent to the editor.

USING THE TERMINAL
       aerc comes with an embedded terminal, which you've already used to view
       and edit emails. We can also use this for other purposes, such as
       referencing a git repository while reviewing a patch. From the message
       list, we can use the following keybindings to open a terminal:

       <C-t>
           Opens a new terminal tab, running your shell

       $, !
           Prompts for a command to run, then opens a new terminal tab running
           that command

       |
           Prompts for a command to run, then pipes the selected email into
           that command and displays the result on a new terminal tab

       Try pressing $ and entering top. You can also use the :cd command to
       change aerc's working directory, and the directory in which new
       terminals run. Use :pwd to see it again if you're not sure where you
       are.

ADDITIONAL NOTES
   COMMANDS
       Every keybinding is ultimately bound to an aerc command. You can also
       summon the command line by pressing :, then entering one of these
       commands. See aerc(1) or :help for a full list of commands.

   MESSAGE FILTERS
       When displaying messages in the message viewer, aerc will pipe them
       through a message filter first. This allows you to decode messages in
       non-plaintext formats, add syntax highlighting, etc. aerc ships with a
       few default filters:

       •   text/plain parts are piped through the colorize built-in filter
           which handles URL, quotes and diff coloring.
       •   text/calendar is processed to be human readable text
       •   text/html (disabled by default) can be uncommented to pipe through
           the built-in html filter.

   CUSTOMIZING AERC
       Aerc is highly customizable. Review aerc-config(5) (or use :help
       config) to learn more about how to add custom keybindings, install new
       message filters, change its appearance and behavior, and so on.

AUTHORS
       Originally created by Drew DeVault and maintained by Robin Jarry who is
       assisted by other open source contributors. For more information about
       aerc development, see https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/.

                                  2024-07-30                  AERC-TUTORIAL(7)