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[~bandali/configs] / lisp / bbdb / README

Copyright (C) 2010-2017 Roland Winkler <winkler@gnu.org>
See the end of the file for license conditions.

BBDB is the Insidious Big Brother Database for GNU Emacs.
It provides an address book for email and snail mail addresses,
phone numbers and the like.  It can be linked with various Emacs mail
clients (Message and Mail mode, Rmail, Gnus, MH-E, Mu4e, VM, and 
Wanderlust).  BBDB is fully customizable.

BBDB is available at
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/bbdb/
To check it out, use
git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/bbdb.git

Questions, comments, suggestions, and bug reports may be directed to
the BBDB mailing list at bbdb-user@nongnu.org.
To subscribe to this list, go to
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bbdb-user.

==================================================================
Installation:   (see also the generic file INSTALL)

To compile and install BBDB with `make':

0) (BBDB development version only)

   Configure the configure process:

   Run `autogen.sh' in the top directory of the BBDB code.
   This creates the `configure' script required for step 1).

1) Configure the build process:

   Run the `configure' script in the top directory of the BBDB code.
   This performs a number of checks on your system and generates the
   Makefiles accordingly.  You need at least GNU Emacs 24.

   The `configure' script comes with various options:

   `--with-mu4e-dir=DIR' specifies the path where Mu4e can be found.
     Without this option the resulting BBDB build does not support Mu4e.

   `--with-vm-dir=DIR' specifies the path where VM can be found.
     Without this option the resulting BBDB build does not support VM.

   `--with-wl-dir=DIR' specifies the path where Wanderlust can be found.
     Without this option the resulting BBDB build does not support WL.

   `--with-lispdir=DIR' specifies where to install the lisp files.

   Use `configure --help' to see all available options.

2) Build BBDB:

   To build BBDB type 'make'.

   If you use the BBDB development version, but you do not have autoconf,
   go to the lisp directory and type 'make --makefile=./makefile-temp'.

3) Install BBDB:

   To install BBDB type `make install'.
   This installs all files in their usual system directories.
   You can override these defaults via respective options
   for the configure script.

   The TeX files in the tex directories are installed in ${datadir}
   which defaults to /usr/local/share/bbdb/.  These files are only
   used by BBDB.  They need not be made known to your local TeX
   installation.  See the user variable bbdb-print-tex-path below.

   `make install' is not required to run BBDB.

4) Activate BBDB:

   i)   If the BBDB lisp files are in a directory
        "/path/to/bbdb/lisp" you can use in your emacs init file

        (require 'bbdb-loaddefs "/path/to/bbdb/lisp/bbdb-loaddefs.el")

        This adds "/path/to/bbdb/lisp" to the load-path; so it is all
        you need to make BBDB known to your Emacs.

   ii)  The user variable bbdb-print-tex-path should point to the directory
        where the BBDB TeX files reside (default /usr/local/share/bbdb).

===============================================================================
Usage notes

BBDB 3 is the first release of BBDB after a long time.
Up to BBDB 3.1.2 it requires GNU Emacs 23 or newer.
More recent versions require GNU Emacs 24 or newer.

The code of BBDB 3 is still under development.
While it should work reliably, users of previous versions of BBDB
are advised that the format of the BBDB database file has changed.
Migration to the new format should happen automatically.
Yet it is recommended to make a copy of the old file, in case
something unexpected happens or you might want to go back.

As compared with BBDB 2.xx, many variables, functions, and commands
have changed in BBDB 3.  Most likely you will have to review your
customizations carefully.  You may want to call bbdb-undocumented-variables
to identify outdated (i.e., now usually undocumented) variables in
your init file.  Those upgrading from BBDB 2.xx may also find this
Emacs wiki page helpful: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UpgradeBBDB
All user variables for the core of BBDB 3 are listed at the beginning
of bbdb.el.  Some extensions of BBDB 3 define their user variables
at the beginning of the respective files.

Generally the default values for user variables are chosen such that they make
BBDB the least aggressive.  You can customize this behavior in many ways.
See below for an overview.

The BBDB info manual is still awaiting a more complete overhaul.


BBDB interface with mail user agents (MUAs)
===========================================

BBDB can interface with various mail user agents (MUAs).
These include Rmail, Gnus, VM, MH-E, Mu4e, Wanderlust, Message and Mail mode.
This lets you

 - display the BBDB records for the sender and/or recipients of a
   message you are viewing

 - create or update the BBDB records for the sender and/or
   recipients of a message

 - add annotations to the BBDB records for the sender and/or
   recipients of a message

There are two ways for BBDB to interface with MUAs:

Interactive commands
--------------------

Call bbdb-initialize (usually in your init file) to initialize
the MUA interfaces based on interactive commands

MUA commands include

 bbdb-mua-display-records, bbdb-mua-display-sender, bbdb-mua-display-recipients
 bbdb-annotate-record, bbdb-mua-annotate-sender, bbdb-mua-annotate-recipients
 bbdb-mua-edit-field, bbdb-mua-edit-field-sender, bbdb-mua-edit-field-recipients

These MUA commands operate either on existing records only.  Or they
can create new records.

They are all controlled by bbdb-mua-update-interactive-p.
This is a cons pair (WITHOUT-PREFIX . WITH-PREFIX).
The car is used if the command is called without a prefix.
The cdr is used if the command is called with a prefix (and if the prefix
        is not used for another purpose).

WITHOUT-PREFIX and WITH-PREFIX may take the values
(here ADDRESS is an email address found in a message):
 nil          Do nothing.
 search       Search for existing records matching ADDRESS.
 update       Search for existing records matching ADDRESS;
                update name and mail field if necessary.
 query        Search for existing records matching ADDRESS;
                query for creation of a new record if the record does not exist.
 create or t  Search for existing records matching ADDRESS;
                create a new record if it does not yet exist.
 a function   This functions will be called with no arguments.
                It should return one of the above values (see below).
 read         Read the value interactively.

BBDB 2 also used MUA-specific variables bbdb/MUA-update-records-mode
to control its interfaces with MUAs.  Use function bbdb-mua to define
your own function to get MUA-specific values.

Noninteractive functions
------------------------

Call bbdb-mua-auto-update-init (usually in your init file)
to hook BBDB's hook function bbdb-mua-auto-update into the MUAs.

bbdb-mua-auto-update automatically updates the BBDB records for the
sender and/or recipients of a message.  If bbdb-mua-pop-up is non-nil,
the matching records are also displayed in a continuously updated BBDB window,

The behavior of bbdb-mua-auto-update is controlled by bbdb-mua-auto-update-p.
This may take the same values as bbdb-mua-update-interactive-p (except read).
Binding this to a function is often most helpful for noninteractive use.
For example, you may want to bind bbdb-mua-auto-update-p to the function
bbdb-select-message,  see bbdb-accept-message-alist and
bbdb-ignore-message-alist.  If a message is accepted by bbdb-select-message,
the actual action performed by BBDB (i.e., the return value of
bbdb-select-message) is given by bbdb-update-records-p.

==================================================================

Notes for BBDB lisp hackers:
----------------------------

If you write your own functions and commands to modify BBDB records,
do not call the low-level functions bbdb-record-set-* such as
bbdb-record-set-aka, bbdb-record-set-mail etc.  The recommended
sequence of calls is

- one or multiple calls of bbdb-record-set-field for the respective
  fields to be changed.  This not only sets the fields, but it also
  ensures the integrity of the database.  Also, this makes your code
  more robust with respect to possible future changes of BBDB's
  innermost internals.

- a call of bbdb-change-record which updates the database after a
  change of record and redisplays the records.

- To display newly created records call bbdb-display-records.

==================================================================

Copyright (C) 2010-2017 Roland Winkler <winkler@gnu.org>

This file is part of the Insidious Big Brother Database (aka BBDB),

BBDB is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

BBDB is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with BBDB.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.