3.7 Various Message Variables

message-default-charset

Symbol naming a MIME charset. Non-ASCII characters in messages are assumed to be encoded using this charset. The default is nil, which means ask the user. (This variable is used only on non-MULE Emacsen. See section `Charset Translation' in Emacs MIME Manual, for details on the MULE-to-MIME translation process.

message-signature-separator

Regexp matching the signature separator. It is `^-- *$' by default.

mail-header-separator

String used to separate the headers from the body. It is `--text follows this line--' by default.

message-directory

Directory used by many mailey things. The default is `~/Mail/'.

message-auto-save-directory

Directory where Message auto-saves buffers if Gnus isn't running. If nil, Message won't auto-save. The default is `~/Mail/drafts/'.

message-signature-setup-hook

Hook run when initializing the message buffer. It is run after the headers have been inserted but before the signature has been inserted.

message-setup-hook

Hook run as the last thing when the message buffer has been initialized, but before yanked text is inserted.

message-header-setup-hook

Hook called narrowed to the headers after initializing the headers.

For instance, if you're running Gnus and wish to insert a `Mail-Copies-To' header in all your news articles and all messages you send to mailing lists, you could do something like the following:

(defun my-message-header-setup-hook () (let ((group (or gnus-newsgroup-name ""))) (when (or (message-fetch-field "newsgroups") (gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-address) (gnus-group-find-parameter group 'to-list)) (insert "Mail-Copies-To: never\n")))) (add-hook 'message-header-setup-hook 'my-message-header-setup-hook)

message-send-hook

Hook run before sending messages.

If you want to add certain headers before sending, you can use the message-add-header function in this hook. For instance:

(add-hook 'message-send-hook 'my-message-add-content) (defun my-message-add-content () (message-add-header "X-In-No-Sense: Nonsense") (message-add-header "X-Whatever: no"))

This function won't add the header if the header is already present.

message-send-mail-hook

Hook run before sending mail messages. This hook is run very late -- just before the message is actually sent as mail.

message-send-news-hook

Hook run before sending news messages. This hook is run very late -- just before the message is actually sent as news.

message-sent-hook

Hook run after sending messages.

message-cancel-hook

Hook run when canceling news articles.

message-mode-syntax-table

Syntax table used in message mode buffers.

message-strip-special-text-properties

Emacs has a number of special text properties which can break message composing in various ways. If this option is set, message will strip these properties from the message composition buffer. However, some packages requires these properties to be present in order to work. If you use one of these packages, turn this option off, and hope the message composition doesn't break too bad.

message-send-method-alist

Alist of ways to send outgoing messages. Each element has the form

(type predicate function)

type

A symbol that names the method.

predicate

A function called without any parameters to determine whether the message is a message of type type.

function

A function to be called if predicate returns non-nil. function is called with one parameter -- the prefix.

((news message-news-p message-send-via-news) (mail message-mail-p message-send-via-mail))