# Introduction

- What is MHonArc?
- Why Use MHonArc?
- Availability
- License
- Where to Get Help?
- Documentation Nomenclature

## What is MHonArc?

MHonArc is a Perl program for converting mail or news messages into HTML archives. It can also be used to convert individual messages into HTML documents. Other capabilities include robust MIME support and powerful user customization features.

## Why Use MHonArc?

Here are some reasons for using MHonArc:

- You want to keep organized archives of mail or news articles for a World Wide Web (WWW) server; complete with live hypertext pointers to their authors and to any url's mentioned.
- You would like to control the layout of your archives to keep a consistent style to your WWW pages.
- You have MIME messages that you want to include in your archives.
- You have a WWW client, but no MIME mail reader. MHonArc will allow you to read MIME messages that includes images, audio, video, etc via your Web client.
- Multi-platform support: Unix, Windows, MacOS, etc. Basically, MHonArc should be usable on any platform that Perl has been ported to.
- MHonArc is free software.
- You think the MHonArc logo is really cool, and it deserves to be used.
- You like Perl, and you want to see what it can do.
- Just cuz.

## Availability

The latest information about MHonArc, including its its availability, may be obtained at <http://www.mhonarc.org/>.

## License

MHonArc 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 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program 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.

WARNING: | MHonArc is NOT in the public domain, applicable copyrights still apply. Using MHonArc that is inconsistent with the licensing terms is a violation of copyright law. If you cannot agree with the licensing terms and would like to use MHonArc under a different license, contact mhonarc@mhonarc.org.

## Where to Get Help?

1. Read this documentation.

2. Read the FAQ.

3. Subscribe and post to one of the mailing lists described in the Contacts section. Searchable archives of the lists exist which provides a historical collection of helpful information.

Professional consulting is also available. Contact earl@earlhood.com with your request.

## Documentation Nomenclature

NOTE: | Some rendering style semantics may not be available if viewing this documentation with a text-based and/or a non-CSS capable browser.

Shell examples are rendered as follows:

    prompt> ls -CF
    ACKNOWLG  contrib/  etc/       INSTALL      Makefile.PL     mha-decode*  TODO
    admin/    COPYING   examples/  install.me*  man/            mhonarc*
    BUGS      dev.mk    extras/    lib/         mha-dbedit*     README
    CHANGES   doc/      FILELIST   logo/        mha-dbrecover*  RELNOTES

The text `prompt>` represents your shell prompt. Text you would type into the shell is rendered like this: `text you enter`. Any other text is example output generated by the computer.

Code examples are rendered as follows:

    <DefineVar>
    MY-FOOTER-LINK
    <hr>
    Please visit <a href="http://www.mhonarc.org">www.mhonarc.org</a>.
    </DefineVar>