The Compose Window
The compose window can be accessed from the program's main
window via the toolbar button, the
Message
menu, or the right mouse button menu of the message list panel of the
main window. Like the Polarbar Mailer's main window, the compose window
also has a toolbar unless you have the main window's toolbar turned off.
The options on the compose window's toolbar are also available on its menu
bar; see below.
The Addresses: field lets you specify the address(es) to which
you want to send your message. You can type the address(es) yourself, type
the nickname of an entry from any of your address
books, use the Last 15 button to select from the list of the
last 15 addresses to which you've written, or use the
Address
Tool dialog or open an address book from which to select one or more
entries. If you are typing multiple addresses manually or using multiple
address book nicknames, place a comma between each one, and include to:,
cc:, bcc:, and news: tags as desired (to: is the default, so you don't
need to type that). For example, you might specify "cc: address1@domain.com,
bcc: address2@domain.net, to: address3@domain.gov". If you type the nickname
of an address book entry, it will be expanded to the full address when
you press the Enter key or when you close the compose window. If you make
the program expand nicknames (by pressing Enter) or if you use an address
book group or an Address Tool Distribution List, or otherwise add
a lot of text to the
Addresses: field via the Address Tool or address
book, such that the result is a total of more than 200 characters in this
field, then the program will put the information from this field into the
Address Tool and replace this entry field with an Address Tool button.
You must use the Address Tool dialog to add or alter your addresses for
that message from that point on unless you subsequently remove enough text
from the Address Tool so that the Addresses: field goes back to
being under 200 characters.
To attach a file to your message, use the + button to the right
of the Attachments: field to select one. If your attachment style
(the default for which is specified in the General
Settings, but can be overridden for any specific message via the compose
window's Attachments menu) is MIME, you can select as many files
to attach as you want. (Some mail programs such as AOL 4.0 do not allow
multiple files to be received.) You can view the list of attachments
you've specified for a message by clicking on the down arrow at the right
end of that dropdown list box. To remove an attachment from the message
before sending it, select it from the dropdown list box and press the -
button to the right of the Attachments: field. If your attachment
style is MIME, after selecting each file, you will be allowed to choose
whether you want it to be base64 encoded as a binary file or sent as straight
ASCII text unless the file is larger than 500,000 bytes, in which case
the program will send it as binary regardless. Files that you attach to
a message are not actually "attached" to the message until send time. So
if you tell the program to send the file C:\DIRNAME\FILENAME.EXT with a
message, then FILENAME.EXT needs to still be located in the C:\DIRNAME
directory at the time you send the message or the program will not
be able to send the file along with the message. If you want to delete
a file after sending it to someone, don't delete it after you close the
compose window and the message has been successfully sent instead.
The Sent folder: field's default contents
are taken from the Persona you're using.
If you've addressed the message using an address
book entry which has its own Sent folder specified, then the
address book setting will override the Persona Sent folder. You
can also use the Settings button to specify any folder to which you
want the program to file the message after the program has sent it. If
you select the TRASH folder or the Do
not file message check box from the Compose Settings
dialog your message will be moved to the TRASH folder upon sending.
If you uncheck all of the check boxes in the Compose Settings dialog,
the sent folder will be re-set from the
Address Book and Persona. If you select
the File message to the current month/year folder check box from
the Compose Settings dialog, the message will be moved to a
folder named 1997Dec, 1998Mar, etc., depending on your computer's system
clock when you send the message.
If you're using a Persona for which you've
specified a tagline file, the next field on the compose window will
be the Tagline: field. A tagline is randomly selected for each message
from the specified tagline file. You can always select a specific one yourself
for any particular message from this dropdown list box.
You can use your mouse to drag the panel divider between the above fields
and the text entry area below to increase or decrease the size of the panels.
When a compose window is opened for the purpose of replying to an existing
message, the compose window will have two text areas instead of one. The
text of the message to which you're replying, will appear in the upper
one. If you select text in that text area and press the Quote button
on the toolbar or use the corresponding menu bar item, the selected text
will be copied to the bottom text entry area (where you enter your reply
text) at the current cursor position with a quoting character (>) at the
beginning of each line. If you use the Quote function while there
is no text selected in the upper text area, the entire text will be quoted
then. You can use your mouse to drag the panel divider between the two
text areas or hide the upper text area entirely. The position of
this divider will be saved so you can choose how much compose window space
you normally want to spend on the upper text area of your reply windows.
The bottom line of the compose window is the status line which sometimes
presents you with status or informational notices.
Every sixty seconds, whatever you have typed into the compose window
is saved in a temporary file, named AutoSave.Fil, in your account
directory. When you close the compose window normally, the temporary file
is deleted. If the program or your operating system suffers a fatal interruption,
the file will remain. The next time you open a compose window, since that
temporary file already exists, the program will give you one opportunity
to restore the contents of that file to your compose window so you
can finish the message on which you were working before the interruption
occurred. If your compose window is opening due to your instruction to
start a reply or forward, at the time the AutoSave.Fil file is found and
you elect to restore and finish the previous message, the reply or
forward action you were initiating will be cancelled.
The Menu Bar
The File Menu
-
Send later
-
Places the message into the OUTBOX folder to be sent at a later time.
-
Send later/invoke custom program
-
The same as Send later, except that it also executes the fifth Custom
Program. This option does not appear on the menu unless you have specified
that setting.
-
Send now
-
Sends the message now.
-
Print
-
Prints the message.
-
New
-
Deletes the current message from the compose window and opens a new compose
window.
-
Open draft
-
Lets you open, finish, and send a draft message that you had created and
saved earlier. When you use either the Send later or Send now
option to finish the message, the draft file will be deleted. If you want
a draft that will not be deleted when you finish and send it, the Templates
feature is what you're looking for; see below. You can also delete a draft
without sending it via the button on the Open a Draft Message dialog.
The compose window will remind you, via a notice in its status line, each
time you open it when you have draft messages waiting to be finished.
-
Save draft as
-
Lets you save the message you're currently composing as a draft (see above).
-
Save as template
-
Lets you save the message you're currently composing as a template (see
below).
-
Import text file
-
Lets you import the contents of an ASCII text file into the compose window's
text area at the current cursor position.
-
Exit
-
Closes the compose window. If the text entry area has been modified, the
program will ask you to confirm that you want to close the window without
saving your message.
The Edit Menu
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Cut
-
Removes the selected text in the main text entry portion of the compose
window and copies it to the clipboard if you're using an operating system
which has a clipboard.
-
Copy
-
Copies the selected text in the main text entry portion of the compose
window to the clipboard if you're using an operating system which has a
clipboard.
-
Paste
-
Inserts the contents of the clipboard at the cursor position of the main
text entry portion of the compose window (replacing the selected text,
if there is any) if you're using an operating system which has a clipboard.
-
Paste quoted
-
Inserts the contents of the clipboard at the cursor position of the main
text entry portion of the compose window (if you're using an operating
system which has a clipboard), inserting the > quoting character and a
space at the beginning of each line of the pasted text.
-
If the clipboard contains what appears to be a newsgroup posting, this
function does much more than that. This makes it easy to reply to newsgroup
postings on web sites such as
http://www.dejanews.com
and http://www.hotbot.com, without
using a full-fledged news reader application. In your web browser, just
select the entire text of the newsgroup posting, beginning with (but not
before) the Subject: header and including all of the text you want to quote
in your reply and copy the selected text from your browser to the clipboard.
Then use Paste quoted in the Polarbar Mailer compose window. The
program will place the newsgroup name into the Addresses: field;
the subject line into the Subject: field; and if the main text entry
area of the compose window is blank at the time you use
Paste quoted,
then your Persona's Reply Preface
will be used and the From: and Date: fields from the newsgroup posting
in the clipboard will be substituted if your Reply Preface contains
{from} and {date} references. The program will remember the newsgroup posting's
Message-ID: header and use it in a References: line in the finished message
that you send, so that news readers and newsgroup web sites will know how
to properly thread your reply to the newsgroup posting to which you are
replying. And then of course whatever is in the clipboard after the newsgroup
posting's header lines, will be inserted into the main text entry area
of your compose window, with the > quoting character and a space at the
beginning of each line.
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Word wrap
-
When this setting is toggled off, the text entry area will have a horizontal
scroll bar and will not wrap from one line to the next when you reach the
right margin of the window; you'll have to press the Enter key yourself
at the end of each line. This is particularly appropriate when you want
to import an ASCII text file which is already formatted in a particular
way you want preserved and which is wider than your compose window.
However, this is inappropriate when you're sending ordinary paragraphs
of prose (unless you do use the Enter key to keep your lines short) because
the result will be very, very long lines of text, one line per paragraph.
It is not uncommon for a receiving mail program to be unable to correctly
deal with such lines. When this setting is toggled on, the text you type
(or import) wraps to the next line whenever it reaches the right margin
of your compose window regardless of how wide or how narrow you make the
window. This has no effect on the locations of the line breaks in the message
that will be sent to your recipients, however. The length of the lines
as they will be sent to the recipients is determined by the Word wrap
value setting (see below), not by the width of your compose window
or, therefore, the width of the lines as you see them in your compose window.
Whether or not your lines are wrapped in the compose window (by the absence
of the horizontal scroll bar) does affect whether or not your outgoing
lines will be wrapped, but it doesn't affect the width at which they'll
be wrapped.
-
Word wrap value
-
This is where you specify the line length for the messages you send from
the compose window, when the Word wrap setting (see above) is turned
on. The minimum value that will be accepted in this setting is 20.
-
Font
-
This is where you can specify the font for the text entry area.
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Spell check
-
This option brings up the Spell Checker dialog and checks the text
in your compose window's text entry area.
-
Quote original text
-
This function is enabled only when the compose window is being used to
reply to an existing message. If you select text in the upper text area
and use this option, the selected text will be copied to the bottom text
entry area (where you enter your reply text) at the current cursor position
with a quoting character (>) at the beginning of each line. If you use
this function while there is no text selected in the upper text area, the
entire text will be quoted instead.
-
Remove line feed characters from selected text
-
This option changes single line feeds to single spaces, within the block
of selected text, which has the effect of reformatting paragraphs from
their original width to your compose window's width as if you had typed
them into the compose window yourself with the Word wrap setting
turned on. This is useful after you import text into the compose window
using the Import text file option above or when you use the Alter
a composed message option to edit a message that's already been saved
(with line feeds) to your OUTBOX folder
before sending it. This function ignores quoted text; that is, lines
which begin with the > character.
-
Addressing approach
-
Lets you override the corresponding Advanced
Setting just for the current message.
The Attachments Menu
The default for this setting comes from the General
Settings, but you can change it here for any specific message. This
setting tells whether any selected attached files will be sent in UUencoded
format; or MIMEd using base64 encoding, or no encoding (which works for
ASCII text only and only for files less than 500,000 bytes in size) see
above. Files which are not plain, ASCII text need to be encoded in
some way before they're sent across the internet so that they end up containing
nothing but ASCII text because most internet servers can't handle anything
other than ASCII text. UUencoding and base64 encoding are two common ways
of encoding files that most email programs know how to do at the sending
end and how to undo at the receiving end.
The Tools Menu
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Address tool
-
This dialog lets you specify more addresses than would be convenient by
typing them yourself. The entry field at the top is where you type each
address or nickname that you do want to manually type. Pressing the To:,
Cc:,
or Bcc: button on the right puts the address in the entry field
into the list box below. If you select an address that you've placed into
the list box and press the Edit Address button, the address moves
back up into the entry field so you can change the address or the tag (To:,
Cc:, Bcc:, or News:) with which it is to be used. You can also select
an address and press the Remove Address button to delete it from
the list box. The Address Book button lets you select address
book entries to be placed into the list box. The Distribution List
button lets you enter a list of addresses from an ASCII text file. Another
way to import an address list from an ASCII file is to type "file:d:\dirname\filename.txt"
(that is, the string "file:" followed by the full pathname to the file)
into the entry field at the top of this dialog and then press the To:,
Cc:,
or Bcc: button on the right. When you're done putting all of your
desired addresses into the list box, press the OK button and they'll
be copied from this dialog into your compose window's
Addresses:
field.
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Address books
-
Search a directory using LDAP
-
This option lets you search an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
server for an email address or other information about someone's LDAP directory
entry. You can select among the last few servers you used or type in a
new one. If the server is password-protected, you can enter your userid
and password and tell the program whether or not it should save that password
(encrypted) with the server's name so the next time you use that
server the program will supply the password for you.
-
Once the program has logged onto the LDAP server, you are presented with
the search dialog. There you can modify or re-use the search criteria from
your last LDAP search on that server or use the Clear button to
erase all the fields so you can more easily type entirely new criteria.
Some servers will refuse to give you any results unless you enter certain
information into each field, so you may need to get instructions from the
administrator or other users of the server you're using or do some trial
and error in order to figure out what your server wants you to type.
-
For example, one university's LDAP server won't give you anything unless
you type the university's name, with correct capitalization, into the Organization
field and type "Students" or "Faculty", with correct capitalization, into
the Organizational Unit field. And it won't show you the "Smith"
entries if you type "smith" in the Last Name field. If your server
has a non-standard required field that doesn't appear on this dialog, it's
likely that you can perform a search anyway, by inserting that field's
contents into one of the existing fields on the dialog. For example, if
your server wants a search request to contain "st=Massachusetts" between
"o=Unnamed College" and "c=US", you can type "Unnamed College, st=Massachusetts"
into your Organization field.
-
The Max Returns field tells how many entries you want to find. If
you want the server to stop the search before it gets to 100, or if you
want it to return more than 100 matches, change the number here. Some servers
will ignore that instruction though.
-
When you're ready to start the search, press the Search button.
The results will be returned in the list box on the left of the dialog.
If a server does not use the standard labels for its fields, the program
will ask you what it should do with the information returned. For example,
if a server's returns have no "mail" field, the program will show you what
fields it does have and let you choose which one you think must be the
email address field. You might choose "uid" (for "userid"), if such a choice
is available. Normally, the server will be using the standard field names
and you won't be bothered with such a question.
-
If you click on an entry in the left hand list box, the entire contents
of the entry will be displayed on the right. If you wish, you can select
part or all (using the tiny Select All button) of the entry and
copy it (using the tiny Copy button) to the clipboard if you're
using an operating system that has a clipboard. You can select entries
in the left hand list box and use the To:, Cc:, and Bcc:
buttons to send the addresses to your compose window. You can use the Add
to Address Book button to add a selected entry to a Polarbar Mailer
address
book of your choice or you can perform another search, or close the
dialog.
-
Note that if you press the Cancel button or try to close the dialog
during a search, the program will not try to close the window yet. First,
it will just halt the search. Because often, if a search is taking too
long or the server has hung, the program can still show you the results
that have been found so far if you halt the rest of the search. But in
cases where it cannot, or if you've decided that you don't care to see
the results anyway, a second press of the
Cancel button or a second
attempt at closing the dialog will really close it this time.
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Personas
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Templates
-
This option lets you open, modify, and send a message based on a template
that you had created and saved earlier, using the option on the File
menu. This feature is much like the draft feature (see above), but is to
be used when you will want to send multiple messages, made from that template,
instead of just one. For example, a form letter or a monthly report. You
can also delete a template via the button on the Open a Message Template
dialog.
The Help Menu
-
Contents
-
This option brings up the online help window.