General Settings
Incoming Mail Settings
Outgoing Mail Settings
Retrieve Settings
Messages Settings
Cleanup Settings
News Settings
PGP Settings
This notebook is accessed via the toolbar
button by the same name, the General submenu option of the Options
option on the program's main window's Tools
menu, or the OK-Goto General button in the
Advanced
Settings notebook. These two settings notebooks hold most of the program's
settings, but many others are found instead in the location where you use
them. For example, the main window's
Message
menu remembers things such as your Word wrap, Decode attachments,
Headers,
and font settings; the compose window remembers
your word wrap and font settings; etc.
The Mail Servers Page
The first option lets you specify whether your mail server is a POP3
server or an IMAP4 server. If you select IMAP4, two extra
settings, Mail Folder and Mailbox Name, will appear; see
Preview
IMAP4 Mail for their explanations as well as information about the
other ways in which the program will act differently based on whether an
account is configured for POP3 or IMAP4.
If you leave blank any of the next three fields here, the program will
prompt you for all of this information each time you try to retrieve mail
from the server. This can be useful if you don't want your password to
be stored on your hard drive (even though the program does encrypt it before
storing it) or if you often like to retrieve mail from other mail accounts
into one Polarbar Mailer
account. (However,
you probably don't want to leave the User Name field blank, because
unless you have the Personal Post Office
feature enabled, the program will open the General Settings notebook
automatically each time you start it if there's no User Name filled
in here.)
-
Server
-
The address of the POP3 or IMAP4 server from which this account
gets its mail.
-
User Name
-
The userid by which your POP3 or IMAP4 server knows this account. Very
often, the piece of information that goes here is the part of your email
address before the @ sign.
-
Password
-
The password used to make your POP3 or IMAP4 server provide access to this
account's mail.
-
Connection Timeout
-
How many seconds the program should wait for a connection. It will stop
waiting sooner than this if TCP/IP returns an error or if the connection
is made.
-
Port
-
Usually 110, the port number to which the POP3 server will respond. For
an IMAP4 server, this setting is normally 143.
The Outgoing Mail Page
-
Server List
-
Mail sent using this account is sent
via one or more outgoing mail servers that are configured on this page.
The order in which the server connections are attempted is from top to
bottom. Polarbar does not memorize which server it used previously and
always starts with the first listed server. You can configure each
server to only be used if your computer's IP address is in one (or more)
specific IP address range(s).
- Add Button
- Use the Add button to add a new outgoing mail server entry. Polarbar
pops up a "New Server" dialog that lets you choose which type of server
to configure:
- SMTP
A standard Simple Mail Transfer Protocol server.
- Auth SMTP
An SMTP server that supports the AUTH LOGIN
authentication protocol that requires you to log in with your
user ID and password. If you are not sure if your ISP uses
a plain SMTP server or supports AUTH LOGIN, choosing this server
type is a safe option, because if it turns out that the server
doesn't support AUTH LOGIN, Polarbar will fall back to the simple
SMTP usage.
- POP3 (out)
A standard Post Office Protocol 3 server that
requires you to log in with your user ID and password.
- PPO
A type of server that requires you to deposit your mail
into a specific directory that it scans periodically for new outgoing
mail.
The new server entry is added to the bottom of the list and is listed as
"undefined".
- Change Button
- Use the Change button to edit the settings for the highlighted server
entry. You can also double-click on a server entry to enter edit mode.
- Delete Button
- Use the Delete button to delete the highlighted entry.
- Up Button
- Use the Up button to move the highlighted entry up one slot in the
list.
- Down Button
- Use the Down button to move the highlighted entry down one slot in
the list.
For all server types other than PPO, the "Edit connection settings"
dialog uses the same basic dialog with minor differences between the
types, as described below:
-
Mail Server
-
The address for the mail server (e.g., mail@myisp.com).
-
Port
- Usually 25 for an SMTP or Auth SMTP server or 110 for a POP3
(out) server.
-
Test Connection Button
-
When you activate this button, Polarbar tests the connection to this
server and reports the results by changing the button text. If the
connection attempt fails, you can adjust the server settings and test
the connection again.
-
Connection Timeout
-
How many seconds the program should wait for a connection. It will stop
waiting sooner than this if TCP/IP returns an error or if the connection
is made.
-
Attempts
-
How many attempts Polarbar should make to connect to this server before
moving on to the next server in the list.
-
IP Address Range
-
A optional list of IP address ranges, separated by semicolon, that
your computer's IP address must be within in order for Polarbar to
use this server. For example, if the ISP that owns this server always
gives your computer an IP address that starts with 39.12 or 39.13
when you are connected to the ISP's network, then you could enter
39.12;39.13 into this field. Then if you were dialed into some
other network, this server would not be used to send your mail.
-
Userid
-
For Auth SMTP and POP3 (out) servers only. Your user ID for this
mail server.
-
Password
-
For Auth SMTP and POP3 (out) servers only. Your password for this
mail server. This field is optional. If it is blank, then Polarbar
will prompt you for your password every time that it attempts to
send mail using this server.
The Retrieving Page
-
Retrieve new mail only
-
This setting applies only when mail is being retrieved from a POP3 or IMAP4
server, not from the Personal Post Office
directory. When this checkbox is turned on, the program will only retrieve
messages that it thinks you haven't already read. You might use this setting
if you like to leave your mail on the server for safekeeping or for future
reference. The way in which the program will decide which messages you
have and have not read depends upon the state of the Mail server supports
the UIDL command setting, below. The only reason for the existence
of the high message counter method is for those few POP3 servers which
don't support UIDL.
-
If that setting is turned off, so that the UIDL identifiers can't be used,
then the program will only retrieve messages whose message number is higher
than that specified in the Last message number setting and it will
update that setting each time it retrieves a message. (This applies to
normal mail retrieval, not anything done by the Preview
Mail feature.) Do not use this setting if you use another program or
the Preview Mail feature to retrieve mail from the same server on the same
account, unless you manually adjust the Last message number setting
accordingly.
-
If the Mail server supports the UIDL command setting is turned on,
then the Last message number setting will be ignored and the program
will instead determine whether or not to retrieve a message based on whether
or not the server's Unique IDentification Listing for that message is already
stored in the account's UIDL.IDS file
or not.
-
Last message number
-
When the Retrieve new mail only setting is in use but the Mail
server supports the UIDL command setting is not, this number is what
tells the program which messages to retrieve from the server. For example,
when this setting says 6, the program will retrieve message 7 and anything
thereafter. If the program finds that there are only 6 messages in the
account on the mail server, it will think there are no new messages to
retrieve. If it finds that there are 5 or fewer messages on the server
(for example, if you have used Preview Mail
or another program to delete some), then it will retrieve all of the mail
since it obviously can't rely on a high message counter that's higher than
the last message in the server. However, if you use Preview Mail or another
program to delete some mail but some other new mail arrives too, so that
the number of messages in the server is still as high or higher than this
high message counter, the program will not retrieve all of your new mail.
For example, if the setting says 6, you've deleted 2, and 3 new ones have
arrived so the server now contains 7, then messages 5 through 7 are new,
but the program will only download message number 7 since that's the only
one that's higher than the high message counter. If you remembered to reset
this setting to 4 after you deleted the two messages from the server, though,
then everything would be fine and the program would download all of the
right messages.
-
Mail server supports the UIDL command
-
The program will automatically turn this checkbox off, if your server returns
an error code in response to the program's attempt at using the UIDL command
(see Retrieve new mail only, above). If your Internet Service Provider
installs new server software that does support UIDL, or you change to an
ISP whose server does, turn this checkbox back on. You can also turn this
checkbox off even if your server does support the UIDL command, if you
think you will not be wanting to use the UIDL feature any time soon and
you don't want the program to waste time retrieving the UIDL identifiers
if you're not going to be using them. If this checkbox is on, the program
will retrieve the UIDLs even when Retrieve new mail only is turned
off, so that once you do turn it on, the program will already know which
of the messages on your server you've read up to that point. The program
keeps the UIDL records of all the messages that are currently in your POP3/IMAP4
server account each time you retrieve mail, in the UIDL.IDS file in your
account
subdirectory.
-
Download POP3 mail in reverse order
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will download messages from the
POP3 server in the reverse order from that in which they are listed. This
option is intended to be used with POP3 servers that list messages from
newest to oldest, instead of the traditional oldest to newest.
-
Delete retrieved messages from server
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will delete messages from the
server after successfully retrieving them.
-
Retrieve mail automatically every [ ] minutes
-
With this checkbox turned on and a number of minutes specified, the program
will automatically retrieve new mail whenever the account
is open after each time the specified number of minutes elapses. To temporarily
turn it off, or to make automatic mail retrieval occur on all accounts,
see Popper.
-
Provide a warning for messages larger than [ ] kilobytes
-
With this checkbox turned on and a number of kilobytes specified, the program
will not retrieve a message larger than that size. Instead, it will retrieve
only its headers. The message that ends up in your INBOX
folder will contain a notice from the program that you need to use the
Preview
Mail feature to retrieve the entire message. This way, you know the
sender and the subject line of the message to decide when to retrieve the
message at your own convenience rather than having your system tied up
by a large download when you weren't expecting it.
-
Send mail in outbox when performing receive
-
With this checkbox turned on PBM will try to send any messages in your outbox
as soon as a mail retrieval process has been started.
-
Popper retreives to another account
-
With this checkbox turned on, any messages that are retrieved for this
account when the Popper is running are
instead redirected to the account that is specified in the drop-down
list to the right, unless this account is the active account when the
The Messages Page
-
Prompt before deleting messages
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will ask you for confirmation
each time you delete a message from a folder. Caution:
If turn off this setting, it is suggested that you enable the cleanup
setting: Copy Discarded Messages to Trash to avoid accidental loss
of messages.
-
Prompt before permitting addresses without domains
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will ask you whether you're sure
you haven't made a mistake each time you try to leave the compose
window with an addressee which is not formatted like a legal internet
address and is also not found as a nickname in one of your address
books. Turn this setting off if you need to be able to address messages
to other users on your own network without having to specify the domain
name as part of the address.
-
Include message headers when forwarding
-
If you turn this setting on, then when you forward
a message, its header lines will be included instead of only its message
body text.
-
Scan unread messages across folders
-
If you turn this setting on, then when you select
Next Unread Message
and there are no more unread messages in the current
folder, the program will advance to the next folder with
unread messages in it, if any, not counting the draft,
outbox, and trash folders.
-
Remember folder message list sort order
-
If you turn this setting on, then when you sort the
Message List, the
sort order will be retained between visits to to
folder and between invocations of the program.
-
Switch focus on message selection
-
If you turn this setting on, then after a message is selected,
the window focus is switched back to the message browser.
-
Default word wrapping ON/OFF for all composed messages
-
This setting lets you specify whether you want the Word wrap setting
on the Edit menu of the compose window
to be on or off by default.
-
Show attachment messages
-
If you turn this setting on, then Polarbar will insert the following
messages about attachments into the main body, when appropriate:
o "|===[ Inline attachment follows ]===|"
o "|===[ HTML message converted to attachment ]===|"
o "|===[ Only decoded first attachment ]===|"
-
Default MIME/UUENCODE as the method of encoding attached files
-
This setting lets you specify whether you want the compose
window's Attachments menu setting to default to Mime or UUencode.
The Cleanup Page
-
Maintain the Transaction Log
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will monitor the size of the
message
transaction log file and remove the oldest entries in order to make
it adhere to the Maximum Number of Log Items setting. This action
is taken each time you close an account,
either by switching to another account or by closing the program.
-
Maximum Number of Log Items
-
If the Maintain the Transaction Log setting is turned on, the program
will remove the oldest entries from the message transaction log file in
order to keep only this number of entries in the file.
-
Maintain the Trash Folder
-
With this checkbox turned on, the program will monitor the size of the
TRASH
folder and delete the messages that have been in it the longest, in order
to make its size adhere to the
Maximum Number of Trash Messages
setting. This action is taken each time you close an
account,
either by switching to another account or by closing the program.
-
Maximum Number of Trash Messages
-
If the Maintain the Trash Folder setting is turned on, the program
will delete from the TRASH folder the messages which have been in it the
longest in order to keep only this number of messages in the folder.
-
Copy Discarded Messages to the Trash Folder
-
With this setting turned on, the program will copy deleted messages to the
TRASH folder. If this setting is not
turned on, messages will be permanently removed from the drive with no backup.
Note also that with this setting enabled, sent messages will be saved to trash
if no sent folder is selected.
-
Persist Java console output to debug file
-
Used for diagnostic purposes, this setting sends various messages about internal
operations and error messages to a file named DEBUG.OUT in the Polarbar main
directory. Normally this setting is off.
-
Max log size in kilobytes before archiving
-
Enabled only when Persist Java console is checked, this setting determines how
large the diagnostic file can grow to. Once this size is reached, it is either
truncated if the next setting (number of archives) is 0 or it is archived and
then truncated.
-
Number of log archives to keep
-
Enabled only when Persist Java console is checked, this setting determines how
many diagnostic files are kept. An archive file is created only when the diagnostic
file reaches the pre-defined max log size setting above. Any number of archived
files can be maintained, limited only by disk space.
-
Number of status message lines to keep for viewing
-
This setting determines how far back you can view status line messages that are
ovewritten over time. Status line messages are the ones that show the number of
messages downloaded and how many notes were filtered, etc. The default is 100
lines. Entering a larger number for this value may result in increased memory
usage and should be adjusted with care.
-
Number of Java console lines to keep for viewing
-
This setting determines how far back you can view standard Java console messages
that are redirected by Polarbar when it starts. Java console messages usually
only occur when errors or diagnostic messages are produced by Polarbar error
handling routines. The default is 1000 lines. Entering a larger number for this
value may result in increased memory usage and should be adjusted with care.
The News Page
If your only use of internet newsgroups is by web sites such as http://www.dejanews.com
or
http://www.hotbot.com, you don't
need a news reader application. Those web sites let you read all the newsgroup
postings you want and they even let you write a reply, but not easily.
The Polarbar Mailer provides an easy way to write newsgroup postings and
replies so you can interact with such web sites in both directions without
using a full-fledged news reader. To write an original posting, just type
NEWS: and the newsgroup name as the addressee, in the compose
window. To reply to a posting on a newsgroup web site, see Paste
quoted.
-
News Server
-
The address of your news server.
- Note: If you don't want to use the Polarbar news posting feature,
you should leave the New Server field blank in order to avoid
occasional Paste Quoted oddities where Polarbar thinks that you
are trying to reply to a news message.
-
Port Number
-
Usually 119, the port number to which the news server will respond.
-
Interpret addresses containing a period (.) but no (@) as newsgroups
-
If you leave this setting on, then you don't have to type NEWS: before
a newsgroup name in the Addresses: field of the compose
window. The program will assume that any address that has a period
without an @ sign is a newsgroup and will send the message using your news
server. (If the message also has other addressees that don't look like
newsgroup names, the program will send the message to those addressees
using the SMTP or POP3 server; it will only send the message to the news
server for those addressees that look like newsgroup names.)
-
Note: This setting applies to you even if you never want to use the Polarbar
Mailer for newsgroup postings or replies. If you need to be able to send
an email message to an address which does not contain an @ sign but does
contain a period (for example, another user at your own domain so that
you want to leave off the @ sign and the domain name, but his username
has a period in it), then you have to turn this setting off or else the
program will always try to send that message to your news server (and if
you don't have your news server setting filled in, the program is going
to prompt you for it at send time). With this setting turned off, the
program will never try to send anything to the news server unless you type
NEWS: in front of the address in the compose window.
The PGP Page
This page lets you configure Polarbar for use with PGP for signing and
verification of mail messages.
- PGP Public Keyring
- Enter the path to your PGP public keyring or use the Find button
to locate it.
- PGP Secret Keyring
- Enter the path to your PGP secret keyring or use the Find button
to locate it.
- PGP ID
- Enter your PGP ID here or locate it using the find button.
- PGP Passphrase
- Only type your PGP passphrase here if you want it to be stored in
Polarbar's account settings file, using weak encryption. If you don't
type your passphrase here, then each time you start Polarbar, you will
be prompted for your passphrase the first time that Polarbar might need
it since the time you started Polarbar. If you do enter your passphrase
here, you can test it using the Test button.