Personas
The Personas notebook is accessed from the Tools menu in the
main mailer window or by using the toolbar
button or the Tools menu option on the compose
window. Each Polarbar Mailer account
can have any number of different Personas. A Persona is a collection of
information about a user and how he wants himself to be presented
to the readers of his messages. The only information that is required
in a Persona is the Persona name and the From E-Mail address. Each Persona
has three pages and can contain any or all of the following information:
The Main Page
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Persona Name
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A label by which you can remember who you are when you're using this Persona.
This name is shown at the top of every compose
window to remind you what Persona you're using while you're composing
each message. For example, you might have Personas named Work and Personal.
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Set as default persona
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If you select this checkbox, this Persona will become the default and will
be used each time you open a compose window.
You can change a particular compose window's current Persona at any time
by coming to this Personas notebook, selecting a Persona, and clicking
on the OK button at the very bottom of the notebook window. However,
any information you have filled in, in the compose window, before you change
to a different Persona, will not be replaced by the Persona information.
For example, if a Sent folder is already specified in the compose
window, the program doesn't know whether that was specified by virtue of
the previous Persona or whether you had specifically chosen it yourself.
So in that case, the new Persona's From and Reply-to information will be
used, but its Sent folder will not be.
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If you don't want to have a default Persona, turn off this checkbox in
whichever Persona is currently your default. Thereafter, every time you
open a compose window, the program will automatically open the Personas
notebook for you to choose a Persona for the message.
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From/Reply-To/BCC Name/E-Mail
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The From address is mandatory. The From and Reply-To name and the From,
Reply-To, and BCC address are optional. There is little reason to specify
a Reply-To name and/or address unless you want people to reply to you at
an address that's different from your From address. If you specify a BCC
address, then all messages that you send using this persona will also be
sent to you as a BCC (which allows you to file your sent messages using
message filters).
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Signature
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What you type here will go at the bottom of every message you send. If
you include the strings "{date}" or "{time}" (those are French curly brackets,
not parentheses or square brackets) in your signature, they will be translated
to the current date or time (according to your computer's system clock)
at the time you save the message to your OUTBOX
folder or send it. You may also specify Java system properties, such as
"{java.version}", "{java.class.version}", "{os.name}", "{os.arch}",
"{os.version}", "{user.language}", and "{user.region}" or any other
Java system properties that are supported by the Java virtual machine
that you are using to run the program.
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Insert blank line ahead of signature
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If this checkbox is enabled, then the program will ensure that there is
one, and only one, blank line between the message text and the signature,
if any. If this checkbox is turned on, then the program will ensure that
there are no blank lines between the message text and the signature. Note:
This does not affect any blank lines that are at the top of the signature
block.
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Newsgroup-style signature
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If this checkbox is enabled, then the program will insert a newsgroup-style
signature separator (a line with only two dashes and a space, i.e., "-- ")
ahead of the signature, if any, but after the blank line, if enabled.
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Tagline Prefix
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This is where you can specify text to be inserted ahead of the chosen
tagline, if any, on the same line as the tagline.
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Tagline File
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This is where you can specify a file which contains a list of taglines.
A tagline is a funny or wise saying that is appended to each message after
the signature. Each time you open a
compose window
or select a Persona which has a tagline file specified, one line of the
tagline file is selected at random for the compose window's Tagline:
field. If the randomly selected tagline is not appropriate for the current
message, you can select a different one since this field of the compose
window is a dropdown selection field containing all the lines of the specified
tagline file.
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Quote Characters
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This is where you can specify the characters to be used when quoting from
another message. The default quote characters are the greater than sign
and a space (i.e., "> "). Note: Text that is quoted is not word wrapped
in the compose window and will not be word
wrapped when the message is sent, regardless of the
PGP.
The Compose Prefaces Page
At the top of each reply, forwarded message, or newly composed message
you create, the program can insert a line of text (or multiple lines) which
says something like "** Reply to message from John Doe on Fri, 07 Feb 1999
21:30:41 EST". This page is where you tell the program what you want these
"preface" lines to say. By default, each Persona does have such a preface
for replies and forwards, but not for new messages. Remember, if you want
to have a blank line between the preface and the rest of the message text,
just leave a blank line at the end of the preface you create here.
If you include the string "{from}" (those are French curly brackets,
not parentheses or square brackets) in a preface, it will be substituted
with the From name of the author of the message to which you are replying
or the message you are forwarding. The string "{date}" will be replaced
by the Date: header of that message. The strings "{today}" and "{time}"
will be converted to the date and time at which the compose window is opened,
according to your computer's system clock. You may also specify Java system
properties, such as "{java.version}", "{java.class.version}", "{os.name}",
"{os.arch}", "{os.version}", "{user.language}", and "{user.region}" or any
other Java system properties that are supported by the Java virtual machine
that you are using to run the program. You may also specify message headers
from the referenced message, such as "{message-id}", "{subject}", "{reply-to}",
and "{x-mailer}" or any other header that might be present in a message.
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Quote entire message when replying
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If this checkbox is enabled, then when you reply to a message without
first highlighting any of the text in it, the entire message will be
quoted in the compose window.
The Send Options Page
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Sent folder
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This is where you specify the location where you will most often want
your messages, created using this Persona, to be filed after they have been
sent. Your selection here is what is used to fill in the default for the
Sent folder: field on the compose window.
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Optional headers
- This is where you can choose to include optional predefined headers that
show what Platform or Java Virtual Machine you are running Polarbar on or
optional custom headers that you define. Your custom headers may also use any
of the keyword substitutions that are allowed in the compose prefaces.
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Addressing approach
- This is where you can choose to override the default addressing approach,
which is set up on advanced settings dialog.
Attaching a Persona to an Address Book Entry
After you create a Persona, you can easily attach it to one or more
specific entries in your address book by entering the persona name in the
address book field labeled Persona.