Mail Checker Panel

The Mail Checker Panel in Desktop Sidebar can be used to check and read POP3 email. You can configure multiple accounts, develop your own sorting rules and create a custom spam and junk filter engine. You can even view HTML messages or launch your default email client to read your messages. You can view the entire message, or only a part of it as a preview. You can add multiple POP3 email accounts in the same Mail Checker panel. If you wish to employ different criteria for each email account, you can create a stack or tile panel with a separate mail checker panel for each account, with its own preferences. For more information, see the Stack Panel and Tile Panel documentation.

Steps to Add a New EMail Account:

• Right Click on the Mail Checker panel
• Select Panel Properties, Select the Accounts tab, Click Add
• Enter any name you wish to use to identify the account in the Account name field
• Enter the POP3 server name of your email account. You can obtain this from your email service provider.
• Enter the Server port value if you have set it to anything other then the default. Otherwise, use the default value.
• Enter your User name and Password for your email account
• You can click Check Account to see if the information you entered is correct and sufficient for Mail Checker to check your email. If everything is in order, you should get a message saying Server Response +OK YourAccount has XX visible messages (YY hidden) in ZZZZZZZ octets. If you get an error message, review your information and try again.
• You can select the maximum time the mail checker spends downloading messages from the POP3 server. This would depend on how fast your POP3 server responds.

Steps To set General Preferences:

• Right click on the Mail Checker panel, Select Panel Properties, General tab
• You can enter the link to your local Mail Client (Outlook, Eudora, etc)
• You can set how often the Mail Checker automatically checks your POP3 email(default 5 mins)
• You can choose whether you want to view HTML content of your email or only the text.
• You can set the number of lines of the message that you wish to view in the details window for each email.
• You can choose if you want your messages to be deleted from the server once you have downloaded it into mail checker. Sidebar maintains a list of messages it has deleted. You can view or clear this list using the Show Deleted Log or Clear Deleted Log buttons.
• You can set the number of messages you want to view (sorted by the same order in which your POP3 server sorts your email, usually according to date). Remember that space is limited inside your sidebar. You can also choose to view only unread messages, or both read and unread message.

Email Panel Rules:

• This can be accessed under Panel Properties, Rules tab
• The list of current rules will be displayed, with the description of the selected rule below it. A rule with a check in the checkbox means the rule is active. If there is no check, it means the rule is disabled.
• There are 4 default rules, which you can edit or delete if you dont want to use them. If you want to add them, they can be added directly from the Add button menu.
• Rules are created by clicking the Add button. Rules can be created by choosing sensible combinations of Condition for Your Rule, Action for Your Rule, and in some cases, a Third Parameter that can be set by clicking any underlined value (if available) in the Rule Description. A Rule Name can be specified for each new rule you create.
• Any rule, default, or user-created, can be modified by clicking the Edit button, or removed by clicking the Remove button, or disabled by un-checking the checkbox next to the name in the Rules list.
• Rules are generally used to mark the message as Bulk, Junk or Big, or to display alerts if the message satisfies a certain rule, or other actions like launching an application or making the Sidebar appear if a message satisfies a certain rule.

Junk E-mail Engine:

• Mail Checker comes with a customizable spam/junk-mail filtering engine, which can be found under Panel Properties, Junk E-mail tab.
• Emails that contain more then a user specified number of occurrences of bad words will be marked as Junk Mail. You can create your own bad word list by clicking the Edit Button under the Bad Words option. You can disable this option by un-checking the checkbox. You can specify the maximum number of allowed bad words in the Bad Words limit option.
• You can over-ride all other Junk Mail filtering options for some addresses that you know you can trust. You can enter the addressed of these Trusted Senders by clicking the Edit button under the Trusted Senders option.
• You can mark messages that are not directly addressed to your email address (example, messages sent out to Bulk Mailing Lists, not directly to you) as Junk Email. You can create a list of your addresses by clicking the Edit button in the My Addresses option. You can disable this option by un-checking the checkbox.
• Emails that come from addressed that you have specified as Bulk Sender will be marked as Bulk Email. To add a Bulk Sender’s Address to your list, click the Edit button under Bulk Senders option.

Mail Checker panel contains short-cut buttons for the following actions:

• Launch your default email client
• Check for Messages
• Mark all messages as Read

You can also choose to view only certain type of messages, or all types of messages, by clicking the appropriate button. Message types include All, Inbox, Bulk, Junk, and Big. Messages can be marked as Bulk, Junk or Big using the Junk E-mail engine, and the email Rules described above. All other unmarked messages will be considered as Inbox messages. All option will display all the messages.

The panel will display a list of selected messages according to your preferences. The From Address and Subject Line will be listed on the panel. When you mouse over the message listing in the panel, the details window will contain the entire or partial, plain text or HTML version of the message, according to the preferences that you have set. Clicking the message will launch the default email client if you have specified one.