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1999-02-23
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Manual for aMail
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\__ \ / \\__ \ | | |
/ __ \| Y Y \/ __ \| | |__
(____ /__|_| (____ /__|____/
\/ \/ \/
v1.05 from 21.02.1999
aMail is a GEM mail client for receiving, writing and sending mails via
InterNET. Its main features are:
o fully mouse controlled GEM program, smaller memory requirements
than other "texts" programs ported from U*nix
o works with MiNTNET - it doesn't need other TCP/IP sockets or STinG/STiK
o has fully U*ix compatible mailboxes - you can fetch your mails from other
system from work or school
o supports UUENCODE and BASE64
o supports MIME standard (you may save MIME attachments by drag&drop directly
into the desktop thanks to VA protocol; sent attachments have a set type
according to the file mime.types)
o ASCII configuration file, so you can edit it freely in a text editor
o you may define up to 25 mailboxes for sort your mail according to
given rules
o aMail hasn't own text editor - so you may use your favourite text editor,
but it must support OLGA protocol (QED, Everest).
o supports AV, FONT, XFSL and UFSL
o understands VA_START
o parse URLs in messages (using URLserver - an utility from ATACK)
o support Czech language and other iso-8859-XX charsets
o and more features that you can evaluate yourself ;)
What do you need to run aMail?
------------------------------
o MiNT
o AES at least version 4.0 (ATARI AES4.x, N.AES, MagiC)
o OLGA Manager
o Text editor which supports OLGA protocol (QED, Everest)
o 300 KB of free RAM
o MiNTnet or STinG/STiK (for sending and receiving mail)
We recommend:
-------------
o MiNT 1.15.x (ftp://piwo.bl.pg.gda.pl/pub/atari/mint/Kernel/)
o N.AES 1.2 (http://www.woller.de/)
o QED 4.x (http://www.tu-harburg.de/~smcf1605/qed/main.html)
Some basic tips & hints:
------------------------
1. If the program is placed on a minixfs partition and it doesn't run,
check the settings of executable flag (rwx--x--x)
2. If you want to use a mailbox from Unix, just suck it (e.g. with aFTP client)
and rename it to the $HOME/amail/inbox.
3. If you want to use a mailbox from Newsie, use the included script for converting.
4. Your text editor MUST support the OLGA protocol, because aMail sends the mail
after getting the message "Save File" from the OLGA Manager. TempDir must
be written with the following format: drive:\dir\ and NOT /dir/ !
As a small bonus there is the script n2amail.sh for converting Newsie
mailboxes into the Unix format includes to the package. Just run this script from
your shell and it will ask for necessary paths.
Start with a parameter or VA_START
----------------------------------
You may start aMail with a parameter from a command line or you may drop
it by VA_START. The parameter must be of the URL form for mail sending
(e.g. "mailto: atack@szt.cdrail.cz"). You may add your subject separated
with a question mark
(e.g. "mailto: atack@szt.cdrail.cz?subject=Testmail"). You can start aMail
with .cfg file on the command line (or send a VA_START message).
URL parsing
-----------
When you click into the message text, the clicked word will be analysed and in
case the word is in URL format (e.g. http://www.pwp.cz/atack) it will
be sent by VA_START to the corresponding application (in this case for example
CAB) with the assistance of URLSRV.
URLSRV is freeware. It is included to the package. A newer version is available
from the WWW page of Atack.
Note: URLs are not highlighted yet!
User defined mailboxes
----------------------
aMail can maintain up to 30 mailboxes. It has 5 internal mailboxes
(inbox, sent-mail, outbox), so you can define up to 25 more. If you save
aMail's config, aMail will create a remarked 3-line example in the config file.
-- start ------------- part of amail.cfg file -----------
CustomBoxName = Atari CZ
CustomBoxPath = g:\home\root\amail\atari
DefaultTo = Atari@alpha.inf.upol.cz
RuleSet = To: Atari@alpha.inf.upol.cz
RuleSet = Reply-To: Atari@alpha.inf.upol.cz
CustomBoxName = Work-outbox
CustomBoxPath = g:\home\root\amail\work_out
CustomBoxType = 1
DefaultFrom = somebody@work.com
-- end --------------- part of amail.cfg file -----------
Here is a closer explanation of the keywords:
CustomBoxName - name of the mailbox. It will be displayed in the popup menu
- compulsory keyword
CustomBoxPath - path and filename of a mailbox
- compulsory keyword
CustomBoxType - you can set this mailbox as OUTBOX (CustomBoxType = 1)
DefaultTo - in case you have opened this mailbox and created a new message
this will put the string as the address of the recipient automatically
(e.g. To: address)
DefaultFrom - in case you have opened this mailbox and created a new message
this will put the string as the address of the sender automatically
(e.g. From: address)
RuleSet - after the '=' mark you can write a rule for sorting the
mail. The string is searched in the message header
and according to the rule the message will be sorted to the defined
mailbox
Functionality Notes:
"To: honza" - the message will be passed into this mailbox if anywhere
within their header on the line starting with "To:" and anywhere else
the string "honza" will be found (e.g. "To: Friend honza")
"atari.com" - all messages which have the "atari.com" string
within their header will be passed into this mailbox
It is also possible to create a so called blacklist (mail from
anywhere will be deleted automatically), one example follows:
CustomBoxName = Black Hole
CustomBoxPath = /dev/null
RuleSet = From: scott
Object menu
-----------
This menu may be called by pressing the right mouse button over the message
header (in the upper part of the window). Then you will work only
with the message under the mouse pointer (which will be selected). You may
delete the message, move, or copy it to another mailbox (copy = move with
pressed the SHIFT key), create a new message, reply the message,
remove all flags or change the message (a new message is created,
which you can edit and the old one will be marked as deleted).
STOP button
-----------
By this button you can stop the asock.ovl, which is fetching/sending
mail by the time. Therefore you should use this button only when it is really
needed! Usually when nothing happens for a long time (connection is lost)
or e.g. when you realise that you are sending a message to a wrong
person too late ;).
AV Protocol
-----------
aMail supports and uses many GEM protocols for comfort improvement.
Except the minor ones like the FONT protocoll, UFSL, xFSL, Selectric, ...
the main one is obviously the AV protocoll. The main purpose is the
calling of external viewers for MIME attachments. In this case the
icon in the upper right corner of the window becomes clickable and you
can do one of the following things:
1) click on the icon (single click)
- a fileselector appears and you can choose the destination path
to save the attachment
2) doubleclick the icon
- the attachment is exported into the TMP directory and sent to the
AV server. For example if you receive amail.lzh as a file
attachment and you have set the LZH-Shell for opening *.lzh files
the LZH-Shell will be started with the amail.lzh as argument
3) drag the icon and drop it on any disk icon, directory... on your
desktop and the attachment file will be saved directly to where you
have dropped it.
If the file is encoded (and usually it really is) to one of the two
possible codes then it will be automatically decoded while writing. The
text is usually "quoted-printable" ('=3A' etc.) and binary files
are usually in base64 code (thick column of funny characters).
Keyboard
--------
Now we can describe the keys what can be used in aMail. Except the
hotkeys which you can easily find in the menu the keys are:
Arrows Up/Down - scrolls the message contents to next/previous line
Shift + Up/Down - scrolls the message contents to next/previous page
Clr/Home - jump to the start of the message
Shift + Clr/Home - jump to the end of the message
Arrows Left/Right - jump to next/previous message
SPACE - jump to next page/message
Shift + Left/Right - jump to next/previous page of the messages
Address book
------------
The basic function and maintenance of the address-book is hopefully
clear to everybody, but what does the Group selection stand for? In general it
makes the work with the Cc: or Bcc: copies more simple. So if you are
sending messages to a constant (similar) group of recipients you
need not write to all of them twice. You may write them all (their e-mail
addresses) into a text file and then choose this file as a Group item
in the addressbook. There must be only ONE address per line. The first
address will be used as the primary address (to the To: field in the
message header).
Sounds
------
If the audio device driver (audiodev.xdd) is installed, aMail can play
samples as a note about some events that may occur.
All samples must be raw sound data, mono, 8bit signed, 12500Hz.
If you don't want sounds, just
a) uninstall the audio device or
b) delete or rename all samples (sound/new.raw, sound/error.raw) or the
sound/ directory.
Reply-to
--------
aMail knows how to handle the following variants of a message header.
Let's describe them:
o The header contains only From:
- without any other question this will be replied to the address
from the From: field
o The header contains only From: and To:, which doesn't correspond
to your e-mail address
- the [From: | To: | All] dialog appears, where the [All] choice
replies to the addresses from the From: and To: fields.
o The header contains only From: and Reply-to:
- the [From: | Reply-to | All] dialog appears, where the [All]
choice replies to the addresses from the From: and Reply-to:
fields.
o The header contains only From: and Cc:
- the [From: | Cc | All] dialog appears, where the [All]
choice replies to the addresses from the From: and Cc: fields.
o The header contains only From:, Reply-to and Cc:
- the [From: | Reply-to | All] dialog appears, where the [All]
choice replies to the addresses from the From:, Reply-to: and
Cc: fields.
If in the last three cases the address within the To: field doesn't
correspond to your e-mail address (as in the 2nd case) then if you
choose [All] then this address will be appended as well.
In any other case the normal dialog for the header filling appears
(To:, Subject:, Cc:, attachment) and you may change anything you like.
Quote string
------------
You may define an own string, max. 10 chars (why longer, then it will
be long over the half of a line ;) and more, you can use special formatting
chars. Currently aMail distinguishes only %i as the name initials, e.g. if
you reply a mail "From: Jan Evangelista Purkyne" and your quote
string is "%i > ", all lines will begin with a "JEP > " string. Yep! ;)
MIME attachments
----------------
The type of an attachment will be automatically set during message sending
according to its file extension and the file mime.types, which will be searched
within the following directories (in this order):
1) /usr/local/share/mime.types
2) ~/.mime.types
3) ./mime.types
The file format is plain text, standard and simple ;)
--- mime.types ----
application/postscript ps eps ai
image/gif gif
image/jpeg jpg jpeg jpe
text/html htm html
text/plain txt c h cc
--- mime.types ----
If the type is text/* quoted-printable code will be used
as required for text files (containing ASCII character codes higher than 127
or if the lines are longer than 72 characters) or the base64 code if it
isn't a text file.
Limitations
-----------
The number of messages in the mailbox is limited, but the number is given
in the config file (a text file) where you can edit them simply.
There are two numbers, one for the amount of memory to be reserved for
message headers (default is 200kB which is sufficient enough ;) and the
other one is the maximum number of messages in the mailbox (default is
1000, maximum is 32768). Both numbers correspond and it would be
possible to compute one according to the other one, but this way the
programm is more configurable and the nations with short names may set
different values, which we can't know, as they want ;)
If any of these limits are exceeded while the mailbox opening it
will be interrupted and the mailbox is further locked as "read only" because
the messages which wouldn't have fit in would be lost after mailbox closing.
Therefore, the flags wouldn't be saved (read, new), the messages marked
for deletion (even for move to other mailbox) wouldn't be deleted and
also the mailbox couldn't be compressed.
Another limit we are hoping to become history soon is the wrong handling
of messages with more than one address within the To: field.
Next limitation: messages forwarding works without forwarding of MIME attachments.
The last known limitation to reach is to handle nested MIME attachments
(other MIME attachment within other ones). No one told us about it and no
one was ready for this and unfortunately such messages are appearing
more and more frequently.
Thanks
------
We would like to thank all betatesters who shared their expensive time in
developing and helping with their suggestions and their advice. We want also
thank to Christian Felsch for his QED - a great text editor. All aMail sources
have been written with QED. And of course thanks to U2, Pink Floyd and
to Stones for the best music for programming ;)
If aMail doesn't work just write down what it does or not, when and
where and the versions of your system components (OS version, MiNTnet
version, AES, free RAM at a start of aMail, environment variables
setting, ...)
Yours ATACK (InterNET division :)
e-mail: atack@szt.cdrail.cz
http://www.pwp.cz/atack/