Reading Mail
If there is one thing Poco excels at, it is streamlining what you do most often in a mail program - reading mail. You have several shortcuts available when reading mail. Firstly, you can resize the message index and message preview pane to maximize the reading area. Turning on Fast Reading (under View menu) will automatically zoom the message window once you click on a message; when you want to proceed to the next message, either use the key shortcut (ALT+RIGHT), or simply move the mouse over the index title bar (above the message preview pane) and the the index will automatically pop into place, until you click on the next message.
When reading a message, it is often necessary to scroll through it quickly. You can always scroll the message preview pane without leaving the message index input focus by using the ALT key in combination with Page Up, Page Down, cursor Up and Down keys and Home and End. For longer messages it is even more convenient to Zoom the message preview pane - either press F11 or click on the message or index purple title bar. This will maximize the preview pane and at the same time switch input focus to it. The same action will restore the panes, and return input focus to the message index if necessary. These actions work when windows are docked vertically to the main application window (default setup). It doesn't matter if you docked the preview pane below or above the message index.
If you do not like to have the preview pane active, and would rather read messages in their own windows by double-clicking on them you can disable the preview window by pressing F10. From that point on, messages will be marked as read only after you open them up.
When dealing with HTML mail, often you will find that the sender used either too large or too small font for comfortable reading on your system. When reading messages, you can quickly enlarge or shrink the viewing font with the buttons just above the message preview pane. Also, to toggle full headers on and off, use the button in the same location.
To quickly locate some text in the current message, press the Find button just above the preview pane: this will expand the small text box where you can enter the text you are searching for. Press Enter/Return to initiate the search, and if the text is found within the current message Poco will highlight it. Pressing Enter/Return again will continue the search through the rest of the message, then back from the beginning. Text search is not case-sensitive.
Double-clicking on a message in the message index pane, or pressing Enter will open the message in its own floating window. This has advantages if used in combination with Zoom feature (F11), as the message will maximize its vertical size to simplify reading even more. You can switch between currently open Poco windows by using CTRL+F6 or CTRL+ALT+TAB to switch to the next open window and CTRL+SHIFT+F6 or CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+TAB to switch to the previous open window.
An effective tool for viewing and sorting messages is the Show Only bar, located along the top edge of the messages index. By using it, you can quickly isolate messages you are interested in, and perform operations on them. The bar consists of two pop-up menus, a text field and the Go button, the last two are hidden in the default position. The first pop-up menu is by default set to Show, and denotes the mode of operation. From the second menu choose the criteria for matching the message, i.e. mail with subject. As soon as you select the second menu you will see the text field appear, enter the subject line you are looking for and press Enter or click on the Go button. Poco will hide all the messages that do not match your search and the status bar along the bottom will show how many messages are hidden. This feature can be used in a variety of ways: you can isolate a message sent to you FROM someone, by entering their e-mail address in the field; or enter a portion of the SUBJECT line for the messages you are looking for on a specific topic; enter the DATE for the messages sent on that day; to find all messages sent TO a contact, fill in their address; to isolate all mail that came FROM one domain, enter the domain (part of e-mail address after @ sign).
This feature works on all mailboxes, and can keep your work flow smooth even if you have thousands of messages in a single mailbox. When you have a set of messages showing that you are interested in, simply press Ctrl+A to select them all and move or copy them to a new mailbox, or run a script on them.
The Show Only bar can also be used to automatically tag or mark matched messages: instead of selecting Show from the first pop-up menu, select the appropriate action and the search criteria.
Poco can make managing e-mail a lot faster through support for message tagging. Show-Only bar makes a great use of tagging support, but you can also use tagging manually: simply right-click on a message, and choose Tag Message or Untag Message under Tag menu. Tagging a message will make it appear different colour in the message index. Tagged messages can be quickly selected with Ctrl+T key combination, and then moved or run through a script. There are several ways to tag a message, besides the Show-Only bar - choosing the best one depends on the the type of messages you are trying to isolate. Keep in mind that compressing a mailbox removes any tagging information.
For further tracking of individual messages, use message marking. You can mark a single message by right-clicking on it in the index and going to Mark menu. From here, choose one of the eight marks to apply to the message. Message will now appear in different colour and you will be able to isolate it by using the Show Only bar. Marking colours and text can be customized from the same menu. To quickly apply marks to selected messages remember that you can recall them by simply pressing Alt+1 for the first mark to Alt+8 for the last mark. To clear a mark use Alt+0. Message marking is more permanent than tagging, since it is not removed when compressing a mailbox.
Show Only menu: when you need to quickly isolate messages similar to the one you are currently looking at, use the Show Only popup menu. Call it up by right-clicking on the message in the mailbox index pane. Then simply select what type of information you would like to match to the current message. For instance, if you select that you want to see other messages from the same sender, then only the messages that came from the same e-mail address will be displayed.
If you need to print a mail message, Poco allows you to customize the printout to a great degree. For a simple message print, just press the Print button on the main toolbar - this will instantly start the print job. To preview your printout, or to change the look of it, use the E-mail, Print menu, or press Ctrl+P. Here you will be able to see the printout before it is printed, but moreover you will be able to format and annotate the message before printing it. You can apply standard formatting to the message, as well as add or remove text. Poco uses the standard default print template to initially format your printout.
If you want to permanently alter the way Poco formats print jobs, go to E-mail, Edit Print Template... menu. Format the printing template in any way you choose and when done press Save as Default. If you want to revert to the original template that came with Poco, click on Use Original Template button. You will notice the use of tags to denote the placement of the message text. These are the standard Poco Common Variable Tags.
Adding contacts to the address book
The address book is an important aspect of Poco's functionality. Adding just a few mostly used addresses will help you streamline your work in many ways. The easiest way to populate your address book is to simply click on the To button just above the message pane while reading a message sent to you by one of your correspondents. This will automatically add his/her address to the current address book, as well as parse out their name so you can quickly find them later. You can also open the address book for editing by clicking on its toolbar button, or by going to Tools, Address Book menu (F5). Once there, you can add addresses of your most frequent contacts. Each address entry can contain up to four fields, nickname, full name, e-mail address and notes. The first two are optional. It is important to realize that this address book is not meant to replace your personal information manager or your contact manager - it does not store all the particulars for your correspondents. It is there solely to help you handle your e-mail.
While the full address book is useful when you need to add new contacts and move contacts between address book, you will be able to use the mini-address list for most of your interaction with address books. The address list is docked to Poco's main window so it is always easy to access. For easier navigation of your address books you can assign custom icons to entries in the address book. When prompted for an icon to use, you can locate any ICO file or even an EXE or DLL file - Poco will extract an icon if found and save it to the Icons folder. You can also override Poco's default icons for the address book entry and the mailing list entry by placing files called DEFAULT1.ICO and DEFAULT2.ICO into the Icons directory. Finally, use the right-click context menu to change to different view layouts of the address list under View menu.
Poco has built-in support for e-mail lists. It is implemented through a simple rule that any address book entry containing more than one address is treated as a list. So to create a list, there are no dialog boxes to configure, simply enter at least two addresses in the address book for that entry. Once you have created your first list, Poco will help you manage it: simply right-click on the address of the sender in the message preview pane (next to the To button), and a pop-up menu will allow you to either Add Address to List or Remove Address from List. All of your current lists will be listed in these menus. This menu can also be accessed from the New Message window, when you use a right-click on the To, CC or BCC text field, as well as when you right-click on an address inside the preview pane text. Poco will show a small confirmation tool-tip if the address was successfully added or removed. Poco will not add an address if it is already present in the list, in which case you will hear an alert sound.
Poco also supports multiple address books. Use the buttons just below the mini address list to scroll through your installed address books. To organize your address books, click on the middle button - this will bring up the Address Books settings window.
When creating new address books, you will be prompted for name and directory of the new address book. If you place it in the default Address Books folder, the location will be stored relative to your application setup. You can also save the address book outside the default folder - this location will be stored as an absolute path. This means that even if you change your address books directory, you will not affect the location of the newly created address book. This is useful if you want to keep one address book on a shared network directory, or on removable storage.
To find out more about using address book when sending mail, go to Sending Mail section.