Chapter 4; Notes and Tips:

Important:
MailFetch is not supported or endorsed in any way by America Online, Inc. The author of MailFetch is not affiliated in any way with America Online, Inc. Please do not contact America Online if you have questions or problems regarding MailFetch. Contact the author of MailFetch at KarlBunker@aol.com. I cannot guarantee that MailFetch will continue to work with future releases of America Online. “America Online” and “AOL” are registered trademarks of America Online, Inc.

“Dot-loa”
MailFetch is an update to an earlier program called “Dot-loa.” That was a horrible name, and it has been laid to rest.

Multiple Screen Names:
If you use more than one screen name with on AOL, you’ll have to set the screen name from within AOL before using MailFetch. In future releases of MailFetch, I may make it possible to select a screen name from within MailFetch itself. Please let me know if this feature would be important to you.

Errors In Connecting:
If AOL encounters an error during its attempt to connect (if you forget to turn on your modem, to give one example), MailFetch isn’t able to give you any indication of this. If nothing seems to be happening for a while, switch to AOL to see if there’s an error message there for you. In these cases, MailFetch’s screen may appear stuck showing the “Logging on to AOL” message. You can fix this by selecting “Reset” under the File menu.

Delays in Your Front Application:
Some parts of AOL’s sign on process may take up your Mac’s full attention for short amounts of time -- sometimes as long as a few seconds. This means that your Mac may appear to “freeze” briefly while AOL is working in the background, especially if you have a slower Mac. This is usually not too noticeable, and shouldn’t be a problem. Just remember not to panic if the application you’re working in appears frozen for a little while. AOL’s background activity may also occasionally change your cursor into a watch cursor for a short time.

Delay Before “New Mail” Notification Appears:
If you’re watching closely, it may seem that an Auto AOL session is completed for several seconds before MailFetch puts up its “You have new mail” floating window or its flashing icon. This is deliberate. The AOL software is “busy” for several seconds after logging off, and can’t respond immediately to a request to open the Offline Mail window. If you were to click inside the floating window too soon (or click the “AOL mailbox” button too soon), AOL would not open the Offline Mail window automatically. To prevent this, the floating window doesn’t appear until AOL is ready.

“Missed” Auto AOL Sessions:
On rare occasion, you may find that MailFetch continues to show the message “Running Auto AOL session”, even though the session has completed and AOL has logged off. This can happen due to the imperfect nature of the program-to-program communication that MailFetch uses. This happens, you can restore the MailFetch window to its “ready” appearance by selecting “Reset” under the File menu.

Fax-Modem Software:
If you have fax-modem software running in the background when you go to log on to AOL, the AOL software may ask your permission to “reset the serial port” before you can log on. This can interfere with MailFetch, since AOL will bring itself to the foreground to alert you that the port needs to be reset. AOL 3 users can prevent this. In the Modem Configuration section of AOL’s Setup window, simply turn off (un-check) the “Ask Before Resetting Port” check box.
There doesn’t seem to be any equivalent setting for AOL 4. All I can suggest is that you turn off your fax-modem software before having MailFetch log on to AOL.