This guide provides information on installing, configuring and using Pegasus Mail for Windows, and on how you can obtain technical support and assistance.

Information about Pegasus Mail

Important information about this release

Notes applying only to the 32-bit version

*** What's new in Pegasus Mail v4.x? ***

Installing Pegasus Mail for Windows

Updating from an older version

Internet mail via WINSOCK.DLL

Extensions for Pegasus Mail

Technical support and mailing lists

User-defined gateways

Troubleshooting

Terms and conditions of use and distribution

Ordering Pegasus Mail manuals

To see the contents of any of the topics shown above, click on the topic. To finish using Help simply press <Esc>.

Pegasus Mail System, Copyright ©1990-2001, David Harris, all rights reserved.


Information about Pegasus Mail

Pegasus Mail is an electronic mail system, provided free of charge as a service to the broader community of people seeking to benefit from electronic mail: you may use Pegasus Mail on as many systems as you wish without cost or obligation. Manuals may be purchased for the program but manual purchases are optional - you are under no obligation to purchase a manual.

An overview of the Pegasus Mail system

Getting the software


An overview of Pegasus Mail
An overview of the Pegasus Mail system

Pegasus Mail is an electronic mail program that can be used in a very wide range of environments, and which is especially well-suited to Internet mail. Individual users with a connection to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider such as PSI or Netcom can use Pegasus Mail to send and retrieve mail. Pegasus Mail has special support for Novell NetWare local area networks and operates in that environment with almost no maintenance and with a number of extra capabilities. In NetWare mode, Pegasus Mail can take advantage of a powerful Internet mail transport system called Mercury developed by Pegasus Mail's author.

Pegasus Mail is a very comprehensive and powerful system offering a long list of features and capabilities, a small selection of which is shown below:

*	CC, BCC, Reply-to addressing supported.

*	Automatically keep copies of all your outgoing mail

* 	Support for the Internet IMAP4 remote mailbox access protocol

*	Message templates allow you to design your own mail forms

*	Message encryption (scrambling) using a very secure algorithm, with the ability to use encryptors developed by third parties.

*	Up to 64 attachments per message

*	Support for all Internet attachment encodings

*	Full support for all versions of NetWare MHS

*	Comprehensive editor with spelling checker (60,000 words)

*	Glossary feature speeds up entry of common text and phrases

*	Minimal installation (via simple setup program), and practically no ongoing maintenance

*	Mail filtering rules - automate your mail processing.

*	Delivery and proof-of-reading confirmation supported.

*	Extensive address book features with aliasing.

*	Distribution lists allow mailing to hundreds or thousands of users

*	Extremely user-configurable with a rich range of preference settings

*	Save messages in progress for later retrieval

*	Extremely comprehensive context-sensitive online help

*	Comprehensive support for the Internet MIME multimedia messaging standard

*	Public noticeboards/discussion groups

*	Address completion on address fields

*	Huge range of sorting and searching options for your mail

*	Hierarchical foldering (having mail folders within other mail folders) allows you to organize your mail in the way that seems most logical to you.

*	Very rich support for the POP3/SMTP Internet mail protocols, allowing you to access your mail with any Internet Service Provider using a standard WINSOCK.DLL file like the one supplied with Windows 95. Pegasus Mail can access an unlimited number of POP3 mailboxes at an unlimited number of sites.

*	User-defined gateways - Pegasus Mail lets you design your own mail transport for practically any purpose - fax, dialup mail, remote printing and more.

*	MailMerge capability allows you to create form letters and fill them out so they look like they have been custom-sent.

*	Extensions: Pegasus Mail has a very powerful "plug-in" manager allowing developers to create their own extra functions that look and behave just like part of the program.

In the Novell NetWare environment, Pegasus Mail also offers the following:

*	Excellent support for Novell NetWare local area networks - Pegasus Mail takes full advantage of the NetWare environment and has support for both NetWare 3.x and 4.x.

*	Extensive supervisor controls on system features

*	Direct access to user lists from the NetWare Bindery (or from NetWare Directory Service under NetWare 4.1) and (if present) the NetWare MHS directory files.

*	Autoforwarding (except when using NetWare MHS)

*	Broadcast notification messages announce that new mail has arrived

*	List users logged-in to your server and send them messages

*	Mail directly to NetWare Groups.


Getting the software

You're reading this, so you've evidently managed to get the Pegasus Mail software from somewhere, but for your information, the officially-maintained sources for Pegasus Mail are:

1: By checking our web page, http://www.pmail.com

This site contains all the current versions and lots of useful information.

2: Via anonymous FTP on the Internet:

risc.ua.edu, in /pegasus (North America)

ftp.usm.maine.edu in /pegasus (North America)

pegasus.topnz.co.nz, in /pegasus (South Pacific)

3: Using your Web Browser

http://risc.ua.edu/pegasus  (North America)

ftp://ftp.usm.maine.edu/pegasus  (North America)

ftp://pegasus.topnz.co.nz/pegasus  (South Pacific)

You can also obtain the Pegasus Mail software by sending us a self-addressed unstamped envelope and US$10 or equivalent (no cheques please) to cover postage and the cost of the diskette. Send to:

Pegasus Mail, c/- David Harris

P.O. Box 5451,

Dunedin,

New Zealand.


Important information about this release
Important information about this release.

In the last few months we have seen an upsurge in the use of Pegasus Mail to send bulk unsolicited electronic mail. We regard this use as incompatible with the aims and goals of the program, which are to improve the quality of communication between people. Accordingly, the terms and conditions of use of Pegasus Mail have been modified to incorporate the following paragraphs:

3:	The supply or promotion of Pegasus Mail for the purpose of sending bulk, unsolicited e-mail is incompatible with the basic aims of the program, which revolve around the free provision of a service that enhances the quality of communication between people. Pegasus Mail may not be included in any package designed for this purpose, whether free or otherwise, nor may vendors of such packages use the "Pegasus Mail" trademark or other related material in the promotion of their package. Similarly, we do not consider bulk, unsolicited e-mail to be an appropriate use of Pegasus Mail and reserve the right to decline technical support, or the sales of manuals to people using it for this purpose.

3a:	Prohibited use:  Pegasus Mail may not be used for the purpose of sending Bulk Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail. For the purposes of this section, this shall be construed to mean electronic mail sent to a total of more than 50 recipients for the purpose of advertising a commercial product or service, where the recipient has not explicitly expressed interest in receiving such advertisements.

Vendors or suppliers currently including Pegasus Mail in their bulk e-mail or mass-mail products are hereby required to remove copies of and all references to the Pegasus Mail software from their products.


A signature is a fragment of text that Pegasus Mail adds automatically to the end of every outgoing message you send. Your signature usually contains information describing how to contact you, such as your phone number, fax number, e-mail address and so on.

Because some of the information you might put in your signature (especially your e-mail address) is defined by the way your message is sent (for instance, your Internet e-mail address is almost always different from your MHS address if you use both systems to send mail), Pegasus Mail allows you to define signature sets, where each set contains signature information for the three possible ways your message could travel - locally, via the Internet, or via MHS. If you only ever use Internet mail then you only have to define an Internet mail signature.


Notes applying to the 32-bit version
Notes applying only to the 32-bit version

If you have downloaded the 32-bit version of WinPMail, then please note the following points about that version:

* The Win32 version is intended for use on Windows NT v4.0/2000/XP or later or on Windows 95/98/ME systems. It will not run on Windows 3.1 systems with Win32S installed, or on Windows NT v3.5x. The 16-bit version of WinPMail runs perfectly well in all of these environments.

* If running the Win32 version in NetWare mode, please be aware that it will ONLY work if you are using genuine Novell's workstation client software: it will NOT work with the Microsoft NetWare requester because of incompatibilities between Microsoft's code and the Novell interface libraries used by Pegasus Mail. This problem can only be corrected by either Novell or Microsoft - it is outside our control. This restriction does NOT apply to the 16-bit version of WinPMail - if you prefer to use Microsoft's NetWare support modules, we suggest you use the 16-bit version until either Microsoft or Novell come out with a correction.


Installing Pegasus Mail for Windows

System requirements

Installing the Pegasus Mail files

Connecting Pegasus Mail to an Internet Service Provider

Installing for a single person on a single computer

Installing for multiple people on a single computer

Installing on a network other than Novell NetWare

How to run WinPMail as a specific person

Installing in the Novell NetWare® Environment

Tuning and customising your installation


System requirements

Pegasus Mail is not especially demanding on your system - it has been tested and found to work well on Windows 95/98/ME and Windows NT4/2000/XP. It typically uses around 3MB RAM while running (less under Windows 9x and ME systems).

If you are using Pegasus Mail in the Novell NetWare environment, you must be using genuine Novell workstation client software, not the extremely poor Microsoft workstation software provided with most implementations of Windows. This is because the Microsoft software does not export a proper 32-bit interface and hence cannot be used with any modern NetWare-aware application.


Installing the Pegasus Mail files

To install the Pegasus Mail program and support files, simply run the Pegasus Mail distribution archive, which is a self-extracting installer. The setup program will ask you a couple of very simple questions and will then ask you where you would like it to install the system's files. Step by step instructions for getting to the point where you can run Setup are at the end of this section. Setup will create a Program Manager Group containing the Pegasus Mail program, this file, and the Pegasus Mail online help file. You can run Pegasus Mail simply by double-clicking the program icon.

* If you are installing Pegasus Mail for use on a Novell NetWare file server, you should tell Setup to install Pegasus Mail into a publicly-accessible directory, although we recommend that you do not install into SYS:PUBLIC. Because of the constraints of the DOS and Windows systems, you must give Setup an installation path expressed either relative to a drive letter (in DOS format) or else as a UNC path (e.g, \\SERVER\VOL\PATH), not using the NetWare path format.

* If you are installing Pegasus Mail for use on a local area network other than Novell NetWare, you should tell Setup to install the files onto a publicly-accessible volume on your network.

* If you are installing Pegasus Mail on a single machine you can put the program files anywhere.


Connecting Pegasus Mail to an Internet Service Provider

Pegasus Mail can be used to send and receive Internet e-mail via an Internet Service Provider (also known as an ISP) using a dial-up connection. It is beyond the scope of this document to advise you on selecting an Internet Service Provider -- we assume that you have already selected one and have arranged your account.

In order to access the Internet via an ISP, you need to have a file called WINSOCK.DLL installed on your computer: your ISP should already have supplied you with this file and instructions on how to set it up.

Before you run Pegasus Mail, you will also need to know the following information, which your ISP should also already have given you. If you do not have all the information shown below, contact your ISP's help desk and ask them for it. We apologise in advance if there is a certain amount of "compter jargon" in the following section - we have tried to word it in such a way that your ISP will know what information to give you. Note down the information on a piece of paper and have it handy the first time you run Pegasus Mail.

Your e-mail address

The address other people will use to send you mail.

Your POP3 username, or login name

The name of your account on the ISP's mail host. This is usually simply the text preceding the '@' sign in your e-mail address.

Your password

The password that lets you login to your account with the ISP.

The name of your ISP's POP3 mail server

The machine to which Pegasus Mail should connect in order to retrieve your mail.

The name of your ISP's SMTP server

The machine to which Pegasus Mail should connect when sending mail

You will need to supply this information to Pegasus Mail the first time you run it.


Internet Service Provider - definition
Internet Service Provider (or ISP)  an organization that offers connections to the Internet, a world-wide computer network linking millions of people. An ISP can provide you with a gateway to the Internet, including your own e-mail address, for a small fee each month (around $20 per month is not unusual in the USA). You can dial into the ISP at any time to collect your e-mail or access Internet services such as the World-Wide-Web. When you are not connected, the ISP's machines accept e-mail on your behalf and store it until the next time you log in.


Installing for a single user on a single machine
Installing for a single person on a single machine

If your mail needs are such that you will only have a single person running Pegasus Mail on a single computer using a single e-mail address, then follow these steps:

1: Run the Setup program following the instructions provided in the section entitled Installing the Pegasus Mail files.

2: Double-click the Pegasus Mail icon in the Windows Program Manager or Explorer Group created for you by Setup.

3: Pegasus Mail will ask you to select an operating mode - click on the topmost button

4: WinPMail will ask you for a mailbox directory - a place where it should store all your mail-related files. Unless you have a good reason for doing so, we recommend that you use the directory name WinPMail offers you.

That's all there is to it! If WinPMail can detect a valid WINSOCK.DLL file on your system (WINSOCK.DLL is a separate program that allows you to connect to the Internet) it will ask you if you would like to configure Pegasus Mail to use it.


Installing for multiple people on a single computer

If any of the following descriptions matches your e-mail needs, you should install Pegasus Mail using the instructions in this section:

*	You wish to have more than one person reading or sending mail from one computer

*	You want to receive mail using multiple e-mail addresses

*	You want to keep separate, different configurations for Pegasus Mail (for example, you might want to have one version configured with settings appropriate for business use and another configured for personal use).

1: Run the Setup program following the instructions provided in the section entitled Installing the Pegasus Mail files.

2: Double-click the Pegasus Mail icon in the Windows Program Manager or Explorer Group created for you by Setup.

3: Pegasus Mail will ask you to select an operating mode - click on the second button

4: WinPMail will ask you for a mailbox directory - a place where it should store all your mail-related files. Unless you have a good reason for doing so, we recommend that you use the directory name WinPMail offers you. WinPMail will create a subdirectory in the location you supply for each person who uses the program.

5: Pegasus Mail will ask you to enter one or more usernames. Usernames are the tags the program uses to identify which files belong to which person on your system. A username can have up to eight characters and cannot contain spaces or special characters. As a general rule it's best to use something simple, like each person's first name. You can add as many people to the system as you wish, and at least one (usually yourself) must be set up as an administrator - a person who can add and remove other people from the mail system.

That's all there is to it! If WinPMail can detect a valid WINSOCK.DLL file on your system (WINSOCK.DLL is a separate program that allows you to connect to the Internet) it will ask you if you would like to configure Pegasus Mail to use it.


Installing on a network other than Novell NetWare

If you have a local area network that is not running Novell NetWare, you can install Pegasus Mail to allow the different people on your network to exchange mail with each other by following the steps in this section.

1: Run the Setup program following the instructions provided in the section entitled Installing the Pegasus Mail files.

2: Double-click the Pegasus Mail icon in the Windows Program Manager or Explorer Group created for you by Setup.

3: Pegasus Mail will ask you to select an operating mode - click on the bottom button

4: WinPMail will ask you for a mailbox directory - a place where it should store all your mail-related files. You must provide a path to a directory on a shared volume that all your mail users can access. It is important that all your mail users see this directory using the same drive letter - you cannot have one user see it as drive F: while another sees it as drive G:. WinPMail will create a subdirectory in the location you supply for each person who uses the program.

5: Pegasus Mail will ask you to enter one or more usernames. Usernames are the tags the program uses to identify which files belong to which person on your system. A username can have up to eight characters and cannot contain spaces or special characters. As a general rule it's best to use something simple, like each person's first name. You can add as many people to the system as you wish, and at least one (usually yourself) must be set up as an administrator - a person who can add and remove other people from the mail system.

That's all there is to it! If WinPMail can detect a valid WINSOCK.DLL file on your system (WINSOCK.DLL is a separate program that allows you to connect to the Internet) it will ask you if you would like to configure Pegasus Mail to use it.


How to run Pegasus Mail as a particular person

When you run Pegasus Mail in a non-NetWare environment, you have to tell it what your username is so that it can find your mail files correctly. There are three ways you can do this:

1: Just run the program and it will open a dialog asking you to enter your name.

2: Use the -i <username> switch on the commandline. You can create multiple icons for Pegasus Mail, each one invoking the program with a -i switch for a different user. This is probably the most appropriate way of handling multiple users on one machine. Note that the i switch cannot be used in NetWare mode - for that, you should use the -u switch, which has extra security checks and which forces extra authentication information to be written into messages sent during the session.

3: Set a PMUSER environment variable which is set to the name of the user running the program. This approach is not very useful in the Windows environment, since you have to exit to DOS to change the environment.


Installing Pegasus Mail in the Novell NetWare environment

Pegasus Mail has special support for Novell NetWare Local Area Networks. It is able to make special system calls to find out information about other people on the file server and can deliver mail to them automatically without further configuration. If you are using Novell NetWare 3.x on your file server, you can run Pegasus Mail simply by installing the files and running the program - no further configuration is required (NetWare 4.1 requires a little extra configuration). The remainder of this section covers the various extra capabilities you can enable for Pegasus Mail in the Novell NetWare environment.

Installing the files under NetWare

Modifying the System Login Script

Selecting a server at runtime ( NetWare 3.x only)

Granting extended features to users

Enabling delivery between servers (NetWare 3.x only)

Configuring Pegasus Mail to use Mercury or Charon

Configuring Pegasus Mail to use NetWare MHS or Connect^2

Feature control using NetWare groups


Installing the files under NetWare

You can use WinPMail's Setup program to install the program on your file server. If you prefer to install the files manually, login as SUPERVISOR (or Admin under NetWare 4.1) and follow these steps

To install WinPMail on a Novell NetWare server, copy the files WINPMAIL.EXE, WINPMAIL.HLP, WPNNW3.DLL (or WPNNW4.DLL for NetWare 4.1 systems) and WINPMAIL.DAT to a public directory on your file server: note that all four must be in the same location. If you want to use the Spelling checker option in WinPMail, then you must also place the file PMDICT3.PMD in the same directory or somewhere on the DOS path. The files BWCC.DLL and NWCALLS.DLL (and also NWNET.DLL and NWLOCALE.DLL for NetWare 4.1) should be placed in one of the following locations:

* Anywhere on the DOS path

* In \WINDOWS\SYSTEM

* In the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE

If you install WinPMail on the file server, make sure that WINPMAIL.EXE, WINPMAIL.HLP and WINPMAIL.DAT are all flagged SHAREABLE - this is very important. WinPMail.exe cannot be flagged Execute-only (nor can any Windows application, in fact).

NetWare 3.x: existing users can use the program immediately. There are no extra steps required when creating users to allow them to use the system - WinPMail learns all it needs about the user from the NetWare Bindery.

NetWare 4.1 in NDS mode: some extra configuration is required to create mailboxes for your users. Please consult the file README.NDS in the Pegasus Mail distribution for more detailed instructions on the steps required.


Modifying the System Login Script

You should modify SYS:PUBLIC/NET$LOG.DAT, the NetWare system login script, on the host server to contain commands similar to the following:

#newmail

if "%ERROR_LEVEL" > "0" then begin

write ""

pause

end

This invokes the Pegasus Mail newmail utility, which reports the number of unread messages the person has when logging in. The write statement prints a blank line, while the pause statement gives the person a chance to see the message printed by newmail.

Newmail will check for new mail on all servers to which you are attached and logged in. SUPERVISOR-equivalent users can check for mail for other users on the default server by entering NEWMAIL <USERNAME>.


Selecting a server at runtime

[ This section only applies to NetWare 3.x servers ]

If you are connected to more than one NetWare file server when WinPMail runs, it will use whatever is your current Default server (the server you were connected to when you turned on your computer).

You can tell WinPMail to use a particular server using a -P command-line option in the group entry you create in the program manager. To do this, edit the properties of the WinPMail Program Manager Icon so that the run command looks like this:

d:\path\WINPMAIL.EXE -P <SERVER>

Replacing <SERVER> with the name of the server you want WinPMail to use. You must already be logged into the  server before running WinPMail - it will not connect you.

You can also change the file server you are using from within the program, using the "File Servers" option on the "File" menu.


Granting extended features to users

Some features in Pegasus Mail are only available if the user has been authorised to use them. These are:  Autoforwarding, mail disable, notification disable, and denial of confirmation-of-reading.

Because granting these rights requires the creation of files or properties using a certain level of privilege, they must be explicitly granted by an administrator user (SUPERVISOR or equivalent for NetWare 3.x, Admin or equivalent for NetWare 4.x). You can control whether or not a user can subsequently modify these settings as well.

To grant extended options to a user, either use PCONFIG, selecting "Grant extended feature rights", or else use PMGRANT.EXE, which allows you to use wildcard characters.


Enabling delivery between servers

[ This section only applies to NetWare 3.x servers - when running in NDS mode under NetWare 4.1 Pegasus Mail can deliver to any user in your NDS tree who has a properly-defined mailbox ]

Pegasus Mail can deliver mail to users on other file servers if access codes are provided. When a user attempts to send mail to a user on a remote server, Pegasus Mail searches a Supervisor-defined internal table for a usercode and password on the remote server. If one is found, the system uses it to log into the remote server and deliver the message. If none is found, the system attempts to log into the remote server as the NetWare GUEST usercode, with no password. If all attempts fail, an error is reported to the user.

To define the access information Pegasus Mail needs for remote servers, the Supervisor or a Supervisor-equivalent user should run the pconfig.exe program on the distribution disk. Pconfig presents a menu offering `Interface definition' (this option is covered later) and `Server Access definition'. Select the latter, and a window will open. If you press <Enter> while the `Add a server' entry is highlighted, another window will open prompting you for information about the remote host.

You should enter the file server's name, and a usercode and password Pegasus Mail can use on that server. The data is stored in a heavily- encrypted format which should be secure from even an ardent hacker.

You can create any number of entries for remote server access the list will scroll when you have filled the window. When you have finished defining servers, press <Ctrl-Enter> to accept the definitions and return to the main menu. Choose `Save and Exit' to store the definitions.

The usercode you create for mail access should be extremely limited. I recommend that it NOT be a member of group EVERYONE, and that it should have only one explicit trustee right granted to it [C] (or [CW] under NetWare 286) rights in SYS:MAIL. Pegasus Mail does not need access to any other directory on the host server, nor does it need access to any NetWare utilities.

Pegasus Mail logs into the remote server for the shortest possible time to deliver mail or examine usernames, and guarantees that the user will never be left logged-in to the remote host under the mail usercode.

Note:  if a mail usercode on a remote server has an expired password, Pegasus Mail will fail when delivering the message, even if grace logins are enabled and plentifully available.


Configuring Pegasus Mail to use Mercury or Charon

WinPMail supports the Charon v3 SMTP gateway by Brad Clements of Clarkson University and the Mercury Mail Transport System using the same configuration information. To install Pegasus Mail to use either of these Internet Message Transports, run the PConfig program supplied and choose SMTP Internet Mail Interfaces: a dialog window will appear. You must provide the following information:

Spool interface?  If you are using Mercury 1.11 or later as your SMTP transport agent, you can select either a queue or a directory interface to Mercury. The directory interface has some advantages over the queue interface and is the only way of running Mercury under NetWare 4.x at this time. For more information on using the spool directory interface to Mercury, see the Mercury MGUIDE online guide.

Queue name (or Output path if you are operating in Spool mode)  this is the name of the print queue you have created (using the NetWare PConsole utility) or the spool directory from which Charon or Mercury expects to retrieve messages. The queue need not exist at the time you define the interface. If you have installed Mercury 1.11 or later using the spool directory interface, you should enter the path to the Mercury spool directory in this field, preferably in the MS-Net UNC format of \\SERVER\VOLUME\PATH

Use always  enter `Y' if you want WinPMail to use the gateway for all messages, including mail to other servers. If you select `N', Pegasus Mail will only pass mail with Internet addresses to the gateway, and will use its own mechanism for all other messages.

Server's internet name  Enter here the internet identity you have defined for this file server. Note that this is NOT the same as the name of the gateway itself. This address is used to form the sender's address for replies. For more information on naming, see the Charon manual or the Mercury MGUIDE online guide. The name you enter in this field should be fully domain extended - that is, you should include the domain as well as the host name.

Our time zone Type here the UNIX-format abbreviation for your time zone: this is required by the RFC822 standard for message format. You should enter the time zone as a four-digit value with a leading + or - sign to indicate whether you are ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (also known as "UCT") or behind it.

Examples:

If you are 8 hours behind GMT, enter -0800

If you are 12 hours ahead of GMT, enter +1200

When you have filled in all the blanks, accept the data. That's all there is to it!


Feature control using NetWare groups

Many aspects of Pegasus Mail's operation can be controlled using NetWare User Groups (created using the NetWare SYSCON or NWADMIN utilities). Pegasus Mail currently recognizes the following NetWare groups:

GROUPMAIL	Those who MAY send mail to NetWare groups

NOGROUPMAIL	Those who may NOT send mail to NetWare groups

MAILBOX	Those who MAY have a home mailbox on the server

NOMAILBOX	Those who may NOT have a home mailbox on the server

MAILUSERS	Those who MAY use Pegasus Mail to send mail

NOMAIL	Those who may NOT use Pegasus Mail

PMSEND	Those who MAY send one-line messages from <F4>

NOPMSEND	Those who may NOT send one-line messages from <F4>

GW_USERS	Those who may send Internet mail via Charon/Mercury.

BECOME	Those users who may access another users mailbox

In the absence of both allowing and disallowing groups, the default is that all users have access; so, if there is no MAILUSERS and no NOMAIL group, then all users may use mail. The exception to this is the BECOME group, which MUST exist before any user can access another

user's mailbox.


Tuning your installation

There are many ways you can tailor the operation of Pegasus Mail to suit the specific needs of your site. If you are running Pegasus Mail in NetWare mode, then there are a number of special options only available to you - click here to go to the section describing them.

The features described below will work in any type of Pegasus Mail installation

Altering Pegasus Mail's character translation tables

Setting up Noticeboards

Creating files for use by all your mail users

Pegasus Mail in languages other than English

Defining attachment viewers


Altering Pegasus Mail's character translation tables

Because Internet mail is a 7-bit format, you cannot send 8-bit data across it. Accented characters in the IBM character set are 8-bit data and must be converted to an alternate format (usually simple ASCII) for transmission.

WinPMail has a default translation table for 8-bit data which it applies to messages sent via an Internet transport (such as Charon or Mercury). The default table is intended to work with code page 437 and may be unsatisfactory in other environments. You can override the default table by creating a resource file called WPM-CHAR.RSC in the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE or in your home mailbox.

A sample WPM-CHAR translation table is provided in the RESOURCE subdirectory of the directory where you installed WInPMail, as WPM-CHAR.R. Examine this file for details on how to customise the SMTP tables at your site.

WinPMail also supports MIME character encoding using the default ISO-8859-1 character set. You can customise the transformations Pegasus Mail does for MIME mail using a WPM-LMTT.RSC resource file - again, a sample version of this file is provided as WPMLMTT.R.


Setting up Noticeboards
Noticeboards

Pegasus Mail supports noticeboards - discussion areas available to designated people, where messages can be posted publicly. Noticeboards are accessed by clicking the pinboard icon on the toolbar, or by selecting Noticeboards from the file menu. Noticeboards can be used on single computer systems, but really come into their own when used in Networked environments.

Setting up noticeboards

To create noticeboards on your system, follow these steps:

* Create a root noticeboard directory somewhere on your file server. In the NetWare environment, the default value is SYS:PUBLIC/NB, but it can be anywhere. The only real requirement is that the directory be in a directory readable by all the people who need to access noticeboards.

* In this directory, create a file called NB.ID. The file can be empty, although in standalone and non-NetWare setups it should contain this line:

Administrator: <username>

where <username> is the name of the noticeboard manager.

* Set an environment variable called NB which points to the directory you have set up. The best way to do this is to use UNC path notation - for example, \\SERVER\SYS\PUBLIC\NB. You will probably want to create this variable in your system login script, or in each user's AUTOEXEC.BAT startup file in non-NetWare environments.

That's about all it takes. Simple noticeboard administration can be done by administrator users within Pegasus Mail for DOS - the Windows version of Pegasus Mail will have similar management facilities in due course.

You can control access to noticeboards by altering the rights masks on the directories created under the NB location on your server. Manual maintenance of noticeboards can be done by editing the file NB.ID in each noticeboard directory. NB.ID is a simple, fairly self-explanatory text file which can be edited using any text editor, even (shudder) the DOS EDIT command.

Expiration NLM

A NetWare NLM is available which can handle automatic expiration of messages on noticeboards. Get NBEXPIRE.ZIP from the site where you found Pegasus Mail. There is currently no equivalent of this program for non-NetWare environments.

Noticeboard management  Manage your noticeboards using the options on the Noticeboard menu within Pegasus Mail.


Creating files for use by all your mail users

You may find that you want to have certain Pegasus Mail files which are available to all your users, especially address books and mailing, or distribution lists. To create such system-wide files, follow these instructions:

Creating system-wide distribution lists

Distribution lists are text files with the extension .PML. To make a distribution list system-wide, copy it into the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE, or else put it in a publicly-accessible location on the server and set a DOS environment variable called PML that points to that location (example - SET PML=K:\WINPMAIL\DLISTS).

Creating system-wide address books

Address books consist of two files - name.PMR and name.PM!, where name is any filename. To create a system-wide address book, copy both files for the book into the same directory on the server as WINPMAIL.EXE. Alternatively, copy the files into a public directory then set a DOS environment variable called PMR which points to that directory. If the address book is large and changes little, consider creating a secondary index for it using PMSORT.EXE - this will markedly speed up the process of opening the book.

Creating system-wide mail folders

In the same directory on the server as WINPMAIL.EXE, create a subdirectory with the extension .MAI - the name is unimportant. In this directory, create a file called PMFOLDER.ID, which contains the long name of the folder.

Once you have created the folder and the name file, grant rights to the directory as required: in order to read messages, users will need [RF] rights; in order to move messages into the folder, they will need at least [RWCF] rights. If you wish to locate your public mail folders in a location other than the directory where WINPMAIL.EXE is installed, you can do so by creating a DOS environment variable called MAI that points to the proper location.


Pegasus Mail in languages other than English

Pegasus Mail has been designed to be fully translatable into any European language. At the time of release, versions for Swedish, German, Danish and French were available and others will become available in future. For information on the modules available at any time, mail support@pmail.gen.nz.

Internationalization modules can be found in the authorised download sites. Each module consists of at least two files - a DLL and a new .DAT file. To use an internationalization module, copy its files into the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE, then create a DOS environment variable called PMRSC with the two-letter code of the language you wish to use - so, for example, to use the German version, you would copy WINPMDE.DLL, WINPMDE.DAT and WINPMDE.HLP into the WINPMAIL.EXE directory then add the DOS command SET PMRSC=DE to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Alternatively, you can tell WinPMail to use a different language module on the command line via the -X switch - so, once again using German as our example, you would add -X DE to the WinPMail commandline.


Attachment viewers

You can define your own set of criteria to determine what program WinPMail can run to view an attachment; the usual way of doing this is to use the Attachment viewers option on the Options dialog (on the Tools menu), but you can also do this manually by editing a simple text file if you wish.

To define attachment viewers manually, create a text file called VIEWER.PM in either your home mailbox location (for personal use) or in the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE (for system-wide use). You can use any editor, even the DOS EDIT command (if you have the stomach for it) to create this file.

Lines in VIEWER.PM starting with ';', '#', '*' or a space are regarded as comments and ignored. Other lines define a single viewer, using this syntax:

    <match_type>;<text_to_match>;<extension>;<command_line>

match_type  if 1, then WinPMail should compare the value of the <text_to_match> field with the extension from the file's original filename. If 2, then WinPMail should attempt to match the file type information about the attachment to the string in <text_to_match>.

text_to_match  the string WinPMail should use for comparisons when using the test selected via match_type. * extension: the file extension WinPMail should add to the temporary file it creates for viewing. If you want to use whatever extension is already there, enter a single hyphen on its own (i.e, ";-;"). This option is useful if you have applications which only recognise files by the extension on the filename.

command_line  the commandline WinPMail should pass to Windows to execute the application. The name of the file the application should open is added at the end of this string.

Note that white space is significant in these definitions - the only valid delimiter between sections is the ';' character. All matches are case-insensitive - so "MS-WORD" and "MS-Word" are treated as the same.

Example:

#  Sample VIEWER.PM file for WinPMail v2.0 and later.

#

#  The first entry tells WinPMail to run LVIEW.EXE any time it

#  sees a file where the original extension was .JPG. Note that

#  you have to include the '.' in the extension.

1;.JPG;.JPG;c:\winapps\lview.exe

#  The next section illustrates a possible use of the extension

#  section: unix systems typically use ".JPEG" for the extension

#  of their JPEG files, but under DOS they are ".JPG".

1;.JPEG;.JPG;c:\winapps\lview.exe

#  The next entry tells WinPMail to run WINWORD.EXE when it

#  encounters any file where the attachment type information is

#  set to "MS-Word". Note the way we force the extension of the

#  file to ".DOC" for Word's benefit.

2;MS-Word;.DOC;c:\winapps\winword\winword.exe


NetWare MHS and Connect^2

Pegasus Mail has full support for all versions of Novell's NetWare MHS mail transport starting with the original v1.5 release. This includes support for the following products

NetWare MHS v1.5 (circa 1990)

NetWare Global MHS (also known as NetWare Global Messaging)

Basic MHS (included with NetWare 3.12 and later)

MHS Services (included with NetWare 4.1)

Pegasus Mail also has full support for Connect^2, an MHS-compatible mail system from Infinite Technologies Inc.

Installing WinPMail for use with MHS or Connect^2

User-settable MHS options

Installation guidelines for MHS

How Pegasus Mail interacts with MHS


Installing WinPMail for use with MHS or Connect^2

To enable MHS support, run PCONFIG (you must be a SUPERVISOR-equivalent user to do this), and choose "NetWare MHS/SMF interface" from the main menu. A window will open, presenting the following editable fields:

Enabled:

If 'Y', this field indicates that MHS mail capability is available on this server. If 'N', WinPMail will generate an error message if a user attempts to enter an MHS address.

Preferred:

This flag only has meaning if the Charon SMTP gateway is also installed on the current system. Some MHS and SMTP addresses are indistinguishable from each other (canonical MHS addresses are ALWAYS correctly sensed): if such an address is detected by Pegasus Mail, it will be routed to whichever transport has its "preferred" flag set. If NEITHER transport has its preferred flag set, then the user will be asked to use an explicit override (either MHS: for MHS addresses, or IN: for SMTP addresses).

Use always?

If set to 'Y', then all messages will be routed to MHS irrespective of apparent address format. WinPMail will rewrite addresses without workgroup parts, using the name defined for this host (so, a message addressed to "david" will be rewritten as "david @ hostname"). WinPMail won't use its own local delivery agent, and messages to the Charon SMTP gateway (if present) will have to be overridden always (using the IN: prefix).

NOTE: Hardened MHS users may instinctively wish to set this field to 'Y', but in general, Pegasus Mail will perform better if it is set to 'N', since its own delivery agent is extremely efficient. We recommend that this field be set to 'Y' only in an extremely heavy MHS environment - ie, one where a number of MHS mailers are used, to the exclusion of all other protocols.

Default workgroup:

This is the name of the local host/workgroup as defined in the installation of MHS on the current server. Pegasus Mail uses this name to construct the "From:" field of messages, and when writing addresses to MHS format.

Local delivery:

If this flag is set to 'Y', then MHS will be used for any local mail - that is, Pegasus Mail's own delivery agent will be disabled. So, where an address such as "DAVID" would usually be taken as a local Pegasus Mail address, if this flag is set, then Pegasus Mail will treat it as an MHS address instead. This option does NOT cause Pegasus Mail to attempt local MHS delivery without MHS - Pegasus Mail will never do this: MHS MUST be running on your system for any MHS delivery to occur.

SMF-71 available?

Set this flag to 'Y' if you are using an SMF-71 transport such as NetWare Global Messaging, or Connect^2. Only sites running the original MHS 1.5 release need to set this field to 'N'.

UTC Time value

Enter here the time offset of your area from GMT, expressed as a positive or negative 4-digit value; New Zealand, for instance is 12 hours ahead of GMT, so you would enter +1200 here. MHS 1.5 does not require this field to be completed.

Use SMFSEND

If set to 'Y', then Pegasus Mail will attempt to use the MHS SMFSEND utility to deliver mail. On some systems this will permit mail to be delivered locally without having MHS running, but SMFSEND is not the most reliable utility in the world, and performance using this feature may be erratic.

* Note: WinPMail cannot use SMFSEND to deliver mail in any event - only the DOS version of Pegasus Mail acts on this field.

DOS MV path

Enter here the path to the MHS tree - exactly the same as the MHS MV environment value set at the DOS level. While Pegasus Mail will function correctly if this value is not set, you will not be able to change file servers reliably from the Pegasus Mail main menu if it is not.


User-settable MHS options

WinPMail includes a number of user configuration options in its File|Preferences menu:

SMF/MHS user name  if a user has an MHS mail identity which is different from his/her NetWare usercode, then he/she will have to enter that identity in this field. The default is the first eight characters of the user's NetWare userid. If you are using an SMF-71 transport, such as NetWare Global Messaging, then this field can contain a full address, such as "David Harris@Pmail.gen.nz". Pegasus Mail uses this value to create the "From" field of outgoing messages.

MHS/SMF mailbox name  each user has a directory in the MHS directory tree where new mail is stored. In almost all cases this will have the same name as the first eight characters of the user's NetWare username, but very occasionally it might be different. If it IS different, then Pegasus Mail will not be able to find new mail for the user until the correct name is entered here.

MHS App name  if a preferred mailer has not been specified for a user when he/she was added to the MHS system, then mail will be delivered by default to an MHS application directory called MHS. Normally, Pegasus Mail should be installed in your MHS system using the application name PMAIL, which has been reserved with Novell: if, however, you are installing Pegasus Mail over the top of an existing MHS mailer, you may not wish to alter all the users. In either of the cases described here, you can change the name of the application directory Pegasus Mail will scan for new mail by entering its name in this field.

Scan MHS dir for new mail?  If set to Y, then Pegasus Mail will scan the user's default 'MHS' mailer directory for new mail, as well as scanning whatever directory is defined in "MHS App name". If Pegasus Mail is the only MHS mail application available to a specific person, this field should be set to 'Y'.


Installation guidelines for MHS

The following guidelines can be used to help you decide the best way of configuring Pegasus Mail to operate with MHS at your site.

If using Pegasus Mail only, No SMTP, MHS used for external mail

Set "Preferred" to 'N'; "Use always" to 'N'; "Enabled" to 'Y'.

If using MHS and SMTP (Charon) on the same system:

Set "Preferred" to 'Y' if most mail traffic is MHS, otherwise set it to 'N'; "Enabled" to 'Y'; "Use always" to 'N'.

Heavy MHS sites using more than one MHS mailer, and no SMTP.

Set "Preferred", "Enabled" and "Use always" to 'Y'.


How Pegasus Mail interacts with MHS

WinPMail understands three different message formats: RFC-822, the Internet mail format; MHS SMF-70, the format of MHS 1.5, and SMF-71, the format of NetWare Global Messaging and MHS v2. It can distinguish between the message formats transparently: WinPMail's own mail agent uses the RFC-822 format. WinPMail stores all new mail in the user's unique mail directory in SYS:MAIL, irrespective of the transport used: if new MHS messages are detected in MV/.../USERS/APPNAME, they are moved to the user's SYS:MAIL directory before being read, along with any associated attachments. After being read, messages may migrate to a user-specified home mailbox (perhaps on a local drive) or may be left in SYS:MAIL/USERID, depending on user configuration.

Outgoing mail is ALWAYS placed in MV/MHS/MAIL/SND for routing via MHS, as per the recommendation in the "MHS 1.5 Technical Overview". WinPMail will NOT attempt local MHS delivery on its own - the MHS  Connectivity Manager must be running for mail to be delivered. Since the expected main use of Pegasus Mail is in sites where its own agent is used for local delivery, and MHS is used for off-site transport, this should present no problems.

Local delivery:  Pegasus Mail will NEVER attempt to perform local MHS delivery - the MHS Connectivity Manager must be run. The only possible exception to this is to use SMFSEND for local delivery, but this option has variable reliability.

MHS Macros, as defined in the "Technical Summary of MHS 1.5" are not supported, will NOT be copied back into replies if referenced, but will not generate errors.

Confirmation requests: MHS requests for confirmation of receipt are honoured: confirmation is generated at the moment the message is opened for reading.


Updating from an older version

If you are already using an earlier version of WinPMail, you can upgrade to the new version in either of two ways:

1: Run the Setup program supplied with Pegasus Mail; it will automatically detect that you have previously used Pegasus Mail and will offer to upgrade that copy. Simply accepting the directory offered to you by the installer program will update your existing installation to the new version, preserving all your mailbox files and settings.

2: Run the Setup program supplied with WinPMail and when it asks you where you would like to install the software, give it a new directory name. This will cause it to create a freshly-installed version of Pegasus Mail without touching your existing version, but the new version will not automatically be able to locate your existing mail files. In order to enable the new version to find your mailbox you can do one of two things - either copy the file PMAIL.CFG from the current version's directory into the new version's directory, or else run WinPMail and when it asks you for mailbox information, give it the same values you used for the existing version.

The advantage of the second upgrade method is that it allows you to run both the new and old versions of Pegasus Mail in parallel until you are comfortable with the new version. In general, though, we recommend that you use method 1 because it is simpler and because there is seldom an reason to revert to the old version of the program.


Internet mail via WINSOCK.DLL

WINSOCK, or Windows Sockets, is an open specification allowing applications to access TCP/IP networking services from any compliant implementation. Most modern TCP/IP suites for Windows will include WINSOCK.DLL, the file providing these services.

Pegasus Mail for Windows can use WINSOCK.DLL to perform direct TCP/IP-based electronic mail using the SMTP and POP3 protocols. If you have a PC attached to a TCP/IP-based network, WinPMail's WINSOCK-based mail services may be of use to you. They can be used simultaneously with any connection you might have to a NetWare server, but do not require a NetWare connection.

WINSOCK-based mail support is configured using the Network Configuration option on the "File" menu. This menu option will only appear if a valid WINSOCK.DLL is available on your system.

Preventing WinPMail from using Windows Sockets

Notes when using WinSock-based mail

Click here to return to the contents page


Preventing WinPMail from using Windows Sockets

If you do not want WinPMail to load WSOCK32.DLL, you can prevent it from doing so using any of the following means:

*	Set If WINSOCK.DLL is available, load it to NEVER in your Advanced Settings preferences (under the File menu).

*	Change the command line you use to run WINPMAIL.EXE so that it reads

WINPMAIL -Z 1

*	 Before running Windows, set a DOS environment variable like this:

SET WINPMAIL=1

*	Removing WINSOCK.DLL from your path.


Notes when using WinSock-based mail

*	Mail is queued until sent - an indicator in the WinPMail status line shows the number of queued messages. Send queued mail by choosing "Send queued mail" from the file menu.

*	For security reasons, Pegasus Mail will only send SMTP mail if it can first perform a POP3 login to the account you have specified in your Network Configuration screen. The POP3 address is written into a "Comments" field in mail you send as a validation of who you really are.

*	Background checking for new mail is configured in the Network Configuration screen. If using a SLIP line or any other slow line you may want to disable periodic checking by setting the idle check time to 0 and disabling checks while the application is minimized.

*	SLIP and PPP lines: if using WinPMail and WINSOCK over SLIP (Serial Line IP) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol), you will almost certainly have to set a longer timeout value in the network configuration screen. 60 seconds should be adequate for almost all scenarios.


Extensions for Pegasus Mail

Pegasus Mail supports a powerful concept called Extensions,.(other systems also variously call these Plug-ins, Snap-ins or Add-ons) Using Extensions, you can add almost any imaginable service or feature to WinPMail.  Each extension can appear in a standard WinPMail window and looks just like part of the application.

Extensions are Windows DLLs that are hosted inside WinPMail. They can be loaded in a variety of ways, and as well as having access to the full Windows programming set, have access to an Application Programmer's Interface (or API) of over 80 special functions provided by WinPMail itself. The API set includes functions for accessing preferences, generating messages, full TCP/IP protocol support, logging functions and more.

Anyone who has done simple Windows development should be able to produce WinPMail Extensions without great difficulty.

Using the sample extensions provided with Pegasus Mail

Obtaining the Extension Development Kit

Developing Extensions

Finding out about new Extensions


Using the sample extensons provided with Pegasus Mail
Using the sample extensions

Pegasus Mail includes six sample extensions -- if you used the WinPMail setup program, these extensions will have been installed for you automatically. The sample extensions provided with WinPMail are:

PHONE	A telephone message form

PH	A directory service module using the PH protocol

FINGER	Lookup unix users via the FINGER protocol

MAILMERGE	A sophisticated mass-mailing program

MultiPOP	Allows you to access multiple POP3 accounts

WLDAP	A directory service module for the LDAP protocol

These extensions are supplied ready-to-run: to use them, simply select them from the Extensions submenu of the Tools menu. Most of them have their own online help systems.

Full source code for most of these extensions is provided as part of the Extension Development Kit, which is available from the authorised download sites.


Obtaining the Extensions Development Kit
Obtaining the Extension Development Kit

Anyone interested in developing extensions for Pegasus Mail should get the Extension Development Kit, which contains all the necessary information and header files, as well as source code for most of the sample extensions provided with Pegasus Mail. The Extension Development Kit is free software, just like Pegasus Mail itself and may be freely used by anyone. You should be able to find it as WPMFORMS.ZIP at the site from which you downloaded your copy of Pegasus Mail, or from the official download sites.

Extensions developed using the Extension Development Kit are royalty-free and may be distributed in any manner the developer wishes, including sale.


Developing extensions
Developing WinPMail Extensions

The process of developing an extension for WinPMail involves some Windows programming, but because Pegasus Mail does most of the work for you, it is considerably easier than writing the same application from scratch.

What you'll need to develop an Extension

Obtaining the Extension Development Kit

Getting started

Documentation for Extension Developers

Authenticating and registering new Extensions

Click here to return to the contents page


What you'll need to develop an Extension

In order to develop a WinPMail extension, you will need a Windows development environment capable of generating a standard Windows DLL file - this is the only specific requirement. I personally use and like the Borland C compiler (I prefer v3.1 to v4.5) but you can use any suitable tool.

You probably cannot use a pseudo-language such as Visual Basic because WinPMail expects to find one specific C-callable routine in your DLL for initialization purposes.

You should be familiar with the way Windows passes messages, since you "call" WinPMail's Extension Manager by sending messages to it. The file WPMFORMS.H in the FORMS subdirectory of your WinPMail installation directory contains a complete reference to the format and parameters of the messages you can send.

If your extension needs a user interface, you will also have to be familiar with managing simple Windows dialogs: WinPMail handles all the messy aspects of the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) for you, so all you have to do is manage your own dialog.


Getting Started with Extensions
Getting Started

The easiest way to write an extension is to take one of the sample extensions provided with Pegasus Mail and use it as a model. Your extension will need to have the standard Windows DLL format, with a LibMain function which registers any classes it uses. Note that if you create a dialog interface in your extension, it must by definition be a modeless dialog (that is, it must have a class and a specific message handling function).

From WinPMail's perspective, every instance of an extension is tied to an MDI (Multiple Document Interface) window; information about the extension is stored as part of that window, and if the extension contains a dialog, that dialog will be a child of the MDI window. If an extension needs to access an internal WinPMail service, it simply sends a message to the MDI window to which it is attached. Similarly, WinPMail will occasionally need to send messages advising the extension about events in the system; when it needs to do this, it will send the message to the extension's dialog window, or if it doesn't have one, to an optional function which the extension can export which takes the same parameters.

The exact form your extension will take is up to you; the API WinPMail exports to extensions is extremely rich and I am sure people will come up with uses for it which I can't even begin to predict. The mechanics of your DLL will depend on the function it is to fulfil, but I recommend the following settings as a good starting point:

Memory model:	Large

Call format:	All-calls exportable

Target version:	Windows v3.1

Note that because WinPMail only runs in Standard or Enhanced mode Windows, you don't have to worry about the hideous complications of memory allocation under Real mode - just call "malloc" or whatever the way you always have.


Documentation for Extension Developers

WinPMail's Extension Manager interface is documented in the files WPMFORMS.H and WPMFORMS.TXT which you will find in the Extensions Development Kit.

If you are a beginner to Windows programming and are looking for a book to get you started, I recommend Charles Petzold's book Programming Windows version 3.1, published by Microsoft Press.

If you have a basic grasp of Windows programming but would like a more specialised tutorial guide, I recommend Windows 3: A Developer's Guide by Jeffrey Richter, published by M&T Books.

Finally, a book I believe every Windows programmer should have is The Windows Programming Puzzle Book, by Kim Crouse, from John Wiley & Sons Inc; this book is a Godsend for those subtle questions the official documentation doesn't cover.

Disclaimer: Pegasus Mail's author has no association with any of the authors or publishers shown above - this list merely represents a list of titles the author has personally found valuable.


Authenticating new Extensions

Because extensions are distributed as working, executable machine code, many sites may be reluctant to use an extension when they are unaware of its pedigree. If you have an extension you think would be useful and would like to see it widely distributed to the Pegasus Mail user community in a verified, secure manner, then you can follow these steps:

*	Debug and test your extension thoroughly until you are sure it works. This step is very important! The author does not provide a debugging service for your extensions and will reject out-of-hand anything which does not compile correctly or which crashes when run.

*	Contact the author of Pegasus Mail, David Harris, at the Internet e-mail address David.Harris@pmail.gen.nz. He will arrange for you to upload a private copy of your extension to his system and will examine it for certification.

*	You MUST upload source code to your extension. The author will only certify extensions which he has personally compiled, and when distributing them will only distribute binary versions which he has built. You are not required to distribute the source code with the extension itself, but it must be made available to him. Note, though, that you are strongly encouraged to make the source code for your extension available if you can.

*	If your extension checks out OK and builds correctly, it will be made available on the principal Pegasus Mail distribution sites and endorsed as "safe and authenticated" by the author.

*	For technical reasons, the author can only certify extensions which are written for Borland C++ version 3.1 or later. Please make sure you include the appropriate make, PRJ or IDE file, as well as all associated RC, H and C or CPP files.

The Author is willing to sign non-disclosure agreements with Extension Developers.

Reserving extension tag names:

Because extensions need to define tags for themselves which can be used to invoke a reader extension on receipt, it is obviously desirable to ensure that tagnames remain unique. In order to encourage this, the author offers a free tagname registration service. Send a mail message to tagnames@pmail.gen.nz indicating the tagname(s) you would like to reserve and optionally a brief description of your extension (for the author's interest). Tagnames will be registered on a first-come/ first-served basis, and if a tagname you have requested is already taken, you will be advised as soon as possible. The author reserves the right to refuse to register tagnames for any reasons he deems fit - for example, tagnames containing obscene words will not be accepted, nor will any tagname starting with the letters "PM", because all such tagnames are reserved by the author. The list of currently- registered extension tagnames can be retrieved by e-mail at any time by sending a message to maiser@pmail.gen.nz consisting of the two lines:

SEND TAGNAMES.TXT

EXIT

Please note that tagnames can be a maximum of 12 characters long, may not contain characters with ASCII values lower than 33 or higher than 126 and are case-insensitive. All form names starting with the letters "PM" are reserved for Pegasus Mail use.


Finding out about new Extensions

Pegasus Mail's author provides an authentication service for Extensions to WinPMail (see in the "Developing Extensions" section for details of registering an extension). If you find an extension and are uncertain of its pedigree, you can check it out by sending a message to maiser@pmail.gen.nz which contains the two lines:

SEND VALIDXTN.TXT

EXIT

The mail server will respond by sending you the list of registered extensions: these are extensions which have been checked, compiled and certified by Pegasus Mail's author. VALIDXTN.TXT also tells you where to find the certified versions (that is, versions which have been built and authenticated by Pegasus Mail's author). If you obtain a certified version of an extension, you can be certain that is virus-free and safe to use.


Technical support and Mailing lists

Technical support for Pegasus Mail is available by sending Internet e-mail to support@pmail.gen.nz. This will retrieve an automatic response which describes how to obtain FAQ lists covering a wide range of topics concerning Pegasus Mail. It will also tell you how to get in touch with various mailing lists and news groups covering Pegasus Mail.

If you have purchased a license for Pegasus Mail manuals, then you are entitled to technical support directly from us: to request technical support, send a message to:

tech-support@pmail.gen.nz

NOTE: When requesting technical support, you MUST show your manual license number (shown on the invoice and on the license) in the subject line of your message. While we try to answer all technical support requests sent to us by licensees, sometimes our workload may not permit it: if you do not receive an answer to a message sent to our tech support account, the answer may be contained in the FAQ lists, or we may be overloaded. If you cannot find an answer in the FAQ lists, wait 24 hours then mail us again.

Please note that the staff at Pegasus Mail Central process in excess of 250 mail messages every day and accordingly, where possible, we ask that you consult the FAQ lists and mailing lists before contacting us directly.

Other sources of information:

The PMAIL mailing list and related lists

The PM-NEWS announcement list

Click here to return to the contents page


The PMAIL mailing list

The PMAIL mailing list provides a forum where discussion and assistance for Pegasus Mail matters is available. It is operated by the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa - my sincere thanks to James Ford and the Administration of the University for making the service available. The list is quite busy, but is an excellent source for solutions to most problems arising in general use of Pegasus Mail.

You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending a message to listserv@bama.ua.edu with the message body set to:

SUBSCRIBE PMAIL firstname lastname

Example: your name is Jose Bloggs - you would send:

SUBSCRIBE PMAIL Jose Bloggs

Send discussion to pmail@bama.ua.edu. Please note that the discussion address and the subscription addresses are not the same. You can only mail to this discussion list if you are a subscriber.

Related lists

The following related lists also exist at this site, each one providing coverage for a single version of Pegasus Mail.

PM-WIN	Discussion about the Windows version

PM-DOS	Discussion about the DOS version

PM-MAC	Discussion about the Macintosh version

MERCURY	Discussion about the Mercury Mail Transport System

You can subscribe to these lists exactly the same way as you would subscribe to the main PMAIL list, except using the name of the list in the SUBSCRIBE line instead of PMAIL. Mail sent to any of these specialised lists is automatically distributed to the main PMAIL list as well.


The PM-NEWS announcement list

The PM-NEWS announcement list is a mailing list operated by the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, providing low-volume notification of new releases and important announcements. The list is moderated, which means that only the list owner can send messages to the list, but anyone can subscribe to it.

If all you want is to be told about new releases of Pegasus Mail and related products, then this list is the one for you -- on average, this list only generates one or two messages each month and is guaranteed spam-free.

You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending a message to listserv@bama.ua.edu (note: from CompuServe, use the address >internet:listserv@bama.ua.edu) with the message body set to:

SUBSCRIBE PM-NEWS firstname lastname

Example: your name is Jose Bloggs - you would send:

SUBSCRIBE PM-NEWS Jose Bloggs

If you have information you want posted to the PM-NEWS list,send it to PMNEWS@bama.ua.edu: your message will be referred to the list moderator, who will decided whether or not it should be distributed to the wider list membership.


Spam -- apart from being an English brand of canned beef, a spam is a particularly odious practice whereby an advertising message is sent to thousands of mailing lists and news groups indiscriminately, resulting in a huge waste of Internet resources and considerable nuisance value for millions of people who usually have no imaginable interest in the product being advertised. We consider spamming to be a completely inappropriate use of Pegasus Mail.


FAQ Lists -- Freqently-Asked Question lists. These are compilations of the questions most commonly asked on the regular technical support channels and are always a useful starting point for finding solutions to problems quickly.


Terms and conditions of use

Pegasus Mail is free software and may be used by any number of users on any number of systems without fee or obligation, subject only to the terms and conditions laid out below.

Pegasus Mail is NOT in the public domain - the author, David Harris, retains ownership and copyright, and exclusively reserves all rights to the software. In countries where assertion of the right to be identified as the author is required for copyright purposes, David Harris asserts his right to be recognized as the author and owner of the Pegasus Mail System and all its associated components.

Modification of the program or its resources or associated data files without the author's explicit written permission is strictly forbidden. Unauthorised modifications of any component of the Pegasus Mail System are a breach of intellectual property laws in most countries and will be pursued vigorously to the full extent of the law.

Pegasus Mail may be used by anyone and may be freely distributed via any medium, either commercial or non-commercial, provided the following conditions are met:

1:	Distribution  The Pegasus Mail Software must be distributed complete and unaltered in the original self-extracting archive, with all messages intact. System administrators and ISPs wishing to repackage the WinPMail archive for supply to their users may do so provided some basic guidelines are followed - please send e-mail to tech-support@pmail.gen.nz for more information on this. In the event that the Pegasus Mail software is being distributed as part of another package or software bundle, or in association with software or services for which a charge is being levied, the author's permission must be obtained before distribution occurs. We will authorise by fax or by an e-mail message signed with our public key signature at our discretion. Bona fide Internet Service Providers are exempted from the requirement to obtain formal permission (see section 5, below).

2:	Charging for distribution  No charge may be directly levied for Pegasus Mail itself. Fair copying and support charges may be applied but you must not represent that you are actually selling the software itself. The intent of this statement is to allow book publishers to distribute the system freely with books, and to permit Software Libraries and BBS systems to distribute Pegasus Mail in their catalogues provided only reasonable handling and duplication fees are charged.

3:	Prohibited supply  The supply or promotion of Pegasus Mail for the purpose of sending bulk, unsolicited e-mail is incompatible with the basic aims of the program, which revolve around the free provision of a service that enhances the quality of communication between people. Pegasus Mail may not be included in any package designed for sending bulk unsolicited e-mail, whether free or otherwise, nor may vendors of such packages use the "Pegasus Mail" trademark or other related material in the promotion of their package.

3a:	Prohibited use:  Pegasus Mail may not be used for the purpose of sending Bulk Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail. For the purposes of this section, this shall be construed to mean electronic mail sent to a total of more than 50 recipients for the purpose of advertising a commercial product or service, where the recipient has not explicitly expressed interest in receiving such advertisements.

4:	Ownership  Ownership of the Pegasus Mail Software remains vested in the author, David Harris. You may not represent ownership or copyright in the system in the course of distribution, and you must not represent any specific connection with, or authorisation or license from the author.

5:	Distribution by ISPs  Bona-fide Internet Service Providers are explicitly granted permission to bundle the Pegasus Mail Software with their standard subscriber access package if they wish, even if a charge is levied for that access package, provided the conditions laid out in section (1) above are met. If you supply Pegasus Mail as a separate item (as opposed to being part of an access bundle), you may only charge a reasonable duplication or handling fee and must otherwise abide by all other terms and conditions defined herein.

6:	No liability  although all possible care has been taken to ensure that the Pegasus Mail Software is as reliable as possible, the diversity of environments in which it might be used means that we can accept no responsibility for loss or damage, whether real or consequential, arising from its use. By using the software you explicitly agree to hold the author blameless for any such losses or damages.

7:	All rights reserved  we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions of use and distribution of Pegasus Mail without specific notice, although we will make reasonable efforts to advise of any such change through normal channels (user groups, mailing lists and so on). The current terms and conditions of use of Pegasus Mail can be obtained at any time by sending a message to tech-support@pmail.gen.nz requesting them.

All the legalese aside, it is my strong desire that Pegasus Mail be as widely used as is possible in the hope that by furthering communication between people, we may in some small way come to understand and accept each other better.

Click here to return to the contents page


User-defined gateways

A User-defined gateway is a program or set of programs that Pegasus Mail can use to send or receive mail. They can be used to provide access to message systems not normally supported by Pegasus Mail, such as Fax systems or Pagers, and are also used to make Pegasus Mail work in environments where it usually would not, such as when using uucp to send Internet mail.

WinPMail supports user-defined gateways, but with some limitations compared with Pegasus Mail/DOS.

* Validation routines defined for gateways will not work.

* Gateways that require a program to be run will work, but you may have to fiddle with the Windows icon unless you can run the program from a PIF file.

* There is no equivalent of PM-MENU.RSC in WinPMail to allow you to add items to the menus at this stage.

For full information about user-defined gateways, please obtain the file UDG.ZIP from any of the authorised download sites; alternatively, UDG.ZIP is included with Pegasus Mail for DOS, which is also available from the same locations..


Troubleshooting

At some stage, things will probably go wrong -- there's no escape from Murphy's Law. This section lists the most common problems and solutions known to us at the time of release of this version of the program. See the next section, Technical support for information on how to obtain the most up-to-date lists of common problems and solutions.

READ THIS FIRST!!!

WinPMail and the Novell NetWare environment

WinPMail and Windows 95

WinPMail and WINSOCK.DLL

"Cannot create container file" errors

International character set problems

Other problems


Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law:  "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".

There's also Parkinson's Law -- "Work expands to exceed available time".

Forget Einstein -- these are the laws that REALLY govern the universe.


First steps when troubleshooting
First steps for troubleshooting

It has been our repeated experience that the vast majority of problems people have with WinPMail fall into three categories, none of them actually to do with the program itself:

1: Configuration problems  more than 80% of all problems reported to us result from simple misconfiguration of the system. Pegasus Mail doesn't require a great deal of configuration, but it is important that the configuration it does require be done correctly. Always read this file (WGUIDE.HLP) carefully, especially the "Important information" and Installing WinPMail" sections.

2: Problems with other people's software  this is particularly true with WINSOCK.DLL, because the quality of available WINSOCK implementations varies widely. If your problem results in a GPF (Windows-speak for a crash), check the report Windows generates carefully - it will say something like "WINPMAIL caused a GPF in module XXXXXX"; the actual cuplrit is whatever is named in XXXXXX: if it is the name of a DLL, especially WINSOCK.DLL, then your problem almost certainly is not in WinPMail but in a third-party product.

3: System problems  some very common problems can be caused by incorrectly installed network drivers, by marginal hardware (this is especially true of modems), or by running in environments with too little disk space or memory. In the network environment, incorrect or inadequate trustee and access rights can also cause innumerable problems. Always check these external influences before assuming that WinPMail itself is at fault.

Finally, if WinPMail is producing an error message, please read it carefully! Very often, the solution to the problem will be shown in the message itself.


WinPMail and the Novell NetWare environment

How can I stop WinPMail from running in "NetWare mode"?

You can force WinPMail to run in standalone mode (ie, to ignore the connection to the NetWare server) by changing the command line you use to run the program to:

WINPMAIL -A

This commandline switch also works for the DOS version of Pegasus Mail.

WinPMail tells me it can't find my home mailbox, but it's there!

There are three possible causes for this problem:

[*] 1: You may be running Windows in Standard mode while connected to a NetWare server, and your PC is using the Novell NETX shell set. This combination will provoke a bug in the NetWare API libraries, especially if your machine is a 286. The only solution is to move to the VLM shell set or to step back to WinPMail 1.02 (which uses an older API set).

[*] 2: If you are running in standalone mode (not connected to a NetWare server), your standalone configuration might be incorrect - the most likely cause is an invalid path in either the home mailbox or new mailbox fields in PCONFIG. Try deleting the file PMAIL.CFG in the directory where WINPMAIL.EXE is located and re-entering the values the next time WinPMail starts up.

[*] 3: You may be running under NetWare 4.0x in a directory services context which is not the Bindery Context. WinPMail is a Bindery-based NetWare application and requires information from the NetWare Bindery, which is poorly emulated under NetWare 4.0x. The only solution is to have your usercode moved into the Bindery Context.

WinPMail runs in standalone mode even though I'm connected to a NetWare server

Windows reports "Cannot find NETWARE.DLL" when starting WinPMail

You probably have not installed NetWare support into your copy of Windows. Run the Windows setup program and see what Network it thinks you are using; if it says "None", choose "Novell NetWare" and insert the disks it asks for. You should also make sure you are using the most recent NetWare drivers from Novell - at the time of writing these are contained in the files WINDR2.EXE, VLMUP3.EXE, NET33X.EXE and NWDLL2.EXE, available via FTP from ftp.novell.com in /novlib/novfiles, or in the NOVUSER area on CompuServe. The "Cannot find NETWARE.DLL" message is an error in Windows - there is no "NETWARE.DLL" - it is looking for NETWARE.DRV.

Windows, The "Black Screen of Death" and broadcast messages

If your copy of Windows crashes with the "Black Screen of Death", or your system locks up or behaves erratically when you receive the broadcast "New mail" notification messages Pegasus Mail generates, then you almost certainly have a NetWare Shell problem. Make sure you are using the absolute most recent driver files from Novell (see the preceding entry for details on getting these) and take particular care to delete all old versions of these files (especially NWPOPUP.EXE and NETWARE.DRV) right across your DOS path.


WinPMail and Windows 95

I'm running Windows 95 and getting GPFs in NWCALLS.DLL

There is a bug in Windows 95's NetWare emulation such that it reports a server connection even when there is none actually available. You can fix this easily by forcing WinPMail to start in standalone mode by adding the switch "-A" to its command line.

My Windows 95 users can't send mail via Mercury - it gets returned with a "missing $$ signature" diagnostic.

There appears to be a severe bug in the Windows 95 NetWare Queue Services emulator which means that the first four bytes of jobs written directly to queues by programs will be corrupt. The only workaround I have been able to find for this is to switch Mercury and WinPMail into Mercury's spooler submission mode instead of queue mode. This problem may also affect Windows NT v3.51 users, because that system appears to use the same Queue Services code with the same bug.

I'm trying to use the Microsoft WINSOCK.DLL supplied with Windows 95 but am having connection problems.

This, and variants of it, are usually attributable to having WINSOCK.DLL files other than the Microsoft version on your system. This is particularly likely to happen if you have upgraded to Windows 95 rather than doing a fresh install. Hunt through your system making sure that there is only one copy of WINSOCK.DLL present and that it is the Microsoft offering.


WinPMail and WINSOCK.DLL

The quality of WINSOCK implementations currently available for Windows seems to be extremely variable, so if you have problems with WINSOCK- based mail in WinPMail, please check first that you have the current version of your WINSOCK.DLL and any support software, and that it's correctly configured.Next, if you are getting connection problems, try expressing the address of the host to which you want to connect using dotted IP notation instead of an address (or vice-versa).

Many problems using WINSOCK across slow SLIP or PPP links arise from timeouts being set too short - set a much longer timeout value in your network configuration screen in these cases (I recommend up to 120 seconds).

WinPMail v2.0 and later uses "non-blocking sockets" to obtain the greatest level of control of TCP/IP communications. Some WinSock implementations do not handle non-blocking sockets well. If your WinSock implementation has problems connecting with WinPMail, or if performance is erratic, try changing the command line you use to run WinPMail to:

WINPMAIL -Z 1024

This will force WinPMail to use blocking sockets, at the price of lower performance and possibly occasional conflicts between POP3/SMTP and TCP/IP-aware WinPMail extensions.

I don't get the Network Configuration or other WinSock-based entries on the File menu

[*] WinPMail may be unable to find WINSOCK.DLL - make sure it is on the path, in \WINDOWS, or in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. On some systems, especially Windows NT, you may find you have to force WinPMail to "Blind load" WINSOCK.DLL -- you do this by changing the command line you use to run WinPMail to:

WINPMAIL -Z 128

[*] You may have the Winsock loading field in your Advanced settings preferences dialog in WinPMail set to Never. Set it to On demand or Always then exit and restart the program.

WinPMail reports "Invalid password" when I connect to my POP3 server, but I've double-checked and the password is right.

[*] The password may be right, but your username may not be (for security reasons, most POP3 servers will accept any username and fail the password automatically if the username is invalid). The most common cause of this is putting a full address in the "username" field of the Network Configuration dialog's POP3 section. If you can see an '@' symbol in this field, then it's wrong - WinPMail only wants your basic username, which is everything preceding the '@' in your address.

I'm trying to use the Microsoft WINSOCK.DLL supplied with Windows 95 but am having connection problems.

This, and variants of it, are usually attributable to having WINSOCK.DLL files other than the Microsoft version on your system. This is particularly likely to happen if you have upgraded to Windows 95 rather than doing a fresh install. Hunt through your system making sure that there is only one copy of WINSOCK.DLL present and that it is the Microsoft offering.

I'm trying to use the 32-bit Microsoft WINSOCK.DLL supplied with Windows 95 but it won't autodial when WinPMail loads it..

This appears to be a problem in the 32-bit WINSOCK.DLL itself - as far as we have been able to determine, the 32-bit version will not autodial if loaded by a 16-bit application such as Pegasus Mail. At the time of release we are taking this issue up with Microsoft.

How can I prevent WinPMail from autoloading WINSOCK.DLL?

WinPMail has built-in support for a variety of e-mail protocols using the TCP/IP networking protocol. To provide this support, it looks for a file called WINSOCK.DLL when it starts up; WINSOCK.DLL is a file supplied by your TCP/IP vendor which provides a standard interface to TCP/IP network services for Windows programs. If you do not want WinPMail to load this file (and hence not to provide access to its built-in mail TCP/IP mail services), do one of the following:

[*] Prior to running Windows, enter the command "SET WINPMAIL=1" from the DOS prompt. You cannot do this from a Windows DOS session - you must do it prior to running Windows

[*] Change the command line the Program Manager uses to run WinPMail so that it includes the switch "-Z 1". You can use this switch with all other switches in the program.

[*] Go to the Advanced settings preferences dialog in WinPMail and set the Winsock Loading field to Never.


"Container file" errors
"Container file" errors and what they mean

One of the most common errors you may see from WinPMail is a message saying:

   WinPMail has failed creating the container file for a message

This is also one of the harder error messages to diagnose, but in general it means that Pegasus Mail has attempted to create a file for delivery and the operating system has reported a failure on the operation. The most common causes for this problem are:

[*] (In NetWare mode) This message can indicate several things:

* You may be out of disk space on the file server volume where the recipient's mailbox is located (or the submission directory if you are sending mail via Mercury)

* You may have insufficient rights in the destination directory

* The destination directory may not exist (this can happen on NetWare 4.x servers running in Bindery Emulation mode when the recipient has never logged into the server, because NetWare 4.x only creates the user's SYS:MAIL mailbox when he or she logs in the first time).

* If sending mail between servers, this may indicate an error in the configuration of the inter-server delivery account created for Pegasus Mail's use, usually a password or connection restriction, or a lack of rights in the destination server's SYS:MAIL directory.

[*] (In standalone mode) You may have addressed the message to a local user who does not exist. Because Pegasus Mail can manage multiple users on the same machine, if you enter an address like "david", or "betty" - namely, an address with no domain portion - Pegasus Mail will assume it refers to a user on your own machine and will try to deliver it locally. If you have no users other than yourself on your machine, you may want to set the "Use for all outgoing mail" flag in the Network configuration dialog - this tells Pegasus Mail that there are no local users and to send everything via the SMTP transport.


International character set problems

Pegasus Mail users in countries where English is not the primary language will often run into problems using accented characters in electronic mail. Problems with accented characters are not a sign of ignorance or carelessness on the part of Pegasus Mail's developer (who studied French for 11 years and German for 5) -- rather, they reflect a very general problem with computers in that there is very little standardisation on character sets and the way they are represented.

The first thing to do to improve the situation is to turn on Pegasus Mail's MIME support - MIME goes a long way towards dealing with International character set issues. Enable MIME support by checking the control in the Special view of the message editor.

You can customize the character sets Pegasus Mail uses for MIME messages by creating and compiling a file called WPM-LMTT.RSC, and placing it in the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE. A sample source file for this resource, called WPM-LMTT.R, is supplied in the RESOURCE\ subdirectory of the directory where you installed WINPMAIL.EXE - examine it for details of the formatting required.

For non-MIME messages it is impossible to preserve 8-bit data accurately in any meaningful way -- when sending non-MIME mail, Pegasus Mail will always convert accented characters to non-accented ASCII equivalents; this process is required by the Internet mail standard, RFC822, and cannot be subverted. You can customise the conversion process Pegasus Mail applies to your accented characters by providing a WPM-CHAR.RSC file in the same directory as WINPMAIL.EXE. As with WPM-LMTT.RSC, this file is compiled from source you provide, and a sample WPM-CHAR.R file is provided in the same location.


MIME
MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions)

MIME is an Internet standard for the transmission of data of any type via electronic mail. It defines the way messages should be formatted and constructed and has provision for indicating the type and nature of the contents of a message, and for preserving international character set information. In most cases, a MIME message can be read correctly on any kind of system which has a MIME-compliant mail program.

MIME provides direct support for graphic images in GIF and JPEG format, Video images in MPEG format, and Audio data as well. It also has a Digest format for sending multiple mail messages at once (Pegasus Mail displays MIME digests in a manner very similar to a folder).

Pegasus Mail will automatically handle incoming MIME messages without any intervention from you. The decision over whether it should generate outgoing messages in MIME format is yours -- to enable MIME features, click the control in the Special view of the message editor. Once checked, the setting will be remembered for all subsequent messages. The only reason you would not use MIME formatting for Internet mail would be if you knew your correspondent did not have access to a MIME-compliant system.

MIME is described in the Internet Standards Document RFC1521.


Other problems

The .WAV file I have chosen as a new mail alert sound doesn't work

By default, the new mail alert sound only works when WinPMail is minimized on your desktop.

[*] If you would prefer the alert sound to play any time new mail arrives, add the switch "-Z 512" to the WinPMail command line

I have some users whose preferences don't get saved properly between WinPMail sessions

WinPMail only saves your preferences when it believes they have changed during the session - sometimes it may fail to detect changes.

[*] You can force WinPMail to save your preferences by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting "Exit" from the file menu.

[*] This can also happen when user has no rights to read or write files in the temporary directory specified in the TEMP or TMP environment variable, or in the "Temporary files directory" setting in the user's PMAIL.INI configuration file.

Why can't I see some of/all the mail folders I created using older versions of Pegasus Mail?

WinPMail supports hierarchical foldering using "trays", or containers in which folders can be placed. When it first runs, WinPMail creates a file called MAIN.PMT which is your main tray and contains all the folders it can find in your home mailbox: from this point, it uses the file to maintain your hierarchy. If you create a folder using an earlier version of Pegasus Mail after you have run this version, the new folder will not be added to the hierarchy file and WinPMail will not be able to see it.

[*] Solution: run WinPMail, and press <^L> to select a folder; choose "Check tray list"from the Folders menu. This instructs WinPMail to look for any folders which might be missing from your hierarchy and add them to it.

How can I stop WinPMail from running in "NetWare mode"?

You can force WinPMail to run in standalone mode (ie, to ignore the connection to the NetWare server) by changing the command line you use to run the program to "WINPMAIL -A". This commandline switch also works for the DOS version of Pegasus Mail.

Why do all my folders and other mail files appear twice in WinPMail?

If you can see two entries for each DList, Folder, Addressbook or other WinPMail file when you try to select one, and one is in blue, then you have probably installed WINPMAIL.EXE in the same directory as your home mailbox (as opposed to using the recommended installation); this causes WinPMail to see every file as both personal and system-wide, and to list them twice.

[*] Solution: Move WINPMAIL.EXE, WINPMAIL.DAT, WPNNW3.DLL (if you are

on a NetWare system) PMAIL.CFG (if you are running on a standalone system) and WINPMAIL.HLP into another directory.

My new mail folder doesn't open at startup even though I have the option checked in my preferences.

WinPMail originates from the LAN world and is still far and away most heavily used there; in that environment, most users prefer to have the new mail folder open automatically only if there is actually new mail to display. This option is less useful for standalone users so a fix is provided.

[*] Solution: Add the switch "-Z 256" to the WinPMail command line(in the Program Manager Icon you created for it). This will force the new mail folder to open irrespective of its contents.


Technical support
Technical support, manuals

Your first port of call for technical support for Pegasus Mail is the Pegasus Mail online help and this help file. The answers to most questions can probably be found in these two files, especially in the Troubleshooting section on the WinPMail help menu.

If these resources don't turn up the answer for you, send a mail message to the Internet address support@pmail.gen.nz. This will retrieve an automatic reply listing all the available sources of help, including regularly-updated frequently-asked-question lists (FAQs), and addresses for Pegasus Mail-related mailing lists.

Printed manuals are available for Pegasus Mail at very reasonable prices. We don't guarantee you'll find the answer to every problem in the manual, but it is a handy, complete reference to the program, and purchasing manuals gives you access to direct e-mail technical support from us. Manual purchases are totally optional - there is no pressure or obligation for you to purchase manuals: for more information on ordering manuals, click here.

If you have purchased a license for Pegasus Mail manuals, then you are entitled to technical support directly from us: to request technical support, send a message to:

tech-support@pmail.gen.nz

NOTE: When requesting technical support, you MUST show your manual license number (shown on the invoice and on the license) in the subject line of your message. While we try to answer all technical support requests sent to us by licensees, sometimes our workload may not permit it: if you do not receive an answer to a message sent to our tech support account, the answer may be contained in the FAQ lists, or we may be overloaded. If you cannot find an answer in the FAQ lists, wait 24 hours then mail us again.


Manuals for Pegasus Mail
Pegasus Mail Manuals

Although fully-copyrighted and the property of the author, David Harris, Pegasus Mail is distributed as free software, provided as a service to the broader Internet community. Anyone, whether business, school, government or individual may use the Pegasus Mail software on any number of machines without charge or obligation and it may be freely distributed provided it is supplied complete and unmodified, and that only reasonable handling charges are made for the supply.

Nonetheless, the process of developing and maintaining a system as large and complex as Pegasus Mail has definite costs that have to be met: in order to cover these costs, the author sells manuals and support for the Pegasus Mail System. We wish to stress that manual purchases are optional. There is no pressure or requirement that you purchase a manual set -- if you are happy running the program without a manual, then we regard that as a compliment.

For more information on ordering manuals and support, please click the "$" button on the Pegasus Mail main toolbar, or visit our web site, http://www.pmail.com.


What's new in v4.0?
What's new in v4.x?

See also:	Hints and tips for v4.0

With more than 2500 changes or fixes, 11,500 messages exchanged by the beta test team, and fifteen months of extensive development, Pegasus Mail v4.0 represents the culmination of a huge reworking of the entire Pegasus Mail system - practically no part of the program's user interface has not been modified and brought up-to-date in some way. The aim of the redevelopment process was to improve the usability, style and appearance of the program without sacrificing any of its proven reliability or personality.

The list of things that have actually changed is enormous, but the most visible highlights are:

•	Vastly improved handling of HTML: Pegasus Mail can now display practically all HTML content, and can compose HTML messages containing tables, graphics, hyperlinks and more.

•	Preview Pane mode for folders. You can now view your mail folders in a three-pane mode, much like Microsoft Outlook. Switching between preview mode and Pegasus Mail's "Classic" multi-window mode is done at the touch of a button.

•	Powerful new message reader window. Pegasus Mail's message reader has been completely overhauled, especially in areas like Attachment handling and Annotations.

•	Forwarding of mail has been totally overhauled, especially in the area of forwarding messages with attachments.

•	Printing has been totally rewritten: Pegasus Mail can now print messages of arbitrary complexity, and a number of problems with printing in earlier versions have been fixed.

•	New mail filtering options: We invented mail filtering in 1991, and now Pegasus Mail's mail filtering has been improved even further, with the ability to filter on message attributes. The filtering rule editor has also been completely overhauled and has a much more logical, consistent interface.

•	New "Select" and "Incremental search" options for folders make it vastly easier to find and select messages based on almost any criteria you can imagine.

•	Automatic formatting: Pegasus Mail's editor can now correct common typos as you type, and can automatically create hanging indents and bulleted lists for you.

•	Security has been tightened even further: although Pegasus Mail can now display HTML messages of almost any level of complexity, it remains immune to all the nasties that plague other mail programs. New content viewer options also protect you from inadvertently running dangerous or malicious files sent to you as attachments.

•	Signatures have been completely reworked: you can now have fancy signatures with pictures and formatting in your HTML mail, and you can choose to have your signature included in the message at the time you compose it.

•	Addressbooks have been redone with a brand new interface. There's also a new addressing centre, available while you compose your messages, which allows you to access your addressbooks, distribution lists and recently-used addresses all from within a single easy-to-use interface.

•	The toolbars in the various windows can now be switched between Graphics-and-text, graphics-only and text-only modes, and support scrolling so you can still get at all the buttons even if you use narrow window sizes.

•	The huge range of configuration options offered by Pegasus Mail have been consolidated and presented in a completely new preferences dialog that is much easier to navigate and use.

•	Right-clicking a hyperlink in the message reader or preview window now offers a number of useful options for using the contents of that hyperlink.

... and this is really only the visible things; if you have previously used Pegasus Mail, you will probably be surprised how many new and useful things you find as you work your way into the program.

Pegasus Mail v4.0 is our platform for future development - it lays the foundations for a number of very important new features that will be introduced progressively during the latter part of 2001 and during 2002, including a calendaring and scheduling module, an incredibly rich new addressbook format, secure (encrypted) folders, support for SSL and S/MIME and much more. Please watch our web site, http://www.pmail.com, for information on these additions as they become available.


Hints and tips for v4.0

Here are some hints and tips we thought might help you get up to speed with Pegasus Mail v4 more quickly:

Folder preview mode and scrolling toolbars   If you have previously used Pegasus Mail, your Folder Manager window (the window that lists all your folders and mailboxes) may not be wide enough to show the new Preview button that switches into the multi-pane preview mode. If this is the case, there will be a green arrow button at the right of the Folder Manager's toolbar - simply click this button to scroll the Preview button into view. Keep an eye open for this green arrow throughout the program - many windows now have extra buttons that can be scrolled into view in this way.

Fancy styling   Pegasus Mail v4 has excellent support for composing HTML messages that include all types of fancy formatting - graphics, bold and italic typefaces, tables and more - experiment with the buttons on the message editor toolbar to see the options that are available. If you do not use formatting in your messages, Pegasus Mail will send plain text messages, just the way it always has. You can always tell if Pegasus Mail is going to send an HTML message because the Rich Text control in the message editor will check itself. Unchecking the control will force the program to send a plain text message, although any formatting in the message will continue to show until you send it.

Preferences, preferences, preferences   One of the most striking things about Pegasus Mail is how configurable it is - v4 being more so than any previous version. The preferences hierarchy in Pegasus Mail is much easier and clearer than in previous versions too - we strongly recommend that you select Options from the Tools menu and spend time familiarizing yourself with the various settings you can change.

Do the tutorials!   Some of the most commonly-used Pegasus Mail windows now have comprehensive tutorials associated with them. These tutorials will give you a head start towards getting the most out of the program. If you are offered a tutorial by the program at any point, we recommend that you do it.

Ordering manuals and technical support   Starting with Pegasus Mail v4, we have changed the way we provide technical support and manuals in response to feedback from you, our users - please click the '$' button on the program's main toolbar for more information on the options that are now available. As always, manuals and support are optional - you don't have to purchase them, but doing so shows your support for the ongoing development of the system.