QVT/MailNews Help Table of Contents
QVT/MailNews

Please Select a Topic:

Overview

Setup

Modes of Operation

Internet Mail Functions

Mail Servers

Downloading Mail

Opening a Mail Folder

Reading Mail

Using the Toolbar

Searching for Messages

Sending Mail

Command-Line Utilities

Usenet News Functions

Overview

Subscribing to Newsgroups

Downloading News Articles

Reading News Articles

Killfile and Preferred List

Posting News Articles

QVT/Mail Menus

File Menu

View Menu

Setup Menu

Send Mail Menu

Newsgroups Menu

Net Apps Menu


Overview

QVT/MailNews is a comprehensive, full-featured application that conveniently integrates the features of both Internet Mail and Usenet News client applications, along with the ability to read and send MS Exchange mail.

Using QVT/MailNews, you may:

Download mail from one or more POP3 servers

Read mail directly from a POP3 server

Read mail from an MS Exchange server

Send mail to either Internet or Exchange recipients

Download Usenet news articles to your PC

Read Usenet news articles directly from a news (NNTP) server

Post articles to Usenet newsgroups

Private and Public Mail

QVT/Mail includes support for both public and private mailboxes. Most mail is private; i.e., addressed to a specific user. All such mail can be seen only by the user to whom it is addressed. All private mailboxes are mapped to Windows user accounts. This feature facilitates the use of QVT/Mail in situations where PC's are shared, such as computer labs. Each user who logs in to the PC will see only their own mail. QVT/Mail also includes support for public mailboxes. This allows multiple users to access a shared mailbox.

Multiple Mail and News Servers

In both the Mail and News domains, QVT/Mail is fully "multi-server" oriented. That is, you aren't restricted to a single mail server for POP mail, or a single news server for Usenet news. You can create as many server accounts as you need. There is, however, one difference: all POP mail will be downloaded to the same local "inbox", whereas local storage for Usenet articles is kept separate for each server. This is to account for the fact that different servers will have different numbering sequences for the same set of articles.

Rich Content

The same technology is used throughout for the viewing and sending of messages. QVT/Mail provides full support for viewing messages that are in HTML format, and also for composing and sending HTML content. If messages contain hyperlinks, these links will be "live", clickable links.

QVT/Mail provides complete and convenient support for attachments. Any attachments that come with a message will be decoded and presented as hyperlinks at the bottom of the message. To reduce the need for scrolling, the attachment list will also be presented as a pick list in the header portion of the message. QVT/Mail has built-in capabilities for the viewing of images, and for the unpacking of "ZIP" archives. Other types of attachments are mapped to executable programs through the system registry.

Additional Server Components

The QVT/MailNews client is only one component of a complete mail system, which also includes SMTP and POP3 servers. The SMTP server is used to receive Internet mail messages directly to a PC. Messages received in this manner are deposited into user accounts for private reading. These messages can be accessed directly, through the Windows file system, by the QVT/Mail client, or accessed remotely, over the network, by logging in to the QVT/Mail POP3 server. The QVT/Mail client, and both servers, focus on the same set of user accounts.

The availability of these servers means that QVT/Mail can be set up either as a single-user workstation application, or as a complete client-server solution, with multiple workstations accessing mailboxes which reside on a central server.


Setup

For a complex and powerful application, setting up QVT/Mail is fairly simple. Most options have reasonable defaults, and only a few are "mandatory".

The main Setup dialog is accessed by selecting the "Setup - Preferences" menu item:

The following section provides descriptions for each element of each page in this dialog.

General Setup

Return Address

Use this input field to enter your return email address. The correct format is as follows:

your email address [blank] (Your Name)

For example:

smithj@mysys.com (John Smith)

This is the return address that will be incorporated into all outgoing mail messages. If you do not specify a return address, you will not be able to send mail!

SMTP Host

Use this input field to enter the host name of the SMTP mail gateway that you will be using to send mail messages. This information can be obtained from your network administrator, or from your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Unless you specify an SMTP host, you will not be able to send mail!

SMTP Port

This field is used to specify the IP port that is used by your SMTP mail gateway. The default value is the Internet standard, "25".

Check for New Mail

QVT/Mail includes a facility that will continuously check for the availability of new mail at a POP3 server. This field is used to specify how often that check should be performed. The default value is 5 minutes.

Notification

This field is used to specify the name of an audio (.WAV) file that will be played whenever new mail is detected by the background mail checker. Please use the fully-qualified path name.

Download

QVT/Mail keeps track of how many messages were present in each POP3 mailbox at the time of last access. This allows you to choose, when downloading, whether you want only 'new' messages downloaded to your PC.

Keep Passwords

Most POP3 servers require you to log in using a username and password. QVT/Mail will always maintain the username in its internal database, but the storage of passwords is optional. If you are concerned about security, you can disable the storage of POP3 server passwords.

Delete after Download

The POP3 server from which you download your mail will usually retain those messages, even after you have downloaded them. This has a positive aspect, in that it maintains a "backup" for your local storage. However, it can also clutter up the server, and result in slower access to your mail. In order to prevent unwanted server clutter, you can instruct QVT/Mail to delete each downloaded message from the server, as soon as it is successfully downloaded to the "Incoming" mailbox on your PC.

Off-line Mode

QVT/Mail is inherently designed to work "off-line", in the sense that you download your mail, then read it from your local inbox. This means that you can read mail even though you may have terminated your Internet connection. However, QVT/Mail goes further, in that it provides an off-line mode for sending as well as reading mail. In this mode, you can compose replies to mail messages, and those replies will be queued up in a staging area. At a later time, after you have re-established a network connection, you can transmit these queued-up messages.

Use Delivery Service Notification

Current-generation SMTP servers provide a feature known as "Delivery Service Notification". Using this feature, you can arrange to receive a notification that informs you of the success or failure of each message that you send.

Helper Applications

QVT/MailNews has a "NetApps" menu, which provides quick access to other standard Internet applications, such as telnet, FTP, and WWW. The "Helpers" setup dialog provides the mappings to the actual executable programs which support those functions:

With the exception of the Web browser, the defaults will be taken from the QVT/Net Suite. The Web browser will be set to the PC's default browser.

News Client Setup

The QVT/Mail News Reader requires some minimal setup as well. Here is the News client setup dialog:

These items can be described as follows:

Username and Password

These two items are needed only if your news server requires login authorization (most don't).

From

This is the value that will appear in the "From:" header line in the articles that you post. The format is the same as that for a return email address:

email address <blank> (Your Name)

Organization

This is the value that will appear in the "Organization:" header line in posted articles. Put "None" is you have no organization affiliation.

Distribution

The distribution that you desire for articles that you post. The default is "world", but there are more restrictive alternatives, such as "na" for "North America".

Article Limit

Some newsgroups accumulate very large numbers of articles in a short period of time. It's not uncommon to see several hundred new articles every day in certain newsgroups. This means that unless you visit these newsgroups every day, and purge out the articles that you've read, the number of unread articles will build up more quickly than you can keep up.

The QVT/Mail "Article Limit" feature provides an automatic way to limit the number of articles that a newsgroup will present at once. Basically, it works like this:

Take as an example a newsgroup that contains 900 unread articles. If you have the Article Limit set to 200 (as in the example shown), only the 200 *most recent* articles will presented by QVT/Mail. This relieves you of the need to deliberately purge out the older articles.

Delete 'Read' Articles

Normally, QVT/Mail will keep articles that have been read. This allows you to revisit those articles at a later time. However, it also means that you must manually delete articles in order to clear them from the article list. QVT/Mail has a feature that allows you to treat 'read' articles as though they had been deleted, which frees you of the responsibility of manually removing them.

News Server Setup

This is where you create entries in the QVT/Mail database for the news servers that you wish to access.

The upper portion of this dialog presents a list of servers that are currently set up. Below this is an input field that you can use to add a server to the list.

To add a news server entry:

Move the input cursor to the field labelled "Add Server"

Type in the host name of the news server

(You can optionally add a colon (':') followed by the IP port number, if the server uses a non-standard port)

Click on the "Add" button

To delete a news server entry:

Select the server to delete from the list labelled "Current News Servers"

Click on the "Delete" button


Modes of Operation

QVT/Mail has several modes in which it can be used:

Reading Mail from Local Mailboxes

QVT/Mail maintains a set of mailboxes that are referred to as "local storage", in the sense that these mailboxes reside either on the workstation, or on a file server that is accessible on the local-area network. Mail messages are deposited in these local mailboxes in one of two ways:

Downloaded from a POP3 server

Received by the QVT/Mail SMTP server

In either case, the default repository for new messages is the "Incoming" local mailbox. Each user has a separate "Incoming" mailbox.

If you download your mail from a POP3 server, the downloaded messages will be placed in your personal "Incoming" mailbox. If you are using the QVT/Net SMTP server, messages will be routed to the appropriate inbox based on the email address. For example, mail addressed to "smithj@intersys.com" will be placed in the "Incoming" mailbox belonging to user "smithj".

Reading Mail from a POP3 Server

In most cases, Internet mail will be downloaded from a POP3 server to the local "Incoming" mailbox. However, QVT/Mail will also allow you to log on the a POP3 server and read mail interactively.

While theoretically unobjectionable, this mode presents some problems, mainly due to the fact that most ISP's place very short inactivity timers on their POP3 servers, sometimes as little as one or two minutes. Under these conditions, you may find that the timeout has expired while you are reading a message, or responding to one. Therefore, we recommend that you download Internet mail to your local mailbox and read it from there.

Reading Mail from an Exchange Server

In addition to Internet mail, QVT/Mail provides access to MS Exchange inboxes. Exchange mail is handled exactly the same way as Internet mail, and all of the features of QVT/Mail are available in this domain as well.

Exchange mail is presented as an entry in the list of Mail Sources (mail servers). If you select "MS Exchange", you will then have to proceed through the standard Exchange login process in order to select and access your Exchange inbox.

Reading Downloaded Usenet News

QVT/Mail provides a full news download capability. Under this scenario, news articles are downloaded to local storage and read from there.

Reading Usenet News from a News Server

In addition to downloading news articles, QVT/Mail also gives you the ability to read Usenet news directly from the server. This scenario is more practical than its Mail counterpart, since most ISP's don't place as tight a timeout restriction on their news servers.


Mail Servers

Once you have completed the initial setup, and provided the mandatory information, there is one more thing you must do before you can begin using QVT/Mail to access your Internet mail: you must define a mail server. This will be the POP3 server from which you will obtain your mail (typically from an ISP, or from a corporate server on the Intranet).

To do this, select the menu item "Setup - Mail Server". You will be given the following dialog box:

To create a new mail server entry, follow this simple procedure:

Click on the 'New' button

Type in the name of the mail server. This should be a 'user-friendly' name, not necessarily the server's host name

Type in the Internet host name of the mail server (as given by your network administrator or ISP)

Type in the username that you will use to log on to the server

Here is an example of a filled-in mail server definition:

Click on the 'Save' button

To dismiss the dialog, click on the 'Close' button.

Modifying a Mail Server

You can modify the data pertaining to an existing mail server by double-clicking on the name of the mail server in the list which appears in the left-hand side of the dialog. The three pertinent values will appear in the editing area in the right-hand side, where you can make the required changes.

Deleting a Mail Server

To delete a mail server, simply click once on the name of the mail server, then click on the "Delete" button. The mail server entry will be removed from the QVT/Mail database.


Downloading Mail

Normally, the process of reading mail is done in two steps:

Download your new mail

Read the new mail

There are three ways to initiate a mail download:

Select the "File - Download - Mail" menu item

Click on the "Download" toolbar button

Expose the list of mail sources, and right-click on the desired mail server

The first two options will result in this dialog:

The basic procedure here is simple:

Select the desired mail server

Type in the password for the selected mail server

Click on OK to begin the download

Note that you have several of additonal options as well. You may:

Decide whether all messages, or just new messages, should be downloaded

(The default is specified in the main Preferences dialog)

Select a destination mailbox (other than the default, which is "Incoming")

Click on the 'New" button, to create a new mail server entry to download from

If you click on the "New" button, a small dialog will pop up:

This dialog allows you to quickly create a QVT/Mail entry for a new mail server. To complete the dialog, you must:

1. Enter the "user-friendly" name of the new mail server

2. Enter the mail server's host name

3. Enter the username that you will use to log on to the server

Click on "OK" to save the new mail server entry.

Download Directly from the Mail Server List

There is a third, different user interface available for initiating a mail download. To use this interface, you should first click on "Mail Servers" in the Message Repository list, to expose the list of Mail servers:

Now, right-click on the desired mail server, then select the "Download" option from the popup menu. You will be given a dialog to complete that is similar to (and simpler than) the main "Mail Download" dialog:

In this instance, the name of the mail server is already known, so no listbox selection is necessary. However, you must still provide the password. The "Folder" and "Download" options are provided, just as they are in the other Mail Download dialog (above).


Opening a Mail Folder

QVT/Mail provides four methods for opening a mail folder. The first two are:

Select the File - Open - Mail Folder menu item

Click on the "Mailbox" toolbar button

If one of these methods is chosen, a dialog box will be displayed, that you can use to select the mail folder that you intend to open:

Simply double-click on the desired mail folder, or single-click and then click "OK".

The next two methods employ the "Message Repository" treeview that is maintained by QVT/Mail in the upper-left-hand corner of the display area:

This treeview contains three top-level sections:

Mail Folders

Mail Servers

News Servers

Each of these top-level sections can be expanded, and its contents exposed, by single-clicking on the "+" sign that is shown to the left of each section:

You can use the Message Repository treeview as an interface for launching mail sessions, in one of the following ways:

Expand the treeview item "Mail Folders" and double-click on the desired mailbox

Expand the treeview item "Mail Folders", right-click on the desired mailbox, and select "Open"

Regardless of which method is chosen, the final result is the same: the selected mail folder will be opened, and its contents loaded into the QVT/Mail message list display. The QVT/Mail title bar will change to show the name of the open mailbox:

The messages in the mail folder are sorted by date, in descending order, which places the newest messages at the top. Each date is given its own section in the message display, as seen in this example:

Notice that the "envelope" icon that represents each mail message appears in three different colors. According to the scheme employed by QVT/Mail, color is used to indicate the status of the message. Here are the various message statuses:

Red Icon	Message is unread

Grey Icon	Message has been read

Purple Icon	Message has been read and replied to


Reading Mail
Reading Mail Messages

The primary interface for reading mail in QVT/Mail is the message list. Here is a small example:

The message list is divided into sections, with one section for each date. The list is sorted by date, with the newest messages appearing at the top of the list. Message dates are processed and displayed in a fully Y2K-compliant format, using four-digit years. Prior to sorting, all dates are converted to your local time zone.

Each section contains the messages whose message dates match the section header. In the present example, all of the messages shown were sent on November 16, 1998. The newest message is the first one in the list.

Each message is represented by one line, and each line contains three elements. The first element is an 'envelope' icon, whose color is used to indicate the status of the message. A red envelope means that the message is unread. The next element is the name of the message's sender, as extracted from the message header. Finally, the subject of the message is shown, again extracted from the message header.

Opening a Mail Message

There are three methods that you can use to open a mail message:

Double-click on the message that you want to read

Right-click on the desired message, then select "Read Message" from the ensuing popup menu

Left-click once on the desired message, then click on the "Right Arrow" toolbar button

In all cases, the same sequence of events will take place:

The message header will be displayed in the top portion of the message display area

The message text will be displayed in the lower portion of the message display area

Any attachments contained in the message will be decoded and placed into files

Message Display Format

Once opened, the message is split into two parts, with each part displayed in a separate area of the QVT/Mail application window.

The message header section contains some selected items from header portion of the message. These are:

The name and email address of the sender

The subject of the message

The date of the message

Any "cc:" recipients

The body of the message, if not already in HTML format, will be converted to HTML and displayed in the main message display area, which occupies most of the right-hand portion of the screen. Since all messages are displayed as HTML, any hyperlinks that the message contains will be presented in the usual underlined format:

These links are "live", and when clicked will invoke the default web browser. In addition to http URL's, QVT/Mail will recognize telnet, ftp, and mailto URL's. Any such URL's, when clicked, will invoke the appropriate module of the QVT/Net suite.

Using the Toolbar to Perform Operations with Mail Messages

The primary interface that QVT/Mail provides for manipulating messages is the toolbar. Specifically, this group of buttons:

can be used to perform the most common functions. These are:

Open Message (Previous/Next)

Save Message

Delete Message

Print Message

Note that the toolbar buttons will apply to either the current message (the one whose content is on display), or the selected message (the message whose icon in the message list is highlighted). These are usually the same, but not necessarily: QVT/Mail allows you to open a message, then select a different message while the first message is still open. If the selected message is not the same as the current message, the selected message has priority. In other words, if you (for example) open a message, select a different message, then click on the "Trashcan" icon, the selected message will be deleted, not the current message. If a message is selected, but not opened, only the "Open" and "Delete" operations are available. The others are all disabled until the message is opened.

Using the Right Mouse Button to Perform Operations with Mail Messages

Most of the common functions that you need to perform on mail messages are also available through a context menu. This menu is brought up when you right-click on the icon for the current message:

 The options listed are:

Save Message	Save the current message to a disk file

Reply to Message	Send a reply to the author of the current message

Delete Message	Delete the current message

Print Message	Print the current message

Forward Message	Forward the current message

If you click the right mouse button on a message that is not yet opened,, then the only options listed will be:

Open Message	Show the selected message into the display area

Delete Message	Delete the selected message

Moving a Message to a Different Mailbox

By default, QVT/Mail will deposit downloaded messages into the "Incoming" mailbox. It is from that point that you can access the messages and decide their disposition. While some messages will be deleted, you will want to keep other messages for later reference. Since the "Incoming" mailbox is best reserved for new mail, messages that you keep should be placed elsewhere. In QVT/Mail, a drag-and-drop procedure is used to move a message from its current location to a new location. All you have to do is:

Make sure that the treeview list of mailboxes is exposed

Move the mouse cursor so that it points to the message that you want to move

Press and hold the left mouse button, making sure that the correct message is highlighted

Drag the mouse cursor - which will assume a new shape - until it points to the mailbox which is the intended destination for the message. Note that each mailbox will take on a highlighted appearance as the cursor passes over. When the right mailbox is highlighted, release the mouse button. The message will immediately be moved to the selected destination. If the message was the current message, it will be removed from the message display area.

Viewing Notes and Replies

At the bottom of the message header area are three selection, buttons, labelled "Message", "Replies", and "Notes".

The default selection is "Message", which shows the actual message contents. The other two are for viewing:

Replies to the current message

During the normal course of reading mail, you will often send replies to various messages. Pressing the "Replies" button allows you to view all of the replies that you have sent to the current message.

Notes attached to the current message

QVT/Mail allows you to attach personal notes to mail messages. These notes are associated with the current message, but they do not intrude into the content of the base message; nor are they included in replies that you may send.

Attached notes are created by pressing the "Notes" toolbar button:

These notes can then be viewed by pressing the "Notes" selection button.


Using the Toolbar
Using the Toolbar to Work With Mail Messages

Once a mail message has been opened and displayed, there are a variety of operations that can be performed on and with the message. For example, you may want to:

Print the message

Delete the message

Save the message to a disk file

Send a reply to the message

Forward the message to another recipient

These operations, and others, are made available from the QVT/Mail toolbar.

The toolbar buttons are organized into groups, with the broader and more general functions to the left, and smaller-scale, message-oriented functions to the right. Moving from left to right, the first few buttons concern themselves with accessing mailboxes, mail servers, and newsgroups. The next set (the left and right arrows) are for navigation within an open mailbox. Lastly, we have the buttons which operate at the level of the individual message (save, print, delete, and so on).

Here is a brief description of each toolbar icon and its function in QVT/Mail:

Open a Mailbox for Reading

In QVT/Mail, messages are stored in "mailboxes", or "mail folders", which are located either on the PC's hard disk, or on a LAN file server. Clicking on this icon will enable you to open a mailbox and access the messages that it contains.

Open a Newsgroup for Reading

In addition to Internet and Exchange Mail, QVT/Mail provides access to Usenet newsgroups. News articles, like mail messages, can be downloaded to a local directory and read from there, or read directly ("hot") off the news server. Clicking this button gives you access to Usenet newsgroups, in either mode.

Download Mail or News from a Server

Mail messages and news articles are usually downloaded to local storage prior to reading. This icon initiates the process of downloading mail or news.

Start the Background Mail Check

QVT/Mail can be set up to periodically check the mail server for the arrival of new messages. Clicking on this icon will launch the background mailcheck process.

Search for Mail Messages

As mentioned above, mail messages are normally downloaded to the PC before being read. Clicking on this icon initiates a process that allows you to search any or all of your local mailboxes for certain messages. Search criteria include message author, message subject, and message date.

Open Previous Message

Open Next Message

These two buttons can be used to quickly and easily traverse the list of messages in the current mailbox, in either direction.

Save Current Message to Disk

While mail messages and news articles are typically stored on disk, they are readily available only through the QVT/Mail client application. You can click on this icon if you want to save the current message to a disk file, under the name of your own choosing.

Print Current Message

Clicking on this icon will print the current message

Delete Current or Selected Message

This icon is used to delete messages. Normally, the current message will be deleted. However, if no message is currently open, clicking on this icon will delete the selected message. You can select a message by clicking on it once with the left mouse button.

Compose a New Mail Message

Clicking on this icon will launch the QVT/Mail message composition tool. You can use it to create and send a new mail message.

Compose a Reply to the Current Message

Clicking on this icon will load the current message into the QVT/Mail composer, setting it up for you to compose a reply.

Forward the Current Message

Clicking on this icon will load the current message into the QVT/Mail composer, setting it up for you to forward the message to a different recipient.

Attach a Note to the Current Message

QVT/Mail provides what may be described as a "postit" facility, which allows you to attach notes to mail messages that you receive. Clicking on this icon pops up an editing tool that you can use to create a note.

Post a Usenet News Article

In addition to Internet Mail, QVT/Mail also allows you to post articles to Usenet newsgroups. Clicking on this button launches a tool that you can use to compose and post a new Usenet article.


File Menu
QVT/Mail File Menu

Like most Windows applications, QVT/Mail's functionality is exposed in the form of menus and menu options.

Probably the most important of the QVT/Mail menus is the File menu. Here is a list of the items on this menu, along with a description of each one's function:

Open Submenu

The 'Open' menuitem is used to access a mailbox, mail source, or newsgroup, and access the messages that it contains. Once the 'Open' menuitem is selected, it pops up a three-part submenu, containing three options:

Mailbox

Use this option to open a local mailbox. A dialog will popup that lists the available populated mailboxes.

Any mailboxes that contain newly-downloaded messages will be marked with a red icon, as opposed to the standard yellow. Note carefully: only mailboxes that actually contain messages will be shown; empty mailboxes will not appear in this list. If there are no mailboxes that contain mail, a message to that effect will be displayed.

Mail Source

Use this option to open a session on a mail source (server). When you select the "Mail Source" option, a dialog similar to this one will appear:

To complete the dialog, click once on the desired mail source name, then (optionally) type in the password for the selected mail source. If you have previously selected the "Keep Passwords" option (in the primary Setup dialog), the default password for the selected mail source will be displayed in the input window, making input unnecessary (unless the password has changed).

Newsgroup

Opening a newsgroup is slightly more complicated than opening a mailbox or mail source, for two reasons:

A news server must be selected along with a newsgroup

You are allowed to open both newsgroups that you have subscribed to, and those that you haven't

With these cautions in mind, let's take a look at the "Open Newsgroup" dialog:

The procedure for completing this dialog are as follows:

1. Select a news server. The list of available servers is created during the main Setup process.

2. Select a newsgroup, or type in a newsgroup name. When you select a news server, the list of subscribed newsgroups for that server will be made available in the pick list labelled "Newsgroup". You can select from this list, or type in the name of a newsgroup that is not contained in the pick list.

3. Select a source. QVT/Mail allows you to either download news articles to your PC, and read them locally, or connect to a news server, and read them "live" over the network. If the newsgroup that you select is one that has previously been downloaded, you will be given the option to read the newsgroup either locally, or over the network. If the selected newsgroup has no locally-stored articles, only the "Remote" option will be available, and you won't have to make a choice.

Here is how this dialog might look after it is completely filled in:

Download Submenu

As mentioned elsewhere, QVT/Mail allows you to download both mail messages and news articles to your PC. These functions are accessible via the "File - Download" submenu. This submenu has only two options, "Mail" and "News".

If you select the "Download - Mail" option, this dialog will appear:

To complete this dialog, you must:

Select the mail source to download from (mandatory)

Enter or re-enter the password for the selected mail source (mandatory)

Select a local mailbox as a repository for download messages (optional)

Indicate whether the entire contents of the mail source, or only "new" messages, should be downloaded (optional)

Indicate whether or not messages should be deleted from the mail source after being downloaded (optional)

After these steps are completed, QVT/Mail will log on to the selected mail server, using the supplied password, and begin the process of downloaded messages. If you selected "All Messages", all available messages will be downloaded and placed into the selected mailbox. If "New Messages Only" was selected, only messages which have arrived at the server since the last access will be downloaded. The default value for this option is set in the main Setup screen.

The process of downloading mail is a "modal" process, which means that you cannot use QVT/Mail while the download is progressing. You will regain control of the application after the download is complete. While messages are being downloaded, you will be given a progress notification indicating both the completion state of the current message, and for the download process as a  whole. You will be able to cancel the download at any point. However, the download will not stop during a message; if you press the "Cancel" button, the download won't actually stop until the current message is complete.

Start Mail Check/Stop Mail Check

QVT/Mail includes a facility that will periodically check a specified mail server for the arrival of new mail. This "background mail check" can be started by selecting the "File - Start Mail Check" menu option. After selecting the menuitem, a dialog will pop up:

To complete this dialog, follow this procedure:

1. Select a Mail Source.

2. Enter, or re-enter the password for the selected mail source.

3. Indicate whether the mailcheck should be repeated periodically (the default), or performed only once.

4. Indicate whether or not new messages should be downloaded immediately.

5. Indicate whether or not downloaded messages should be deleted from the server.

After completing the dialog, click on OK and the mail check process will begin. A new icon will appear in the system "tray", indicating that the background mail check is active. The first mail check will be done right away, and subsequent checks will be performed at intervals specified in the main Setup screen. If new mail is discovered, the QVT/Mail title bar icon will change color, from yellow to red. If your computer is equipped with sound, a spoken notificiation will also be given. If the "download" option was selected when initiating the mail check, the new messages will be available in the "Incoming" mailbox. If you did not select the "download" option, you will have to download the new messages manually, or initiate an interactive session on the mail server, in order to access the messages.

You can terminate the background mail check at any time, by selecting "File - Stop Mail Check".

Purge Mail Source

Both the "Download Mail" process, and the Background Mail Check, allow you to specify that downloaded messages should be deleted from the mail server following a successful download. However, if you do not select this option, messages will tend to accumulate on the server, often pointlessly. You can use the "Purge Mail Source" menu item to remove all messages from a mail source. Note that this should be done only if you are confident that the mail source doesn't contain any messages that you haven't already seen.

In order to perform a mail source purge, you must complete this simple dialog:

Select the mail source that you want to purge

Enter, or re-enter, the password for the selected mail source

After completing the dialog, click OK to begin the purge process. QVT/Mail will first establish a network connection to the selected mail source. After the connection has been made, QVT/Mail will display the number of messages found, and give you one last chance to cancel the purge. If you choose to continue, QVT/Mail will delete all messages from the server. When the purge is complete, a final status report will be shown.

Purge Mailbox

This menu option allows you to quickly remove all of the messages from a mailbox (or newsgroup). You will be prompted to confirm your decision, before the purge is actually carried out.

Note: a mailbox/newsgroup purge is not reversible! Therefore, be sure of yourself before using this command!

Expire Mailbox

This is a selective purge, in that it allows you to purge only messages that are older than a specified maximum. After this option is selected, a new dialog will pop up:

To complete this dialog, you must:

1. Select a mailbox;

2. Enter a cutoff, in number of days.

After the dialog is completed, click on "OK" to carry out the purge. All messages older than "n" days old will be removed from the selected mailbox, where "n" is the number that was entered into the dialog field labelled "Delete Messages Older Than:".

Move Messages

You can use this command to move messages from the current mailbox to another. After the menu option is selected, a new dialog will pop up:

To complete this dialog, you must:

1. Select a destination mailbox

2. Enter a cutoff for the move, in days. If you want to move all messages, enter "-1"

After clicking on OK, the move will be carried out; all messages older than the specified cutoff will be moved from the current mailbox to the specified destination mailbox.

Note that you have the ability to create a new mailbox to serve as the destination for the move. This would be a desirable option if none of the existing mailboxes are quite right. If you click on the "New Mailbox" button, a small dialog will popup, prompting you for the name of the new mailbox:

Undelete Message

During the course of a mail session, you will probably find yourself deleting messages. Sometimes, though, you may delete a message that you realize you shouldn't have. You can restore any message deleted during the current session using the "Undelete Message" menu option.

If you select this option, a small dialog will pop up:

To use this dialog, you should first click once on the message that you want to restore, then click on the "Undelete" button. This will cause the selected message to disappear from the dialog, and reappear in the current session's message list. Click on "Close" when you are finished restoring messages.

Reset Session

Normally, as you are reading mail or news, you will delete messages as you go. Sometimes, however, you will realize that you may have deleted some messages that you probably shouldn't have. The "File - Reset Session" command allows you to reset the current mailbox to the state it was in just after you opened it; all of the deleted messages will be restored. Note, however, that this reset will apply only to deleted messages. Messages that have been moved, using the drag-and-drop method (see Reading Mail), will not be restored.

Close Session

This command will terminate the current mail/news session, and clear the message list and display area. Any messages that were marked for deletion during the session, will be permanently removed from storage.

Save and Exit

This option is similar to "Close", except that it keeps a record of the state of the current session (mailbox and message). This state will automatically be restored the next time you launch QVT/Mail.


Message Search
Searching for Messages

QVT/Mail includes a facility that will enable you to find messages that are stored in local mailboxes. This "Search" facility is accessed from the toolbar, by clicking on the "magnifying glass" icon. This will bring up the Message Search dialog:

To fill in this dialog, you must:

Provide at least one search criterion

Select at least one mailbox to search

The available search criteria are:

From/To

This criterion focuses on the email addresses of the message's sender and recipient. Partial searches are supported; if you are looking for messages sent to you by John Smith, you can enter "smith" into the "From/To" field, and all matches will be returned.

Searches on this item are not case sensitive.

Subject

Use this criterion to find messages whose subject line matches a specified search string. As with the From/To criterion, partial matches are supported, and the seach is case-insensitive.

Message Date

The two date fields can be used to specify a search that will return all messages sent on a specified date, or between two dates.

There is only one acceptable input format for dates: MM/DD/YYYY. Do not use leading zeros in the MM and DD portions.

After entering your search criteria, you must select at least one mailbox to search in. You can, of course, select more than one mailbox if you like. The "All" and "None" buttons are provided as a quick way to select - or deselect - all of the mailboxes in the list.

Once the search criteria are entered, and the target mailbox(es) are selected, click on the "Search" button to carry out the search. A status report will keep track of which mailbox is being searched, and how many matching messages have been found to that point in the search. After the search is complete, the dialog will be dismissed, and the results of the search will be posted to the QVT/Mail main window. All matching messages will be shown in the message list, in exactly the same format as a "regular" mailbox. The icon color scheme, to indicate message status, will be adhered to in the "Search Results" display.

You can treat the "Search Results" virtual mailbox exactly like a "standard" mailbox; messages can be deleted, replied to, and so on. The main difference is that the search results display is temporary, and lasts only until the search results session is closed.


View Menu

QVT/Mail's "View" menu provides access to some alternate views and sorts of message lists and data. Below is a description of each item on this menu:

Notes

This command, which is enabled only when a message is displayed, allows you to enter and edit personal notes that will be attached to the current message. This is done via this dialog box:

All edits will be saved as soon as you click on "OK". Notes can be viewed by clicking on the "Notes" selection button that is located just above the message body display (to the right of "Message" and "Replies"):

References

This menuitem will be enabled only when reading news articles. Selecting it allows you to see the list of references which are attached to the current article.

Search

This option activates the QVT/Mail Message Search facility.

The next three options allow you to modify the way that the QVT/Mail message list display is sorted:

Date Sort

This is the default sort for mail sessions. Messages are sorted in descending order by message date; the newest messages will appear at the top of the list.

Author Sort

This option sorts the message list by the message sender. The sort is ascending, in alphabetical order. This option is particularly useful when reading newsgroups, where the identity of the sender is often of more value than the topic of the article when trying to identify messages of particular interest. The Author Sort is especially useful when combined with the QVT/Mail "Preferred List" facility, which allows you to mark articles from selected authors as being of special interest.

Subject Sort

This is default sort for News sessions. Articles are sorted in ascending order, by subject. All leading "RE:"s are removed prior to executing the sort, which helps keep related articles together.


Setup Menu

The Setup menu gives access to various commands that you can use to change the way in which QVT/Mail operates. Below is a description of each option.

Preferences

This is the main setup dialog for QVT/Mail. Its operation is complex enough to require a separate topic.

Fonts

The 'Fonts' menuitem is actually a submenu, which provides access to two additional items. The first subitem, "Display", allows you to choose the font that QVT/Mail will use when presenting the contents of mail messages and news articles. The second subitem, "Printer", allows you to select the font that QVT/Mail will use when printing messages.

Address Book

Recipients to whom you regularly send mail can be collected into a permanent address book. Address book entries can then be selected from a list when sending a message, which saves the trouble of repetitively typing in the email address.

The address book editor uses this dialog:

In its initial state, shown here, the editor displays the existing contents of the address book on the left hand side, with an editing area on the right. To add a new entry, click on the "New" button. The editor will then go into "input mode", which allows you to enter the data that defines an address book entry:

Notice that the address book list has become disabled, while the editing input fields are now enabled. The cursor is placed in the field labelled "Addressee".

You can now enter the data that applies to the new entry. The "Addressee" will be the "user-friendly" name for the mail recipient, typically the person's name. In the field labelled "Email Addresses", you should enter the email address for the new recipient. If the recipient has more than one address, or if you are creating a mailing list, you can enter multiple addresses, one per line.

When finished, click on "Save". The new address book entry will appear in the list, as shown on the left-hand side of the editor.

You can also edit an existing address book entry, or delete an entry. To edit an entry, simply double-click on the entry that you want to edit. The contents of the entry will be displayed in the editing area. To delete an entry, select the entry, then click on the "Delete" button.

The Address Book Editor can be terminated in one of two ways:

Click "OK" to exit and save all changes

Click "Cancel" to exit and discard changes

Mail Folder

QVT/Mail stores mail messages in mail folders. At installation time, a standard initial set of mail folders is created, including "Incoming", "Outgoing", and "Archive". You may find, however, that this standard set is not sufficient for your needs, in which case you can create additional folders to suit your specific requirements. This is done using the "Setup - Mail Folder" process.

The layout of this dialog is similar to that used for editing the Address Book. The existing folders are listed on the left-hand side, with the right-hand side used as an editing area.

To create a new mail folder, click on the "New" button. In response, the folder list will become disabled, the editing area will be enabled, and the cursor will be placed in the "Name" field.

You should now enter the name of the new mail folder.

QVT/Mail supports two types of mail folders: private and public. By default, all mail folders are private; only you can see the contents of your folders. However, in some situations, where people are working together, it is useful to be able to place messages into a public area, where anyone can see them. If you want to create this type of mailbox, select the "Public" checkbox at this time.

To complete the process, click on "OK".

You can also delete a mail folder by selecting the folder and clicking on the "Delete" button. The folder and all of its contents will be removed from the system.

Any adds or deletes will immediately be posted to the permanent mail folder display which resides in the upper-left corner of the QVT/Mail window, as soon as you dismiss the Mail Folder dialog.

Mail Server

In most cases, QVT/Mail must obtain mail messages from a mail server that resides elsewhere on the network, or perhaps on the Internet. Unlike Mail Folders, there are no default entries created for mail servers; you will have to create them yourself. The information that is needed to define a Mail Server can be obtained from your network administrator (Intranet), or from your ISP (Internet). This information will include the server name, your username, and your password.

Here is the dialog that is used to enter Mail Server information:

To add a new entry, click on the "New" button. Immediately, the editing area on the right-hand side of the editor window will be enabled, and you can begin to enter the information for the new mail server. Here is an example of how this will look when complete:

Click on the "Save" button to add the new entry to the list of mail servers.

Signature

When composing mail messages, it is customary to close with a signature of some kind. In email, it is common to prepare a standard signature that will automatically be added to your outgoing messages. This saves you the trouble of typing it in every time you send a message. It is also a convenient way to include important information such as your own email address, your web address, and so on.

When you select the "Setup - Signature" menu item, this dialog will appear:

The empty text window can be used to enter your custom signature, as shown in this example:

When finished, click on "OK" to save the signature. The next time you send an email message, the signature will automatically appear at the end.

Routing List

QVT/Mail provides an important convenience that we call the "Routing List". Normally, when mail is downloaded from a mail server, the downloaded messages are placed in the "Incoming" folder (or in a different folder of your choice). What the routing list does is allow you to specify that messages from a certain sender, or on a certain subject, should automatically be placed into a different folder, one that you can specify. This is particularly convenient when you subscribe to a mailing list, which will result in a steady stream of messages, all on the same topic, (usually) all from the same source. With the QVT/Mail routing list, you can arrange for these messages to be placed in a designated folder when they are downloaded.

The QVT/Mail Routing List editor is enabled only when a message is open for reading. The address and subject information from the current message will be supplied to the editor when it is opened, using the "Add Entry" menuitem. For example:

In this example, the sender of the message is shown in the field labelled "Origin", and the subject line is shown in the field labelled "Subject". In order to complete the dialog, you must:

1. Select either "Origin" or "Subject", which determines which item is used to route the message

2. Select a mail folder which will be the repository for the routed messages.

For example, if I select "Origin" as the routing method, and "Chloe Personal" as the destination mail folder, all future messages from the indicated address will be placed in the "Chloe Personal" folder when they are downloaded.

Routing entries can also be deleted, using the "Delete Entry" dialog:

Just select an entry, then click on "Delete".

The remaining entries on the "Setup" menu - "Killfile" and "Preferred List" - are discussed elsewhere in this manual.


Send Mail Menu

The QVT/Mail "Send Mail" menu provides access to several features which have to do with the sending of mail messages and news articles. Here are descriptions of these function.

New Message

Selecting this option will bring up the QVT/Mail "Send Mail" utility, already set up to compose and send a new mail message. This utility is discussed in detail elsewhere in this document.

Reply to Message

Selecting this option will bring up the QVT/Mail "SendMail" utility, with the current message already loaded into the message area, and with the "Send To:" and "Subject:" lines already filled in, using values from the header of the current message.

Forward Message

This option is similar to the "Reply" function, except that:

The "Send To:" line is not filled in

The message text is not "quoted"

The message text is marked as "forwarded"

Queued Messages

An important capability of QVT/Mail is that of working in "off-line" mode. While the ability to read mail while not connected to the network is straightforward (mail messages are stored locally), QVT/Mail also allows you to send mail while off-line. In this mode, mail messages are composed in the usual manner, but instead of being transmitted, the messages are stored in a queue for transmission at a later time, when a network connection is once again available.

Note: Off-line mode is selected in the primary QVT/Mail Setup dialog.

The "Queued Messages" menu item is used to transmit messages that are waiting in the queue. When this item is selected, a dialog box will be displayed:

All of the data elements in this dialog are "view only"; no changes are possible. These elements are:

The recipient of the message

The subject of the message

The names of any attachments which are to be sent with the message

The text of the message

There is also a row of buttons, which represent the available commands. These commands are:

Send	Send the message

Next	Skip to the next message; do not send the current message

Delete	Delete the current message without sending it

Close	Close the dialog. Any unsent messages will remain in the queue.

The usual procedure would be to send each message in succession. Once a message has been sent it is deleted from the queue. When all messages are sent, a "Queue Empty" message will be displayed, and the dialog will close.

Re-send Previous Reply

It sometimes happens that a message or reply that you send fails to get through. A failure of this type usually results in a message to that effect appearing in your mailbox some days afterward.

QVT/Mail provides the "Re-send Previous Reply" function as an easy way to re-transmit a failed reply. To use this function, you must:

1. Use the "Message Search" facility to find the original message

2. Select "Re-send Previous Reply" to re-transmit the failed reply

Post News Article

You can use this menu item to begin the process of posting a new article to a Usenet newsgroup (or groups). This topic is discussed in detail elsewhere in this document.


Newsgroups Menu

The first two items on this menu - "Subscribe" and "Unsubscribe" - are discussed elsewhere in this manual

Purge All

One of the issues that must be dealt with when working with Usenet News is the accumulation of unwanted articles, or simply articles that accumulate in excess of one's ability to keep up. As a way of dealing with this problem, QVT/Mail provides the "Purge All" function, which deletes all of the articles from all subscribed newsgroups, in one pass.

Reset All

The "Reset All" command is basically the reverse of "Purge All"; it resets the status of all subscribed newsgroups to an "unread" state. This will re-enable access to articles that may have been inadvertently removed in a previous session.

Note, however, that this function applies mostly to client/server news sessions, rather than to local sessions against downloaded articles. This is because an article, once deleted, is deleted permanently. You may, however, be able to download the article again.


Net Apps Menu

QVT/Net consists of a suite of Internet applications, of which QVT/Mail is a part. The "Net Apps" menu provides a handy method for launching these other applications. They are:

Telnet

FTP

Gopher

The fourth option, "Web", will launch the default Web browser, as specified in your PC's system registry.


Sending Mail

This part of this manual will describe QVT/Mail's capabilities in the area of sending mail. There are three uses to which the "send" function applies:

Sending a New Message

Sending a Reply to a Message

Forwarding a Message

The appropriate mode will be selected based on how SendMail is invoked from within QVT/Mail (i.e., whether the "New", "Reply", or "Forward" button is pressed).

All of these functions use the QVT/SendMail utility, which has this basic appearance:

Of the various buttons and labels which are present in this display, all are "active" except for the "Subject" label. Here is a brief description of each button or label:

Pop up the "Recipients" dialog

Pop up the "Create New Alias" mini-dialog

Pop up the attachment "Browse" dialog

Save the new message to a disk file

Insert text from an existing disk file into the new message

Print the new message

Run the spell-checker

Send the message

SendMail Quick Start

While QVT/SendMail has numerous features, the basic task of sending a mail message can be accomplished in fairly few steps:

1. Type in the email address of the recipient

2. Type in the Subject line of the message

3. Type in the body of the message

4. Click on the "Send" button

Composing a Message

While Internet mail messages usually consist of plain text, QVT/Mail allows you to create messages which contain some text attributes, such as bold and underlined. If you employ any of these attributes, QVT/Mail will send the message in two alternative formats: plain text and HTML text.

To select a text attribute, just click on the toolbar button that represents the desired attribute:

The three available attributes are:

Bold

Italicized

Underlined

These attributes can be used singly or in combination.

In addition to attributes, you can also select different fonts for use in mail messages. The default font can be selected using the "Setup - Font" menu item. If you change the default font, both new and existing text will be affected by the change.

Different fonts can be mixed within a message by using the toolbar font selector:

A font selected using the toolbar applies only to new text. Text that is already present in the message input area will be unaffected.

Selecting Cc: and Bcc: Recipients

The main SendMail window provides only a single input field, which is used to specify the primary recipient of the message. QVT/Mail does, however, allow you to specify additional recipients. This is done by clicking on the "Send To" button. Clicking on this button will pop up a dialog:

Using this dialog involves the following two steps:

1. Type in an email address, or select a recipient from the QVT/Mail address book

2. Click on the appropriate "Add" button, depending on whether you want the recipient to be a primary recipient, a Cc: (carbon copy) recipient, or a Bcc: (blind carbon copy) recipient.

There is no logical limit to how many recipients you can add to these lists.

You can also delete a recipient from the various recipient lists. To do so:

1. Select the recipient to delete

2. Click on the "Delete" button

Creating a New Alias

While QVT/Mail provides a facility for adding entries to the Address Book, you may find it convenient to do so while composing a message (or reply). The SendMail "Alias" function allows you to create an alias (i.e., address-book entry) for the email address of the primary recipient. In order for this function to work effectively, the email address should already be present in the "Send To" field.

In this example, the email address "jonese@yoursys.net" had already been typed in as the primary recipient of the message. Clicking on the "Alias" button pops up the "New Alias" dialog, which allows you to enter a "user-friendly" name to go along with the address. In this case, we are using the recipient's name, Ed Jones. After you click on "OK", the new alias will be added to the QVT/Mail Address Book.

Selecting Attachments

It is common to use email to send not only messages, but also files and images. These are called "attachments". QVT/SendMail provides a file browser that you can use to include attachments in your outgoing messages.

This dialog contains two lists. The upper list is the list of files currently selected for attachment to the current message. This list will initially be empty, as it is here. The lower list is a list of the last few files that have been sent as attachments to previous messages. This MRU list relieves you of the need to browse for a file that was recently used as an attachment. The MRU list will contain up to ten entries.

To add a file to the attachment list:

Select a file from the MRU list and click "Add"

or:

Click on the "Browse" button and locate the file on your disk

You can add as many files as you like to the attachment list.

Saving a Message

After composing a message, you may want to save it permanently to disk. To do so, just click on the "Save Message" button. The standard Windows file saver will be popped up:

To complete this dialog:

1. Navigate to the directory that you want to place the file in. By default, your personal QVT/Mail "Transfer" directory will be selected.

2. Type in the name for the file that you want to save the message in

3. Click on OK

Inserting Text into a Message

The usual method for creating message text is typing it in. However, there may be situations in which you want to include the contents of an existing disk file into a message. To do so, click on the "Insert Text" button. After you click on this button, the standard Windows file selector will be popped up:

Use this dialog to locate the file you want to insert; it must be a text file (though not necessarily with a .TXT extension). The contents of the selected file will be inserted at the location of the caret. This being the case, you should make sure that the caret is in the right place before you insert the file!

Using Standard Responses

In some situations, an email user finds herself in need of the equivalent of a "form letter", a prepared message that can be sent back to someone as a reply to a routine inquiry. QVT/SendMail provides this capability in the form of "Standard Responses".

There are two steps to the standard response process:

Creating a Standard Response

Standard Responses are created from within QVT/SendMail. There are only two steps:

1. Compose the text of the standard response in the QVT/SendMail message area

2. Invoke the "Save as Standard Response" item from the "File" menu

This second step will bring up a standard Windows "File Save" dialog:

To complete this dialog, simply fill in the name that you want to use for the response. The following points are critical in this process:

1. Pick an easily-understood filename, and use the file extension ".RTF"

2. Do not change the current directory. The dialog will already be pointing to the right directory. If you change to a different directory before saving, QVT/SendMail will not be able to find the file!

Including a Standard Response

The available standard responses will be listed in the "Responses" menu. To select a standard response for inclusion in an outgoing message, simply pick it from the menu.

Note that the response text will be inserted into the current message right at the cursor position. So, make sure that cursor is positioned to the right location before you do the insert!

Spell-checking a Message

QVT/SendMail includes a spell-check facility. To spell-check the current message, simply click on the "SpellCheck" button.

The text of the message will be scanned for words that may be misspelled. Each time such a word is found, a dialog such as this will pop up:

You have options to:

Accept the word as is

Replace the word, using one of the suggested replacements (if any), or a replacement of your own

Add the word to the dictionary, which will prevent the word from being flagged in the future

The spell-check can be cut short at any point by clicking on the "Cancel" button.


Usenet News Overview

In addition to Internet Mail, QVT/Mail provides a full-featured Usenet News Reader. Some of the features offered by the News Reader are:

Support for Multiple News Servers

Ability to read news "live" off the server, or locally via download

Multiple views of newsgroup (by subject, by author)

Suppression of unwanted articles ("killfile")

Ability to mark selected authors as "Preferred"

Ability to read either subscribed or unsubscribed newsgroups

Usenet Quick Start

Here are the steps you can follow to begin reading news quickly:

1. Open the Preferences dialog and specify a news server

2. Click on the "News" toolbar icon

3. Fill in the "Open a Newsgroup" dialog

Select a News Server

Type in the name of a newsgroup

Click OK

QVT/Mail will connect to the selected server and download article headers from the specified newsgroup. You can then begin to read news using the same procedures that are used for reading mail. Note, however, that news articles are initially sorted by subject, rather than date. This makes is easy to identify the various "threads" that are present in the newsgroup.

Subscribing to Newsgroups

While it is possible to read articles from any newsgroup that your news server supports, without subscribing, QVT/Mail encourages you to subscribe to newsgroups that you read on a regular basis. This provides two benefits:

Subscribed newsgroups can be picked from a list; no typing required

Articles from subscribed newsgroups can be downloaded

The process of subscribing to newsgroups is described elsewhere in this manual.


Downloading News

With QVT/Mail, you can read news in two different ways.

Connect to the server and read articles "live"

Download articles to your PC and read articles off the disk

As noted previously, only articles from subscribed newsgroups can be downloaded. So, for any newsgroup that you want to download, make sure that you are subscribed to that newsgroup.

There are several ways to initiate a news download:

1. Click on the "Download" toolbar button. Select "News" from the ensuing dialog.

2. Select "Download - News" from the "File" menu.

In either one of these cases, if more than one news server is present in the datebase, you select which server is to be used for the present download session.

3. Right -click on the name of the server that you wish to download from. Select "Download" from the popup menu.

The News Downloader application will then pop up:

This window has several interactive elements

Newsgroup List

This list contains entries for all of the subscribed newsgroups for the selected news server. Initially, all of the newsgroups are selected for download

All/None Buttons

These buttons provide a convenient method for selecting or deselecting the entire list of newsgroups

Purge Before Download Checkbox

Checking this option will instruct the downloader to delete all existing articles before downloading. This is a good option to select if you want to start fresh, with a fresh batch of articles.

Once you have selected the newsgroups that you want to download, just click on OK and the download will begin. A progress report will be shown, giving the newsgroup name, the number of articles downloaded, and the percentage complete. After each newsgroup is finished, the newsgroup list will be updated to show the actual number of articles downloaded. This information will appear just to the right of the newsgroup name.

The news download process runs at a reduced priority level. We recommend that you minimize the News Downloader while it is running; an audible signal will be given when the download is finished.

Stopping a Download

You can stop activity on the current newsgroup, and proceed to the next newsgroup, by clicking on the "Skip" button.

The entire download can be terminated by clicking on the "Cancel" button.


Killfile and Preferred List
Using the Killfile and Preferred List

Killfile

The QVT/Mail killfile is a technique for automatically suppressing the display of unwanted articles. Such articles can be defined in one of two ways:

1. Articles posted by a specific author

2. Articles whose subject line contains a key word or phrase

The Killfile Editor is available only when reading News. If, while reading an article, you decide to suppress all similar articles in the future, select the "Setup - Killfile" menu item; this dialog will appear:

To complete the dialog, you should:

1. Decide which suppression method to use, either Author or Subject

2. Once this question is answered, you should then decide whether the key information is correct and adequate "as is", or not. If not, you should edit the data to suit.

3. Click on "Add Author" or "Add Subject", based on which method you selected in Step 1.

Note: you can actually add both the Author and the Subject to the killfile in one pass, but in separate steps.

When you are finished, click on "OK", and the killfile will be updated.

Preferrred List

Readers of Usenet News know that most newsgroups typically have a group of "regulars", posters who contribute articles on a regular basis, perhaps daily. The QVT/Mail "Preferred List" facility allows you to designate certain posters as "preferred", which is a way of indicating that you have a particular interest in their contributions. Articles from preferred authors will be marked with a distinctive icon, which allows you to pick them out easily when reading threads:

The Preferred List Editor is similar to the Killfile Editor, only simpler; only authors are involved. The editor is available only when reading news, when an article has been opened for display. The author of the current article will be supplied to the editor automatically:

To add the specified author to the Preferred List, simply click on the "Add Author" button.


Subscribing to Newsgroups

QVT/Mail is both an Internet Mail client and a Usenet News reader. To this end, several functions are provided that allow you to subscribe to newsgroups (and unsubscribe). These functions are available on the "Newsgroups" menu.

Subscribe

The concept of "subscribing" to a newsgroups simply means that you have listed a newsgroup as one in which you retain a steady interest. QVT/Mail maintains a list of all the newsgroups that you subscribe to. This list facilitates the process of downloading and reading mail on a daily basis.

In order to subscribe to newsgroups, you must have previously specified one or more news servers during the QVT/Mail setup process. This is done using the "News Servers" tab in the main "Preferences" dialog.

When you first select the "Subscribe" menu item, you may or may not be asked to select a news server. This will happen only if you are using more than one news server. Newsgroups must be subscribed on a per-server basis. This means that if you want to read the same newsgroups on more than one server, you must subscribe to those newsgroups once for each server.

The first time you select "Subscribe", a prompt will appear:

During the subscription process, QVT/Mail prefers to work from a database. That database will consist of a list of all the newsgroups that are supported by the specified server. This list is downloaded from the server. This prompt will appear if no newsgroup list is available, or the available list is more than a few weeks old.

Initially, you should answer "Yes" to this prompt, in order to obtain a list of newsgroups from the server. This download may take several minutes, since a megabyte or more of data needs to be transferred. There will be a progress display showing the number of bytes and newsgroups downloaded.

Afterward, the main Subscribe dialog will be displayed in its standard form:

There are three input/display elements in this dialog. The top element, labelled "Category", is used to enter selection criteria which are used to browse the list of available newsgroups. These criteria may be either selected with the mouse, or typed in. Let's say, for example, that you want to view all newsgroups that begin "comp.lang". To do this, type in "comp.lang", then either press <Return> or click on the "Browse" button. All matching newsgroups will be pulled from the list and displayed in the unlabelled area just below the "Category" field. The bottom-most element is where the current subscription list is displayed. This is a passive, display-only field that is provided for informational purposes.

To subscribe to a newsgroup, follow this procedure:

1. Select or type in a category selector

2. Click on "Browse"

3. Pick a newsgroup from the result list

4. Click on "Subscribe"

The selected newsgroup will be added to the list of subscribed newsgroups.

The "Download" button is provided so that you can download a newsgroup list from the server at any time, whether you are prompted to do so or not.

The "Find New" button can be used to identify newsgroups that have been added to the server since the last download. Note that, in order for this function to be available, at least two newsgroup downloads must have been done.

Unsubscribe

The "Unsubscribe" function is used to delete a newsgroup from the subscribed list. As with "Subscribe", if you are using more than one news server, you will first be required to select the server.

The main "Unsubscribe" dialog looks like this:

To complete this dialog:

1. Select a newsgroup

2. Click on OK

The selected newsgroup and all of its articles will be removed from your system, and the newsgroup name will be removed from the subscribed list.


Reading News Articles

The process of reading news articles is similar to that for reading mail, except for one initial difference: news articles are sorted by subject, rather than by date. This keeps article "threads" together.

Note also that the threads are not expanded initially. This allows you to see more threads at once, so that you can proceed to delete the threads that hold no interest.

Working with Threads

A "thread" is a group of articles all on the same subject. Each thread represents a continuity of discussion. QVT/Mail provides a user interface that allows you to work directly with threads.

To expand a thread:

1. Click once on the small "plus" sign located to the left of the thread icon

The list of articles within the thread will be exposed, as in this example:

Notice that, within the thread, the articles are sorted by date and time. The times are shown in your local time zone.

To begin reading a thread:

1. Double-click on the thread icon

This will perform two steps at once: the thread will be expanded, and the first article in the thread will be opened.

or:

1. Click once on the thread

2. Click on the "right arrow toolbar icon

To delete a thread:

1. Right-click on the thread icon

2. Select the option "Delete Thread" from the ensuing popup menu

or:

1. Select the thread by clicking once

2. Click on the "trashcan" toolbar button

Navigation Interfaces

In maneuvering through a newsgroups, you will primarily use the toolbar and the right mouse button. Operations that you will perform often include:

Opening an article

Deleting an article

Printing an article

Saving an article

All of these operations are available from both the main toolbar...

...and by right-clicking on the message, which produces a popup menu supporting these same operations.

Opening News Articles

The two "arrow" toolbar buttons are used to open news articles for reading: the "right" button will open the next article, and the "left" button will open the previous article. The definition of "next" will vary depending on whether an article is already open:

If no article is open, the selected article will be opened

If an article is currently open, the next article will be opened

If necessary, thread boundaries will be crossed.

For more detail on opening articles, see the section on Reading Mail

Deleting News Articles

To delete an article, you may either:

1. Select the article

2. Click on the "trashcan" toolbar button

or:

1. Right-click on the article's icon

2. Select the "Delete Article" menuitem

Note that deleted articles can be reinstated using the "File - Undelete Message" menu item, until the newsgroup is closed. At that time, all articles marked as deleted will be removed from the system.

Printing News Articles

To print an article, you may either:

1. Open the article

2. Click on the "Printer" toolbar icon

or:

1. Open the article

2. Right-click on the article's icon

3. Select the "Print Article" menuitem

The standard Windows "Page Setup" dialog will be displayed:

Just click "OK" to send the current message to the default printer.

Saving News Articles

To save an article to a disk file, you may either:

1. Open the article

2. Click on the "Diskette" toolbar icon

or:

1. Open the article

2. Right-click on the article's icon

3. Select the "Save Article" menuitem

In either case, you will be presented with a standard Windows "File Save" dialog:

To complete this dialog, you must:

1. Select the directory where the file will be saved

2. Type in a name for the file


Posting News Articles

This section will discuss the process of posting articles to Usenet newsgroups. The posting process has two possible "modes":

Posting a new article

Posting a followup article

While these two modes have some differences, they both employ the same basic interface:

Prominent in this interface is a group of text input fields, which are to be filled in prior to posting. These fields are:

Newsgroups

The newsgroup(s) to which the article is to be posted.

Multiple newsgroups must be separated by commas, with no blank spaces:

In a followup article, the "Newsgroups" field will already be filled in, using information from the header of the original article.

Subject

The subject of the article. This can be any text of your choosing:

In a followup article, the "Subject" field will already be filled in, using the subject line from the original article.

Distribution

The distribution zone for the article. The default is "world". Examples of other choices might be "na" for "North America", or "usa" for the United States.

Note: you can change the default distribution by using the QVT/Mail Preferences dialog. The tab labelled "News" has a space that you can use to enter your preferred default distribution.

This field can be left blank, in which case the news server will supply its own default, which is usually "world".

Keywords

One or two words that give a rough idea of the topic of the article:

This item is optional.

Attachment

In addition to text that you compose yourself, you can also post a file to a newsgroup. Use this field to enter the name of the file (fully-qualified), or press the "Browse" button to use the Windows file browser to locate the file.

This item is optional.

In addition to the input fields described above, the QVT/PostNews interface includes a number of command buttons. These buttons are located on the right-hand side of the PostNews window:

Each button is associated with a command. In order, from top to bottom:

Post Article

Pressing this button will post the article to the Usenet. A copy will go to each of the specified newsgroups, unless the server has overriding instructions to disallow posting to one or more of them.

Email Article (Followups only)

This button, which is available only when posting a followup, will email the article to a specified recipient, rather than posting it to a newsgroup. When this button is clicked, a small dialog pops up:

By default, the recipient of the article will be the author of the original article, but you can specify a different recipient if you wish.

Post and Email (Followups only)

This button, which is available only when posting a followup, will post the article to the specified newsgroups, and email the article to a specified recipient.

Insert file into article body

This command allows you to easily insert the contents of an existing disk file into the body of the news article.

The insertion will take place at the current cursor location, so make sure that the cursor is located correctly before you carry out the insertion!

Save article to a disk file

While all of the articles that you post are saved by QVT/Mail, you may want to save a particular article to a disk file. For example, suppose that you compose a lengthy article, and the attempt to post the article fails. With QVT/PostNews, you can save the article, then recall it later using the "Insert File" function (see above).

Clicking on this button will bring up the standard Windows "file save" dialog, which you can use to pick and name and location for the file.

Spell-check article body

Click on this button to apply a spell check to the text of the article.

Composing a Newsgroup List

While it is possible to type newsgroup names directly into the "Newsgroups" input field, QVT/PostNews also provides a tool that can help you compose the newsgroup list. This is especially useful given the fact that:

Many newsgroup names are quite long

Any misspelling whatsoever will cause the posting to fail

It is therefore quite important that there be no errors in the newsgroup list.

To activate the newsgroup selector, click on the "Modify" button that is located at the right end of the "Newsgroups" input field. Clicking on this button will bring up a new window:

On the right hand side of this window you will see the current list of newsgroups that have been selected for posting. You can delete a newsgroup from this list by:

1. Selecting the newsgroup

2. Clicking on the "Delete" button

The process of adding newsgroups is very similar to that used by the Subscribe Newsgroups process. The procedure is as follows:

1. Type a selection key into the field labelled "Select Newsgroups". You may also select a key using the mouse. This selection key can be as vague or as specific as you like. For example, "comp" is a vague key, that will bring up all newsgroups beginning with the string "comp". To narrow it down, you could type something like "comp.lang.java", which would bring up a smaller and more manageable list.

2. Click on the "Browse" button. This will populate the list with the names of all newsgroups whose names match the selection key.

3. Select the desired newsgroup from the list

4. Click on the "Add" button

The selected newsgroup has been added to the list.

When you click on OK to dismiss the dialog, the edited newsgroups list will be displayed in the "Newsgroup" field in the main PostNews window.

Composing a News Article

QVT/PostNews allows you to create news articles that contain text attributes, such as bold and underlined. You can also use multiple fonts. All of these options are available from the toolbar:

If any text attributes are used, the article will be posted as a multi-part MIME message, in alternative formats, text and HTML.

Please note: some newsgroups, especially moderated newsgroups, will not accept articles in HTML format, even if the posting contains a plain-text version of the article.

The editor used by QVT/PostNews also includes search, search/replace, and spell-check capabilities. The Search and Replace functions are available from the "Edit" menu; spell-checking can be performed by clicking on the "SpellCheck" button (see above).


Sending Mail from the Command Line

QVT/Mail includes a small utility, "clsend.exe", that you can use to send email from the command-line ("DOS") prompt. In order to use Clsend, the content of the message must already exist as a disk file; you cannot compose messages interactively. Here is the syntax for using Clsend:

ClSend -r <recipient> -s <subject> -f <filename> [-m <text|binary>]

The first three arguments are mandatory, and are described below:

Recipient	The email address to which the message should be sent

Subject	The subject line for the message. If the subject includes blanks,

you should enclose it in double quotes (e.g. "subject line")

Filename	The name of the file to send as the message body. The name

should be fully-qualified

Mode	Optional: indicates whether the message should be sent as

plain text, or treated as binary data.