Kompuutteri Kaikille K-CD 2002 #11/K-CD_2002-11.iso/Tools/LetterBox/ReadMe.txt

Text File | 2001-02-16 | 27KB | 609 lines

                  LetterBox v4.1.1



        1.  Introduction
        2.  Registration
        3.  Installation
        4.  Usage
        5.  Preview Window
        6.  AutoDelete
        7.  FAQ
        8.  History
        9.  The Future
        10. Legal Stuff
        11. Acknowledgements
        12. Cultural Note




    1. Introduction

LetterBox is a POP3 e-mail notification program that sits quietly in your
System Tray (apart from on the first run, when it asks for the essential
settings it needs) and, at a pre-set interval, checks to see whether any
e-mail has arrived for you. Why the need for another such program? I found
that none of the other notification programs I tried worked in quite the way
I wanted, so I wrote one that did. In particular, all the other ones I tried
had the annoying habit of dialling-up to the internet when I didn't want them
to. LetterBox can be set not to do that.

LetterBox runs under Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000.

If you use LetterBox, I recommend you sign up to the LetterBox e-mail list to
be kept up to date with future developments and enhancements. To do so, send
an e-mail to :

                   [e-mail]

You can unsubscribe at any time. If you do sign up you won't be bombarded
with e-mails about LetterBox (far from it) but you will hear about any
enhancements or bug fixes that may appear in the future.

Meanwhile, bug reports and suggestions are always welcome, to :

                   [e-mail]

Finally, the latest version of this program can always be obtained at :

                   www.ultima-thule.co.uk



    2. Registration


LetterBox is either freeware or shareware - it's up to you which. Having spent
a lot more time than I ever intended developing and supporting the program,
I've taken the decision (at v4.0.0) to allow people to contribute a small
registration fee (as a number of users have encouraged me to do) if they so
wish and if they feel LetterBox is worth it.

As I say it's up to you - there is no "full" or enhanced version available if
you do so. But there is the increased likelihood of me continuing to develop
(and offer support for) the program. If you decide not to register, it's still
worth signing up to the e-mail list as described above - I'm not going to hound
you for money. Details of how to register are on the web page at :

                   www.ultima-thule.co.uk

I've set the registration fee at a paltry, a trifling, US$15. Support the
shareware principle!



    3. Installation

The LetterBox installation comes in two forms - letterboxfiles.zip and
letterbox.zip. The former contains just the program's files without any
sort of installation routine. This is for upgraders and people who know
what they are doing. If you're one of these people then you probably don't
need to read this section. If, on the other hand, you've downloaded
letterbox.zip and want to use the set up routine, read on.

Extract all files contained in the LetterBox.zip archive to a directory
somewhere (C:\Temp is good) and run the Setup.exe program therein. You will
then be taken through the usual routine of selecting directories etc.

A shortcut to LetterBox may now be found on your Start button under Programs.
Note that no shortcut is placed in your Start Up group by the installation.
When you're ready to set up Letterbox, just run it. The first time you do so,
it will request the name(s) of your POP3 e-mail server(s), the user ID(s) and
the password(s) you use to access them. If you don't know any of these, contact
your Service Provider. All other options may be left as they are, or changed as
required (see below). Note that the default Start Up option is for LetterBox to
run automatically when Windows starts up - ie. a shortcut will now (unless
you've overridden the default) be in your Start Up group.
LetterBox is now configured to run.

Note that whilst all of the details you enter are stored in the Windows
Registry, your password is encrypted so that prying eyes or other applications
won't be able to work out what it is.

Note also that the LetterBox archive does not contain the Visual Basic
run-time files, which are essential for its operation. They are omitted
because they are fairly large and most people should already have them,
but if you do not (eg. you receive messages about missing DLLs), you will
need to acquire them separately and install them onto your machine before
installing LetterBox. It's worth doing anyway as these are generally useful
files to have. All of them can be downloaded from Microsoft and a link to them
can be found on the Ultima Thule web site - just download the file and run it.



    4. Usage

The default options for LetterBox are for it to :

    - Run automatically on Windows start-up

    - Use Dial-Up (RAS) to access e-mail servers

    - Check for e-mail automatically

    - Check for new e-mail every 10 minutes

     - Wait 20 seconds for POP3 servers to timeout

    - Stay off-line if you are off-line when it tries to check (the last
          thing you want when you're at a critical point in a good game is for
          Windows to suddenly start dialling up to the internet)

    - Notify you of new messages found, not all waiting messages

    - Display System Tray icon tool-tips detailing the number of waiting
          e-mails

    - Display the Settings window when the System Tray icon is
          double-clicked

    - Play the default sample when new e-mail is found

    - Not automatically show the Preview window when new mail is found

    - Download and show 10 lines of the body of each found message

    - Run nothing external when new e-mail is found

    - Not dismiss the Settings/Preview windows when Run External is
          clicked

    - Start up minimised

    - Not perform an immediate check on start-up

    - Wait 30 seconds before doing a check once on-line is detected (this
      is to give your system time to complete the connection)

    - Apply no AutoDelete rules

    - Log any AutoDeleted messages

    - Not be in paused mode


All of these can be configured through the Settings box - to bring this up, just
right-click on the System Tray icon and select Settings from the pop-up menu.

If you want to run a separate application when new e-mail is found (such as your
actual e-mail client), just use the Run On New Mail option on the Notification
tab. There are test buttons for both the Sound On New Mail and Run On New Mail
options here.

If you find your POP3 server is not responding quickly enough when you do a
check (LetterBox reports a server timeout), try increasing the server timeout
period. This defaults to 20 seconds but can be set to as high as 999 seconds
(and if your ISP's server doesn't respond in this time - over 16 minutes - I'd
change ISPs.) There's no particular problem with having a higher timeout period
than 20 seconds - make it, say, 60 if you are having problems - but a lower
period makes LetterBox that bit more responsive. As with much in life, it's a
matter of finding a balance.

Check Now (on the pop-up menu, the Settings window etc.) can be used at any
time to check for new e-mail. Checking can also be initiated by left-clicking
on the System Tray icon.

There are various other options, controls and short-cuts here and there
throughout LetterBox. You can, for example, cancel a current check for mail by
clicking on the System Tray icon (or by selecting Cancel Check from the icon's
pop-up menu). Or you can select Pause from the icon's pop-up menu and
temporarily prevent LetterBox from automatically checking for mail. Best
approach is to have a play ...



    5. Preview Window

The Preview window displays summary details of each e-mail found in the last
check. This is typically used to see whether it's worth firing up your full
e-mail client to collect your mail. Messages newly found by the last check
are displayed first (in bold) followed by any other messages found previously
but still waiting to be downloaded. The text and background colour used to
display messages for a particular server can be set by amending the details of
that server from the Settings window.

E-mails can also be deleted from the POP3 server from this window, if they
are ones you don't wish to download (eg. spam). Just select one or more
messages (ie. by clicking on them) and click Delete. If you want to delete
AND set up some corresponding AutoDelete rules, click AutoDelete instead -
this will allow you to create a new rule based on each message to be deleted,
and then it will delete each message. To just set up rules for future checks
based on the currently selected messages, click on Create Rule.

By default, LetterBox will ask for confirmation when you delete one or more
e-mails. It will also give you confirmation that the deletion has been
successful (or an error message if it has not). All of these prompts can be
switched off by unchecking Confirm Deletions. But be very careful if you use
this facility - deleted e-mails are NOT recoverable.

You can also refresh the Preview list by, well, clicking on Refresh and
you can also run whatever you set up in your "Run On New Mail" box by clicking
"Run ...".

You can force this window to float over all other windows by checking the
"Always On Top" box.

If you want to see the first few lines of the body of a message, just hover the
mouse pointer over that message, or click upon it (depending on your settings),
and the text will appear underneath the message list. If you can't see all the
lines, resize the window. The number of lines displayed here is set on the
Notification tab on the Settings screen. The more lines you display, the slower
the checking process will be. For optimum speed, the facility can be switched
off completely from the Settings screen.

The Preview window will also remember its size and position between sessions.



    6. AutoDelete

This facility allows e-mail messages to be deleted off your POP3 server(s)
without you ever even seeing them. You define the rules for deletion.
If any e-mails match one or more of the rules, they are deleted. This
facility can be used to combat spam, to filter out e-mail viruses, to block
messages from someone you don't want to hear from and so on.

AutoDelete rules can be defined in any one of three ways. You can go to
the AutoDelete tab of the Settings screen and create and maintain them
from there. Or you can create them via the Preview screen - clicking
AutoDelete rather than Delete will both delete the selected message(s)
and create rules based on those messages so that they are automatically
deleted in the future. Or you can manually edit the KillRules.txt file,
which is where LetterBox stores its AutoDelete rules. This file must be
in the same directory as LetterBox.exe. Rules within it must follow the
following format :

        field qualifier value

where field can be (case insensitive) :

        From
        To
        Subject
        Header

qualifier can be (case insensitive) :

        =
        contains
        begins
        ends
        doesn't =
        doesn't contain
        doesn't begin
        doesn't end

and value can be anything (case sensitive).

Note that the Header field encapsulates everything in the e-mail header -
the sender, the recipient, the subject and all the other things that can
be placed there by e-mail servers. It is highly likely that you would only
ever use the Header field in conjunction with the "contains" qualifier.

Note also that each rule must start in column 1 and that there must be a
single space between field and qualifier and between qualifier and value.
Any lines not following this format are ignored by LetterBox.

To save having to write rules that cater for combinations of lower and upper
case, (eg. From = Spammer and From = spammer), you can check the "Rules
Case Insensitive" box in Settings. This makes all your rules case-insensitive.

Although you never see messages removed via AutoDelete from the LetterBox
front-end, you can see what has been removed by looking in the KilLog.txt
file, which LetterBox maintains. This file is in the LetterBox.exe
directory. Note that it is only maintained if the Log AutoDeleted Messages
check box is checked on the Settings screen, and that it only contains
header information about deleted e-mails, not the entire messages.

Be warned - use this facility with care. Make VERY sure you're not going
to delete messages that you might actually want to read. Compose your rules
carefully. As with everything in LetterBox, you use this facility entirely
at your own risk.



    7. FAQ

Q. I can't get LetterBox to install/run. I get strange error messages about
   missing files or processes failing to start. Help!

A. You probably don't have the Visual Basic 6 run-time files installed. See
   "Installation", above, for details. Also, make sure you're extracting all
   files out of the letterbox.zip archive file and then running setup. Just
   running setup.exe from within your zip application probably will not work.


Q. I set up all my e-mail details but nothing happens. LetterBox doesn't find
   any messages.

A. The most likely explanation is that the details of your POP3 accounts are
   set up incorrectly. Try checking Display Errors under Settings/Servers and
   seeing what error messages you get back. You might be able to copy the
   account details from out of your existing e-mail client.


Q. My password is being rejected even though I've definitely entered it
   correctly into LetterBox.

A. Certain characters (ie. those outside the "normal" range of western letters,
   numbers and punctuation marks - oops, my apologies to most of the world for
   the cultural bias here) seem to upset my password encryption and
   decryption routine. A "solution" is to restrict your passwords to these
   sorts of characters. Sorry.


Q. I get some strange error messages about UIDL not being supported. What does
   it all mean?

A. UIDL is an optional command that POP3 servers are "strongly encouraged" to
   implement but which they do not have to in order to function as POP3
   servers. Nearly all servers, in my experience, do support the command.
   LetterBox will not function on POP3 servers that do not support UIDL. This
   is because LetterBox needs the command in order to allow messages to be
   deleted via the Preview window. Use of UIDL is the *only* guaranteed way of
   uniquely identifying e-mail messages - its perfectly possible to have two
   with the same subject, message body, sender and recipient for example. Using
   UIDL means that there is no chance of the wrong message getting removed. If
   your e-mail server doesn't support UIDL, ask your provider why.


Q. Alphabetic characters other than the western A-Z letters (eg. Greek,
   Cyrillic, Chinese characters) don't get displayed properly on the Preview
   screen. Why?

A. Presumably this is something to do with the locale of MSFLXGRD.OCX (the
   control used by Preview). Any ideas or suggestions?


Q. The LetterBox pop-up menu refuses to disappear when I click elsewhere on the
   screen, and the System Tray icon doesn't look quite right (kind of the wrong
   colours). What gives?

A. This happens under Windows NT but I have absolutely no idea why - it's all
   lovely under Windows 9x. Microsoft eh?


Q. I want to back up all my LetterBox settings. Where are they in the Registry?

A. LetterBox stores all its settings under the following Registry key :

     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\LetterBox

   So if you want to transport all your settings (or just save them before
   Windows melts down again), RegEdit can be used to export this branch of
   the Registry. You do this at your own risk though - be warned, meddling
   with the Registry can be dangerous!


Q. When I preview a message I just see some incomprehensible stuff about MIME
   or something, rather than my message. Pourquoi?

A. LetterBox only correctly previews messages that are in plain text. When
   e-mail is sent in, say, HTML format, then you will, indeed, see all this
   stuff that normally goes on behind the scenes. In its current incarnation,
   I've made no attempt to interpret encoded e-mail messages. One reason is
   that it would be a lot of work (see "The Future", below). Another is that it
   would make LetterBox too much like a full e-mail client. Another is that
   LetterBox would have to scan in whole messages to interpret them, slowing
   everything down. Also LetterBox would become a fair bit larger if it
   handled encoded messages. And it might also then be prone to e-mail viruses.
   So, on the whole, I don't bother.


Q. I'm trying to use LetterBox to access my Web Mail account (eg. HotMail,
   Yahoo) but getting nowhere. How do I do this?

A. You can't. LetterBox is a POP3 e-mail checker and unless your provider gives
   you a POP3 interface as well as the Web one (sometimes they do but you have
   to pay), LetterBox in its current incarnation can't access that mail
   account. See "The Future", below, though.


Q. So, erm, what's POP3?

A. It stands for "Post Office Protocol - Version 3" - the standard system for
   delivering e-mail.


Q. I definitely have waiting e-mail but LetterBox isn't notifying me of it.

A. Assuming you have LetterBox configured properly, it may be because you have
   set the program to only notify you once of waiting mail (ie. when it is first
   found rather than each time it is found). This is the default behaviour. You
   can alter this behaviour via the "Only Newly Found Messages" check-box under
   Settings/Notification. Unchecking this tells LetterBox to always notify you
   of all waiting e-mail.


Q. I keep getting POP3 server timeouts!

A. Make sure LetterBox isn't conflicting with another e-mail program. Then,
   try increasing the server timeout period under Settings/Servers. This
   defaults to 20 seconds but can be set to as high as 999 seconds (and if
   your ISP's server doesn't respond in this time - over 16 minutes - I'd
   change ISPs.) There's no particular problem with having a higher timeout
   period than 20 seconds - make it, say, 60 if you are having problems -
   but a lower period makes LetterBox that bit more responsive (eg. in
   responding to check cancellations). As with much in life, it's a matter
   of finding a balance.



    8. History

1.0.0           - First version.

1.1.0           - Checks for new e-mail as soon as you go on-line, not just
                  after the check interval.

1.1.1           - System Tray icon animates when mail is being checked for.

1.1.2           - Check interval bug fix.

2.0.0           - Added the mail preview option.
                - Added support for Windows NT.
                - Added support for multiple mailboxes.
                - Added Test buttons for "Run On New Mail" and "Sound On New
                  Mail".
                - Changed "Run On New Mail" so it doesn't always run things
                  maximised.
                - Added the "Display/Suppress Server Error Messages" option.
                - Clicking the System Tray icon now brings up the Preview
                  window if any e-mails have previously been found, and checks
                  for new e-mail if they haven't.

2.0.1           - Minor bug fixes.

2.0.2           - Added option to override the default server timeout period.

2.1.0           - Fixed a few bugs (a timing problem on fast POP3 servers; a
                  mysterious refusal to run the external application on some
                  machines).
                - Added the server name to the Preview display.

2.2.0           - Added the server name to server-related error messages.
                - Added the automatic Preview pop-up option.
                - Clicking the System Tray icon now always does a check.
                - Added option to run the configured "Run On New Mail" command
                  line from the pop-up menu and Preview window.
                - Added an "Always On Top" option to the Preview window.
                - Added a Refresh button to the Preview window.
                - The Preview window now remembers its position.
                - Added Check Immediate option.
                - Made the on-line delay period (the interval between on-line
                  being detected and LetterBox doing a check) configurable.
                - LetterBox now only notifies you (ie. via sound, running any
                  configured command line and displaying the Preview) if new,
                  previously un-notified e-mail is found. In other words, it
                  won't keep warning you about the same messages over and over.

2.3.0           - Bug fix : messages removed from the server now don't persist
                  in the Preview window.
                - Added the Pause/Resume automatic check options to the System
                  Tray menu - this actually does the same as toggling "Check
                  Servers Automatically" on the Settings screen.
                - Amended LetterBox to work on machines that don't have RAS
                  installed.
                - Added the message body preview facility.
                - Changed the default server timeout period to 20 seconds.

3.0.0           - Added AutoDelete stuff for automatically killing spam etc.
                  without ever even needing to see it. That'll learn them.
                - Added the "Stay Online" options.
                - Added the "Use Dial Up" override.
                - Added the double-click configuration option.
                - General improvements here and there - changed the oil, that
                  sort of thing.
                - Minor bug fixes.

3.0.1           - More minor bug fix gubbins.

3.1.0           - Preview window now resizable.
                - Accounts may now be enabled and disabled from the New/Amend
                  Account window.
                - Maximum timeout period now 999, not 99.
                - Added option to the Preview window to allow the deletion
                  confirmation and deletion results prompts to be switched
                  off.

3.2.0           - Added option to choose Hover or Click to preview message
                  body text.
                - Add the Last/Next check time options to the Tool Tip.
                - New messages now appear at the top of the list in the
                  Preview, in bold text, to distinguish them from messages
                  found in an earlier check.
                - Preview window now remembers any changes to the column
                  sizes.
                - Each server can now be assigned a text and background
                  colour - these are used when displaying messages found
                  on that server on the Preview window (and also on the
                  server list on Settings).
                - An error log is now maintained of all POP3 server
                  communication errors - see ErrorLog.txt in the LetterBox
                  directory (or just click Error Log on Settings).
                - A few bug fixes here and there.
                - The System Tray icon now only shows you there is mail if
                  new, previously un-notified e-mail is found. The icon
                  Tool-Tip now displays both the "new" waiting e-mail
                  count and the total (ie. "old" and "new") waiting e-mail
                  count.

3.3.0           - A few tweaks here and there.

4.0.0           - LetterBox prevents multiple instances of itself from running.
                - Added the View Read Me button in Settings.
                - Added the "Only Newly Found Messages" option under
                  Notification - ie. you can be informed of all waiting
                  messages or just the ones you haven't previously been told
                  about. Reworked the Notification screen a little to fit it all
                  in.
                - Added the Check Cancel option - during a check, clicking
                  the tray icon (or menu item) cancels the check.
                - AutoDelete rule values can now be an empty string.
                - Added the new AutoDelete field of "Header"
                - Added the new AutoDelete qualifiers of "doesn't =",
                  "doesn't contain", "doesn't begin" and "doesn't end".
                - Added correct handling for Start Up folders not called
                  "StartUp"
                - Added the Dismiss Dialogs on Run External option - checking
                  this tells LetterBox to close the Settings or Preview window
                  after running an external application via the Run button


4.0.1           - Fix to allow the Preview window to work with screen
          resolutions of 640*480.
        - Run External item can now be any file with a program
          association.

4.1.0           - Added the "Rules Case Insensitive" option.

4.1.1           - Fixed a bug in the Run External option.



    9. The Future

Well, we'll see. Several people have suggested support for non-POP3 e-mail
services such as HotMail or Yahoo. Perhaps some sort of handling of MIME
and/or HTML e-mail could be added. Both are possibilities. It does occur
to me, however, that deliberately not handling MIME e-mails might be a good
idea as this will absolutely guarantee that LetterBox cannot be affected by
e-mail viruses ...

I also really should internationalise LetterBox so that we can have non-English
language versions of it. Thanks to everyone who has offered to do translations!



    10. Legal Stuff

LetterBox may be distributed and used freely so long as all files contained in
its archive file are distributed together and none are modified in any way.

LetterBox is used entirely at your own risk and the author is in no way
responsible for any damage, corruption, cataclysm, environmental destruction
or rift in the space-time continuum it causes.

LetterBox is copyright Simon Kewin, 1998-2000 for Ultima Thule Ltd.



    11. Acknowledgements

Thanks to all the people, too numerous to list, who have taken the time to
contribute suggestions, report on bugs or offer to help with improving
LetterBox. The program has become a lot better as a result of all this.
My apologies if your suggestion hasn't make it in.



    12. Cultural Note

In case you were wondering, a letter box is a slot in your front door through
which, in some countries, letters are posted by the person who delivers your
mail.