Mail Drop is designed to run in two environments. The first is on a single workstation where one person runs the same copy of Mail Drop (e.g., someone's office). The second is in a general access lab where many people run the same copy of Mail Drop or where one person runs copies on multiple workstations. In this case, Mail Drop should be configured to use internal defaults that are set up by the lab/email administrator. The preferences can be modified, but they will not be saved to disk. Note that Users can create and use personal preferences files. For more information, see the Users Guide.
Mail Drop is distributed to run on a single workstation.
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Configuring Mail Drop For Personal Use
Most of the preference resources are modified when you set options in the preferences dialog, so it isn't necessary to use ResEdit to configure Mail Drop to run on a personal workstation. Some preferences, however, have no user interface (yet), so you will need to follow the instructions below if you want to modify them.
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Configuring Mail Drop for General Lab Use
If you are going to install Mail Drop for general lab use the you will need to set the internal default settings first. These are stored in several resources (listed below) so you will need to use ResEdit to modify them. There are 'TMPL' resources included, so this should help. Some of the fields are true/false so in those you should enter 0 for false or 1 for true. Some of the fields are reserved for future use - their values should not be modified.
Most of the preferences are set to reasonable defaults, so you probably will not have to modify all of the resources listed below. The only two resources that you will need to set are the 'PRFA' resource and the IMAP server in the 'PRF1' resource. A listing of all of the resources and their fields is given for completeness.
Resource 'PRFA' ID 128 - Admin Prefs
Unlike the other pref resources, this is never written to a preference file but only read from the application's resource fork.
Ñ Can Save Preferences: Specifies whether or not preferences are saved to the preferences file. On a personal workstation, this should be set to 1 (true). In a lab environment, this should be set to 0 (false). The default value is 1 (true).
Ñ Messages Too Old: If users have mail older than this many days, an alert will tell them so and request that they delete and purge read messages to conserve space on the server. Set to 0 to ignore. At Baylor, this value is set to 14 days.
Ñ When Msgs Deleted: If users have old messages (see above) the alert will tell them that mail older than this many days may be automatically deleted from the server. Mail Drop does not automatically delete mail so this is useful only if there is a process on the server that deletes old mail. Set to 0 to ignore. At Baylor, this value is set to 30 days.
Ñ Too Many Messages: If users have more than this many messages in their INBOX, they will get an alert telling them so and that read messages should be deleted and purged in order to conserver space on the server. Set to 0 to ignore. At Baylor, this value is set to 100 messages.
The remaining preference resources are "User Prefs". If the "Can Save Preferences" flag described above is 0 you will need to specify the default settings for your site. If you don't, the user will have to set the appropriate settings each time he or she launches Mail Drop. More detailed descriptions of the various preference settings are given in the Users Guide.
Resource 'PRF1' ID 128 - Servers
Ñ IMAP Server: The address of the IMAP server that Mail Drop will use.
Ñ SMTP1: Mail Drop normally uses the address given for the IMAP server as the SMTP server. If, for some reason, Mail Drop is unable to open an SMTP connection to the IMAP server, it will attempt to use this address.
Ñ SMTP2: A secondary SMTP server to try if both the IMAP server address and SMTP1 server fail.
Ñ Alt. Mail Domain: Mail Drop will use the address of the IMAP server as the host portion of a recipient's address if none is given (e.g. "user" becomes "user@some.imap.server"). If an alternate mail domain is specified, it will be used instead ("user@some.domain").
Ñ IMAP is not SMTP: This tells Mail Drop not to attempt an SMTP session to the IMAP server address, but instead start with the address given in SMTP1.
Resource 'PRF2' ID 128 - Mailboxes
Ñ Log Session: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will write the IMAP and SMTP sessions to the session log window.
Ñ Open INBOX at Startup: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will connect to the IMAP server when launched. This parameter is ignored if Mail Drop is launched by double-clicking on a preferences file.
Ñ New Mail Notify: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will play a sound (snd resource 128) when new mail arrives.
Ñ Fetch All Msg Info: Mail Drop will only fetch message information from the server when it needs to display it. This significantly speeds up opening mailboxes with lots of messages. If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will fetch message info for all messages immediately.
Ñ Auto-Update INBOX: How often, in minutes, Mail Drop will check for new mail. Set to 0 to not update INBOX.
Ñ Ask To Purge: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will ask the user if msgs marked for deletion should be purged before closing INBOX.
Ñ Show Reply-To Addresses: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will display the Reply-To address, if available, instead of the From: address. Otherwise, it will display the From: address.
Ñ Icon/Date/Subj/Left/Size Left: These are the horizontal offsets in the mailbox list where the text is drawn. Eventually, these will be set by the user dragging in the window. The only one that sometimes needs to be modified is Subj Left because if the date string is too long, it will overlap the subject.
Ñ Select First Recent Msg: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will select the first recent message when the INBOX is opened (if there is one). Otherwise, it will select the first message.
Resource 'PRF3' ID 128 - Incoming Mail
Ñ Ignore MIME: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will not attempt to interpret any type of MIME or QP encodings, but will fetch the text of a message in its entirety.
Ñ Include Text In Body: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will include text/plain body parts in the body of an incoming message rather than treat it as separate attachments. Note that text/plain body parts that have no name attribute are always included in the message body.
Ñ Recognize Msg Body: Some mailers include the body of a message as an "attachment" called "Message Body". If this value is set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will use include this attachment in the body of the message.
Ñ Always Show Headers: If set to 1 (true) message headers will be displayed whenever messages are read.
Ñ How Replies: This specifies how the text of a message is quoted and included in a new message when replying.
0 = Include the entire message
1 = Include just selected text
2 = Never include any text
Resource 'PRF4' ID 128 - Outgoing Mail
Ñ Real Name: The sender's real name. Leave blank in a general access lab.
Ñ Reply-To Address: The sender's reply-to address. Leave blank in a general access lab.
Ñ Open Expanded: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will expand the top portion of a new message when created.
Ñ Close After Send: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will automatically close the window of a new message once it is sent.
Ñ Don't QP 8Bit: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will strip the 8th bit of any 8 bit characters rather than encode a message as Quoted Printable.
Ñ Successful Send Alert: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will notify the user that a message was sent successfully.
Ñ CC to Self: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will automatically include the sender as a CC: recipient.
Ñ BCC to Self: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will automatically include the sender as a BCC: recipient.
Resource 'PRF5' ID 128 - Attachments
Ñ MacMIME Default: The default MacMIME format with which to encode Macintosh files.
0 = AppleDouble
1 = AppleSingle
2 = BinHex
Resource 'PRF6' ID 128 - Signature
Ñ Use Sig: If set to 1 (true) Mail Drop will append the user's signature to a message. (The sig is stored in a 'TEXT' resource ID 128.) This should be set to 0 in a lab environment.
Ñ Include Sig in Window: If set to 1 (true) and if "Use Sig" is true Mail Drop will include the signature in the body of a newly created message rather than append it when sending. This should also be set to 0 in a lab environment.
Resource 'PRF7' ID 128 - Fonts
Mail Drop does not yet support different fonts. Changing these values will change the fonts used, but with unpredictable results. Do so at your own risk.
Ñ Mailbox Font: The font used in the message list of mailbox documents (INBOX).
Ñ Mailbox Size: The pt size of the above font.
Ñ Display Font: The font used in messages, text files, and the session log. This is normally Monaco Full which is identical to Monaco except that it includes many standard 8bit characters missing in Monaco.
Ñ Display Size: The pt size of above font.
Ñ Print Font: The font used when printing messages, text files, and the session log. Note that this is Monaco and not Monaco Full. The LaserWriter drivers will substitute Courier when printing which includes the missing characters.
Ñ Print Size: The pt size of above font.
Resource 'MIMI' ID 128 - MIME In Types
This specifies the default file types and creators for incoming MIME attachments. Only the standard MIME types are supported. You can change these, but don't add or delete any of the items. (A future version will allow for any type/subtype to be specified.)
Resource 'MIMO' ID 128 - MIME Out Types
This is used to when attaching files to outgoing messages to figure out what MIME type to use based on the file's Finder type or suffix. You can add items to this list. There is currently no preference interface for the user to add or remove items.
Resource 'URLH' ID 128 - URL Helpers
Mail Drop uses this resource to figure out which application to use when the user cmd-clicks on a URL. The URL "schemes" included are those in RFC-1738 (except "file:"). You can modify the application's creator code, but don't add or delete any of the items in the list. A future version of Mail Drop will allow for any scheme/app to be specified.
Resource 'TCP#' ID 128 - TCP/IP Numbers & Timeouts
Note that the maximum timeout value is 255.
Ñ IMAP Port: The TCP port (normally 143) of the IMAP server.
Ñ Open Timeout: How long to wait when opening an IMAP or SMTP session.
Ñ Read Timeout: How long to wait when reading data from an IMAP or SMTP session.
Ñ Write Timeout: How long to wait when writing data to an IMAP or SMTP session.
Ñ Close Timeout: How long to wait when closing an IMAP or SMTP session.
Other resources
One other resource you might want to set is the 'STR ' 129 resource. Mail Drop will look for a file in the preferences folder with this name and get the default user name from a string resource (ID 128) within that file. At Baylor, we have a program that authenticates users when they first turn on Macs in the labs. The user name and password for lab access are the same as those for email, so the user name (but not the password) is stored in this file. The user name is used as the default in Mail Drop's login dialog.
You can modify the sizes of the windows, for example to make them fit on a 13" monitor, although you will probably get mixed results. A future version of Mail Drop will be more flexible with window sizes and will save window sizes and positions between sessions if preferences can be saved. You should not increase the width of the window for outgoing messages because the default size is set to be 80 characters wide in the standard font. Increasing this will cause messages to have lines longer than 80 characters. This makes it difficult for recipients to read these messages.
