Thanks for trying out YOU'VE GOT MAIL! We hope you'll enjoy using our program and believe that once you start to use it, you'll find it as indispensible and fun to use as we do. Here's an overview of the program and brief descriptions of some of the more popular features, followed by some installation and setup hints. You'll find more detailed information in the context-sensitive help file -- just press F1 while running the program and help appropriate to the task you're working on will appear.
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! Overview
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YOU'VE GOT MAIL! is simply the easiest and best way to read and write e-mail on America OnLine⌐. It captures documents (e-mail, magazine articles, forum posts--anything that's "selectable" on AOL) to your computer's disk with two mouse-clicks and makes it simple to read, save and write replies while you're offline. Write a letter and discover that you can't send it for some reason? Not to worry, YOU'VE GOT MAIL! will save some or all of your outgoing and incoming mail from session to session. Need help organizing your mail and other documents? YOU'VE GOT MAIL! can help here too, with several file-handling tools. YOU'VE GOT MAIL! also includes an easy-to-use address book editor, utilities for pasting quotes from your incoming mail or documents, date/time stamping and will play back up to five different signatures per screen name. It's very customizable, and will work with multiple AOL screen-names and multiple users, remembering each user's preferences, window-size and placement.
Here's a quick look/tutorial for the more popular features included in YOU'VE GOT MAIL!
* Offline Features
-> Reading and Replying
You're doing it now! To write a reply to this letter, just click on the "Reply" button. This "Read Window" will scoot to the top of the screen, a new "Write Window" will appear below it with the To:, Subject:, and From: fields already filled in. Try it!
-> Pasting Quotes
Highlight some of the text in this letter and choose "Copy" under the Edit menu. Then, click in your new Write Window's text area and choose "Paste Quote" under the Edit menu. You'll see five different character sets. Click on one of them and the text you've just Edit/Copied will appear in your reply surrounded by the characters you clicked on in the Edit/Paste Quote submenu!
-> Date/Time Stamping
Click in the text area of your Write Window again and choose "Add Date/Time" from the Edit menu. The current system date and time will appear in your Write Window.
-> Signatures
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! can play back up to five of your own signatures per screen name -- see the help file for detailed instructions.
-> Text File Manipulation
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! can open, edit, save text files, just like any text editor. BUT, it will also tell you a file's size and date before opening, and it can append (add) one text file to another--just try saving a letter or another text file to an existing file and you'll see the options available. You can also set up automatic archiving of each incoming and/or outgoing e-mail, or archive each document individually with a click on the Save to Archive button.
-> Smart, Context-Sensitive Help
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! includes a complete help file, wherever you are in the program, you can push F1 to get help on the task at hand. You can also highlight a word in a YOU'VE GOT MAIL! text window and choose Help/Search for Help On... to get help on that particular topic (if the highlighted word doesn't match an existing search topic, you'll see the closest topics in the Windows Help search box).
-> Easy-to-use Address Book
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! will let you create as many address books as you desire, allowing you to write e-mail to your friends quickly and easily. If you have incoming mail onscreen, it will let you add the sender's name to an address book with two mouse-clicks, making it easy to avoid spelling errors in the screen names of those who correspond with you.
-> Multi-session Operation
YOU'VE GOT MAIL! will save your incoming and outgoing e-mail from session to session -- if you're unable to send your e-mail for some reason, YOU'VE GOT MAIL! will keep it on disk for you automatically. Just remember to click on the "Done Writing" button when you're finished writing. It can also save some or all of your incoming e-mail to the next session -- your choice!
-> Crash Recovery
In the event Windows or another program crashes your computer, YOU'VE GOT MAIL! will automatically recover your unsent outgoing e-mail (assuming you've saved it to disk by clicking on the "Done Writing" button) as well as your incoming e-mail.
-> Changes in Version 1.1
YGM 1.1 fixes a few small bugs, paints Read and Write Windows faster, works with AOL's new format for internet e-mail headers (introduced on AOL 10/14/94) and works with either WAOL version 1.x or 2.x Compose Mail windows.
Installation/Operation Tips for Best Performance
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* Unzip the program (ygm.exe) and the help file (ygm.hlp) to a separate directory -- we recommend naming it ygm, as in "c:\ygm", but of course you can name it anything you want.
* Use the Hard Drive for YOU'VE GOT MAIL! and your Archive Directories
Although you can use floppy disks for the program and archives, you'll get vastly better performance by using your hard drive for both -- and since YOU'VE GOT MAIL looks to the archive directory often, if you do choose to use a floppy drive, make sure it's not write-protected, to avoid spending unnecessary time on-line fiddling with the write-protect tab.
* Use a Separate Archive Directory for Each User
If you have several individuals sharing this copy of YOU'VE GOT MAIL!, it's important to set each up with a different, separate archive directory. That's where each user's e-mail (incoming and outgoing), archive files and address book files will be stored. If an individual user has multiple screen names, it's no problem to share the archive directory if desired.
* "Kick-Start" WAOL if necessary
From time to time, you may find it necessary to help WAOL.EXE copy a document to the windows clipboard so YOU'VE GOT MAIL! can copy it to disk. If a document fails to become highlighted and copy to disk, click on Cancel, and first try double-clicking on the textbox in WAOL and click on YOU'VE GOT MAIL!'s Copy button. If it still fails to copy, click Cancel again, then WAOL's Edit menu, choose Select All and try again. If it =still= won't copy, click on Edit, then Select All, Edit/Copy and then click the Copy button again. That should force it to work.
* And, please register YOU'VE GOT MAIL! if you find it as useful as we think you will! There's a registration form in the help file that you can print out and mail.
This letter (which, by the way, can be found in your program directory as readme.txt) only scratches the surface of the many time-saving, intuitive and fun features in YOU'VE GOT MAIL! We hope you enjoy exploring our program and finding the features as much as we enjoyed writing them!
RoaldOines & RachelBrnt, co-authors of YOU'VE GOT MAIL!