Snap Mail allows you to design your own notification icons. In addition, each icon can have a form and default recipients associated with it, both of which will be selected in the OutBox when the icon is chosen.
To create, modify, or delete notification icons, select “Icons...” from the Snap menu in the menu bar. This brings up the Icons & Forms window.
To change an icon, select it and alter the “Fat Bits” representation by clicking on the pixels you want to change. Pixels that are off when clicked upon will be turned on and vice versa. You can also click on a pixel, hold the mouse button down, and move the mouse to turn many pixels on or off at once. As you change the “Fat Bits” picture, the icon in the icon list will be updated simultaneously.
For each icon, you can type text into the “Form” box. This text will appear in the OutBox when that icon is chosen. A form allows you to set up an input template for frequently sent messages. (For example, the phone icon contains a form with all of the entries for a standard phone message.) Each word that is directly followed by a colon defines a “field” in the form, which can be quickly navigated. Once an icon has been selected, the fields in the form can be traversed by pressing the tab key. As another example of using forms, you could type in “signature” text that you want to include each time you send your mail. This text block could contain some information about yourself, your extension number, or a witty message. The default form for a new icon is one field, labeled “Subject:.”
To set the default recipients associated with an icon, select them directly from the User List in the Icons & Forms window just as you would from the main window. This User List includes all addresses from your Address Book so that you can choose names that don’t appear in the main window. The “To,” “cc,” and “bcc” options work the same way here as well. You may also choose a group from the “Groups” pop-up menu. No default recipients need be specified, but this feature is very useful if you want to design a special icon for sending mail to a particular person or if you design an icon to be used for a set of people to whom you send mail again and again.
Above the User List, you will see a pop-up menu titled “Return Receipts:.” From this pop-up you can choose whether or not a return receipt is to be requested for mail sent using a particular icon. Your three options are “Default,” which uses the current setting on the main window; “Always,” which will request a return receipt; and “Never,” which will not request a return receipt even if the current setting on the main window requests one.
The following buttons are available in the Icons & Forms window:
• New
To add a new icon to the icon list, click on the “New” button. The icon will initially be blank and the form associated with it will be “Subject:” No user names will be associated with the new icon.
• Delete
To remove an icon from the icon list, select it and then click on the “Delete” button. The default settings associated with that icon will also be deleted.
• Duplicate
To duplicate an existing icon, select the desired icon in the icon list and click on the “Duplicate” button. A copy of the selected icon will be added to your icon list along with its form.
• Capture
The capture feature provides a simple method for copying a graphic from another program and importing it into Snap Mail. This allows you to draw an icon using a paint program with good tools and then use the icon in Snap Mail. When you click on this button, the cursor will turn into an icon-sized box. If you place this somewhere on the Mac’s main screen and click again, the graphic will be captured into Snap Mail. As you move the box around you will see the “Fat Bits” representation of the icon as well as what the icon will look like over the Apple menu. Click the mouse button when you have placed the cursor over the graphic you want to capture, or press Cmd-. if you want to cancel the capture operation.
• Cancel
To ignore any changes you have made in the Icons & Forms window and return to the Snap Mail main window, click on the “Cancel” button.
• OK
To save the changes you have made in the Icons & Forms window and return to the Snap Mail main window, click on the “OK” button.
