• Installing the zip file
  Using a program like WinZip, extract the files in the archive to a new directory created for Scribe. Make sure the "Use Folders" options is on otherwise the help files won't be in the right place. To start the program, double click on the Scribe.exe file. You'll have to create shortcuts on the Desktop and/or Start Menu yourself.
• Installing the exe file
  Double click on the .exe to start the installation process. The setup program will guide you through the installation, just follow the prompts. Then when thats done double click on the desktop or start menu item called "Scribe" to start the program.

When you run the program for the first time Scribe won't find any local storage for email and contacts, it will prompt you to create them. If you don't have existing folders then you should click "Ok". If you do have an existing installation with mail folders select "Open an existing folder", then use "..." to browse to the location of the folders.

Now you'll be able to see a folder tree on the left, a menu along the top and a toolbar beneath if everything is working properly. At this point you'll want to start configuring your identity and accounts. To start this process click File -> Options. Enter your identity on the first tab and then move on to the accounts tab to configure your mail server settings.

• -o<filename>
  Sets the options file to use. Files with the extension ".ini" will be read and written in text, other extensions will be in binary. The default file is scribe.r in the same directory as the executable program. e.g.

  Scribe.exe -od:\scribe\scribe.r

• -m<address[,address]>
  
• -t<address[,address]>
  New email, specify the primary addressee of the message
• -f<filename>
  New email, specify the file which should be sent as the body of the message
• -b (no parameter)
  If present, indicates that the file is binary and should be attached.
• -c<address[,address]>
  New email, specify Carbon Copy (CC:) recipients of the message
• -s<"subject">
  New email, specify the message subject (must appear in quotes). e.g:

  Scribe.exe -msomeone@domain.com -s"Message Subject" -bd:\temp\body.txt

• -n
  Send the new email now.
• -p<max-pages>
  Prints max-pages of the .eml on the command line, or the whole file if max-pages is 0. The printer used is configured in File->Print Setup. e.g:

  Scribe.exe -p1 d:\temp\message.eml

• -noreg
  [Win32] Don't write anything to the registry. This disables the ability to use Scribe as the default mail client. But it's useful for users putting Scribe on a portable disk for use on public computers.
• -noskin
  Don't load the skinning library.
• -nch
  [Linux] Don't use the KDE crash handler.

Every couple of weeks, depending on usage you should backup the folders (by copying them in you file manager) and compact the folder using File -> Compact Folders to remove unused space. Otherwise your folders will just get bigger and bigger, even if you delete things.

Then once you have the folders setup you need to configure the accounts and options. Click File -> Options and begin filling out your identification details. The following is a description of the different options:

• Identity Tab
  • Name
    Enter your name.
    InScribe: Use the name that you registered the product with.
  • Email Address
    Enter in your email address.
  • Reply Address
    If you have a reply email address different to your normal email address, enter it here, otherwise leave it blank.
  • Signature XML
    Use the "..." button to select a file you wish to use as a signature. The file can include runtime commands described by the section Signature XML.
  • InScribe: Software Key
    InScribe: enter the software key from the purchase response email. If you have lost your key then send me a mail stating the name you purchased InScribe with and I can reply with your key.
• Folders Tab
  • Mail Folders
    This path to the folders.mail2 file that stores all the email, contacts, calendar entries etc.
  • Password
    You can configure a password on the whole folder file by switching the checkbox on and entering the password twice.
• Account(s) List
  This tab has a list of accounts, which is limited to one item in i.Scribe. Click properties to edit the details of the account.

  There is no provision in Scribe for dialing up to the internet. If you need to manually connect to the internet then you should do so before sending or receiving email in Scribe.

  InScribe: Click "Add" or "Delete" to edit the account list. There is no undo for these actions.

  The "Default Send Account" should be set to the account with your main SMTP server. This options will not set the default identity used to create email with, to set that use the main window's Identity menu.

  You can send using another accounts SMTP server by opening the status panel on the main window, selecting the account, right click and "Send"

  Account Properties:
  

  • Identity
    Enter a descriptive name for the account.
    InScribe: Enter the identity associated with this account. When replying to email received on this account any identity specified here will be used instead of the "default" identity in the main options.

    The "Only Send Through This Account" option forces replies to email received on this account to go through the Send server settings for this account as well. Otherwise they will be sent through the default outgoing server.

  • Send
    Configure your outgoing SMTP server details here. If you need to specify a non default port for your SMTP server then use the syntax:

    <server>:<port>

    The domain field is used to sign on to the SMTP server. In most cases leaving it blank is ok. But some SMTP servers are finicky about it, so in that case you should enter the domain of your connection, which is usually the part of your email address after the '@' sign.

    If your SMTP server requires authentication, switch on ESMTP, enter your Username and Password. The Username is used to annouce who you are regardless of whether ESMTP is switched on or not. Check the features for supported ESMTP login methods.

    If you want to override the default charset used in sending, you can configure one or two on the send tab. Scribe searches through the available charsets when encoding an outgoing message looking for charsets that can encode all the characters in the message. The prefered charset just forces this process to look at the specificied charsets first before checking through the list of all installed charsets. Thus if the message can be displayed in one of your prefered charsets it will be encoded in that rather than one of the other charsets available.

    If the charset you want to send with is not in the list then it's not available for outgoing messages.

  • Receive
    Set the mail box type to the protocol that you use to receive mail. Usually this is POP3, which you should try if your not sure. The IMAP4 support comes in 2 flavours, "fetch" which retreives email from the server in much the same way that POP3 does. It doesn't allow managing of mail on the server, but it's pretty stable. And "full" IMAP which is experimental support for managing your mail on the server. This feature is considered to be "unstable". The "Calendar" protocol is for connecting to the MemeCode Groupware Server. For users stuck behind a HTTP only firewall there is a protocol for accessing POP over HTTP. On windows you can also fetch mail from a MAPI source. There is no support for MAPI on non-Windows platforms (complain to Microsoft not me).

    Enter in the address of your server. You can specify a non-default port using:

    <server>:<port>

    Most servers are similar to:

    mail.isp.com

    If your looking for a setting from your ISP.

    Under that goes your User Name and Password. If you don't enter a password then the each time you run Scribe you will be asked to enter the password once, and then it will remain in memory until Scribe exits.

    When you open the settings pane again the password doesn't appear as ****'s even though it has been saved. This is to protect it from other applications which can read the contents even though you can't.

    Check every.. defines how many minutes between an automatic check for new email.

    Leave on server... means that new email will be downloaded but not deleted from the server. All email currently on the server is stored as a list of unique identifiers in the Scribe options file. That way scribe can track the old mail on the server and download ones it hasn't seen yet. If the options file goes missing all mail will be considered "new" and be downloaded at the next connection.

    Don't download... is the size limit of incoming email. If some email is larger than this it will remain on the server until you do something about it using the "Preview on Server" feature.

    Destinaion folder is where new email from this account will be put. If this is blank then by default the email goes into the /Inbox folder specified in the sub folder locations dialog.

  • Connection
    If you have transport plugins (like SSL) loaded then you can select to use them when connecting to this account's servers. Currently there is no way to use a transport plugins for just one of the server's (ie. just send or just receive).

• General Tab
  • Quote when replying with ???
    This option allows your to quote the contents of the incoming mail when replying. This adds the specified characters to the start of each line. Typically the string "> " if used for quoting.
  • Append signatures to replies and forwards
    Automatically adds your signature to the bottom of a reply or forward.
  • Reply/Forward
    These fields point to files to use as reply and forward templates. The files are simple XML (utf-8 charset) containing Scribe DOM fields and plain text. By clicking '...' the file is openned in a text editor, and created if it doesn't already exists with some default values to play with.
  • Populate recipients from clipboard
    If this option if switched on scribe checks the clipboard when a new email is created, if a string with a '@' symbol less than 100 characters long is present it assumes its an email address and puts it in the recipients feild by default. This is really usful for emailing to an address without a hyperlink. Copy the address to the clipboard, hit new mail... and off you go. Sometime you'll have an email address in the clipboard thats not who you want to send to, in which case you have to delete the recipient. Or turn off the option.
  • Minimize to tray icon
    This just hides the main window while minimized. So the window doesn't clutter the start bar.
  • Check default email client on startup
    Win32 supports a default email client for mailto: URL's. If this option is set then Scribe will monitor that setting on startup and prompt you if it doesn't point to Scribe.
  • New Email Sound
    If this points to a wav file then that sound will be played when new email arrives.
  • Automatically delete executable attachments
    This option tells Scribe to removed attachments that contain native executable code. Commonly the only time you receive this in an email is when you receive a virus. This option allows you to head it off at the pass and never have to worry about it again. Esp. useful option for people that know enough to be dangerous (i.e. can save and execute an attachment) but not know it's a virus. If you call someone else for tech support that means you!
• Connection Tab
  • SOCKS5 server/username/password
    If you access the internet through a firewall running socks5 then set this to the address of the firewall, otherwise leave it blank. The username/password is only required for authenticated access. Use if required.
  • Check for dialup connection before receive
    If you use a dialup connection to the internet this option will stop Scribe from automatically checking email while there is no dialup. If you access the mail server over a LAN or broadband connection this switch this off.
  • Download mail on startup
    This option will make Scribe check mail as soon as it has loaded.
  • HTTP Proxy
    This is your HTTP proxy in the form:

    <server>[:<port>]

    Or blank if you have direct internet access. The shared calendaring and PopOverHttp protocols uses this field. I also plan to add an auto plugin updater one day that will use this as well.
  • Default receive action
    InScribe: specify what the "receive mail" button does.
• Appearence Tab
  • Editor Font
    Select the font to use in the preview pane and the mail compose/view window.
  • Wrap lines at ??
    Wraps the text in the mail window at a specific column or at the edge of the window if no value is supplied. Replys are wrapped to the column value specified or the default of 76 if nothing is specified.
  • Default Alternative
    This sets the prefered alternative part of the email to view, either text or HTML.
  • Interface Language
    This overrides the operating system's language setting.
  • Interface Font Size
    This adjusts the size of the main font used by Scribe.
  • Use Glyph Substitution when displaying text
    When displaying internation charsets it's often the case that the character to be displayed is not actually in the font being used. So by switching this option on Scribe will find the character in another font and use that instead. This has the effect of displaying more accents and strange characters at the cost of more memory usage and a small speed hit when a new character is needed. Some systems, like Windows 95, 98 and NT don't have great fonts and will display characters out of alignment, and some computers are too old and slow to do this sort of thing. So you have the option to turn it off. Btw Windows XP does Glyph Sub. by default so you can't turn it off under XP.
  • Show unread in bold
    Shows the message is bold in the main list view when still unread.
  • Preview first lines of email
    Shows the first few lines of an email in the main window's list. The text is in a smaller font coloured blue. Often you can tell the basic content of the message from the first few lines and decide whether to read the email or discard it.
  • Show text on toolbars
    Puts little text labels under the toolbar buttons.
  • Draw grid
    Draws a grid in the main windows's item list.
  • Date format
    Choose a format you want to see your dates in. Under windows "auto" uses the system settings. Under other OS's that don't have a system setting for this auto does "d/m/yyyy" which is the default in my country ;) However all the other settings override any default.
• Debug Tab
  • Log File
    If you need to see the client/server dialog that scribe goes through when connected to a server then set this to a file name (doesn't have to exist by default). Then as Scribe sends and receives information it will write a copy to this file. However now days the status window contains a visual log of the transaction so it's easier to see whats going on. So this option is not really needed anymore.
  • Output Debug Statements to "Scribe.txt"
    If your having connection issues this will log lots of information during the online phase, which may help to diagnose connection related issues. Between sessions you should delete the Scribe.txt file as it accumulates a lot of information, and if left unchecked would bolloon out to many MB's.

If you used the self contained installed exe then go into Scribe's entry in the Start Menu and select "uninstall".

Only a few unavoidable settings are left in the registry and no dll's or other files are put into system directories. If you want to keep your folders and email then don't delete the folders.mail file in Scribe's directory.

The registry settings left behind are:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Scribe (IE intergration)
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto (If you have selected Scribe as the default client)

• Add
  Loads a new plugin into Scribe. The menu shows any plugins in the same directory as scribe and gives you an option to browse for plugins elsewhere. If you load a plugin and it doesn't say "loaded" then the most likely problem is that it's an old plugin that doesn't support the latest format for plugins. You will need to get a recent version from the Scribe website or the plugin vendor.
• Remove
  Remove the selected plugin(s).
• Configure
  Open the configure dialog for the selected plugin. Some plugins have some properties that can be edited. Others have full blown user interfaces. Some just work.
• About
  About displays some information about the plugin, including the file that it's loaded from and a description from the object.

• Print a random paragraph from the file specified:

  <random-line filename="filename.ext">

• Insert the file specified:

  <include-file filename="filename.ext">

• Set the cursor position:

  <cursor>

<scribe on-close="option"/>

Where 'option' can be:

• 'Minimize' zooms the window down to the taskbar.
• 'Compact' clears the trash and compacts the folders and then exits.

Neither option will function when the OS is shutting down.

Download behaviour when running out of disk space:

When the disk space on the device that stores the mail folders starts to run out Scribe can be configured to discard attachments and then stop downloading mail at all. These limits are configured as sizes, either in absolute form (i.e. "3mb") or in relitive form (i.e. "1%"). The postfixes "kb", "mb" and "gb" are understood.

<scribe-limits noattach="size" nodownload="size" lines="integer"/>

Where:

• If there is less than the "NoAttach" amount of diskspace available then only the top "Lines" number of lines in the message is retreived. For the most part this will mean a trucated message and possibily partial attachments.
• If there is less than the "NoDownload" amount of diskspace available then all email downloading is halted. NoDownload is forced to be less than NoAttach if both are specified.

Adminisrator password:

<scribe admin-psw="password-hash"/>

Where password-hash is generated by the password tool.

Folder permissions:

<scribe-folder path="scribe-path" read="read-perms" write="write-perms"/>

Where:

• 'scribe-path' is a valid path in Scribe
• 'read-perms' and 'write-perms' can be:
  • 'admin' = requires admin access.

Account settings access:

<scribe-accounts read="read-perms" write="write-perms"/>

Where 'read' and 'write' can have the value:

• 'admin' requires administrator access.

Configure some of the colours used in Scribe:

<colour.LC_MAIL_PREVIEW hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_UNREAD_COUNT hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_URL hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_1 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_2 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_3 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_4 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_5 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_6 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_7 hex="xxxxxx"/>
<colour.LC_REPLY_LVL_8 hex="xxxxxx"/>

Where the 'xxxxxx' is a html hex colour.

You can either setup the PopOverHttp script on your own webserver or you can sign up at PopOverHttp.com for an account.

To configure a self-hosted PopOverHttp account, firstly download the script and edit it to contain your POP account's server, username and password. Then upload it to your webserver, preferably in a directory that is password protected. Setting up a webserver or password protecting a directory on a webserver is beyond the scope of this document, but there is plenty of websites describing how to do all that on the net.

Once your script is in place, configure an account in Scribe to use the PopOverHttp protocol. Enter the full http URL of the script in the server field. e.g:

http://www.host.com/~user/popoverhttp.php

You can use a normal web browser to test that the script is working, just put the URL to the script into the browser and if you get a list of message ID's then it's working and the URL should work in Scribe as well. Remember that if you need a proxy retreive pages from the web you need to set that up in the connection tab in the main options window.

Now you should be able to connect to your POP account. As a nice side effect of bundling lots of requests and responses in batchs over HTTP it's actually substantially faster than raw POP if the webserver hosting the script is on the same machine as the POP server. Which is the configuration that I've used successfully for the last year or so.