Copyright: Copyright © 1997 RIT Research Labs


Internet

The Internet is a global computer network, covering the entire globe. Today the Internet has about 15 million users in more than 150 countries world-wide. The size of the Internet increases 7-10% per month. The Internet evolves as if it is a core, ensuring the correct interrelationship of different information networks, belonging to various organisations around the world.

The first networks were used solely for the transmission of files and e-mail, but today it resolves the more complex problems of shared access to resources. Several years ago, programs were created to support the necessary functions of network search, and access to shared information resources, and electronic archives.

The Internet, was initially only used by research groups and educational establishments whose interests spread up to the access to supercomputers. These resources became all very popular in the business world, and in no time the Internet has grown phenomenally

Big companies were seduced by this quick and easy global connection, well suited to group-work, centralised programs, and a single database over the Internet networks. They considered a global network as an addendum to their own local networks. With the low service costs (often only a fixed monthly charge for lines used, or telephone charges) users are able to gain access to commercial and non-profit information services from across the USA, Canada, Australia and many European, and other countries. Using the Internet it is possible find information on practically any sphere of human activity, in the "free access" archives, from new scientific openings, to the weather forecast for tomorrow.

Besides all this, the Internet offers a unique possibility of cheap, reliable and confidential global communication with the whole world. This turns out to be extremely efficient for companies having various sites around the world, international corporations, and other organisations. Usually, using an Internet infrastructure for all international communications is vastly cheaper than direct computer communication through a satellite link or telephone lines.

E-mail is the most widespread service on the Internet. At present, approximately 20 million people have their own e-mail address. Sending e-mail messages over the Internet is vastly cheaper than more conventional means. Besides, messages sent on the Internet will arrive in several hours, while other messages (snail mail) can get to the addressee several days later, or even several weeks later.


General Information

The Bat! is an Internet e-mail program. Major objectives of The Bat! are:

1. Providing an efficient way of processing large message flows;

2. Easy and comfortable user interface;

2. Allowing users to work easily with several mail accounts with the possibility of exchanging messages between them;

3. Maximum reduction of delays while working. The Bat! extensively uses Window's multitasking capabilities. This means that the user can send and receive e-mail while reading / writing other mail

4. Providing truly multi-lingual interface. The Bat! can communicate with the user using various languages - the interface's language can be chosen from the main program menu.

As well as all this, The Bat! allows the user to process mail right on the mail server - without actually downloading messages to the local hard drive. Encrypted log-in to POP3 servers (APOP command - to avoid the transmission of account password 'open') is supported, and The Bat! has a comfortable editor with many useful functions, an Address Book and an extensive set of tools for processing mail.

The program has been developed mainly for business messaging, which is why we tried to provide as comfortable an interface as possible, without messing the workplace up with excessive interface elements used rarely or for entertainment purposes.

The Bat! has been developed by RIT Research Labs.

Copyright © 1997 RIT Research Labs. All rights reserved.


Connecting to The Internet

The Bat! supports two ways of connecting to the Internet

Using Local Area Network or manual connection

If this way is chosen, The Bat! uses the existing connection established either with your LAN or by dialling your Internet Service Provider. In other words, The Bat! relies on that the connection to the Internet is established and the program itself does not need to do something extra. Some non-LAN systems may be configured so that ISP is dialled automatically  whenever an Internet program is trying to connect to an Internet server. This can be used with The Bat! However, in some cases The Bat! needs to two TCP/IP sessions simultaneously and this may cause problems such as trying to establish two dial-up connections at the same time.

Dial-Up Networking Connection

You need to specify this type of connection if your LAN is not connected to the Internet itself and you are using Dial-up connection provided by your ISP. Whenever The Bat! need to open TCP/IP connection, it checks whether the specified ‘phonebook entry is active (i.e. the established TCP/IP connection, if there is any, is done by using this phonebook entry). If the entry is active, TCP/IP sessions starts. Otherwise, The Bat! will automatically dial the phonebook entry to establish TCP/IP connection. In this case, multiple requests such as checking mail for all accounts and combined delivery (which requires two TCP/IP connections to be open at once: one for mail retrieval and another one for sending mail) will be handled correctly.

Auto-disconnect after mail transmission	Use this option if you do not want to remain on-line when The Bat! finishes dealing with mail transmission. This feature is almost useful when you are using periodical mail retrieval (especially when you have to pay for call to your ISP)
Pause between dialling session	This value determines the minimal time interval between two consecutive dialling sessions. Using of this feature is essential in multi-user environment with only one dial-out machine - it prevents the dial-out machine to dial the ISP  unnecessarily often. Note that manual requests of mail retrieval from dial-out machine will initiate dialling even in the pause time

Your machine status

If a machine is not a part of a Local Area Network, or all machines in your network have TCP/IP protocol installed, or you simply do not intend to read your mail from other machine within your LAN, the status of your machine is TCP/IP Workstation.

If a machine is connecting to the Internet by either LAN or Dial-up networking and it is intended to retrieve and send mail for all accounts defined in The Bat!, the status of your machine is TCP/IP or Dial-out Server.

If a machine does not have TCP/IP protocol installed and it is a part of a network with TCP/IP or Dial-out Server, it must have status of Non-TCP/IP Workstation.

See also: Working in Multi-User Environment


Logging on to POP Server

POP (Post Office Protocol) - a “post office” protocol is used for retrieving mail from host by client.

Particularity of protocol - mail message exchange is initiated by the client's request.

Once you have an e-mail address, your ISP should give you a user name (which is usually the same as the part of your e-mail address before “@” symbol) and a password to access your mailbox on the mail server, and the address of the POP server.

This information should be entered in the account properties, in the appropriate fields. The password may be left blank if you want to enter your POP password each time you check for new mail.


Choosing an SMTP Server

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) - a simple protocol for mail transmission which is widely used on the Internet. The SMTP server's function is to receive mail from other servers and clients, and to deliver mail to other hosts and to its clients’ mailboxes.

Usually, the address of an SMTP server is provided by your system administrator or Internet Service Provider. However, you may use other SMTP servers available on the Internet known to you, since SMTP does not require any special authorisation.


E-mail Address

On the Internet, each user has a unique address (some people have more than one e-mail address) which identifies the mail server or zone address, and the name of the mailbox. The usual structure of an e-mail address is <user name>@<mail server/zone>, e.g., john.smith@ritlabs.com. E-mail addresses cannot be anything like “John Smith” or “John Smith from Magic Island”


Adding a New Entry to the Address Book

Invoke Address Book command on the Tools menu in the main program window, or click the appropriate button on the main window toolbar.

Invoke New Address entry on the Edit menu in Address Book.

Edit user's data, especially his name and e-mail address - all other fields are optional.

The new entry may be added to the Pop-up menu of address entry fields, if the check box Add to Pop-up menu is checked.


Setting up an E-mail Account

Account settings are divided into the following sections:

•	General settings

•	Transport settings

•	Advanced Transport settings

•	Preferences

•	Files and directories

•	Message templates

•	Notification of new mail arrival (sound)

•	Sorting Office / Filters

Each e-mail account set-up in The Bat! has its own folder structure which is used for storing incoming, outgoing and sent messages. Other folders may have any name (depending on their use) but there always are four default folders which cannot be deleted or renamed. These folders are:

Inbox	Default incoming mail folder
Outbox	The outgoing mail folder
Sent mail	Default folder for sent mail
Trash	Folder for storing deleted messages before they are removed permanently


Account General Settings

This section is for setting up the title of an e-mail account, as it appears in The Bat!'s account list, and the data used for generating the sender's data in message headers.

Name	The name of the e-mail account. It may be any combination of characters. The only limitation is that the name must be unique within the program; in other words, there must not be another account with the same name
From name	The originator's name which will be put in the header of each message created for the account
From address	Originator's e-mail address
Organisation	Organisation to which originator belongs (if any)
Reply name	The name of the person to which replies must be sent. Usually it is the same as the originator's name
Reply address	The e-mail address used for replies to the original e-mail. (return address, and the address to which confirmation must be sent)
Notes:

Avoid using characters disallowed in system file names (such as “+,"/\><|”) in account’s name. Otherwise, non-default directory names for disk storage must be used.

Try to use only ASCII characters in From and Reply names - this will help to avoid problems with some mail servers which don't allow of non-ASCII characters in message headers.


Account Transport Settings

SMTP server	The address of your SMTP server to which all outgoing e-mail messages from the account must be sent. The address may be represented as a traditional URL (e.g.: mail.ritlabs.com) or as an IP numeric address (e.g. 193.219.214.38); if an IP address is used you should be aware that sometimes it may be changed. The advantage of using of IP addresses is that a DNS lookup is not used, thus it is slightly faster on connecting to the server. Generally speaking, if there are several mail accounts set in the program, it is possible to use just one SMTP server for sending messages from all accounts.
POP3 server	The address of your POP3 server where the account’s mailbox is located. All messages from the Internet are accumulated on POP3 servers and may be retrieved from there by the “Get new mail” command or by Message Dispatcher. The address may be represented as a traditional URL (e.g.: mail.ritlabs.com) or as an IP numeric address (e.g. 193.219.214.38); if an IP address is used you should be aware that sometimes it may be changed. The advantage of using of IP addresses is that a DNS lookup is not used, thus it is slightly faster on connecting to the server.
User	The POP3 user name for access to your mailbox on the server. Usually, it is the same as the part of the account’s e-mail address before “@” symbol. For example, if the e-mail address is john.smith@ritlabs.com, the user’s name will be john.smith
Password	The password for logging on to the POP3 server. You may leave this field blank - in this case you will be prompted to enter the password each time you try to receive mail.
Encrypted logon	If set, APOP authentication method will be used instead of traditional authentication, which will make your password “invisible” when it is sent over the Internet. To use APOP you must ask your service provider or network administrator whether your POP3 server supports this type of authentication (it is not a complementary feature of POP3 servers)
8-bit characters are treated	this radio group allows you to set the method used to handle 8-bit (non-ASCII) characters. If you are using only the English alphabet, this feature is not very significant to you because all English characters are ASCII characters and will go through the net without any problems. However, if you are using accented characters or character sets other than English, you should choose the method carefully because there still are some mail servers which do not allow appearance of 8-bit characters in e-mail messages. If you are not sure that such servers are functioning in the way you write your messages, it is better to choose either Base64 or Quoted-printable encoding. The difference between these two encoding methods is that Base64 produces totally unreadable text, Quoted-printable encoding still can be read if your alphabet is almost Latin, only accented characters are encoded (if your recipient's are using The Bat! or another program which can recognise Base64 and quoted-printable encoding automatically, you may choose either of these two methods).
Delivery	The default delivery method. This is implemented almost for defining the function of "F2" and "Shift+F2" keystrokes in the message editor. If the delivery method is Immediate, pressing F2 within the editor will send the message immediately, whereas if Deferred is selected, the message will be queued in Outbox.
Combined delivery	If this check box is ticked, “Get new mail” command will also invoke sending of queued messages from Outbox and “Send queued mail” command will also invoke new mail retrieval.
Always ask for POP3 password	If this check box is ticked, you will always have to enter the POP3 password to retrieve new mail (this is equivalent to leaving POP3 password field blank).


Advanced Account Transport Settings

Message management options and port numbers for servers are defined in this section

Message management

Delete received messages from server	If this method is chosen, The Bat! does not leave copies of the received messages on the server. This may save some amount of disk storage of your provider (especially when your mailbox size is limited)
Leave messages on server	The opposite to the above method. This method is useful when you are accessing the server from several places and wish to be able to get a copy of any message from each of those places
Keep messages on server for n days	The maximum age of messages left on the server. When a message is older than the age stated, it will be automatically deleted from the server.
Delete message from server when it is removed from Trash	Use this option if you are sure that you delete only messages not needed in the future.
Receive header only if message size if greater than n K bytes	Use this option if you do not want to receive large messages from the account. This may be useful when you are away from your home and want to read only significant messages (messages of such kind are usually relatively short)

Message Dispatcher

Message lines to download with header	This determines how many lines of the message test must be downloaded together with the message header to be viewed within Mail Dispatcher. This allows you to read a part of a message to decide whether you wish to download it this session
Invoke automatically at each mail check	If this check box is ticked, Mail Dispatcher will be invoked at each “Get new mail” command if there are new messages in the mailbox
Show all messages left on server	This option is available only if the previous option is set. If it is set, Mail Dispatcher will show all messages left on the server, otherwise only new messages will be shown

Ports

Mail service port numbers can be changed sometimes to disallow other systems from the outside world to connect to servers used within the given network. In this case, you must re-define the port numbers.

SMTP	The port number used by SMTP protocol (default 25)
POP3	The port number used by POP3 protocol (default 110)
IMAP4	The port number used by IMAP4 protocol (default 143)


Account Preferences

This section is for defining some miscellaneous parameters for a mail account.

Check mailbox at startup	If ticked, “Get new mail” command is invoked automatically  each time The Bat! Starts
Periodical checking each n minutes	The Bat! will automatically examine your mailbox for new mail periodically, if this check box is ticked.
Empty Trash folder on exit	Trash folder of the account will be automatically emptied each time you exit The Bat!
Time of reading to mark a message as read	Within this time interval unread messages will retain their status. As soon as an unread message is marked as read, some actions may take place (Read Mail sorting rules, generation of Reading confirmation)
Maximum Log file size	The account’s activity Log file is stored in the account’s home directory and called ACCOUNT.LOG. To prevent this file from getting too big, you may limit its size with this parameter
Ignore “Check All Accounts” request	use this option only if your account is not password-protected. It must not be checked for all your other mailboxes (for example, when POP3 server only works within a specific time interval)


Account Files and Directories

Home Directory	The path to the directory where all files related to the given account are stored. This directory is also used for creating default sub-directories (each mail folder keeps its messages in MESSAGES.MSB file in its mail-folder directory, which by default is placed in the home directory of the account it belongs to)
Attachment management

Default encoding	the default encoding type for attachments (used by the button on the toolbar of the message editor. It can be either Base64 (MIME standard) or UU-encode
You may choose the storage method for received file attachments. They may be either kept in a separate directory (so you can copy them from there using explorer, or DOS. This method is the most preferable if you receive large files), or in message bodies. If you choose to store attached files in a <default> directory, files will be stored in the sub-directory named ATTACH in the account’s home directory.

Option Delete attached files when the message is deleted from Trash makes The Bat! keep your disk storage in order, so you don’t keep file attachments to messages you no longer need.


Cookies

Cookies are some funny phrases (aphorisms, quotations etc.) that could be inserted randomly in your messages if you are using %cookie macros in your message template. Use of cookies may entertain your correspondents. The more cookies you use - the more colourful your messages look.

Another way to use cookies is to use them for greetings or one-line signatures.

These are some examples of cookies:

Editing is a rewording activity

If you save the world too often, it begins to expect it

I like kids, but I don't think I could eat a whole one


New Mail Notification (Sound)

The Bat! can notify you about new mail arrival with a custom sound (WAV files are used, so you need a sound card installed on your machine). Account’s sound settings are set to messages arriving to any account’s folder by default. It is possible to define additional sound for user defined mail folders so you may hear what folder new mail came in to.

Sometimes it is necessary to disable sound within a certain time interval (for example, if a PC is used at home usually you do not want to hear it reporting to you about new mail in the middle of the night). Allowance time interval is designed specially for such cases. Example: 9:00-20:00.


Sorting Office (Message Filters)

Sorting Office is implemented in The Bat! for auto-classification of incoming, outgoing, read and replied mail. Each of the above mentioned message flows can be sorted by folder, accordingly to its set of rules.

Each rule is determined by its name, the source folder (for incoming mail it is always Inbox, for outgoing - Outbox and this cannot be changed), the target folder, and sets of signal strings. To create a new rule, open Account | Sorting Office/Filters dialogue, select the desired rule set (depending on what type of messages you want to classify) from the tree, and press New button.

Each set of signal strings is a list of strings to be present or absent in a certain part of a message (it can be one of: sender, recipient, subject, whole message header (kludges), message text, or whole message (kludges and text together). A message which contains (or does not contain - depending on the presence flag for a particular string) ALL the strings included in the set, satisfies the condition defined by the set.

To define several rule sets for one rule, use the Alternatives page of the Sorting Office dialogue box - if a message satisfies any of the rule sets for signal strings, the message will be moved from the source folder to the destination folder

Example:

String: [John Smith], Location: [Sender], Presence: [Yes]

String: [beer], Location: [Text], Presence: [Yes]

String: [orange], Location: [Anywhere], Presence: [No]

This rule set will be satisfied by any message which originates from John Smith AND beer must be mentioned somewhere in the message text AND orange must not be found anywhere in the message.

Also, each signal string may use a special syntax:

Pipe character “|” means that signal string contains two alternatives. For example, string John|Jack means that search will be successful if John or Jack (or both) will be found in the specified location.

Square brackets [ ] mean that text embraced by them must be searched as a phrase. i.e. search for [Jack] will be successful for sentence “Jack is a good man”, but not for “Jackson guitars are very good for beginners”.

Text embraced in quotation marks is case-sensitive, i.e. "Internet" will be found in the sentence “The Internet is growing very rapidly” but not in “InTeRnEt RuLeZ”

The text containing special characters mentioned above, must be embraced in single quotes, like this:

‘["New" generation mailing list]’


Templates General Concept

Message templates are used for composing messages. They include static textual information in the message body. It may have, for example, a salutation and a signature as well as defining the location of quoted text in replies. From our point of view, the use of templates is a more flexible way of message composition than the use of just “signatures”.

It is also possible to use macros in templates to include message-dependent information such as addressee name, subject, current time, etc. With macros, it is also possible to define additional addressees and a message subject.

Templates defined in the account’s properties are used by default for all messages created within the account, but it is also possible to create special templates for each mail folder - these templates will be used when the folder is selected in the main window’s folder panel.

The current version of The Bat! supports four types of templates:

New message

Reply to a message

Forwarding of a message

Reading confirmation

It is possible to add “Cookies”to a message using template macros

Example of a message template

Hiya %tofname,

  %cursor

Bye now,

   %fromfname              mailto:%fromaddr

...%cookie

The initial look of new message addressed to Mike Brown <mike@domain.com> from John Smith <john@site.net> will be:

Hiya Mike,

  | - the editor cursor will be placed here by default

Bye now,

   John              mailto:john@site.net

...Put knot yore trust inn spel chequers


New Message Template

New message template is used whenever you create a new message. Once the message editor window is opened and you have all the header information (From, To, Subject) fields filled in correctly, text will appear in the editor window, depending on the new message template. It is also possible to define some message options for new messages such as:

•	Default character set

•	Message priority

•	Confirm Receipt Request

•	Reading Confirmation Request

Note that these options will be used only for new messages. Replies and forwards will not use them. Also, macros related to "original message" will not function (they will be replaced by empty strings).


Reply Template

Reply template is used whenever you reply to a message you have received (“Reply” and “Reply to all” commands). In this case you will see the initial text once Reply command is invoked. However you may change anything in the message header - in this case, the initial text will be adjusted accordingly to reflect the new information unless you have changed the message before editing the header. To include the original message’s text in the initial text of a reply, use %QUOTES macros to put it in the mail as a quotation and %TEXT to put it in as normal text.

The style of the quotation prefix is determined by Sender information used for quotation option. Example (John A. Smith is used as the sender)

Information used:	Prefix
None	>
Initials	JAS>
Name	John>
Last Name	Smith>
First Initial	J>
Full Name	John A. Smith>


Forward Template

There are two ways of forwarding messages: with a template which places the original text into the message text, and using MIME to attach the file. When messages are forwarded using MIME, it is possible to send several messages enveloped in one (message digests), however not all mail clients can manage MIME digests.

In the case of a message forwarded by placing original text in the message text, the template could be:

From:    %OFROMNAME <%OFROMADDR>

To:      %OTONAME <%OTOADDR>

Subject: %OSUBJ

--------------- Original message text -----------------

%TEXT

----------- End of Original message text --------------

Hello %TOFNAME,

  %CURSOR

Best regards,

   %FROMFNAME

In the case of MIME-forwarding, the template could be:

Hello %TONAME,

 %CURSOR

All the best,

  %FROMNAME


Reading Confirmation Receipt
Reading Confirmation Receipt Template

Whenever you receive messages with Reading Confirmation Receipt Request, The Bat! will generate a receipt message using this template (unless it is configured to ignore these requests).

There are four options for processing Reading Confirmation Receipt Requests:

Put in Outbox	Generate the receipt and store it in Outbox. This allows you to make changes to the receipt or even delete it if you do not want it to be sent.
Send immediately	Generate the receipt and send it immediately
Edit	The same as writing a reply, but receipt template is used instead of reply template
Ignore	The simplest way to finish your correspondence.

Prompt before the Action option is functional only if one of the first three methods above are chosen. In this case you will be prompted when the receipt is about to be created, if the action is not confirmed, the request is ignored.


Folders

Folders are  the place where messages are kept. There are two types of folder in The Bat!: standard (or system) and user-defined (or custom). The general purpose of folders is classification of messaging so that you may easily find messages related to a particular topic.

Each account has its own folder hierarchy. Folders can be named depending on their use, but any account has four standard folders:

Inbox	Default folder for incoming mail
Outbox	Folder for outgoing messages
Sent Mail	Default folder for sent messages
Trash	Wastebasket - all deleted messages from other folders are stored here, when a message is deleted from the Trash folder, it will be erased permanently (unless you keep a copy on the server).

Standard folders cannot be deleted.

With sorting rules (Account | Sorting Office/Filters), you can determine in which folder messages should be placed after they have been received, sent, read or replied to.

For example, if you have a contact from which you receive messages often, and wish to keep track of mails from him/her, you can create a folder with a relevant name, which gives you a clue that the folder keeps messages from this contact (his/her name, for instance). You can now create a sorting rule in the Incoming Mail group with the person’s e-mail address or name as a signal string, located in sender information for the sorting rule. Once done, all incoming messages from this contact will go into the folder you have created.

User-defined folder may also have its own templates for new messages, replies to messages from this folder and for message forwards, as well as sounds for notification about new messages.

It is possible to move and copy messages from one folder to another by a simple drag-and-drop operation: if no keys are pressed, a Move operation is performed, if Ctrl key is held down while dragging, the message is copied.

A folder can have sub-folders.

To re-position a folder within the account’s hierarchy, press and hold Alt key and then use drag-and-drop to move the desired folder.


Folder settings

Name	The name of the folder as it appears in the folders hierarchy of the account. The name is also used as the default name for the folder’s message base sub-directory
Directory	The directory where folder’s message base file (MESSAGES.MSB) will be stored. If it is set to <default>, make sure that the folder’s name does not contain characters disallowed by the file system ("\", "/", "+", "|", "<", ">", ":"), otherwise you will be asked either to rename the folder or to change the folder’s directory
Maximum number of stored messages	The maximum amount of messages allowed to be kept in the message base. If the number of messages exceeds this value, earlier messages may be automatically deleted from message base by the Purge command
Keep messages in the base for n days	The maximum age of a message allowed in the message base. If a message is older than this, it may be automatically deleted from message base by Purge command

On exit actions

Remove old messages	Purging messages using the values above
Compress the folder	Compressing of the folder’s message base file (if there were some messages deleted or moved from the folder). This option helps you to use your disk storage more efficiently

Identity

It is possible to re-define identity (i.e. default “From:” and “Reply-To:” fields’ contents) for a particular user folder using settings located on “Identity” page of Folder Properties dialogue.

See also:

Templates

New mail notification (Sound)


Text Editor

The Bat! provides an easy and fast way of editing messages. The text editor has number of commands and useful features. The main difference between it and most of other Windows-based e-mail message editor is that the text being edited is shown the same way as it will appear on recipient’s screen - no matter what system or e-mail client is running on the recipient’s computer.

The command set is described in sections below:

•	Block and formatting commands

•	Insertion and deletion commands

•	Miscellaneous editor commands

•	Cursor movement commands


Reading Your Mail

Received messages can be read in message auto-view panel located of the bottom of the main program window, or in a separate window which gives the capability to read subsequent messages from the folder. It is possible to list messages by pressing the space key - in this case you will read messages from page to page, and when you reach the bottom of the current message, the first page of the next message in the folder will be shown (this applies to both modes of reading).

When folder message list box is active, it is possible to view the message using Alt+Arrow keys to scroll the message text in the window. Use <Del> key to remove messages you do not want to keep in your message base. By pressing <Enter> the separate message viewer window will be opened with the current message shown. To sort messages within a folder, use the mouse to click on the appropriate header section.

It is possible to set the amount of reading time for a message, after which the message will be marked as read (note that this setting can vary from account to account) - this reduces the risk of missing an important message.


Block and Formatting Commands

To mark a block of text, you can use the standard cursor keys, together with the <Shift> key. With the mouse you can select text by moving the mouse cursor while pressing the left mouse-button.

Action	Key combination
Mark the beginning of a block	Ctrl+K B
Mark the end of a block	Ctrl+K K
Copy the block to Clipboard	Ctrl+Ins or Ctrl+C
Cut the block	Shift+Del or Ctrl+Xl
Paste the block from Clipboard	Shift+Ins or Ctrl+V
Paste the block from Clipboard as quotation	Alt+Ins
Read the block from file	Ctrl+K R
Write the block to a file	Ctrl+K W
Move the block left to right	Ctrl+K I
Move the block to the left	Ctrl+K U
Switch block type to stream (default)	Ctrl+O K
Switch block type to column	Ctrl+O C
Switch block type to linear	Ctrl+O L
Justify the block or paragraph	Alt+J
Align the block on left end	Alt+L
Align the block on right end	Alt+R


Insertion and Deletion Commands

Command	Key combination
Toggle Insert/Overwrite Mode	Ins
Delete the current line	Ctrl+Y
Delete to the end of line	Ctrl+Q Y
Delete character at the left	Backspace
Delete character at the right	Del
Delete word after cursor	Ctrl+T
Delete word before cursor	Ctrl+Backspace


Miscellaneous commands
Miscellaneous Editor Commands

Command	Key combination
Save message and continue editing	Ctrl+S
Save message in queue and exit editing	Shift+F2
Send message immediately	F2 or Ctrl+Enter
Undo	Alt+Backspace
Place a position marker in the text	Ctrl+K n (n=0..9)
Return to a marker	Ctrl+Q n (n=0..9)
Insert Current Date	Ctrl+Q D
Insert Current Time	Ctrl+Q T
Uppercase Current Word	Ctrl+[
Lowercase Current Word	Ctrl+]
Capitalise Current Word	Ctrl+/
Search for a string	Ctrl+Q F
Search and replace	Ctrl+Q A
Repeat the last search	Ctrl+L
Cancel operation	Esc


Block Modes

Text blocks can be:

Stream	Standard - as they are in most Windows-based text processors
Linear	Whole text rows are selected
Column	Rectangular text areas are selected. This is based on the fact that plain text editors use only fixed pitch fonts. Column blocks are sensitive to the Insert mode of the editor: if Insert mode is on, column blocks are inserted in the text while shifting the original text the corresponding number of character positions to the right, otherwise the original text is replaced within the rectangular area of the inserted block

If Persistent blocks are used, text selection remains until you select another region, hide the selection or delete the selected text. Otherwise, selection will be automatically hidden when you move the cursor to another position, type some text in, or insert text from Clipboard.

Override blocks option works only if Persistent blocks are not used. If this option is selected, a text selection will be replaced with anything you type in, insert from the Clipboard, or press <Del> key, - selected text will be deleted.


Cursor Movement Commands

Left to one character	Left arrow
Right to one character	Right arrow
Word left	Ctrl + Left arrow
Word right	Ctrl + Right arrow
Up to one row	Up arrow
Down to one row	Down arrow
To the start of the row	Home
To the end of the row	End
Scroll up to one row	Alt + Up arrow
Scroll down to one row	Alt + Down arrow
Up to one screen height	PgUp
Down to one screen height	PgDn
To the start of the text	Ctrl+Home or Ctrl+PgUp
To the end of the text	Ctrl+End or Ctrl+PgDn
To the selection start	Ctrl+Q B
To the selection end	Ctrl+Q K


Automatic Text Formatting

When typing text, you may use the auto-formatting options of the editor. Note that text in the plain text editor is not re-formatted automatically when you modify the text you have typed in already - in this case you should use block formatting commands

Auto wrap mode	If the length of the row you are typing in exceeds the value set as Right margin, the text will be automatically wrapped to the next row
Auto indent mode	Positions the cursor under the first nonblank character of the preceding nonblank line when you press Enter.
Backspace unindents	Aligns the insertion point with the previous indentation level when you press Backspace, if the cursor is on the first nonblank character of a line.
Justify on wrap	When a text row is automatically wrapped while typing, the text in the row is justified accordingly with the Right margin value


Translation Tables

Translation tables are designed to manage countless national character encoding tables. For example, in there are three different encoding tables used in Russia (DOS Code Page 866, Windows 1251 and KOI-8), the same situation arises in many other countries where a non-Latin alphabet is used or a Latin alphabet with accented characters.

Translation tables determine what characters of a particular alphabet correspond to their equivalents in Windows national code page. To add a translation table to The Bat! from Options | XLAT tables dialogue, press Add button, select the file containing the translation table, then you will need to enter the name of the table being added as it appears in the program menus and the name of the character set determined by the table and as it appears in charset field of message header (for example, “koi8-r” for Russian KOI-8 character set).

The format of a file containing a Translation table is fairly simple. It is a stream of character pairs:

<national character 1><Windows equivalent 1><national character 2><Windows equivalent 2>...<national character n><Windows equivalent n>


Interface Language

The Bat! is an international program, the language of its interface can be changed from Options | Language sub-menu. Language file TheBat.LNG must be placed in the same directory where the program executable is located. This file determines the contents of Options | Language sub-menu.


Creating a New Message

A new message can be created in three different ways:

1. By clicking on New message button or invoking New message command in the main program window menu. In this case you will have to enter the addressee manually or use the address pop-up menu.

2. By selecting the address needed from Address Book and invoking New message command from there.

3. When viewing a message if an e-mail address is highlighted, click the right mouse button and choose Write a message... command - the highlighted address will automatically be placed in the “To:” field.


Sending Mail

To send messages to their destination, you must establish a connection to the Internet. If you are in the message editor window and have just finished editing a message, use the Send now command; if there are any problems with sending your message to the SMTP server, the message editor window will re-appear on the screen, otherwise you may see what was wrong with the message in the log panel of the main program window. If you have queued mail in Outbox, use Send queued mail command, and if the messages are not sent (i.e. the messages are not moved from Outbox folder to Sent mail or whatever folder is determined by Sorting rules), again, examine the account’s log.


File Attachments

To send files attached to an e-mail message:

Open message editor and enter all the information you need (i.e. addressee information, subject, and message text)

From sub-menu Utilities | Attach a file choose the encoding type, or click the right mouse button on attachments panel and choose the encoding type from there, or click attach a file button on the editor window toolbar (in this case the encoding will be the one you set as default for the account you are writing from).

In the subsequent dialogue, select the file you would like to send, and press the Open button.


Viewing and Opening Received File Attachments

Files attached to a particular message are shown on the left of the message text as icons. You may use right mouse click to invoke the pop-up menu with possible actions for the file you have selected, or just double-click on the selected file to open it (note that the appropriate file associations must be defined in your system).


Address Book

The Address Book provides you an easy way to maintain the list of contacts you have. It is possible to create groups dedicated to a particular classification or use as a mailing list. There are four possible ways to add a record to the Address Book:

1. When you see an e-mail address highlighted while viewing a message, click the right mouse button and then choose Add to Address Book command in the pop-up menu.

2. When you are filling in the “To:” field in the message editor, press the button with an arrow on it - e-mail addresses contained in “To:” field will be added to Address Book.

3. Using Add to address Book command of message list local pop-up menu.

4. Using New address entry menu command in Address Book.

It is possible to sort Address Book entries automatically using Edit | Sort sub-menu of Address book or manually using drag-and-drop operations.


Addressing Your Message

The Bat! requires an address to be able to send your messages the same way as the postal service needs an address to be able to deliver a letter. The destination e-mail addresses must be entered in “To:”, “CC:” or “BCC:” fields. This is possible to do using either “direct” typing or Address Book aliases or Address Pop-Up menu (available by right mouse button click or clicking a button at the extreme right of the input field). Multiple addresses should be divided by a semicolon.


Message Parking

Message parking is designed to prevent occasional deletion. When a message is parked, it will not be moved to another folder, deleted or purged automatically.


Working in Multi-User Environment

If you want to share the access to the Internet mail between several users, you may need to set access rights for particular accounts or account groups.

Users are classified by two categories:

Administrators	These users can see all accounts defined in the running copy of The Bat! and can change all account properties, program preferences and settings
Ordinary Users	these users cannot see all defined accounts and the properties they may change are determined by Administrators
If at least one ordinary user is defined, initial Log on dialogue is invoked at the program’s start-up and a user has to enter his/her account name and the password (if any) to have access to his/her account. The password for a particular account can be set using Account | Set Access Password command from the main program window.

To allow an ordinary user to have several accounts and to see them simultaneously, the Administrator must define the account group for such a user.

Within a network, it is possible to give access to a particular account from a machine connected to the network. All the Administrator needs to do is to set as the account’s home directory a directory accessible within the network and to create a copy of the account on machine from where the account is intended to be accessed. Even if machine does not have TCP/IP protocol installed on it, it is still possible to use The Bat! - just define the machine as Non-TCP/IP Workstation and working directory of the copy of The Bat! running on the machine must be the same as on the machine which is running The Bat! with status of TCP/IP or Dial-out Server.


Account Groups

If a particular user wants to have access to several e-mail accounts, it is possible to define a group of accounts to be displayed whenever such a users logs on to The Bat!

To define an account group, use Options | Network and Administration command from the main program window.


Common Errors

Mail cannot be sent

•	Is your connection to the Internet is established?

•	Make sure that TCP/IP protocol is installed on your system.

•	Check network or modem cables connection to your computer

•	Does your Internet Service provider have SMTP and POP3 servers?

•	If all above is set up correctly and present but the problem persists, contact your network administrator or Internet Service provider.

Message text is unreadable

Check that you are using correct translation table. If you are, check the message header for field named “Content-transfer-encoding” - it is possible that the message is encoded using method unknown to The Bat!; you have to ask the sender to re-send the message using either base64 or quoted-printable encoding.


What is "POP"?
POP (Post Office Protocol) - a “post office” protocol is used for retrieving mail from host by client. Particularity of protocol - mail message exchange is initiated by the client's request.


What is "SMTP"
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) - a simple protocol for mail transmission which is widely used on the Internet. The SMTP server's function is to receive mail from other servers and clients, and to deliver mail to other hosts and to its clients’ mailboxes.


About the name of e-mail account
The name of the e-mail account as it appears in account tree of the main program window. It may be any combination of characters. The only limitation is that the name must be unique within the program; in other words, there must not be another account with the same name.


About the path to the messages directory
The path to the directory where all files related to the given account are stored. This directory is also used for creating default sub-directories (each mail folder keeps its messages in MESSAGES.MSB file in its mail-folder directory, which by default is placed in the home directory of the account it belongs to)


Click this button if you want to specify another Home directory


Click this button to specify default Home directory


Click this button to perform the next step


Click this button to return to the previous step


The originator's name which will be put in the header of each message created for the account. For example, John Smith.


The Originator's e-mail address which will be put in the header of each message created for the account. For example, john.smith@mydomain.com


Organisation to which originator belongs (if any). Example: Mythical Software, Inc.


The address of your SMTP server to which all outgoing e-mail messages from the account must be sent. The address may be represented as a traditional Internet symbolic name (e.g.: mail.ritlabs.com) or as an IP numeric address (e.g. 193.219.214.38).


The address of your POP3 server where the account’s mailbox is located. All messages from the Internet are accumulated on POP3 servers and may be retrieved from there by the Get new mail command or by Message Dispatcher. The address may be represented as a traditional URL (e.g.: mail.ritlabs.com) or as an IP numeric address (e.g. 193.219.214.38)


The POP3 user name for access to your mailbox on the server. Usually, it is the same as the part of the account’s e-mail address before “@” symbol. For example, if the e-mail address is john.smith@ritlabs.com, the user’s name will be john.smith


The password for logging on to the POP3 server. You may leave this field blank - in this case you will be prompted to enter the password each time you try to receive mail.


If this option is set, APOP authentication method will be used instead of traditional authentication, which will make your password “invisible” when it is sent over the Internet. To use APOP you must ask your service provider or network administrator whether your POP3 server supports this type of authentication (it is not a complementary feature of POP3 servers)


If this options is set, your messages will not be deleted from the server after their retrieval. This gives you an option to re-download a message later if you have lost its copy on your machine.


Closes this dialogue box without saving the changes you have made


The To field indicates the primary recipient(s) of a message


CC (Carbon Copy) recipients of a message are the persons you want to “listen in” to the message you are sending to the primary recipient. CC recipients receive the message normally, but they do not see themselves as the primary recipient of the message; nevertheless, all CC recipients are listed in the message header.


Use a BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) if you do not want the primary addressee to know that the message is sent to somebody else. This may be helpful when it is necessary to send a notifying message to a huge group of people - using BCC will seriously reduce the message size.