STraTOS 1997 April & May

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Text File | 1996-05-15 | 26.9 KB | 666 lines

AntMail v.0.7.7 What is Antmail? It is a mail client for retrieving mail messages from a POP mail server. It also allows you to manage these messages and create and send new messages, as well as import mail from an external mail drop. Antmail is FREEWARE, however donations are willingly accepted, adresses of people providing donation support in different areas of the world are located in 'SUPPORT.TXT'. Also anyone who contributes the suggested amount will switch over to being registered whenever Antmail becomes Shareware. And it will of course encourage me to do even more work to Antmail. Alot of work has been done on Antmail up to this point but there are still a few bugs here and there. Alot more still needs to be done to it, but I think it has reached a point where it is of use to most users. Antmail has been tested by a large number of ruthless, cruel and sadastic people that I have been lucky to call my beta testers. It's been put through it's paces on almost all the major AES's (TOS's 1.0 - 4.4, Magic, Geneva(NeoDesk), MultiTOS, XaAES) and various memory configurations. It's not perfect on every configuration yet, but it's getting there. So for the countless users who will never have to experience some of the old GUI glitches under the replacements AES's, I want to thank my beta testers again. ******* NEW UPDATES ********* Put a wind_update set of calls around the transport layer dialog at program start. Hopefully this will fix it under Magic and not break it for anything else. I will expand this to other dialogs if it works. Messages status now processed correctly for messages greater than 94. A couple of minor adjustments to the .RSC (fixed in Swedish as well) There is now no maximum limit for the number of messages in a mailbox that antmail can process. Fixed bug with replying to messages with no reply-to: address. Faster retrieve routines. Expanded message header to include some more previously missing info. User can now type in addresses up to 256 characters in the editor and have antmail properly process them. Antmail attempts to find the MagX cookie. If it is found then antmail switches into it's internal multitasking mode. Resets the number of messages in OUT Queue window when redrawing Fixed an incorrectly scanned character. 's' now works for send/que/cancel dialog. Changed the way the IN.BOX structure worked in memory. Hopefully this will fix the bomb that's occuring for some. Fixed Forward status being attributed to wrong message #. Mouse form forced back to arrow when returning from viewer or editor. ***** SWEDISH resource file. Thanks to kock@kockens.pp.se, who stayed up all night translating the most recent .RSC so that it could go out now. Contents of ZIP ANT_MAIL/ ANT_MAIL.PRG - The program. ANT_MAIL.RSC - New resource. ANTMAIL.TXT - This pitiful doc file. HISTORY.TXT - Brief account of the lives of Antmail Beta's SUPPORT.TXT - Info on how to support Antmail and addresses of people providing support. SWEDISH/ ANT_MAIL.RSC - Swedish resource file. --------------------- Docs for Antmail. Installing Antmail for the first time: Place Ant_mail.prg and ant_mail.rsc in the same folder. This could be anywhere. However I would suggest giving it a seperate folder. One copy of Ant_mail can function for multiple people or for multiple sites. Between my wife and I, we have 3 different mail accounts that we manage from the same copy of Ant_mail. The way antmail, knows what it's supposed to do, is through it's settings files (ie. DEFAULT.SET). Before you can use antmail, you will need to edit your settings. More information on what all the items in the settings can be found below. Once you have finished editing all your settings, choose save settings from the menu. Give you settings a name, that will associate it with whoever's account it is, or the site it's getting mail from. Or you can call it whatever you like, antmail doesn't care. Now if you are the sole or primary user of antmail, choose "Save preferences". This will tell antmail to load your settings when it boots. Creating a Mail folder. If you have multiple accounts or multiple people it is recommended to create a seperate folder for each account. This can be done through the menu item "Create New User Folder ..." under the menu title "Extras". This will bring up the fileselector (item selector), all you need to do is go to the path you want the folder created in and type in the folder name. Antmail will then create the necessary folders for it's operation. To use this folder, you then need to go into the "User Settings" dialog and select it as your mail folder. Managing multipe accounts: Create a settings file for each account. Save each in a way that will differentiate it from the others. Then when you want to get the mail from that account, select "load settings" from the menu. Then choose the .SET file that matches the account you want. Not saving your password: In some circumstances (work, dorm, etc), you may not want to leave you password laying around in a file on the machine for others prying eyes. In these circumstances when you edit your settings, select 'No' on the save password question. In the future when Antmail loads this settings file, it will prompt you for a password. Running Antmail in SVENSKA (sp?) (Swedish). Copy the .RSC file out of the Swedish folder and replace the old one. Upgrading to Antmail 0.7.6 from an earlier version. All you need to do is to overwrite the files on your current setup with the new ones in this archive. You may choose to be safe and install it in a seperate folder and copy your .SET file over to the new folder til you are certain that this version doesn't give you major new bugs. I haven't had any reports like this from anyone, but with the almost limitless number of private configurations of software and hardware out there this could be a wise percaution. Once you have the new files on your hard drive, you will now need to edit your settings. There are new options in the "Program" menu item. These are for an external viewer and to Force Window redraws. You will need to set these and save your .SET file to get the full use of the new version of Antmail. Compatibility: Antmail is compatible with STiK or GLUESTIK for Networking. GLUESTIK is a small program that parses STIK calls into MiNT Net calls. GLUESTIK is the creation of Scott Bingham. I spoke with Scott and he says he will put GLUESTIK on his web page. Antmail is compatible with the POP3 mail protocol for receiving mail and the SMTP protocol for Sending mail. Antmail will also import mail from external SMTP servers such as NOS or SENDMAIL (MintNet). Antmail is also Multitasking compatible. In a multitasking enviroment you can view, reply to, or create multiple messages at the same time. Mail Interaction. Items in the Mail menu: Check Mail - Logs in, checks for mail, if mail found lists mail, runs the listed mail dialog. This allows you to select individual messages for retrieval or deletion. 'Get all' button works like get mail below except skips relogin. I probably will never make this a non-modal dialog. Since leaving yourself logged into the mail server is a good way to get the sys admin mad at you. When you are in this dialog you can click on the box below 'RETR' to retrieve the message and/or 'DELE' to delete the message. You need not retrieve a message to delete it off the server and you need not delete a message just because you retrieve it. I use this myself to read work related mail but not delete it so that I can keep a copy at work. Get Mail - Logs in, checks for mail, if mail found gets messages, checks "leave mail on server" flag if it is not set to 'YES' it deletes all the messages. Send Mail - Starts a dialog. Enter name of person to send mail to, subject (optional), and select the message text with the select file to send button. This message can either be a standard text message or a previously uuencoded binary file. Transmitting binary files unencoded through mail does not work. Click on 'Send' to send mail. New Message - Uses external viewer defined under Program settings. Enter name of person to send mail to, subject (optional) the select edit to continue. When in the editor, it will open or create a file called "tmp.msg" (or "tmp.# in a multitasking system) in your mail folder. When you have finished editing your mail save it back to this name. Do not change the name or Antmail won't be able to find it. Send Queue Now: This sends all the messages in your OUTGOING mail folder. At the moment once an error is encountered in the mail transaction, no further transactions are possible. I'm working on this but time was getting short for getting the release out. After you leave your editor, Antmail will prompt you to choose 'Send', 'Queue' or 'Cancel'. 'Send' attempts to send your message immediately. 'Queue' will put the message into your 'OUTGOING' mail folder to be sent later. 'Cancel' aborts sending the mail, the message will still be stored as tmp.* until you create or view another message. If for some reason Antmail can't transfer the message. (like your provider just knocked you offline) Antmail will prompt you again for Send, Queue or Cancel. You can then either attempt to send it again or Queue it for later. At this alert you can also press "S" send, "Q" queue or "C" cancel. If Antmail does connect and transfer the message, then it deletes the "tmp.msg". Notes: - Check mail only looks at the first 100 messages on you mail server. I only know of one person who keeps that much mail on the server. If you have more than 100 messages, process the first 100 then reconnect and look at the rest. This will require deleting some of the messages off the server. - Always save your edited message you create to the name it was when you started it. If you don't save it or change it's name, Antmail will send it the way it was when you first saw it in the editor. - At the top of a New message you will see a "To:" line and a "Subject:" line. It is suggested that you leave these lines alone. You can edit them to change the address or subject however do not insert any extra lines or Antmail will get confused. - Antmail is limited to one recipient of a message at the moment. I will expand this later as well as including CC (carbon copy) and BCC (blind carbon copy). I know this is a pretty severe limitation to some, but you did want to get to use Antmail before June didn't you ;) - What's "mail to dan". This is a quick and easy way for you to send me bug reports or words of encouragement. I don't know if it will remain, but it is handy. When you click on this box, it will fill the 'Mail TO' line with my email address. ----------------------------------- Looking at mail in your IN.BOX: and what do all those buttons mean? You can either press 'F1' or select the menu item. This will open up a non modal dialog box displaying the first 10 messages in your IN.BOX. The UP and DOWN arrows will go through pages of 10 of your messages. The items in the inbox listing go in the order as follows: message status (right now this is mainly the default off the server) ' ' means you have read it already N means New message R means you have Replied to this message F means you have forwarded it D means it had been marked for delete message size in Kilobytes message subject message author message date - View will view a selected message - Reply will reply to a message - Forward will forward a message - Export will save a message out to a new file - Move will move a message to a different mail box (disabled now) - Delete will mark a message for delete from a mailbox - Cleanup will go through your mailbox deleting all the messages marked for delete. - Up arrow = previous page - Down arrow = next page Undeleting a message marked for delete. Simply highlight the message you want to undelete and click on the delete button again. It will remove the flag. Hot keys for IN.BOX window: R - replies to the current selected message F - Forwards the current message D - Marks message for delete or unmarks. shift UP ARROW - goes to previous page of messages shift DOWN ARROW - goes to next page of messages Deleting a message out of your IN.BOX Select message you want to delete with mouse. Click on Delete button or press 'D'. When You are ready or have some time press cleanup. You will now be prompted if you want to attempt to repair the mailbox while deleting. Choose yes or no. (I will explain the difference below) When it's done you should have a clean mailbox. What, why and when should I repair? When you tell Ant_mail to repair while cleaning up a mailbox, it scans all the messages and rebuilds the TOC file just like they were new messages. This should repair most problems in a TOC file. Why? Older version had problems with delete and cleanup. Repairing makes certain that what parts of a message that are left in the mailbox are attributed to the correct author etc. When? Whenever you feel it's good to. Most of the time you should never have to repair. If you notice that you have a large number of garbled email addresses etc, then repair the mailbox. Looking at mail in your OUT Queue: and What do all those buttons mean? You can either press 'F10' or select the menu item. This will open up a non modal dialog box displaying the first 10 messages in your OUTGOING mail folder. The UP and DOWN arrows will page between pages of ten. The items in the OUT Queue listing go in the order as follows: message size in Kilobytes message to: (The recipient of this message) message Subject message date - View will view a selected message - Export will save a message out to a new file - Move will move a message to a different mail box (disabled now) - Send Now will send the selected message immediately ignoring the rest of the Queue. - Delete will delete a message from the Queue - Up arrow = previous page - Down arrow = next page Non-Modal dialog box features: Clicking on the fuller button will cause it to window shade. ie. it will turn into only the title bar, which will also be reduced in size. Clicking on the fuller again returns the window to it's previous state. Settings what are they? A settings file contains all your personal data and preferences. Such as your username or your mail path. Each user or account should have their own settings file. This will save you a massive amount of editing every time you want to retrieve mail from an account. This also stores such things as your external viewer, so that multiple users can choose different editors. So what are the settings: User settings: Username: your username on the system you are getting mail from Password: your password on the mail server. Usually the same as your slip password. Might vary though. Save Password: Simply whether you want your password to be automatically loaded when you launch antmail. Yes: saves password. No: doesn't save password. You will be prompted for a password at program launch or settings being loaded. Email address: Your email address ex. me@mysite.com Your Real Name: Just that. Your real name. Reply-to: This is used if you want your return mail to be sent to a different address then the one you are mailing from. Uses for this could be to send work mail from home that you want to retrieve at work. ex. myaddress@here.com reply-to: myaddress@there.edu Set mail folder...: Use Fileselector to choose a folder for your mail to be kept in. Multiple users should not use the same mail folder. Use of the same mail folder by multiple users, will mean that they will have no way to diferentiate their mail. Set SIG file...: Use the file selector to choose a file to be used as your SIG file. You need not set a SIG file. Antmail doesn't care what your SIG file is but there are conventions on USENET for what a SIG file should consist of. If you don't care about conventions remember that this will be put on all your mail, so you will have to store it in Queue'd messages and send it whenever you send a piece of mail. Server settings: POP Server: The name of the server you want to get your mail from. SMTP Server: The name of the server through which you send your mail. This can be different from your POP server and need not be at your ISP at all. However you will want to find one that is near you on the net, or you will suffer from serious lags in all mail transactions. Leave Mail on Server: Yes: Doesn't delete mail in 'Get Mail' or 'Check Mail'-'Get All' No: Automatically deletes mail from server in above cases. Program settings: Use verbose listings in Check mail: Yes: Gets author info and size and subject line. No: Doesn't get any of this info. You only get the size. Warning Verbose listings can dramatically increase your online time. Use Slow Disk I/O: Yes: slows down your through put, but may be necessary on some sytems. No: Has no slow downs, but may cause problems. (On my Falcon, I have had no problems that could be attributed to this) Force Window Redraws: Yes: This will close and reopen windows when returning from an external program (editor or viewer). This will be necessary for some users of Magic. No: This will just update the top window. Much faster. Also forcing the window redraws will cause problems under some AES's like XaAES. So if you don't seem to need it set then set it at NO. How do I know if I need this set to yes? If when returning from the viewer or editor, your mailbox window dissappears and only a button is left on the screen then you will need this set to Yes. Select external editor: Use the fileselector to choose a text viewer/editor for use when creating and viewing/editing OUTGOING Mail messages. Select external viewer: Use the fileselector to choose a text viewer for use when viewing Mail messages. Other items in Config menu: Open Settings: Opens a settings file. Alows use of program by multiple users, or for users with multiple accounts. Save Settings: Saves a settings file to disk. You will want to do this once you have edited them all. Save preferences: This saves which settings file will be opened at program launch. Items in the Extras menu: Nicknames: Yes it's disabled. It's not working yet. Sorry. Create New User folder...: Useful for automatically creating a new set of folders. Very handy and suggested for people just setting up Antmail. Import NOS mail drop...: Use this to import messages from NOS (Oasis) select the *.EML file and Antmail will process all the messages into the IN.BOX. This can also be used with any system that stores all the messages completely without editing them. You can even use this with "sendmail" under MiNT, however you will have to import the messages one at a time. *NOTE* Antmail does not process these messages for the external application. If you do not delete these messages manually or through the external program they will imported again the next time you import the mail drop. ******************************** Problem Solving ******************************** Problem: I get a drive α not responding error? Solution. Remove the litle green file selector. It causes this problem. Problem: I can't Queue any messages? Possible cause: Your Mailpath is not set correctly. This can be caused by some alternate Fileselectors like Freedom. Solution: Try setting your mailpath again in User Settings. With Freedom select the folder name and press Ok, under the normal fileselector go into the folder and don't select anything and press Ok. Problem: I need to edit a message in my Out Queue, but Antmail doesn't have a button there for edit. Solution: Just select View and when done editing save the file back out to the name it was when you opened it. Problem: I've edited my message, but when I try to save it asks if I should overwrite "TMP.MSG". Solution: Your editor is just asking if you want to replace the old TMP.MSG. You do. Just click on OK, or Save or Overwrite. Which ever your editor requires. Problem: I was trying to get my mail but it was real slow, so I pressed the "Esc" key. Then it gave me a problem alert. Solution: Don't press the "Esc" key. ;) Actually the "Esc" key is only useful if you don't mind aborting the currect action. Sometimes mail servers are extremely slow, if you press the "Esc" key you are canceling the action on your end. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this for the server end. So the results can be nasty. If you are just in the "listing" of messages, you just won't get any more info on the rest of the messages. If however you are retrieving you will end up getting the messages wrong. You're only hope then is to hit "Esc" again and close out the connection to the server. However you will have to wait around 10 minutes before the server force logs you out so that you can relogin. Problem: I got my mail and I couldn't access the menu bar after I got the "Mail transactions complete" dialog. I pressed 'Esc' and got a TCP close message on the screen. But now I can't get back onto the server. Solution: The mail server never got you logged out. You need to wait 10 minutes for it to force log you out, before you can get back into it. However if you are done with your operations and don't want to wait you can force close the connection with 'Esc'. Problem: I can't send any mail. It always tells me "Server not receiving". Solution: Check with your ISP (provider). It's possible that your mail server is not at the address you have set in Antmail. If this fails and your ISP uses a version of POP for sending mail, then just grab another nearby SMTP server. This may take some asking, but it's possible. Problem: When I reply to a message, the persons address has extra info at the end. Solution. Hopefully this is gone now. However it may still occur from time to time. If this happens just delete the extra characters off the end of the mail address before saving. Problem: When I use Verbose Listing in Check Mail, Ant_mail pauses until I press a key at each message. Solution: Unfortunately again. During messages with long pauses press a key. There seems to be a POPMAIL server out there that doesn't conform to the specs. Once I find out what it's using for a delimiter I will be able to fix this. This also happens for some people constantly. I'm looking at these routines to see what I can do to fix it. For right now after the modem stops flashing you can just hit a key to abort the routine and go onto the next message. Problem: When I return from viewing a message, sending mail or getting mail, antmail crashes. Solution: This is hopefully fixed for the IN.BOX. If it works I will fix it for the OUT Queue as well. /********************************/ I've been working on updates for other STiK related programs so I didn't get as much done here as I originally planned. However some nasty problems have popped up for some users. Hopefully this fixes at least some of those without adding any more new ones. Well let me know what gives you problems. Also if you have anything you think is a priority to get done let me know. You have a nice button in 'New Message' (Send mail to Dan) so use it. Dan Ackerman baldrick@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu ackerman.29@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (I prefer this one)