Messenger is a freeware electronic mail and news client which interacts with Newsbase and thus may be used with any Internet suite that Newsbase supports, which currently includes the ANT Internet Suite, Termite Internet, Acornet and KA9Q. It is compatible with the NewsHound, FreeNews, FreeSMTP and POP fetchers.

Amongst its many features are the following:

• An attractive user interface
  Messenger uses an attractive graphical user interface, which complies with the guidelines set out for good RISC OS application design as documented in the Acorn RISC OS Style Guide.
  
• MIME support
  Messenger has full support for MIME encoded messages, decomposing multipart messages into their constituent parts, and automatically decoding any which are encoded using base64 or the quoted-printable encoding. Messenger will then offer to display any textual parts, and present the remainder as attachments which may be saved out. Messenger can also be used to send MIME format messages, with proper labelling and encoding of their content.
  
• PGP support
  Messenger interacts with the command line based PGP program to automatically recognise encrypted messages and decrypt them. It also allows encrypted messages to be originated from Messenger, as well as offering support for sending and verifying signed messages. A convenient keyring management system is also included, which allows all key management functions to be performed from within Messenger.

  

  
  
• Proper newsgroup and mailing list threading
  Unlike some other newsreaders, Messenger uses the references headers of articles to perform threading, rather than just the subject. This has the advantage in keeping a thread together when the subject changes, and also allows easy access from a menu to any replies to a particular article, or any of the articles that preceded it. Messenger's threads display shows one item per thread, but allows the expansion of threads to list the messages they contain, suitably indented to indicate the thread structure. As messages are read, Messenger automatically opens the thread containing the current message, scrolls it into view, highlights it and closes the thread afterwards. Buttons to move between threads, optionally marking all the skipped articles as read, are also provided.

  

  
  
• Message colouring of headers, signatures, attributions and quoted text
  Messenger will colour headers, signatures, attributions and quoted text in different colours, to make it easier to distinguish between them. This is particularly beneficial with quoted text, as it allows the user to make out who said what, which is made even easier with attribution colouring, since the colour of the text can be matched to the colour of the attribution containing the name of the person who wrote it.

  

  
  
• URL highlighting and launching
  Messenger can recognise URLs and WWW/FTP sites in messages and highlight them, so that clicking on them launches them using your web browser, terminal emulator, FTP client, etc. E-mail addresses are also highlighted, and full support is provided for handling mailto: and news: URLs launched from other applications. Messenger supports both the ANT and Acorn URI launching protocols.
  
• Drag and drop message filing
  Messenger's group and folder displays support drag and drop of the messages they contain, so copying messages is a simple matter of dragging them from one window to the other. Moving messages is also possible by dragging with Shift held down, just like using the RISC OS Filer.
  
• An easy to use attachments interface
  Attachments in received messages, encoded in either uucode or using MIME, are automatically recognised and appear as files in the lower part of the message display, ready for saving out to a file or application. In doing so, Messenger hides the raw encoding of the attachments so you only see the readable parts of the message. Attachments can easily be specified when sending mail, by dragging them from the filer into the send window.

  

  
  
• Multiple mailbox support
  Newsbase has no limitations on the number of mailboxes you can have, and so neither does Messenger. This is useful if you have more than one account and want to keep mail from different accounts separate. Messenger allows you to configure whether a click on its icon will take you to your main mailbox, or to a window containing all your mailboxes, thus allowing easy access to all your mail.
  
• Multiple user support
  Newsbase also allows the creation of more than one user, so everybody who uses mail and news on your machine can have a separate, optionally password protected, account. This not only means that private messages aren't read by anybody else, but also that each user can have his/her own configured settings.
  
• Address book
  Messenger contains an address book which allows you to store commonly used e-mail addresses, and thus allowing you to choose them from a menu when you want to send mail. Messenger also allows you to associate an alias with each address, which acts as a form of shorthand for that address and which Messenger will expand automatically. Groups of addresses may also be set up allowing you to send to multiple addresses with a single alias. Distribution lists are also supported, which allow the sending of mail to a list of addresses held in a separate file.
  
• Support for header only downloads
  Messages in newsgroups which are configured for header only download in your news transport, are recognised as such and displayed accordingly. A fetch body option is then available, which will request that the full article is fetched on your next download.
  
• Outline and bitmap font support
  Messenger's message display window can show messages using any RISC OS outline font, or any of the bitmap fonts used by Zap.
  
• Flexible saving and printing facilities
  Messages may be saved or printed either as they are, or with any necessary decoding (PGP or MIME) performed first. Headers may optionally be included.
  
• Flagging of replied messages
  Messenger marks any messages to which you reply as being replied, and indicates these differently in folder and group displays. This flag may also be cleared or set manually.
  
• Search facilities
  Messenger integrates with NewsFind allowing Messenger to invoke a search, and automatically display the results when it has finished. NewsFind has flexible facilities for finding text in whole messages, or just a particular header. It also supports wildcards to enable searching across more than one group, or a wildcarded search string.
  
• Mailing list support
  Newsbase can be configured to filter mail from mailing lists into a folder, and then Messenger can be told to treat that folder as a mailing list. This means that the list will appear in the newsreader window, and also that separate reply and followup options are provided that allow replies to be sent to the sender of a particular message, or to the list. In addition, posting a new message to the list is made easier since Messenger will recall the list submission address and specify this for you when sending your message.
  
• Configurable and flexible sorting options
  Messages may be sorted simply by clicking on the desired column heading which allows sorting by subject, sender, date and by whether the message has been read or not. The sort setting has a memory, so that the current sort will sort matching messages according to the setting of the previous sort, thus allowing more than one sort key. Sort settings may also be saved on a per-group basis.
  
• Support for virtual memory
  Messenger uses a dynamic area for memory storage, and automatically enables virtual memory when Clares' Virtualise is in use, thus removing any memory constraints.

The latest release version of Messenger can be downloaded free of charge from the Messenger downloads page on this site. From this page you'll also be able to access any other bits and pieces you'll need.