Mac Expert 1995 Winter/Mac Expert - Winter 95.iso/Les fichiers/Communications/Internet/Mail2000 v1.10 ƒ/Mail2000 v1.10 Read Me

Text File | 1995-05-14 | 11.5 KB | 260 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

>01.Introduction
---------------

Mail2000 is a small utility to read textfiles containing e-mail.  I
wrote it because I have lots of e-mail files lying around from over
the last few years which I occasionally want to read.  Mail2000 can
open up to four files, and provides threading of the subject and of
the sender, and easy navigation through the mails.

It needs at least system 7 to run.


>02.Quick Start
--------------

To open it, double click it, or throw any textfile onto the icon.  The
file wil be loaded, and the program will try to figure out the mails.
A dialog box will display a counter and some information while it is
examining the file.  After that has been done, Mail2000 threads the
subjects of the mails.  A dialog box will be displayed while it is
doing the threading. If it can't find any mails, the whole file will
be displayed. In that case you have to change the strings it uses to
sort out the mails (see under: 8.Miscellaneous).

After the file has been examined and threaded, the first mail is
displayed. The bottom of the window displays number of the mail that
is displayed, the total number of mails in the file and the number of
mails that have been marked, followed by the sender of the mail (in
bold face), and the subject.


>03.Selecting Mails
------------------

When a new file is read in, all the mails are selected and sorted by
date. Use the 'Thread' menu to select either a thread or all the
mails. When a thread is selected, selecting the next or previous mail
will display the next or previous one in the thread.  Use the 'Mail'
menu to thread the mails on subject or on sender.  You can also
select the previous or the next thread from this menu.

The threads in the menu are sorted alphabetically, and the mails in a
thread are sorted by date. It is possible to sort the threads in the
menu by date; this can be specified in the preferences.


>04.Marking Mails
----------------

Using the 'Mail' menu, single mails, or all the mails in a thread can
be marked or unmarked. When all mails have been selected, '(Un)Mark
thread' will (un)mark all the mails in the file. The number of mails
that have been marked is displayed at the bottom of the window, after
the mail number, and the number of mails in the currect selected
thread.

A small diamond is used to show that a mail has been marked. It is
displayed just in front of the sender of the mail. A diamond marker is
also displayed in the popup menu which appears when you click in the
bottom of the window.

Marked mails can be saved, or left out, when you save the file using
'Save as…' from the 'File' menu. Using 'Save as…' you can also strip
the headers of the mails. Only the headers that are useful (defined
under 'File header strings…' in the 'Edit' menu) are kept, resulting
in a smaller file. Check the 'Append mails' checkbox if you want to
append the mails (or the marked mails) to another file.


>05.Navigating Through The Mails
-------------------------------

There are several ways to read through the mails.  Use the scrollbars
and arrow keys to scroll up and down.  Clicking in the text will
display a scroll-cursor. Moving the mouse down a little will scroll
down, and moving it up a little scrolls up.  Keep the mouse button
pressed while doing this. Moving the mouse up or down a lot will jump
to the next or previous mail.

If you click in the bottom part of the screen (where the information is
displayed), a pop-up menu will appear. If all the mails have been
selected, the 'Mail' menu will pop up, and you can select an option
from that.  If you are reading a thread, a menu containing either the
sender will pop up (when threaded by subject or date), or a menu
containing the subjects of the mails will pop up (when threaded by
sender). A diamond character will show which mails have been marked.

Pressing the spacebar or the page-down key will display the next page of
the current mail, and jump to the next mail when you reach the end (you
can read everything by just pressing the spacebar).  The backspace and
page-up keys do the same thing, but in the other direction.

Finally, you can select 'Goto Mail…' in the 'Mail' menu.  Type the
number of the mail you want to read.  Note that if you are reading a
thread, you cannot select a mail outside of it.


>06.Save Options
---------------

The 'Save As' option under the 'File' menu allows you to save a file
with stripped mail headers.  That is to say, only the header-lines
that are defined under 'File Header Strings…' are kept, the rest of
the header is not saved.  This will often reduce the filesize by
something like 40% if you have files with lots of small mails.  This
option also allows you to save or delete the mails that have been
marked.  When there are no marked mails, only the option 'Save all
mails' can be checked.  Check the 'Append mails…' checkbox if you
want to append the file (or a selection) to another file.

The 'Save Mail' and 'Save Thread' options save the current mail or
thread. The filename depends on the threading method chosen. Whether
or not the headers are stripped depends on whether you checked the
'Display mails stripped' option in the Preferences.


>07.Preferences
--------------

The 'Preferences…' dialog ('Edit' menu) allows you to specify if the
comparison of the sender's e-mail address or the subjects of the mails
should be case sensitive or not.  It is also possible to sort the
threads in the 'Threads' menu chronologically instead of alphabetically
(useful if you thread by date). These changes will take effect the next
time you select 'Thread subject' or 'Thread sender'.

If you check the 'Display mails stripped' checkbox, the mails
will be displayed (yep) with stripped headers (the mail you are
currently reading won't be updated until you select it again).

The 'Start with first thread' checkbox allows you to start reading
the first thread after you open a file.

Finally, there is an option to set a delay for the mouse scrolling.
You might want to set this to something greater than zero if scrolling
with the mouse goes too fast.


>08.Miscellaneous
----------------

Use the 'Font' and 'Size' menu to set the font and size for a file.
Different files can be displayed in different fonts and sizes.

Use 'Default Header Strings…' in the edit menu to change the
definition of the mail headers for new files.  The default
definitions are used when the file is opened for the first time, and
doesn't have any strings associated with it yet. Modifications to the
default strings will be remembered.

Once the file has been opened, you must use 'File Header Strings…' to
change the strings.  The first seven strings (the ones preceeded by
titles) are needed by the program to sort out the mails.  The other
seven you can fill in any way you like.  Use it for example to keep
'Newsgroup', or 'Resent' lines. All Mail2000 does is simply look for a
line in the text beginning with one of the strings displayed in the
dialog when reading a file (throw this file on Mail2000 to see another
example of this). You can leave the field for 'Header end:' empty if
you want an empty line to signify the end of the header.  The current
settings allow you to read for example UN*X mbox files.

When you select 'File header strings…' from the 'Edit' menu, you can
change the header definitions for the file you are currently reading.
These strings are saved in a resource with the file when it's closed,
and are used the next time the file is opened (you have to close and
re-open a file if you want the changes to take effect).

If you check 'Ignore header strings' in the preferences dialog, the
definitions are ignored, and the default definitions are used when
you (re-)open a file.

'Copy' ('Edit' menu) will copy the mail that is being read at that
moment.

If you know how to use ResEdit, you can change some of the other
defaults as well.  There is a string resource (STR# resource id# 131)
which contains the name and the size of the default font (it is now
set to Courier 10p). If you want another default font, change the
name in the resource.  The size of the window can also be changed.
Edit the WIND resource if you want a bigger or taller window.  The
size at the moment is such that it just fits on a 9 inch Mac Classic
screen. Finally, the STR# resource id# 130 contains the strings which
are used when Mail2000 can't find a mail subject or sender. These can
also be changed if you want to.


>09.Limitations (And One Feature)
--------------------------------

Mail2000 uses TextEdit to display the mails.  This means that mails
that are larger than 32K are truncated, and only the first part will
be displayed.  A warning will be displayed when this happens. Larger
mails are still saved or appended correctly though.

Building a menu with lots of items can take a long time (by lots I mean
over 200).  The program shows a watch cursor, but appears to hang.  If
you wait a few seconds (well, it takes about a minute for a file with
500 mails on my LC) everything will be okay. The best thing is to keep
files with about 200-300 mails (I save my mail box every month). This
works fine on my LC, but that's a slow machine. If you have a faster
machine, bigger files might still be handled comfortably.

The items that are put in the 'Thread' menu are truncated to 32
characters. Believe me, it's best that way. Keeping them full size
makes the menu look even more ugly than it does now.

A file that has UN*X or I*M style end of line characters is correctly
read in, and converted to Mac type.  A dialog box shows the progress
when this is done (converting from I*M type is still very slow).


>10.Finally
----------

I hope you like this, and find it useful.  It is shareware; you can
try it out for two weeks, but if you decide to keep it, you should
pay the shareware fee (the fee is US$ 5,- or 10 Dutch guilders). Or
at least send me some e-mail saying whether you like or hate the
program.  Or tell me about bugs or things you want to see changed.
If you have paid for one version, you of course don't have to pay for
any updates.  I take no reponsibility of any kind, so use this at
your own risk. It has been written and tested on a Mac LC. Some
testing was done on a Quadra 900, a Centris 650, a Mac SE and a IIcx.

'Example file 1' are messages from the now defunct Sonic Youth
mailing list.

And a thank you to the following people:
•Ernst Mulder ([e-mail]) for beta testing and suggestions.
•Pete Resnick ([e-mail]), for letting me use a resource with
 timezone information he compiled.
•Willem Koster ([e-mail]) for pointing out a bug that prevented
 operation on 68k macs.
•Paul Halsema ([e-mail]) for feedback.
•Mike Leggett ([e-mail]) for noting an
 incompatibility with Adobe Type Reunion.
•Edward John Sabol ([e-mail]) for noting an incompatibility
 with Adobe Type Reunion and a few suggestions which got implemented.
•Patrick Hoepfner ([e-mail]) for valuable feedback.
•Eddy J. Gurney ([e-mail]) for the progress bar CDEF.
•Andreas C. Bauer ([e-mail]) for the icons for v1.10,
 and some suggestions which got implemented.
•Jeff Miller ([e-mail]) for finding a problem with the parsing
 of the date.

Any redistribution of Mail2000 must also include this Read Me file,
the version history and the example file. I do not permit
distribution on cd-rom, disks for sale (e.g. shareware catalogues or
magazine cover disks) or any other carrier unless I receive a copy of
the cd-rom, disk, or storage medium upon which it appears.

My adres is:
Peter Berck
Sparrenstraat 1
5038 MJ  Tilburg
The Netherlands

e-mail: [e-mail]
      : [e-mail]