Email

13.1 Using Open Webmail

  1. To access the Email section, Click Email in the navigation bar.



  2. If you are a first time Open Webmail user, you will be directed to your settings configuration ( User Preferences), rather than your Inbox. The Welcome to Open WebMail screen is displayed.

  3. Click Continue.



13.2 User preferences

The basic Settings configuration allows you to change various preferences to suit your e-mailing needs. For many users, the default settings are quite adequate. If you do not wish to change the settings at this time, click the save button at the bottom of the page.

  1. Settings toolbar The Settings Toolbar will display information and options about the Settings Configuration.



  2. Reference Chart for the settings toolbar.

    Name/Alternate Text Action It Performs
    Back to Previous Takes you back to the previous folder
    Edit E-mail Address Edits the e-mail address information
    Edit Stationery Takes you to the area where you can edit your stationery.  Stationery is preset message text for e-mail replies.
    Pop3 setup Define multiple POP3 accounts to retrieve external mails through Open Webmail
    View History Displays the description of your activities done in Open webmail
    About Displays server and Open Webmail information


  3. The Personal Information settings that includes "From" & "Reply to "address, Signature etc will be displayed in the email messages sent to others.

  4. The Display Preferences allow you to choose colours, formats, sizes, images, and other display settings.



    Reference chart for display preferences

    Term/Setting What it Sets/Changes
    Style Changes the colour scheme of your Open Webmail account
    Icon Set Changes the style of the icons/buttons
    Background Image Changes the background image of your e-mail. You can choose one of preset images from the drop menu, or use your own URL by typing it in the text field.
    Font Size Changes the size of the text in your messages
    Messages Per Page Changes the number of messages that are listed per page
    Default Sort Selects the default method of sorting e-mail messages
    Date Format The format of which the dates are displayed (eg.: MM/DD/YYYY would display 08/28/2002 on August 28, 2002)
    Hour Format Sets your hour format to 12 or 24 hour time 
    Default Headers Allows you to select what headers are displayed on incoming messages.
    Size for Mail Edit Area The size of the area that in which you write your e-mails
    Send button position Position the mail operation buttons on top, below, or both top and below of the message text area.



  5. Message Operation options set the preferences for performing actions on messages (such as Move or Copy).


  6. The Message Reading options are simple click options that change the way incoming messages are displayed. You can change these according to your preferences, and to best fit your screen size, if you wish.




    Reference chart for Message Reading options.
    Term/Setting What it Sets/Changes
    Use Fixed Width Font... Fixes the width of the font, to best fit the screen
    Use Smiley Images... Allows smiley images (Also known as "Emoticons") to be displayed within messages.
    Disable JavaScript within... Disables JavaScript™ within messages.
    Disable embedded CGI... Disables embedded CGI scripts within messages
    Show image attachment... Uses a link for attached images rather than displaying them as images directly within the e-mail message.
    Charset for Outgoing Message This selects the Character Set for outgoing messages.



  7. Message Replying Options Set the way that messages are replied to.

  8. Message Filtering Options Set the filtering rules so that the messages are checked appropriately.



  9. The Miscellaneous Options group together a number of settings that do not necessarily fit together in one group or category of settings.




  10. Click Save. Preferences successfully saved dialog will be displayed.
  11. Click Continue to get into the Inbox.

13.2.1 POP3 Setup

You can set up & retrieve external mails by giving the IP address of the external mail server, your username, password of all your e-mail ids. Multiple POP3 accounts can be defined, allowing a single user to fetch mails from a number of mail servers.

  1. Enter the IP address of the POP3 Server.
  2. Enter the port number.
  3. Enter your external email address.
  4. Enter the password for external email address.
  5. Click Add.

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13.2.2 POP3 Mail Retrieval

You can retrieve the external POP3 mails by using this option.

  1. Click on the POP3 retriveal button.
  2. All messages fetched will be stored in the INBOX folder. Should the fetch operation exceed 10 seconds (due to a slow link or large message for example), the operation will be put into background to avoid an http timeout.

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13.3 Using the Inbox

Your Inbox is where all your messages are downloaded to, unless you have otherwise specified (see setting up filters to learn about redirecting e-mail messages). A toolbar is a bar of buttons and options that allow you to quickly perform actions on different objects. There is a toolbar in each of the folders.

  1. Main toolbar: There are a number of icons namely for composing a New Message, Folders, Address book, Mail Filter Setup, POP3 Mail retrieval, Advanced Search, Refresh, changing User Preferences, and Trash .

    Name/Alternate Text Action It Performs
    Folder Menu Displays the current folder and the number of unread/read messages.Also allows you to change the current folder
    New Message Allows you to compose a new e-mail.
    Folders Allows you to view, edit, delete, and create folders.
    Address Book Opens the address book for adding/deleting/editing of the entries.
    Mail Filters Allows you to filter incoming e-mail.
    POP 3 Retrieves mails from other POP3 servers
    Advanced Search Performs a detailed search for a message.
    Refresh Reloads the current page.
    User Preferences Allows you to alter and personalize your settings.
    Move to Trash Moves the selected message(s) to the trash
    Destination Menu Moves or Copies the selected messages to the selected destination folder.


  2. When someone sends you an e-mail, it is displayed as a list.



    1. The first column represents the status of the message.The golden, closed envelope specifies that the message has not been read. Notice that all of the text in that row (of the first message) is also bolded. The envelope in the second message row is white and opened. This means that you have read that message. Also take note that the text in the second message row is in plain format (not bolded). You can change the status of the message by clicking the envelope next to the message you wish to change. If the status is Read, it will be changed to Unread, and vice-versa.

    2. The second column is the Date of which you received the e-mail. The date format, in this case, is MM/DD/YY It also tells you the time at which you received the message. In this case, it is in a 24-hour format.
    3. The Sender is who the e-mail is from. You can click the name to compose a message to that person.
    4. The Subject is the topic of which the sender had specified. This gives you a brief, explanatory meaning of the message. By clicking the Subject of the message, you will be redirected to that message. For example, if a user clicked he/she would be redirected to that message, and be able to read the message, in full.
    5. The Size of the message is the virtual size that the message takes up in the server.
    6. The Checkbox in the last column is for message selection and actions like "Move to"," Copy to" etc. By clicking one of the checkboxes, a small Checkmark will appear in the box. Clicking it again removes the checkmark. By clicking the checkbox utmost to the top (directly right of "Size"), all of the checkboxes below it will be selected. This tool is for performing actions on selected messages. More will be discussed on this topic in Using the Toolbar.


  3. New Mail Notification Pop-up Window for Incoming messages will displayed whenever new mail arrives. You can set the number of seconds for New Mail Notification Pop-up Window to remain on the screen in the User Preferences (Miscellaneous) settings.  Set to "0" to switch the newmail window off.




13.3.1 Compose a new message

Click Compose a new message button ( ) in the main toolbar. The Compose Message window opens.

  1. When you compose a message, you must know the receipient's email ID,subject and of course, what you will write in the actual message.

  2. Openwebmail supports automatic address typing. You can type the first two alphabets of the email address which is unique (and case sensitive) , seperated by a comma, followed by next first two alphabets and so on. Then by clicking To:, full e-mail address will appear on the To: field. Alternatively, you can key-in the entire e-mail address or for example priya@carizen.com. or select directly from the address book.





  3. You can attach an document by browsing for the file to be attached, send a carbon copy &/or a blind carbon copy of the message to another user or reply-to an existing mail. Click on the Adress book icon to display the address book inorder to add the address in the respective To, CC,BCC fields. You can type the name and click search or select the name and click continue to add the address name in the fields. Enter the subject for example, test mail.

  4. The user can request a 'confirm-reading receipt' for each message sent. When the message is read by the recipient, a receipt will be sent back to this user.


  5. Check the Backup sent message checkbox to store it in the Sent folder.

  6. Type the message.

  7. After completing the mail you can spell check for errors.You can either save it as a draft by clicking save draft button and send it later or send it immediately.

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  8. You can select the Message format. Browsers IE5.5 , Mozilla and recent versions support html format .
    You can insert an image, change background & text colour, insert table, toggle html source, insert html link, add sound and format text .





  9. Click Insert image. You can attach files . View the image in your browser. Copy the link and paste it in the Image URL text box. Enter an alternate text and click OK





  10. You can see the formatted text, inserted image.





  11. Click Send to send the mail.

Save Draft

  1. You may want to type up a message, and send it later. This can be done by saving the composed message in the Draft folder.
  2. It will save all of the header information (To, From, Subject, etc.) as well as the message text.
  3. Once you have finished typing your message, click "Save Draft", and your message will be stored in the "Draft" folder.
  4. To restore your message and send it later, simply find it in your "Draft" folder, open it, and click "Send".
  5. You can also edit it before sending.


13.3.2 Using the Spell checker

After composing a message, you might wish to spell check the document. The spelling check in Open WebMail is very user-friendly and powerful. It makes suggestions for mis-spelled words, and the user can correct the errors very easily by selecting one of the suggestions from a drop-down menu.

  1. Select either English or American from the list box .
  2. Click on the Spell Check button. This will open a new window with a spell checker for you.


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  3. The mis-spelled words in the message are the words that are in the drop menus.

  4. To correct the words, click the drop menu of the word you would like to fix. A list of suggested words will appear, as well as -- Manually Fix -- . You can choose one of the suggested words, if the word you were looking for is in the list, or choose -- Manually Fix -- , if the word is not in the list.

  5. Once you are finished, click Finish Checking. The window will close, and the words you have corrected will automatically be changed.

  6. If you chose -- Manually Fix -- , click Check Again, and you will be able to type in the area in which you have mis-spelled a word.

  7. Once you have manually fixed the word, you can click Finish Checking and it will return you to your message, corrected.

13.4 Edit Folders

Folders are a very useful tool for keeping your e-mail organized and tidy. There are five main preset folders, and an infinite amount of user created folders.

  1. The five preset folders are:
    • Inbox
    • Saved
    • Sent
    • Draft
    • Trash


  2. Open WebMail supports 'create', 'rename', 'delete', and 'download' operations on folders, and 'move', 'copy', 'delete' and 'download' operations on messages. You can perform following actions on the folders:
    MarkRead Marks messages in that folder as Read
    CheckIndex Checks the number of messages in the folder
    ReIndex Recounts the number of messages in the folder
    Rename Renames the folder
    Delete Deletes the folder




  3. You can create folders:
    1. Click Folders button ( ) in the main toolbar to create new folders.
    2. In the box under Folder Name, type the name of the folder you wish to create.
    3. Click Add.


13.5 Setting up a Filter

Multiple filter rules can be set to move or copy incoming mails to different folders automatically or even delete them directly. The user can categorize mails from a specific person or spammer, and identify mails containing viruses very easily by defining rules of sender, receiver, SMTP relay, subject, body or filename of attachments.

In addition to the static filter rules, openwebmail has build-in three smart filters: faked smtp filter, faked from filter and faked exe contenttype filter. Faked SMTP filter is useful in filtering messages from spammer, faked from filter and faked exe contenttype filter are useful in filtering messages generated from virus.

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  1. To set a filter to move all incoming mails from the LIH mailing list to the folder linux, enter the following values:
    Setting Value
    Rules Subject
    Inc/Ex: Include
    String: [\LIH\]
    Action Move
    Destination linux.
    Enable Checked
    Action Add/Modify


  2. Click Add . This will Move all e-mail messages from Subject \[LIH\] to the folder linux.



  3. This filter is enabled. Therefore, if the e-mail is from LIH mailinglist, it would be automatically sent to linux folder.

  4. You can temporarily disable the filter by modifying the filter and unchecking the Enable checkbox option.



13.6 Address Book

First, of course, you will need to create entries. You must open the address book for editing. Do this by click the Address Book button ( ) in the main toolbar. You will be redirected to your address book for editing:

  1. The address book is a small database of your regular e-mail contacts, that allows you to have quick and easy access to them at any time. However, the address book has two different modes to use it in.
  2. The Editing mode, which is used to create entries, delete them, edit them, and use advanced features. Then there is the Using mode which allows you to instantly add header information (To, Subject, etc.) to outgoing e-mail messages.




  3. Obviously, your first action will be to add an entry (Note: There may be preset entries already in there that set been set by the system administrator).
  4. Simply click within the Name text field, and enter the necessary information.
  5. Use the "Tab" key on the keyboard to jump to the next field. You can also add a note to easily remember the contact by. Once you are finished entering the information, click Add/Modify. You can now access this quickly for sending.
  6. Once you have all your e-mail addresses in place, you may want to edit them later. To edit an entry, click the Name of the entry, and it will appear in the editing area above. You can click within the text field of the entry information you wish to edit and type what you wish. Once you are finished editing the entry, click Add/Modify.

  7. You can delete entries by simply clicking the Delete button to the absolute right side of the entry you wish to delete.
  8. You may also want to delete all the entries, but deleting them all separately can be tedious. Fortunately, all you have to do is click the "Clear All Addresses" button ( ). You will be asked to confirm: click "OK" to proceed with deleting all of the entries, or click "Cancel" to abort the operation.
  9. You can also group multiple addresses into one name. This allows you to send to multiple existing entries, with one address book entry, without having to re-enter the information. To group multiple addresses, click the group icon ( ).



  10. You will be greeted with a new window with all of your address book entries. Check off the addresses you wish to group, and click continue. Then click Add/Modify once you are finished.

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