Writing Mail

Page updated 16 December 2010

Writing New Mail

nPOPuk offers a number of ways in which to create a new message. Each of these methods is described more fully below:

From the Main Window (Menu option, Toolbar button or Keystroke)
From the Notification Area Icon on the Task Bar (Menu option)
From an Existing Message (Address Information dialogue) The "Cancel" button closes the ADDRESS dialogue aborting the operation.
From the Address Book (Mail Button)
On Start Up (Command line options)

The Property Dialogue

Starting the message using any of these methods opens the Property dialogue. This dialogue contains the fields usually found at the top of a message composition window in other programs but, for reasons of compatibility with small hand-held screens, they are kept separate in nPOPuk. The Property dialogue is integrated with the Address Book providing sophisticated search and selection facilities for addresses.

The version of the dialogue shown here has additional checkboxes that only appear when sending Replies or Forwards.

Clicking OK on the Property dialogue leads to the Mail Edit window or an External Editor, depending on the method used to start the process or nPOPuk.ini settings.

The external editor can be invoked, in place of the Mail Edit window, by holding the SHIFT key when opening the Property dialogue. Only starting a message through command line options force use of the Mail Edit window. The default external editor is Notepad, however, this can be changed to an editor of your choice through settings in the nPOPuk.ini file. If desired, a setting within nPOPuk.ini can force the use of this editor, replacing nPOPuk's Mail Edit window completely.

Once the message is complete there are three options:

Send Immediately:
This saves it to the Outbox and initiates connection with the server in a single step.
(Menu: FILE > SEND NOW, Keyboard: CTRL+SHIFT+G)
Save and Mark for Sending:
This saves it to the Outbox and marks the message so that it will be sent at the next server update. Updating the server is the way you confirm to nPOPuk that you wish to carry out any of the three actions: Sending, Deleting or Downloading.
(Menu: FILE > SAVE AND MARK, Keyboard: CTRL+G)
Save it to the Outbox
Messages saved using this option will not be sent and remain in the Outbox indefinitely. This option is useful for incomplete or draft messages, or for storing a message template that when needed, can be copied, edited and sent.
(Menu: FILE > SAVE TO OUTBOX, Keyboard: CTRL+S).

Creating a New Message from the Main Window

The New Message Toolbar Button

The usual way to create a new mail item is click the envelope icon on the Main Window toolbar (Menu: FILE > NEW MESSAGE, Keyboard: CTRL+W).

Creating a New Message from the Notification Area Icon on the Task Bar

The Right-click menu on the System Tray Icon

If the Notification Area icon is showing it is possible to right-click on the icon and select "New message..." from the menu that appears.

Creating a New Message from an existing E-Mail

Address Information Dialogue

A new message may be created from the Address Information dialogue, reached from the File menu of a Mail View window.

Select an address from those listed on the dialogue and click the NEW MAIL button.

Creating a New Message from the Address Book

With the Address Book open, use the techniques for searching the address list, select the required address(es) and click the MAIL button.

NOTE: Holding down the CTRL or SHIFT key will enable multiple addresses to be selected. (CTRL permits individual addresses to be selected or deselected. SHIFT allows a block of addresses to be selected.)

Creating a New Message when starting nPOPuk

nPOPuk can be made to launch with the Property dialogue open, with many predefined details:

Mailbox: The account from which the message is to be sent
To: The address(es) to which message is to be sent
Cc: Any Carbon Copy address(es) to which message is to be sent
Bcc: Any Blind Carbon Copy address(es) to which message is to be sent
Subject: The message subject
Body: Any message Content
ReplyTo: An address to which any reply should be sent (other than the From: address)
Attach: Any files to be attached to the message

See how Command Line Options can control this behaviour.

The Mail Edit Window

The nPOPuk Edit Window

To open the Mail Edit window you must first use one of the approaches outlined above. The elements of the window are explained below.

It is possible to start a number of new messages as, unlike the Mail View window, Mail Edit windows are not limited to a single instance.

A full list of Keyboard Shortcuts that work in this window are listed on a separate page.

The Title Bar

The Title bar of the window shows its name and the subject line, as defined in the Mail Property dialogue, in square brackets.

The Menu Bar

The options on the File Menu and Edit Menu are described below.

The Toolbar contains a group of three buttons for the possible actions on completion of the message, one that re-opens the Property dialogue and one that finds text in the body area.

Resource Folder	Native	Description
		Send Now
		Mark to Send
		Save to Outbox
		Open Property Dialogue
		Find Text
		Find Next Occurrence of Text

The first four buttons duplicate the actions of the first four options on the File Menu. The Find Next button duplicates the action on the Edit Menu.

Under the Toolbar is the header area, which shows the principal mail properties. If they need to be changed, it is necessary to re-open the Property dialogue and edit them from there.

The Body Area

The main area of the window shows a cursor ready to accept text. Depending on the options seleced on opening the window may also show quoted text from a reply or for a forwarded message.

File Menu

The Mail Edit window File Menu

Send now: Immediately closes the window, saves the message in the Outbox, connects to the server, dialling if necessary, and completes a full update of the server.; CAUTION: This action not only sends the message in question, but also sends, deletes and downloads any other marked messages for the relevant account. Depending on the Account Settings and Global Options incoming mail may be checked as well.
Save and Mark: Closes the Mail Edit window and saves the message to the Outbox, marking it to be sent at the next server update.
Save to Outbox: Closes the Mail Edit window and saves the message. Typically, this option is used to save a draft message, that needs further editing before sending.; NOTE: The default behaviour relating to the three actions above is to switch to show the Outbox. You may wish to consider turning off this Global Option.

Property...: Opens the Property dialogue.
External editor: Closes the Edit window and re-opens the message body in an External Editor.
Save as...: Opens a File Save dialog to choose the name of a file to save the message as text.
Encoding...: Opens the Encoding dialogue. This option is normally accessed from the Global Options dialogue as part of initial setup of nPOPuk. It is only needed here if writing a one-off message in a language requiring foreign character set.
Attach files...: Opens the Attach files dialogue.
Close: Aborts the message being edited, closing the window.

Edit Menu

The Mail Edit window Edit Menu

Undo: Cancels the most recent editing operation.
Cut / Copy / Paste: Execute the standard Windows functions.
Paste as quotation: Pastes the text on the clipboard, wrapped and with the quotation characters defined through the Global Options dialogue.
Reflow selection: Wraps any selected text to the line length defined under the Send tab of the Global Options dialogue. This "intelligent" option is especially useful for reflowing complex multi-level quotations in replies and forwarded mail.
Select all: Selects all the text in the window..
Find...: Opens the Find dialogue to permit searches for specific text with in mail.
Find next: Continues the search for the previously defined string.
NOTE: The Find Next button on the toolbar acts as if selecting this option unless no text has been previously entered in the Find Dialogue, when the toolbar button opens the Find Dialogue instead.
Replace...: Opens the Replace dialogue to permit replacement of specific text within mail.
Paste from File...: Opens a standard Open file dialogue, with the defaults set to browse for *.txt files from the most recently opened folder. Browse for the required file, select it and click the Open button. The contents of the selected file is imported into the Mail Edit window at the location of the cursor.
Word Wrap: Toggles the text wrapping function. When selected, a check mark appears by the option and words are wrapped within the Mail Edit window.
Font...: Opens a standard Windows font dialogue that controls the appearance of text in the Mail Edit window.
NOTE: This setting has no effect on the message that is transmitted, which will be plain text. No special formatting of the mail is possible. The font seen by the recipient is determined by his own software.

Replying to and Forwarding Mail

Replies and Forwards can be generated from either the Main Window or the Mail View window as explained below.

As with creating a new message, initially, the Property dialogue appears, but when replying or forwarding, some fields of the dialogue will already be populated with data from the original message, e.g. the subject line will appear prefixed with "Re: " or "Fwd: " (Advanced users can adjust this text by editing the nPOPuk.ini file). While the Property dialogue is open, the further Recipients and Attach dialogues may be opened and their contents amended, as required.

Once all details are confirmed correct and the OK button on the Property dialogue is selected the Mail Edit window or External Editor is opened.

On a Reply, by default, the entire text of the original message is quoted within the body of the reply under a "reply header". Each line of the quoted text is preceded with a "> " character pair.

Regardless of the "Quote original message" setting on the Global Options dialogue, if any of the text of the original message is selected before initiating the reply then only that text will be quoted. (This facility is the recommended way to include the full message Header Lines if they are needed in the body of a reply.

If a signature has been defined for the account, this will appear below the quoted text. This approach assumes that the user will delete any of the quoted text not relevant to their reply and interject their responses between appropriate lines of the original text. To change any of these defaults adjust the settings on the Reply tab of the Global Options dialogue.

With a Forward a similar process can be followed. However, there are differences:

The To: line in the Property dialogue will always be blank and need completing
A different set of options for laying out the message are available, accessed from the Global Options dialogue
A warning is displayed where the message being forwarded has not been fully downloaded, with an option to abort the process.
Attached files are handled differently.

Unlike replies, attached files remain attached and will be included with the message, subject to:

The attachment must be fully downloaded. (The message and its attachments need not all be fully downloaded, but only those attachments that are complete will be forwarded.)
The HTML part of a message cannot be forwarded unless the entire message is sent as an attachment.

These attachments are visible in the Attach dialogue from the Property dialogue, prefixed with "Fwd:". To forward an entire message as an attachment, simply check the "Attach message" box on the Property dialogue. The message in the Attach dialogue will change appropriately.

WARNING: nPOPuk expects to be able to copy attachments out of the original message at send time. It issues a warning should you attempt to delete the original message before the forwarded copy is sent. If the message is deleted anyway, or nPOPuk is unable to find the original message for some other reason, sending the forwarded copy will fail.

To Reply or Forward from the Main Window

Context Menu on Main Window

To reply or forward from the Main Window, select the message, open the MAIL menu and select one of the following options:

Reply: to write to the original sender only
(Menu: MAIL > REPLY, Keyboard: CTRL+R).
Reply to all: to write to all recipients of the original message and the original sender
(Menu: MAIL > REPLY TO ALL, Keyboard: CTRL+ALT+R).
Forward: to write to a third party adding the contents of the original message
(Menu: MAIL > FORWARD, Keyboard: CTRL+O).

NOTES:

1. It is also possible to right-click a message when the MAIL menu opens as a floating context menu.
2. As with a new message, if the SHIFT key was held when starting the Reply or Forward, the External Editor will be invoked.

To Reply or Forward from the Mail View Window

To Reply or Forward from the Mail View window, simply click the appropriate toolbar button:

To create a reply only to the sender, click the white envelope icon with the single left pointing arrowhead (Menu: FILE > REPLY, Keyboard: CTRL+R)
To create reply to all the recipients as well as the original sender, click the white envelope icon with the double left pointing arrowhead. (Menu: FILE > REPLY TO ALL, Keyboard: CTRL+ALT+R)
To forward a message, click the envelope front icon with the right pointing single arrowhead on the Mail View window toolbar.(Menu: FILE > FORWARD, Keyboard: CTRL+O).

When replying from the Mail View window, it is possible to select only particular addresses to which to post a reply. To do this, open the Address Information dialogue, reached from the File menu.

NOTE: As with a new message, if the SHIFT key was held when starting the Reply or Forward, the External Editor will be invoked.

External Editor

Using an external editor can be particularly useful for:

Printing a copy of an outgoing message, either before or after it is sent.
Turning your favourite text editor into an e-mail program!

To use the external editor in place of the Mail Edit window, hold a SHIFT key while clicking on the menu option, or toolbar button used, to open the Property dialogue. Similarly, if using a keyboard shortcut, add SHIFT to the keystroke.

The default external editor for nPOPuk is Notepad. Its only significant benefit over the Mail Edit window is that it offers printing facilities. The external editor used is controlled by settings in the nPOPuk.ini file and may be changed. The external editor may also be made the default mail editor, replacing completely the Mail Edit window, by editing the nPOPuk.ini file.
NOTE: Editors that use a multi-document interface may not be suitable for use with nPOPuk. Suggestions for suitable external editors are found in the F.A.Q section.

Holding SHIFT when opening a message in the Outbox will also open the external editor rather than the Mail Edit window. (Sent messages cannot be edited. Any changes attempted when using the editor are discarded.)

As the editor window opens, a file is created in the nPOPuk data directory with a randomly numbered file name that will hold the text of the message. When created, it will already contain any signature text and, in the case of a reply or forward, the text of the original message. . Complete the message as required and save the file. This will update the file containing the message. Finally, quit the editor. This will update the SendBox (the SendBox.dat file) incorporating the text in the message file and delete the temporary message file.

The Sent Mail Window

Sent Mail Window

Once mail is marked as sent in the main window, it can no longer be opened in a Mail Edit window. Instead it opens in a revised version, the Sent Mail window. The change is indicated by the changed Title Bar which shows the revised name.

The main difference between the two windows is that mail cannot be edited in the Sent Mail window and both the FILE and EDIT menus reflect this change.

Sent Mail Window - File Menu

The FILE menu shows two message navigation options and one to create a new message based on the sent item currently open. The first three buttons on the toolbar match these changed menu options.

Sent Mail - Edit Menu

On the EDIT menu those options that allow editing are disabled, leaving just those that control display active.

KNOWN ISSUE: The option to open mail in an external editor is provided to allow sent mail to be printed. If you never use an external editor for writing mail, it is recommended that you define an editor in the nPOPuk.ini file which has a command line switch that sets files to be opened in "read only" mode and use the nPOPuk.ini setting to set that switch. Without this it is possible to edit message text before printing, although any changes made are discarded and not incorporated into the saved sent message.

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