Page updated 1 November 2012
Introduction
An INI file holds data necessary for the initialisation of a program or
processes used within it. Most modern programs hold initialisation data
in the Windows registry. However, nPOPuk, which is designed to be
portable, cannot use this technique, and uses a file "nPOPuk.ini"
instead.
INI files are plain text files that are divided into sections, each of
which has a heading in upper case and enclosed in square brackets. Under
each heading will be a varying number of settings, each on its own line.
These take the form "settingname=value". Where there is no value
associated with a setting the program will use a default value.
The nPOPuk.ini file typically has three headings:
- [GENERAL]
- Contains settings common across all mail accounts.
- [RASINFO]
- Contains settings for each dialup connection. Passwords are
encrypted.
- [MAILBOX-0]
- Contains settings for the default mail account. Additional accounts
and Saveboxes generate further [MAILBOX-x] sections (with increasing
values of "x").
Advanced users often customise programs by editing their INI files
using a text editor. However, nPOPuk is provided with an Options Editor
that will access the vast majority of settings even an advanced user is
likely to want to edit. Using the internal Options Editor also avoids
the need to close nPOPuk first. (Using an exernal editor has the
disadvantage of not having a mechanism for forcing nPOPuk to re-read the
settings from the revised file.)
Important Note
The nPOPuk.ini file not only holds program settings, but also data
about the most recently downloaded mail. Windows' System Restore
facility takes regular snapshots of INI files, and depending on the
version of Windows and the location of the file that may include
nPOPuk.ini. Should your computer develop a problem and a System Restore
be executed, the record of each account's transactions with the server
may be reset to those applicable at the system restore date, effectively
corrupting the file. The simplest solution is to protect the file from
reversion, by renaming it (e.g. nPOPuk.xxx) before undertaking a System
Restore. Once the restore is completed the nPOPuk.ini file should then
be overwritten with your renamed file. However, there is a more
sophisticated alternative that uses a special inifile
setting within the nPOPuki.ini file.
Options Editor
WARNING: Editing an INI file is
potentially dangerous as invalid
values can crash nPOPuk and may
destroy mail data. It is also possible to set illegal values
that will impede the performance or make the program unusable.
The Options Editor is restricted to the settings in the [GENERAL]
section of the INI file. The editor is accessed by holding down the
SHIFT key while selecting "Global Options..." from the File
menu of the main window. Initially a confirmation dialogue appears
before the editor itself opens.
New values for the settings are parsed and come into effect when the
editor is closed by clicking the OK button.
Most users will not need to use the Options Editor as many of
nPOPuk.ini's entries are controlled by dialogue box settings and are
written to nPOPuk.ini as the dialogue "OK" button is clicked. The
Options Editor is provided to permit the editing of entries, described
in the following section that can only be edited manually.
Settings
This section is restricted to discussion of settings that can only be
edited manually (Those listed as "Undocumented", are part of the base
code written by Tomoaki Nakashima that appear to have no means of being
edited within the Program and whose function has not been fully
investigated by the nPOPuk programming team.) For those who wish to
explore further the full range of settings a Commented
INI File is available that provides some further information.
NOTE: Comment lines in the file
may start with either a semi-colon (;) or a hash (#).
General Settings - Manual Edit
The settings listed here are from the [GENERAL] section and limited to
those that can only be edited manually. Items are listed in the order
that the entries appear in the file.
All values are shown with their default value. Note that text values
are always enclosed in quotes.
- DataFileDir=
- Determines the location of nPOPuk's Mailbox and Address Book files.
The default is the program folder. Takes either a full drive and file
path, or relative path. e.g.:
DataFileDir="C:\My Documents\nPOPuk data\"
DataFileDir="..\..\data\"
NOTES:
1. Ensure that the named folder exists. Move all files, apart
from nPOPuk.exe and nPOPuk.ini, from the program folder to the named
folder before re-launching nPOPuk.
2. nPOPuk.ini may also be moved to this folder but ONLY IF the
program is launched with an appropriate Command
Line Option.
- BackupDir=
- Stores the full path of last used backup directory (See: Backup...
on the Main Window File menu). The string is NULL if the backup
feature has not yet used.
- Version=3000
- The revision level of the program that was used to create the file.
It is incremented when a new feature is added that is not supported by
previous versions. As such, you are discouraged from changing the
value manually.
- SocLog=0
- Controls the generation of a file (nPOPuk.log) which logs the server
communication and optionally further debugging information. At the
start of each nPOPuk session any existing nPOP.log file is deleted. A
new one is generated as nPOPuk next terminates and only if there has
been material to report in that session, so the log does not normally
grow to any significant size!
0 = No Log
1 = Generate nPOPuk.log
NOTE: Values >1 may enable
additional messages, particularly on beta test versions
- LvFontName=
- Sets the font used in the body of the main Main Window and header
areas of the Mail View and Edit windows. e.g.:
FontName="Tahoma"
- LvFontSize=9
- Sets the font size used in the body of the main Main Window and
header areas of the Mail View and Edit windows. e.g.:
Font=10
NOTES:
1. Changing the default setting has no effect unless a font has been
specified under LvFontName=.
2. As the space allowed in certain windows/dialogues does not change
to allow for larger text than the default altering this setting is not
recommended.
- LvFontWeight=0
- Sets the font weight used in the body of the main Main Window and
header areas of the Mail View and Edit windows.
0 = Normal
700 = Bold
NOTE: Not fully tested. Other values may be possible.
- LvFontItalic=0
- Sets the font style used in the body of the main Main Window and
header areas of the Mail View and Edit windows.
0 = Plain
1 = Italic
- LvFontCharset=0
- Used to select a different character set for the LvFont.
0 = ANSI
1 = Default
2 = Symbol
etc. (See: Determining
the Character Set Used by a Font at the Microsoft site.)
- StatusBarCharWidth=7
- Sets the multiplier for calculating the size of the first panel in
the Status Line. This panel is calculated by the formula:
(Width of Panel in Pixels) = (Characters in Panel) *
(StatusBarCharWidth)
- TimeZone=
- Variation from GMT, A -/+ prefix indicates earlier or later than
GMT. A four digit value where the first two digits represent hours and
the second two the minutes. Daylight savings Times are allowed for
automatically. e.g.:
TimeZone="+0930" (Nine and a half hours later than GMT).
NOTE: If this setting is blank (the default) nPOPuk uses the
Windows time zone.
- StartHide=0
- Controls whether nPOPuk runs minimised.
0 = Opens as controlled by Windows
1 = Always Opens Minimised
NOTE: This option over-rides the standard Windows facility for
shortcuts, or items in the Startup folder, which allows a program to
be run Minimised, Maximised or in a Normal Window.
- TrayIconToggle=0
- Controls the behaviour of a left-click on the Notification Area
icon.
0 = Makes nPOPuk the active window.
1 = Switches Main Window between being minimised and the active window
- StartInit=0
- This setting is controlled through the Initialise dialogue, so would
not be documented here but for the complex interaction with the similarly
named setting in the [MAILBOX-XX] section
Controls whether nPOPuk initialises account data on launch
0 = Details of the most recent message found at the POP Server are
retained.
1 = Details of the most recent message found at POP server are
deleted. (In effect, this option initialises ALL accounts on launch.)
2 = Fills in from 1 and applies to [GENERAL] and [MAILBOX-XX] entries.
The [MAILBOX] setting can't decrease the [GENERAL] one. If [GENERAL]'s
StartInit=2, then all Mailboxes will behave as though StartInit=2
(regardless of what they have set). If [GENERAL]'s StartInit=1, then
this will be used for any Mailbox that doesn't have StartInit=2. If
[GENERAL]'s StartInit=0, then the Mailbox setting prevails.
- LvStyle=9
LvStyleEx=1056
- These two settings control the Main Window display. With appropriate
settings it is possible to get Large or Small icons displays rather
than the default "Details" view. The values are OR'ed into the style
when creating the main (ListView) window. You have to know what bits
to set for the style you want. (See: http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms632600.aspx)
- Sets the minimum width below which the mailbox pane cannot be
resized by dragging the separator bar
- PreviewPaneMinHeight=35
- Sets the minimum height below which the preview pane cannot be
resized by dragging the separator bar
- Determines which headers to show in the preview pane. For a
description of the codes available see the Place Holders
page
- PreviewedIsReadTime=5
- Sets amount of time a message must be in the preview window before
being marked read. A positive number is the time, in seconds; 0 means
the message should be marked read as soon as it is previewed; a
negative number means previewing a message never counts as reading it.
- SaveboxListCount=10
- Sets the number of Saveboxes to exist to enable the appearance of
the Transfer dialogue (rather than a cascading menu) when
Moving/Copying to a Savebox.
<=n = Cascading menu appears
>n = Transfer dialogue appears
- DelIsMarkDel=1
- Determines the effect of the DEL, SHIFT-DEL and CTRL-DEL
keystrokes.
DelIsMarkDel= |
Keystroke |
Accounts |
Saveboxes |
=1 |
DEL |
Mark to Delete |
Delete from List |
CTRL-DEL |
Mark to Delete |
No effect |
SHIFT-DEL |
Delete from List |
Delete from List |
=0 |
DEL |
Delete from List |
Delete from List |
CTRL-DEL |
Mark to Delete |
No effect |
SHIFT-DEL |
Delete from List |
Delete from List |
Setting =0 returns the behaviour of the DEL and CTRL-DEL keystrokes to
that of nPOPuk versions prior to v2.11 (SHIFT-DEL had no effect prior
to v2.11).
- RecvScroll=1
- Controls scrolling of Inbox accounts in the Main Window.
0 = No scrolls takes place
1 = Scrolls so the most recently downloaded message is visible.
(This doesn't always work! More research needed!)
- SaveMsg=1
- Under construction!
- AutoSave=1
- Saves data files after all principal actions affecting data.
(There are a number of things that don't cause an autosave, e.g.
marking messages read/unread/replied/forwarded, changing the Word wrap
status on the Mail View window and Delete attach on the Main window.)
0 = Off
1 = On (saves after all accounts have been checked/updated)
- 2 = Really on (saves after each account is checked/updated)
- PromptSaveOnExit=0
- Controls the appearance, on exit, of a dialogue to prompt to save
all files.
0 = Off
1 = On
NOTES:
1. For the command line option "/q"
to work without interruption, set to zero.
2. Implemented at the request of PocketPC users as it can take a long
time to write to flash memory on that platform. The need for this
facility should have been superseded by the Load Mailboxes settings on
the Advanced tab of the Global Options
dialogue.
- FixContentType=1
- Fixes the Content-Type header line of messages sent from mail
programs that are not compliant with RFCs.
0 = Content-Type header is not changed
1 = For a multipart/alternative message sent by Apple Mail, nPOPuk
will check to make sure that the parts are in fact alternatives, and
that none of the parts contains an attachment. If an attachment is
found, the Content-Type header will be changed to multipart/mixed.
2 = checks multipart/alternative for all mailers, not just Apple
Mail.
- AddressJumpKey=0
- Controls the column to be searched for a matching entry in the
Address Book.
0 = Mail Address
1 = Comment
- AutoAddRecipients=0
- Controls the default setting for the "Add new recipients to address
book" check box that appears on the Property
Dialogue when creating a reply.
0 = New Recipients NOT added
1 = New Recipients added
- AddressShowGroup=
- If set to a string equivalent to a group/category name, the Address
Book will open showing only addresses in this group/category. e.g.:
AddressShowGroup="TOP10"
- ESMTP=0
- Controls the sending of EHLO/HELO command. According to: http://docs.sun.com/source/816-6027-10/pror.htm,
EHLO replaces older HELO command for SMTP clients that support SMTP
service extensions. Can be issued at the start of the session to see
which extensions the server supports.
0 = HELO sent (EHLO is used automatically for SmtpSSL or SmtpAuth.)
1 = EHLO sent
- SendHelo=
- Controls the domain sent to the SMTP server as part of the
authentication process.
The default is the Mail Address for the sending account. e.g.:
SendHelo="npopuk.org.uk"
- PopBeforeSmtpIsLoginOnly=1
- Normally, POP before SMTP is used for an account's SMTP server only
as an authentication device and mail is not collected. This setting
allows mail to be collected.
0 = Mail is collected from the POP3 server
1 = Mail is not collected from the POP3 server
- PopBeforeSmtpWait=300
- Assumed to be a delay in milliseconds between negotiation with the
POP server and SMTP server with the POP before SMTP setting is used
for an SMTP server.
(Not yet confirmed!)
- NoEmptyMailbox=0
- Designed to provide a work around for occasions when GMail is having
problems and it erroneously reports 0 messages on their server.
0 = Deletes all mail from accounts when the POP server reports no mail
1 = Keeps mail in spite of POP server reporting no mail
- ReSubject="Re: "
- Text inserted as prefix in subject line of replies.
- FwdSubject="Fwd: "
- Text inserted as prefix in subject line of forwarded mail.
- ReplyTo=
- An address, or comma separated list of addresses, entered here will
appear above any others on the ReplyTo: drop down list on the Mail
Property dialogue.
NOTES:
1. If E-mail software finds a "Reply-To:" line in the message
headers any reply will go to that address, rather than the one in the
"From:" line.
2. Do not confuse this setting with the similarly
named ones in each [MAILBOX-x] section
- Bura=
Oida=
- Under Construction! Used for line-breaking in double-byte character
sets (eg Kanji)
- CAFile="ca.pem"
- The ca.pem file is used to check the server's identity. It is an
X.509 type of root certificate and may be needed if the verify boxes
are checked in the setup SSL section. Files containing the
certificates of major certificate authorities can be downloaded from http://curl.haxx.se/docs/caextract.html
and from http://www.thawte.com/roots/index.html.
- IPCache=1
- Sets caching of the server (SMTP and POP) IP addresses. When OFF
nPOPuk is forced to resolve the server name to an IP address every
time it sends mail. Not recommended!
0 = IPCaching OFF
1 = IPCaching ON
- EncodeType=0
- Under Construction!
Apparently allows filenames to use extended character sets.
- ActiveNewMailMessage=0
- Controls the appearance of the "New Mail" dialogue.
0 = Shows only if nPOPuk is not the active window
1 = Shows whether or not the nPOPuk window is active
- ExecEndSoundFile=
- Sound file to play after a server update when no new mail arrives.
Takes a full or relative path. e.g.:
ExecEndSoundFile="C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA\DING.WAV"
ExecEndSoundFile="MYSOUND.WAV"
- ItemPlaySound=0
- Controls whether sound files are played when selecting messages in
the main window.
0 = No sound is played
1 = The appropriate sound file (if present in the Resource
subdirectory) is played:
New Mail |
NEW.WAV |
Partially downloaded mail |
PARTIAL.WAV |
Fully downloaded mail |
FULL.WAV |
Mail with attachment |
ATTACH.WAV |
Mail with HTML attachment |
ATTACH_HTML.WAV |
Mail without icon |
NO_ICON.WAV |
Unread mail |
UNREAD.WAV |
Read mail |
READ.WAV |
Mail marked for download |
DOWNLOAD.WAV |
Mail marked for deletion |
DELETE.WAV |
Mail marked for sending |
SEND.WAV |
Sent mail |
SENT.WAV |
Error reported on sending mail |
ERROR.WAV |
Mail Flagged for Follow-up |
FLAG.WAV |
- NoIgnoreErrorTimeout=0
- Automatically clear Send and Receive Error Warning Dialogues
0 = Clear dialogue manually
1 = Clear dialogue automatically
Allows auto check activity to continue!
- TimeoutInterval=120
- Sets the timeout (in seconds) for various network operations.
- ReorderSendbox=1
- Determines whether the Outbox should automatically be reordered to
keep unsent messages (drafts) at the bottom.
0 = Do not reorder the messages
1 = Reorder automatically
- ViewApp=
- Relative or full path and filename of the program to use as the
external viewer. If no application is specified, the application
associated with the file type defined at ViewFileSuffix= is
launched. e.g.:
ViewApp="C:\WINDOWS\NOTEPAD.EXE"
ViewApp="..\EDITOR\TEXTED.EXE"
- ViewAppCmdLine=
- holds any command line parameters of application specified at
ViewApp=. e.g.:
ViewAppCmdLine="/P $npop_view.txt"
NOTES:
1. For the command line parameters to function an application
must be specified at ViewApp=.
2. nPOPuk generates a file with the name "$npop_view" and the
file extension specified under ViewFileSuffix=, so the example here
will print the selected message when Notepad is specified under
ViewApp=. (See the Printing Mail page for
more examples.)
- ViewFileSuffix="txt"
- The file extension to be used when generating the file to load into
an external viewer application.
NOTES:
1. Consider using "htm" to display and print HTML mail. (See the
Printing Mail page for more examples.)
2. The setting is also used by the function that strips HTML
tags from messages with no HTML part.
- Text and coding used to reproduce header information when mail is
exported to the external viewer. The codes available are explained on
the Place Holders page.:
- ViewAppClose=0
- Controls closure of the Mail View window when external viewer is
opened.
0 = Does not close.
1 = Closes.
- DefViewApp=0
- Toggle use of the Mail View window.
0 = File defined at ViewFileSuffix=/ViewApp= will act as external
viewer
1 = File defined under ViewFileSuffix=/ViewApp= replaces the Mail View
window.
- AutoOpenAttachMsg=0
- Controls whether Attached file dialogue appears
0 = Dialogue appears (Open/Save options)
1 = Dialogue by-passed (Attached files that are messages, i.e. RFC822
or text/plain in digests, will open. The Attached file dialogue shows
for other types.)
- ViewWindowCursor=0
- Controls whether a cursor appears in the Mail View window
0 = No cursor
1 = Cursor appears
With a cursor it becomes possible to use the keyboard to select text.
- ViewShowAttach=0
- Controls whether a list of attachments is appended to the message
body. Double-clicking on the attachment name will open the associated
file.
0 = No list
1 = Attachments are listed
- EditApp=
- Full or relative path and filename of program to use as the external
editor. If no application is specified, the application associated
with the file type defined at EditFileSuffix= is launched. e.g.:
EditApp="C:\WINDOWS\NOTEPAD.EXE"
EditApp="..\..\Program Files\NOTEPAD.EXE"
- EditAppCmdLine=
- Any command line parameter to be used when launching the external
editor.
NOTE: For the command line parameters to function an
application must be specified at EditApp=.
- EditFileSuffix="txt"
- The file extension to be used when generating the file to load into
the external editor application.
NOTES:
1. nPOPuk generates a file with a random numeric name and the
file extension specified here.
2. This file is merged with Sendbox.dat then deleted as the
editor is closed.
3. Unless an application is specified at EditApp=, the default
editor for this file type is opened.
4. If an unrecognised file extension is set and EditApp= remains
empty, then nPOPuk reverts to the internal editor.
- DefEditApp=0
- Toggle use of the Mail Edit window.
0 = Mail Edit window used for editing.
1 = An external editor is used for editing.
- AttachPath="attach"
- Controls the name of the sub-folder of the data directory (See DataFileDir=)
to which an attached file is initially extracted when it is opened
(rather than saved). If no name is specified, the data directory is
used.
- AttachDelete=1
- Controls the retention of opened files (See AttachPath=).
0 = Extracted files are retained when nPOPuk is closed
1 = Extracted files are given an "_attach_" file name prefix. On exit
of nPOPuk the following deletions occur:
- All files with the "_attach_" prefix found in the folder
indicated by the AttachPath= setting
- If it exists and is empty, the folder specified in the
AttachPath= setting
- StripHtmlTags=1
- Controls handling of mail with no plain text part. (For a more
refined approach, use the ViewApp= and
associated settings.)
0 = Display Full Message, including all HTML tags
1 = Strip HTML tags, preserving any "http://" Links
NOTE: nPOPuk normally only displays the plain text part of a
message. To view any HTML part, either use View
Source or the External Viewer.
- URLApp=
- Full or relative path and filename of program to use to replace the
system's default browser when clicking URL links in nPOPuk.
e.g.:
URLApp="C:\Program Files\JanSoft\Act10\Act10.exe"
URLApp="C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\mozilla.exe"
URLApp="OperaPortable.bat"
- URLAppCmdLine=
- Holds any command line parameters of application specified at
URLApp=. This will most commonly be needed by those launching a .bat
file at URLApp= and needing to include the URL to be launched as a
parameter. e.g.:
URLAppCmdLine="%1"
NOTES:
1. For the command line parameters to function an application must be
specified at URLApp=.
2. The command processor, CMD.exe, will fail to open a URL that
includes &'s, so any url that includes more than one parameter,
such as:
http://url.com/?par1=1&par2=2
needs to be quoted to avoid CMD.exe misinterpreting it and not passing
it to the browser. In the example %1 stands for the URL that nPOPuk
parsed from the message body.
- IniFile=
- Specifies the path and name of the file that will act as the
"nPOPuk.ini" file. e.g.
IniFile="MailData/config.txt"
this setting is designed to make nPOPuk resistant to corruption as a
result of a Windows System Restore operation. In use it will be the
only line in the nPOPuk.ini file. The contents of the "true"
nPOPuk.ini will instead be copied to the named file, in the example
above "config.txt".
EXPLANATION: Windows sometimes
(it varies between versions of Windows and exactly where the
nPOPuk.ini file is placed) will restore the nPOPuk.ini file, replacing
the current version with an old one from the restore point used..
Because the nPOPuk.ini file records data on the number of messages in
each mailbox and the ID of the final message, replacing the current
version with an old version can have extremely undesirable results.
For this reason, the use of this setting is strongly recommend for use
on any Win32 installation.
Mailbox Settings - Manual Edit
This second group of settings are from the [MAILBOX-x] section(s). Only
the following settings are neither controlled by the Accounts
Settings dialogue nor updated during communication with the
server.
- NewMailSoundFile=
- Allows the setting of a sound file to be played when new mail
arrives in the account. A different sound file can be chosen for each
account.
- ReplyTo=
- For each Mailbox, an address entered here will appear as the
default, replacing the (Omit) entry that otherwise appears in the
Replyto: box on the Mail Property
dialogue.
NOTE: Do not confuse this setting with the similarly
named one in the [GENERAL] section.
- StartInit=0
- Controls whether nPOPuk initialises account data on launch
0 = Details of the most recent message found at the POP Server are
retained.
1 = Details of the most recent message found at POP server are
deleted.
2 = Fills in from 1 This setting can't decrease the [GENERAL] one. If
[GENERAL]'s StartInit=2, then all Mailboxes will behave as though
StartInit=2 (regardless of what individual [MAILBOX]es have set). If
[GENERAL's StartInit=1, then this will be used for any Mailbox that
doesn't have StartInit=2. If GENERAL's StartInit=0, then the Mailbox
setting prevails. NOTE: Do not confuse this setting with the similarly named one in the [GENERAL] settings
section.