Page updated 1 November 2012
Downloading Mail Bodies
In the Main Window, if there is no read or unread icon beside the mail item you wish to read, you will first need to mark for download the body of that item and then update the server. Once there is such an icon clicking on the item will open the Mail View window.
The Mail View Window
To read a mail item select the desired Mailbox in the Main Window (Menu: MAILBOX > NEXT/PREV, Keyboard: Tab toggles between the Mailbox pane and message list. Up/Down Cursor keys select Mailboxes/messages. Enter opens the selected Mailbox/message.) and double-click (Keyboard: ENTER) the item to be read. The Mail View window opens.
A full list of Keyboard Shortcuts that work in this window are listed on a separate page.
The Title Bar
For Accounts, the title bar of the Mail View window will show the account name and [message number] in brackets. The number reflects the order of receipt by the server and does not change if the message list is sorted on any column.
For Saveboxes, the title bar shows the [Savebox name] in brackets and (source account) in parenthesis.
The Menu Bar
The options on the Mail and View and Transfer Menus are described below
The Toolbar
The Toolbar buttons are shortcuts to a range of options on the Mail and View menus. The button images vary depending on whether the Resource folder is installed or the native buttons built into the program are used. Fuller descriptions of the actions are provided Further information about these actions are described in the menu sections below.
| Resource Folder |
Native | Description |
 |
 |
Show Previous Message |
 |
 |
Show Next Message |
 |
 |
Show Next Unread Message |
 |
 |
Reply to Message |
 |
 |
Reply to All Recipients |
 |
 |
Forward Message |
 |
 |
Find Text |
 |
 |
Find Next Occurrence of Text |
 |
 |
Mark to Download Current Message (Inactive in Saveboxes) |
 |
 |
Mark to Delete Current Message (Only available in Accounts) |
 |
 |
Delete From List (Only available in Saveboxes) |
 |
 |
Mark as Read (When Depressed) |
 |
 |
Mark as Flagged (When Depressed) |
The Header Area
The header area within the window shows the Sender and Subject, and if not the sole recipient, the contents of the To: and Cc: lines, as appropriate. Appearance of the date is controlled from the View menu.
The full e-mail headers are discarded by nPOPuk unless the appropriate Global Option has been set before the message is retrieved. To view the full headers, choose the View Source option from the Extended View Menu. The full headers contain such technical information as the message's routing to reach the recipient, the e-mail program and version used by the author to create the message, and they are normally only required for investigating certain kinds of mail problems.
The Body Area
Normally, nPOPuk displays as much of the plain text part of a message as has been read from the server. Some messages will be multi-part, in particular those with HTML attachments. These attachments also may or may not have been fully downloaded. It is also possible that mail with no plain text part is received.
To assist, various advisory notes may be displayed within the message body area providing information about message status and prompting for actions which may be taken to display such messages in the form intended by the sender. The following notes may appear at the top of the body area:
- [nPOPuk: text/html available; double-click to view in browser]
- An HTML attachment is present and fully downloaded. Doubling clicking on any word within this advisory note will launch the default web browser and open the message within it.
- [nPOPuk: text part complete but text/html is not; double-click to download]
- This note can only appear in Accounts. The text part of the message can be read in full. Double-click on any word within the advisory note to mark the message for download and update the server. This action will initiate a connection if one does not exist.
- [nPOPuk: text part complete but text/html is not; cannot download in savebox]
- This note can only appear in Saveboxes. The text part of the
message can be read in full. However, the HTML part cannot be
displayed and cannot be downloaded.
NOTE: It may still be possible to retrieve the full message, if the copy in the account which first received it, has not been deleted from the server.
- [nPOPuk: HTML tags removed; double-click to view in browser]
- This note will appear when a message that has no plain text part is fully downloaded. The HTML tags have been removed, leaving only the unformatted text, which should be easier to read. This removal behaviour can be changed by editing the nPOPuk.ini file. Doubling clicking on any word within this advisory note will launch the default web browser and open the HTML-formatted message within it. It may be necessary to edit some settings in the nPOPuk.ini file to optimise the behaviour for this kind of mail.
- [nPOPuk: HTML tags removed]
- This note will appear where a message that has no plain text part
is only partially downloaded; since the full HTML content is not
available, it is unlikely to display properly in a web browser.
NOTE: It is still possible to read the full body of the message by using the View source option on the View menu.
In addition, the following notes may appear at the foot of the displayed message:
- [Message has no text part]
- In rare cases, a message can be sent that has no text part; perhaps someone sent just a picture.
- [nPOPuk: Incomplete message; double-click to download]
- This note can only appear in Accounts. Double-click on any word within the advisory note to mark the message for download and update the server. This action will initiate a connection if one does not exist.
- [nPOPuk: Incomplete message; cannot download in savebox]
- This note can only appear in Saveboxes. An incomplete copy of the
message was archived in the savebox.
NOTE: It may still be possible to retrieve the full message, if the copy in the account which first received it, has not been deleted from the server.
- [Attachment: filename.ext]
-
nPOPuk can also display, in the message body, a notice for each attachment to the message. This information is always available from the Extended View Menu. If you prefer to have the attachments also listed in the message body, check the appropriate box on the Global Options View tab. If the attachments are listed in the body, double-clicking on the filename will bring up a dialogue asking if you want to save or open the file with the associated program (holding down the CTRL key while double-clicking will open the file without the dialogue).
Attachments, including the HTML part of a message, normally have to be saved first and handled by an external program.
nPOPuk will only create a single Mail View window. If a further item is opened for viewing, the new one replaces the existing contents of the Mail View window.
Any full URLs (those that include the "http://", "https://" or "ftp://" prefix), which appear in a message, are clickable and will open in the default browser, defined in the registry. The browser launched can be controlled by editing the nPOPuk.ini file.
E-mail addresses (a "mailto:" prefix is NOT required) are also clickable and will open the Property dialogue, with the address included in to "To:" line ready for creation of a new message.
The Mail Menu
- Prev mail / Next mail / Next unread mail
- The first group of options on the Mail menu control navigation through the Mail list in the Main Window. As they are selected so the contents of the chosen item fills the Mail View window. For individual mail items, the "Prev mail" and "Next mail" items are constrained to the current Mailbox. When used within a mail digest, they move to the next digest item, with a return to the digest "envelope" on reaching the first or last item.
- If the Global Option to "Scan all mailboxes for unread mail" is at its default setting, the "Next unread mail" option, will jump to the next Mailbox holding unread mail, if there is any.
-
The Space bar operates in a similar mode to the CTRL+Enter keystroke, but additionally will "page down" though any mail item longer than the Mail View window will display.
The action taken when there are no further messages or messages have been marked for deletion or moved is controlled through the Global Options dialogue.
- Reply... / Reply to all... / Forward...
- In the second group "Reply...", "Reply to all..." and "Forward..." operate conventionally, moving to the facilities for replying to or forwarding messages.
- Address Information...
- The Address Information dialogue shows all mail addresses found in the message header lines and provides facilities to reply or create a new message to any combination of those addresses or add them to the Address Book.
- Mark for Download / Mark for Delete (Accounts Only)
- "Mark for Download" and "Mark for Delete" change the status of the message as indicated. A check mark appears beside the menu item when either is selected. The corresponding toolbar buttons stay depressed when selected.
- Delete from list (Saveboxes Only)
- Deletes the current mail item. A warning dialogue will appear before the item is deleted.
- Mark as read / Mark as unread
- "Mark as read" and "Mark as unread" change the status of the message as indicated. The corresponding toolbar button will show depressed when in the read state.
- Save as...
- The "Save as..." option opens the standard Windows dialogue. The default file name will be the message subject line. The file extension defaults to "txt", but this can be configured in the nPOPuk.ini file.
- External viewer
- By default, the "External viewer" option opens the currently
displayed mail item in Notepad.
NOTE: By editing the nPOPuk.ini file both automatic printing of mail and the use of alternative viewers becomes possible. The Printing Mail page provides further guidance. - Close
- The "Close" option closes the Mail View window.
The View Menu
The View menu can be opened either from the Menu bar or by a right-click in the main area of the window. The version shown here is that which will display for simple text messages.
An extended version of the menu is shown if the Global Option "Include header lines" is set or has attachments. (Mail list digests are presented as a message with multiple attachments.)
- Copy
- This option is conventional taking the selected text onto the clipboard.
- Select all
- Another standard function, Select all will select the entire body of the message displayed.
- Find...
- Opens the Find... dialogue which enables searching though the subject line and body of the current message or entire Mailbox.
- Find next
- Find next searches for the next occurrence of the text input to the
Find dialogue.
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. - Wrap text
- Forces text in the main display to wrap within the window.
- Font...
- "Font..." opens a standard Windows Font dialogue. This controls the
font used in the body area of the Mail View window.
CAUTION: Using over-large fonts can corrupt the window display.
- Show date
- When "Show date" is checked, the date and timer is shown within the header area of the window. The format of this data is controlled from the Global Options dialogue.
- View source
- Shows the full contents of the message (subject to any partial retrieval) including the full headers (if the appropriate Global Option has been set) and any attachments.
The Extended View Menu
When viewing a message with attachments, a mail list digest, or when the Global Option to include headers is selected, an extended menu, similar to that on the right, will be shown. Other variants of this menu are seen when View source or a Message attachment item are selected.
NOTE: Mail List digests are presented as a message with a number of attachments. Typically, the first and last attachments are shown as "text/plain" and contain, respectively, a list of the subject lines of messages included in the digest and a footer to the digest. The remaining items take the subject line of the original message.
The extended View Menu has the following additional options:
- View images
- If nPOPuk detects any attachments are images, it
will launch the default image viewer to show the images.
NOTE: The method used by this option is not perfect. Any attached images are saved to the program's attachpath= folder in order to be available to the viewer application. If the viewer used includes a facility to browse through images in the folder, then other images saved to the folder will also be displayed besides those attached to the current message.
- Save attach
-
Opens the "Save Attachments" dialogue box. The main part of the dialogue shows a list of all attachments, all of which are selected, by default. On clicking the "Save" button, all selected files will be saved to the directory identified in the "Save to:" field.
- The complete list of files can be toggled through use of the "Select All" and "Select None" buttons. Multiple files can be selected using the conventional SHIFT-Click and CTRL-Click techniques.
- An alternative directory can be browsed for by using the [ ... ] button. The "Save" button completes the save action and the "Cancel" button aborts the process.
- NOTES:
1. See also the individual File name options.
2. A text/html (and certain other unnamed types of attachment) will be given a randomly generated hexadecimal file name. - Delete attach
- Deletes all the attachments listed in the bottom section of the menu.
- Filenames
- The final batch of one or more options show each of the attachments
to the message. Certain attachments are listed under generic titles,
e.g. the HTML portion of a message is shown as "text/html" on the
menu. Other files are shown by their file name.
Except in the case of mail list digests, selecting any of the items listed at the bottom of the menu opens the "Attached file" dialogue. This will display details of the file and provide options to open or save it.
If an attachment is a recognised document, then shift-clicking on the item will by-pass the dialogue and open the file without further interruption. (This makes reading HTML mail, the way the sender wanted you to see it easy - but be aware of the risks with this kind of mail.)
-
Where the attachment is one of the messages contained in a mail list digest, selecting the attachment (including shift-clicking) will behave as with any other attachment, except that it opens in the Mail View window.
NOTE: The additional parts, or attachments, are only detected, and listed at the bottom of the menu, if sufficient lines have been read from the server (See: Global Options/Recv). Partially downloaded attachments are greyed out and cannot be saved.
The View Source View Menu
When viewing message source code the menu changes again. All options remain as before except for:
- View text
- Returns you to viewing the original plain text part of the message.
The Attached Message View
Menu
When viewing an attachment that is itself in message format, i.e. a "message/rfc822" attachment (for example a message contained in a digest) yet another form of the menu appears that includes a "Return to original" option.
- Return to original
- Sends you to the original message. (In a digest this will typically be the "envelope", usually containing general notes on the mail list owner, e.g. how to contact the list owner, post messages and subscription information.)
NOTES:
1. On this menu the "View source" option shows the source of the current
message only.
2. Should the attached message also have an attachment (for example,
because it has an HTML part) then the menu will be extended with "Save
attach" and options showing the attachment type or name as described for
the Extended View menu.
The Transfer Menu
The Transfer Menu allows mail to be copied or moved to a Savebox from another Savebox or Account. If a message is to be moved from an account, the original message will not be deleted immediately. Instead it is marked for deletion and will be removed from the account at the next server update.
- Copy to / Move to
- If no Saveboxes have been created, the cascading menus show only a "(New)" option that opens the "Add Savebox" dialogue. This works in the same way as the Add mailbox dialogue, described on the Mailboxes page. Once a Savebox has been created it is added to the cascading menus that appear for either the Copy to or Move to menu option.
- When there are more than 10 Saveboxes the Copy to/Move to options show an ellipse, indicating the Transfer dialogue will appear, rather than the cascading menu. (Shown here is the "Copy to:" Transfer dialogue. Only the legend changes on the "Move to:" Transfer dialogue)
- NOTE: The point a which the switch is made from cascading menu to the Transfer dialogue can be controlled through a setting in the nPOPuk.ini file.