5. Marcel - electronic mail

ELECTRONIC mail is simple to use and a great time-saver for exchanging information with other computer users. It is much quicker than the traditional post and has the advantage over faxes that information does not need to be retyped at the other end.

5.1 About mail

What you can send and receive

Electronic mail allows you to send text and data files, with or without varying degrees of formatting, to other electronic mail users. You can send a message to a single recipient, or to several people at once.

Just as with the ordinary post, you can also send parcels of larger items. Any program or data file can be attached to a message and sent with it.

You can also subscribe to mailing lists about subjects which interest you. There are thousands of mailing lists on the Internet covering a vast range of subjects. Most are maintained automatically: you send a message to subscribe and then will receive messages automatically.

• You should be aware that Internet electronic mail is not a secure means of communication and that you should be cautious about sending information such as credit card numbers by open email. If you want to send such details then it is best to encrypt them in some format.
  If you are sending them to another Acorn user, then enclosing them in a Drawfile with the text converted to paths would be undetectable on any other computer system.

Who you can send it to

You can send mail to any address on the Internet, and to some users of other communications services which maintain a connection, or `gateway', to the Internet.

If you attempt to send mail to an address which could not possibly be a valid Internet address, Marcel can issue a warning.

Mail formats for file transmission

Several different methods are used for encoding files to be sent for transmission across the Internet. Marcel aims to take the worry of dealing with Internet mail formats away from you.

• When sending files and messages you can choose the required format: the default setting for mail is MIME unless you specify a different format in the Mail setup dialogue (see Marcel mail setup on page 5-68). Other formats supported are MIME, UUencode, !Email, and BtoA.
• When receiving attached files Marcel can decode any of the formats MIME, UUencode, !Email, BinHex, and BtoA.

5.2 Mailboxes and multiple mailboxes

Depending on your service provider and method of connecting to the Internet, you may have one or more mailboxes into which your mail is delivered.

As shipped, the suite has a single local user called root, and a user `home directory' called UserDir. These are set up automatically by the configuration utility. Unless you specifically add other users and mailboxes, all mail will be sent into the same inbox when Marcel receives it.

Once you have installed and configured the Internet Suite you will probably have one of three setup types:

1. Dialup service with your own mail domain or node (for example, Demon service).
2. Dialup service with at least one POP3 or IMAP mail account (this includes almost all other Internet service providers)
3. Online Ethernet access to mail via an IMAP server: this applies to most networked users.

To set up and access multiple mail accounts you should follow the appropriate steps as outlined below.

Multiple mail boxes - Demon

If your provider (for example, Demon) gives you your own node name for which you can set up unlimited user names, you need to use the Local users facility in the Internet Suite configuration program to set up the users you require. Mail to each user can then be sent to their own inbox, for example

tom@company.demon.co.uk

sales@company.demon.co.uk

tech-list@company.demon.co.uk

See the section Local users on page 4-18 for details of how to set up local users.

Each local user (as setup in the configuration utility) has a home directory, which contains their mail folders and a personal copy of !MarcelDir, which holds all their setup for mail and news. This means that each user can have their own signature file, address book, warning settings and so on.

When you try to run Marcel you must choose a user from a list of those who have been set up, and enter a password if one has been set up. An asterisk shows those who have new mail waiting to be read. You do not need to enter a password to read local mail unless you have set one up.

• You can also use the Internet Suite alias system to redirect incoming and outgoing mail, so that mail which arrives to names which are not local users is redirected to the appropriate mailbox. See the section Aliases and mailing lists on page 4-16 for details of adding aliases and mailing lists..

POP and IMAP mailboxes

Single accounts

If you only have a single POP/IMAP account, then setup is simple. You will not need to change the settings automatically entered in the Mail setup section of the Internet Suite configuration utility.

Mail will go into the default local user called root and you should choose this whenever you log into Marcel.

Multiple accounts

If you have multiple POP/IMAP accounts, then you need to enter the details of each in the mail setup dialogue box. See section 4.5, Mail setup for details of how to do this. For each account you add via the Mail account dialogue, you will need to set up a local user: see Local users for details.

If you want to receive mail addressed to more than one address in the same mailbox, use the alias system to redirect incoming mail. See Aliases and mailing lists for details.

• Because your service provider controls the public name of your mail account(s), you will need to ask them if you want to setup extra mail accounts, and you may need to pay additional fees.

Online mail users

Online IMAP mail users can still make use of 'local users'. You may wish to setup different news and mail configurations, for example to direct mail from a mailing list directly into its own inbox.

Online users must check that their servers are correctly identified in Marcel's Mail setup dialogue box.

Since you won't be using the offline mail system, you can ignore mail setup and mail aliases in the configure program.

5.3 Configuring Marcel

Before you can use Marcel to read email or news you need to set some additional options contained within the Marcel program.

You will be prompted to do this the first time you try to run Marcel. If you have more than one local user set up, each user will need to enter their own settings the first time they connect to a Marcel mail or news server.

To load Marcel:

1. Load the Internet Suite by double-clicking on its icon.
2. Click Select on the Internet icon to display the Internet Suite applications panel.
3. Double-click the Email & News icon in the panel to load Marcel, the Suite's email and news reader.
4. A grey Marcel pillarbox icon will appear on the righthand side of the icon bar:

Entering mail details

When you first run Marcel:

1. You will see a warning box asking you to set a return email address. Click OK.
2. The Marcel choices window will appear:
3. Enter your name in the Real name field. This is used in all mail which you send.
4. Enter your return Email address. You must get this right or other mail users will not be able to reply to your messages. If you are unsure of your address, check with your service provider or network administrator.
5. Click Save to complete the setup process, or click each icon in turn to customise the Marcel setup and then click Save.

• If you are running Marcel as a standalone application, or if you have stored Marcel outside the Internet Suite's directory structure and not run the InetSuite application, you may initially see a different dialogue box which prompts you to choose a location to store !MarcelDir, the program which stores all Marcel's user information.

Marcel mail setup

1 Click Mail setup in the Marcel choices dialogue box to configure Marcel's mail setup:

The installation process will have preconfigured this dialogue box correctly: however, you may change some of the options.

2 If you intend to read your mail online, tick the IMAP option. You can also enter your User name and Password to save typing them in when you log on.

• Offline users should not select this option.

3 If you also intend to send mail while online, tick the SMTP server box and enter the name of the SMTP server to use.

• Offline users should not select this option.

4 If you do not wish to save copies of your sent mail, uncheck Save sent mail. You may also name a different Marcel folder (see Setting up folders to store mail for details).

5 Uncheck the option New mail sound if you do not wish to hear a notification sound when mail arrives in the Marcel inbox.

6 Choose the required Files encoding option. Click the menu button to display a list and choose the format you require: see Attaching files for details.

7 Tick Open mailbox when Marcel loads to display the Inbox automatically when Marcel is loaded.

8 Tick Open mailbox when new mail arrives to open the mailbox automatically when new mail arrives.

9 Click Close to return to the Marcel choices dialogue.

Signatures and headers

Every message you send out will contain a header and can also contain a signature or `sig' message.

1 Click Edit signature in the Marcel choices dialogue.

An editing window will appear in which you can enter a short message to be appended to any news or mail articles you post using Marcel:

Replace the text with the text you want, but leave the initial

--

intact on a line of its own - it is the standard method for indicating the start of a signature. You might wish to include contact information such as your email address, phone number, company affiliation and any required disclaimer. Keep your signature as short as possible, preferably two or three lines.

2 Save the text file using the Save option in your editor.

3 Click Edit headers to open an editing window to edit the text posted out in the headers of your messages:

• Do not delete or change the X-organization: part of the header. Only change the text following it, and keep it to a single line.

4 Save the text file using the Save option in your editor.

News setup

See Chapter 6, News, for details of how to complete the News setup process.

Setting Marcel warnings

Marcel can be set up to issue warnings to stop you making some errors when using its email and news facilities. Some of these relate to use of Marcel, others to email and news etiquette. While the subjects of the warnings will not cause any problems with operating Marcel, you may wish to be notified of potential problems so that you can fix them.

To choose the warnings you wish to see:

1 Click Set warnings in the Marcel choices dialogue box.

The Set warnings dialogue box will be displayed:

2 Select the warnings you wish to see when sending mail or news by ticking their check boxes:

• Message is blank or unedited warns you against mailing a blank message or a reply which has not been edited.
• Subject line is missing warns you if you have not entered a subject for an email message.
• Changes have not been saved warns that your message has not been saved up to date - make sure you click Save in your editor before sending the message.
• Line length exceeds 80 characters means that your lines are more than 80 characters wide, so will be displayed with strange line-wrapping by most computers. Adjust the settings in your editor to wrap at 80 characters or fewer.
• Mail addresses may be wrong notifies you that you have entered an address which cannot possibly be correct, such as an incorrect alias.

3 Choose the warnings you wish to see when posting news:

• Cross-posting to multiple groups issues a warning if you attempt to post an article to more than three groups at once. This is a breach of Usenet etiquette.
• Article includes attached files warns that your article has a file attached to it. Except for *.binaries or *.sources groups this is a breach of Usenet etiquette.
• Quoted text exceeds new text warns that your article contains more quoted text from earlier messages than new material. Edit your reply to reduce the amount of quoted material.

4 When you have chosen the warnings you wish to activate, click Close, then click Save in the main Marcel choices dialogue box.

• See the sections Email etiquette and Usenet etiquette for more details of acceptable usage of email and newsgroups.

Updating Marcel settings

You can return to the Marcel choices dialogue at any time to update your settings by choosing Choices from the Marcel icon bar menu.

Setting up folders to store mail

Marcel automatically creates some mail folders to store your email. However, if you will send and receive a great deal of email, you should set up more mail folders to contain your mail. See Setting up mail folders for more details.

Keeping too much mail in your in and out boxes will increase memory usage and slow down the performance of Marcel. You should consider `archiving' old messages into folders once the contents of the in and out box reach around 100 or so messages.

5.4 Setting up your address book

To save time it is a good idea to keep an address book containing the email addresses of people and groups of people whom you contact regularly.

If you have address details in the address book, you can choose the address from the address book rather than type in all the details when you send a mesage.

Displaying the address book

To work with the address book:

1. Click the Address Book button. This is in the button bar of open Marcel folders, and also on the Send mail windows. The address book will be displayed:
2. To view the records in a different order, click on the Sorting list box. You can sort by name, surname or alias.
3. When you have finished with the address book, click OK to close it. This saves any changes you have made.

Adding a new address book record

Address book records can cover both individual correspondents and groups of email recipients. You can also add newsgroups to the address book.

To add an address book record manually:

1 Open the address book.

2 Type in an abbreviation (such as the person's first name) as the Alias.

3 Type in their real name in Name.

4 Type in their email address as Address.

• If you are setting up a group, add the addresses in full, separated by commas. If the group comprises existing aliases, put the insertion point in the Address field then click each alias you want to add to the list.

5 Click Update to add the new record to the list.

6 Click OK to save the changed list.

You can also capture address book entries from mail folder or message windows, and from newsgroup or article windows:

1. Select or open the required message or article.
2. Choose Set alias from the Message or Article menu.
3. The author's name and address will be added to the address book.
4. Type the shortform alias you want for the address in the Alias field.
5. Click Update to add the entry to the list, then OK to save the changes.

Editing address book records

To edit an address book record:

1. Select the alias in the list. It is displayed in the top half of the Address book window.
2. Make the required changes, for example updating the address or adding further addresses to a group alias.
3. Click Update.
4. Click OK to save the changes.

Deleting address book records

To delete an address book record:

1. Click Select on a record to select it.
2. Click Menu inside the Address book window. Choose Delete from the Aliases menu.
3. The alias will be removed from the list.
4. Click OK to save the changes to the address book.

5.5 Connecting to the mail server

Before you can do any work with Marcel such as reading mail you must connect to the Marcel `server' on your computer as a known user. This enables Marcel to display the correct inbox and use the correct settings for each individual user.

• When you are not connected to the server, Marcel has a grey pillar box icon with the text Marcel.
• When you are connected to the server, Marcel has a red pillar box icon with the name of the connected user:

Only one user can be connected at once. If you have set up several local users, for example to store mailing list traffic in separate in folders, you will need to connect to each one in turn.

To connect to the mail server:

1. Load Marcel.
2. Click Select on the grey pillarbox Marcel icon. The Connect to mail server dialogue box will be displayed:
3. If you do not want to connect as the root user (for example, if you have multiple mailboxes set up), click the menu button to the right of the User name field.
4. Choose the local user you want from the list shown.
5. If a password is required for that user, enter it in the Password box. If no password is required you do not need to enter anything.
6. Click Connect. Marcel will connect you as the requested mail user: the inbox and outbox and other mail folders which are displayed will be those of the requested mail user, as will the address book and other facilities.

When you are connected to the server, the Marcel pillarbox icon will be shown in red with the name of the connected user underneath. If there is unread mail in the mailbox, the pillarbox icon will bulge.

Disconnecting from a server

To disconnect a user from the server:

• Choose Close from the Marcel icon bar menu.

The current mail user will be disconnected and their inbox and any other open folders or messages will be closed.

The red pillarbox will be replaced by the grey Marcel pillar box.

5.6 Mail transfers

Your electronic mail needs to be transferred between Marcel and the outside world.

• Online users will receive new mail whenever it arrives at their network server. Outgoing mail is sent immediately when you click Send in the Send mail dialogue.
• Offline users can transfer mail when they connect to their service provider either manually or automatically. Some service providers (such as Demon) send new mail whenever you log on: for other providers you must request a transfer using the commands on the Internet Suite's icon bar. Outgoing mail is stored in a queue and transferred when you choose a transfer command from the Internet Suite's icon bar menu.

The Internet Suite sorts incoming mail and filters it to the correct local user, if more than one has been set up, or remails it to other addresses specified in the Aliases list (see Aliases and mailing lists).

Mail reception for offline users

If you are working offline with a dialled connection, you will need to explicitly transfer your mail. If you are working online (for example, with an Ethernet connection) Marcel will send mail immediately.

To transfer incoming mail:

1. Connect to your service provider, by clicking Menu on the Internet icon and choosing Connect.
2. When you are on-line, choose Mail from the Transfer menu (to send outgoing mail and download incoming mail).
3. Display the status of mail transfers by choosing Transfers from the Status menu on the Internet Suite icon bar menu. This shows the number of new messages to download and the number downloaded. Any new mail sent to you will be downloaded:
4. Once the mail has been downloaded you will see a series of messages as it is transferred to the correct local user's directory.
5. When the mail transfer is complete a `fat' pillarbox indicates new unread mail. If mail has been downloaded for other local users, their entry in the Local users menu on the Connect to mail server dialogue will have an asterisk.

Offline users - sending mail

To transfer stored outgoing mail:

1. Complete the document(s) you want to send, then address it and click Send in the Send mail to file dialogue.
2. Connect to your service provider, by clicking Menu on the Internet icon and choosing Connect.
3. When you are online, choose Mail from the Transfer menu (to send outgoing mail and download incoming mail).
4. Display the status of mail transfers by choosing Transfers from the Status menu on the Internet Suite icon bar menu. Your stored mail documents will be sent and any new mail sent to you will be downloaded.

Delivering local mail

Marcel can transfer mail between local users without transferring mail to and from the outside world. It does this automatically, but you can also force it to transfer local mail by choosing Deliver mail from the Transfers submenu on the Internet Suite icon bar menu. When you choose this option any messages edited by Marcel are examined and delivered to local users or placed in the outgoing mail queue according to their addressing.

5.7 Editing and sending mail messages

There are several parts to sending mail: writing the message, addressing it and sending it.

Writing mail

You can write your mail using any word or text processor, though it is probably easiest to use a simple text editor such as !Edit or !Zap.

When you open a Marcel addressing window, clicking the Edit button loads your chosen text editor.

Addressing mail

To address a message:

1 Click Select on the Marcel icon.

• You can also open an addressing window by dragging the icon of a saved text file on to the Marcel icon. In this case, you should click Editor and resave the file so that Marcel can attach your signature file to it.

An addressing window (Send mail to file for offline users, Send mail for online users) will be displayed:

2 Enter the recipient's details. Either type in an email address, or click the Address book button, place the caret in the To box and click on an entry in the address list. The alias will be displayed, but the full address is used.

3 Enter the subject of the message.

4 If you want to send a copy of the message to other recipients, enter their names or aliases in the CC (carbon copy) or BCC (blind carbon copy, that is, recipients cannot see the names of other addressees) box.

5 To keep a copy on your computer, type the name of a Marcel folder in the FCC line (the default is Mail.sent).

6 If you still want to edit the message you are sending, click Editor to work on it further, then save the edited document.

NOTE: If you do fail to save an edited document before sending it, Marcel will send the last saved version, which in some cases could be a blank window. Make sure that you save edited text in the application before sending it.

7 The Files option lets you choose how file attachments if any are encoded. See Attaching files for more details.

8 Click Send. This either:

• for Ethernet users, sends the document immediately.
• for dial-up users, stores the document ready for sending next time you connect. Transfer your mail as described in section 18.6.

Saving sent mail

Marcel will save a copy of your sent mail in the folder shown in the FCC field of the Send mail dialogue. The default is Mail.sent: change the folder in the Mail setup section of the Marcel choices dialogue.

You can save a message to multiple folders by adding more than one folder name, separated by commas

5.8 Reading mail

You will of course not only send but receive email. To read email which has been sent to you, you will need to download it into your Inbox and then read it using Marcel. If you are working on-line (with an Ethernet connection) mail will arrive in your inbox automatically at pre-defined intervals and you do not need to explicitly transfer it from your service provider: see Mail transfers for details.

Reading your messages

When you have downloaded your mail, you will see that there are new messages to read:

• The Transfers status window will show that a quantity of mail has been downloaded.
• The Marcel pillarbox will become full when new mail has been downloaded for the current local user.
• If the Inbox is already open, you will see the new messages in the folder listing.

To display the Inbox:

1. Double-click on the Email and News icon in the Internet panel.
2. Click Select on the grey pillarbox icon.
3. Choose a user in the Connect to mail server dialogue and click Connect.
4. The chosen user's In box will be displayed, showing the total number of messages and unread messages.

Mail folders

Mail folders contain a list of messages, along with toolbar buttons for working with them. The Inbox is a mail folder into which all the user's received mail is delivered: other folders contain sent mail, or can be set up by users to archive old messages.

• If you have selected Display mailbox when loaded in the Mail setup section of the Marcel choices dialogue, the Inbox will be displayed automatically when you load Marcel.

The above window shows the Brief info display format for mail folders. You can change the display format of the folder by choosing an option from the Display menu.

Messages often have a message status flag:

• U indicates an unread message
• D indicates a message marked for deletion
• A indicates a message which has been answered

Messages can have more than one status flag.

• Messages which are marked for deletion will be `greyed out' though you can still open and read them. They will not be deleted until you click the Tidy up button or choose Tidy folder from the Misc menu.

Mail folder display and sorting options

You can also change the way messages are listed and displayed in the Inbox.

Click Menu inside the Inbox (or any folder) window and choose Display from the Messages menu.

Choose one of the first three options to decide what information is displayed about a message. The current choice is marked with a tick:

• Brief info lists the recipient/sender, message subject, date sent/received and status.
• Full info gives the messages' number in the folder, whether it is a text file or has attachments, the sender/recipient, the file size, time and date, and subject.
• Wide info gives the same information as brief info but with the display of both sender and recipient names. This can be helpful, for example to see if mail was sent directly to you or from a mailing list.

The category by which folders are sorted can also be selected from this menu. Choose one of the first three, and set the final option as required:

• Sort by subject sorts alphabetically by subject text. Messages with the same subject are further sorted by date.
• Sort by date sorts by date sent or received depending on your choice from the Date sub-menu.
• Sort by sender sorts alphabetically by sender name and then by date.
• Reversed sort swaps over the sort order, so for example lists sorted by date show the most recent first.

Reading messages

You can read messages one at a time by opening and closing them from the mail folder, or browse through each message in turn using the browse buttons in the message window.

To read a message:

• Double-click Select on the message you want to read in the folder. The message will be opened:

Reading messages in text editors

You can read the message directly in Marcel, or load it into a text editor by clicking the Load into editor button.

This facility enables you to read a temporary copy of the message in your editor, and to save a copy of it from there or copy sections of it into another message or document. You cannot save this temporary copy of the message or use it as the basis of a reply.

• To reply to a message, click the Reply button and see Replying to messages.

Browsing messages

To browse through the messages in the Inbox without opening and closing each one individually:

1. Click the Up or Down button at the left of the message display window.
2. Further messages from the list will be displayed in turn in the message window.

Deleting messages

To delete the message:

1. Click the Mark for deletion button.
2. Next time you click the Tidy up button in the Inbox window, or choose Tidy folder from the Misc menu, the message will be deleted.

To undelete a message which has been marked for deletion:

1. Select the message in the mail folder.
2. Click Adjust on the Mark for deletion button.
3. The message will no longer be greyed out and will not be deleted when the Tidy up button is clicked.

Displaying a list of attached files

You can receive files attached to mail messages. If a message has an attached file, a folder button appears at the left of the message window, and in the message's entry in the Full info folder display formats.

Attachments in common formats are automatically downloaded, decoded and presented as a list of files attached to the mail message in a folder.

To display attached files:

1. Click the Folder button in the Marcel message window. If the attached files folder is already open, an open folder icon will be shown and clicking it closes the filer window.
2. A filer window will open containing the attached files:
3. Drag the file icons to the locations on your hard disc where you want to keep the files. There are other options available on the Attachments menu: see Attaching files to mail.

Message display options

You can customise the way that the contents of messages are displayed by using the Display menu from within the Message window. Selected options are shown with a tick.

To change your options, click Menu inside the Message window and choose one of the options from the Display menu:

• Choose Full headers to display the full email header, including information about the computers which sent the mail to you.
• Choose Window width and type a value in the Width menu to set the width in characters of the message window.
• Choose Window wrap to wrap the window at the width set. If this option is not set, you may not see all the text within the window.

5.9 Replying to mail

Replying to messages is similar to sending messages, but Marcel automatically completes the addressing window for you.

• With the Reply, Bounce and Forward options you can select multiple messages to act on by pressing Control and dragging across the message titles in the mail folder.

Replying to messages

You have the choice of sending a reply to the sender of the message or all recipients of the message.

If the message is open:

• Click Select on the Reply button to reply to the sender.
• Click Adjust on the Reply button to reply to all recipients of the message.

If the message is not open:

1. Click Select once on the message to select it.
2. Click Menu to display the Message menu. Slide off Reply on this menu.
3. Choose Sender or All from the Reply to menu.

Whichever method you choose, an addressing window will be displayed.

1. The recipient and subject will already be filled in, although you can edit them if you like.
2. Click Editor to write your reply. You will see that a copy of the message you received is already quoted in the window which opens.
3. Write your reply, including any quotations from the original message.
4. When you have finished editing, save your edited text and then return to the Send mail addressing window and click Send.

I If you do not save your edited text, Marcel will send the unedited version.

Forwarding mail

You can forward a message you receive to any other email address, or group of addresses. Note that forwarding does not include attachments.

To forward a message:

1. Highlight the message in the Inbox or open the message.
2. Click Menu inside the Inbox, or the message and display the Message menu.
3. Choose Forward.
4. An addressing window will be displayed. You will see that the Subject has (fwd) tagged to the end.
5. Enter the address of the recipient(s).
6. Edit the message if required - you may wish to append a note saying why you are forwarding this message.
7. Return to the addressing window and click Send.

Bouncing mail

To send a message on unchanged, and including its attachments, you can `bounce' it.

To bounce a message:

1. Highlight the message in the Inbox or open the message.
2. Click Menu inside the Inbox or the message, and display the Message menu.
3. Choose Bounce.
4. An addressing window will be displayed. You will see that the Subject is greyed out, as is the Editor button.
5.  Enter the address of the recipient(s).
6. Click Send.

5.10 Saving and managing messages

All messages that you receive are initially stored in your Inbox. However, they are stored internally by Marcel and are not accessible to other programs. To use messages with other programs you must save them as files.

Setting up mail folders

You may want to add extra Marcel folders for storing your old mail. It is a good idea to limit the amount of mail stored in each Marcel folder - large numbers of messages will increase the memory requirements of the program and reduce its performance.

To work with Marcel folders:

1. Click the Folders button on the Inbox.
2. You will see a list of existing folders in a filer window:

To create a new folder:

1. Click Menu inside the Folders filer window.
2. Choose Create from the Folders menu.
3. Type in the name of the new folder.

• You can also create a new folder directly from the Folder name option on the Message menu: see below.

Working with folders

With the folder filer window open you can select a folder and:

• Copy folders. Choose Copy from the Folder menu and enter a name for the copy of the folder.
• Rename folders. Choose Rename from the Folder menu and enter a new name for the folder.
• Delete folders. Choose Delete from the Folder menu. The folder will be deleted if you choose Delete in the warning box which appears.
• Create a new folder. Choose New folder from the menu and enter a name for the new folder.

Moving a message to another folder

Marcel folders are technically a single document. As you would expect, the more messages a folder contains the larger and more unwieldy it becomes. Operations such as tidying up a folder can become very slow with large folders.

It is a good idea to manage your mail by storing old messages in different folders and keeping only the most recent messages in your current In box and Mail.sent folder.

To move message(s) to a new folder:

1. Select the message(s) in the Inbox or other folder window. (Hold down Control and drag to select multiple messages: click Adjust to select more messages.)
2. Click Menu and choose Move to from the Message menu.
3. Slide off to the right to enter a folder name. If you have already moved a message in this session, the last folder used will be suggested.
4. Type in a folder name and press Return.

• If that folder exists, the message will be moved to the folder.
• If no folder exists with the name you enter, a message will appear asking if you would like to create a new folder with that name. Click Create to create the folder and move the message into it.

You can also copy mail between folders by opening both folders and dragging and dropping.

• Hold down Shift and drag the selected message(s) to move messages from the original folder.

Saving messages

To save a message outside Marcel as a text file:

1. Select the message in the Inbox or open it.
2. Choose Save from the Message menu, or click the Save button. The Save as dialogue will be displayed:
3. Type in the filename you want the message to have.
4. Drag the message to the filer window where you want it to be saved.

Saving attachments

To save attachments:

1. Open the attachments list by clicking on the Files button in the message window. This button only appears for messages with attached files.
2. Drag the file icons to the filer window where you want them to be saved.

Finding messages

To find messages within a folder, click the Search button in the folder display. The following dialogue will appear:

1. Click the Find option you want to use.
2. Enter the text you wish to search for.
3. Click Search.
4. Any messages found will be highlighted in the folder.

Deleting messages

To delete a message:

1. Open the message or highlight it in the Marcel window.
2. Click the Mark for deletion button.
3. Next time you click the Tidy up button, or choose Tidy folder from the Misc menu, the marked message(s) will be deleted.

• Adjust-click the Mark for deletion button to unmark the selected message(s).

6.11 Attaching files to mail

You can attach files to send with your mail, for example formatted documents, programs or other files.

Formats you are likely to encounter, and the way Marcel deals with them, are described below.

• Before sending a file to anyone, you should check what types of files they are capable of receiving.

Marcel can send and receive the following formats:

• MIME. This format is the most powerful and flexible. Most modern mail software, including Marcel, supports it.
• UUencode. This is an older format, which Marcel deals with transparently. DOS, UNIX and public domain mail software tends to support this format rather than MIME, so
• Acorn !Email. This is an old Acorn format which was primarily used by Acorn internally: Marcel deals with transparently.
• BtoA (Binary to ASCII), used on some UNIX systems, which gives better compression than UUencode but is not as standardised or in such common usage: Marcel deals with transparently.

Marcel can receive, but not send:

• Apple Macintosh BinHex files. These are files created and compressed using an Apple-specific format and are likely to have originated from Macintosh computers.

In all cases, attached files you receive will be stored with the message until you save them elsewhere on the hard disc. You will not need to decode the files, but you may need to decompress files sent as compressed archives.

• Attachments to a message should not exceed a total of 800k in size. Some mail servers bounce any message with total attachments exceeding this size. Get around this by using a compression program or sending several smaller messages.

Attaching files

To send a file which is not a text document:

1. Drag the file icon to the Marcel icon.
2. A Send mail addressing window will be displayed with the file shown as an attachment.
3. Complete the addressing window as usual.
4. You may want to add a text message to give the recipient details of the file you are sending: click Editor, enter and save your message.
5. Click the Send button. Your mail will be prepared for sending according to your preferences.

To attach a file to a text message, or to add additional files to a message:

1. Start addressing the text message as usual.
2. Drag the icons of any files you want to send to the addressing window.
3. An attachments list will be added to the window, or the file will appear in the existing attachments list:
4. Choose the required file format for encoding the file for transmission. The default format you chose in Marcel Mail Setup is suggested but you can display the pop-up menu and choose any of the formats available.
5. Ask your recipient what the most suitable format for their use is. Most commercial email packages support MIME encoding but public domain packages often do not. If in doubt it may be better to use UUencode.
6. Send the mail as usual.

Working with file attachments

When you display the file attachments filer window you can:

• Save selected files outside Marcel. You must do this in order to use the file with other applications.
• View details on selected files. This is useful if you have problems with a file you have received and need to get more information about the kind of file it is or how it was encoded.
• Run the attached file. If a file is a program file understood by RISC OS this option will run the program. You may wish to virus check any program files you receive over the Internet before running them.

To view file details:

1. Select a file in the Files window.
2. Click Menu.
3. Choose File info from the Attachments menu.
4. The About this attachment window will be displayed:
5. The file name, its type, size in bytes, encoding and MIME encoding type are shown along with the file icon.

To save a file outside Marcel:

1. Select a file in the Files window.
2. Click Menu.
3. Choose Save from the Attachments menu.
4. The Save as dialogue will be displayed. Enter a new filename if the existing one is unsuitable and drag the file icon to a filer window.

To run an attached file:

• Double-click on the file icon.

5.12 Keyboard short cuts

The following keyboard short cuts can be used with Marcel:

Key(s)	Effect
Address book
Ctrl-K	Clears all fields
Textview
CursorUp	Scrolls display up one line
CursorDown/Return/Space	Scrolls display down one line
PageUp	Scrolls display up page
PageDown Scrolls display down page
Home/Ctrl-CursorUp Scrolls display to top
Copy/Ctrl-CursorDown Scrolls display to end
CursorLeft Previous message
CursorRight Next message
Shift-CursorLeft Previous thread (news only)
Shift-CursorRight Next thread (news only)
Ctrl-CursorLeft First message in folder
Ctrl-CursorRight Last message in folder
Print Print message
Ctrl-Shift-G Toggle window to full size/back again
Ctrl-P Post reply to news article
Ctrl-Shift-P Post reply to news & Cc: sender
Ctrl-R Reply via mail
Ctrl-Shift-R Reply to all via mail
Ctrl-S Send message
Ctrl-Shift-S Post article (news only)
F4 Search message
F3 Save message
Ctrl-X Delete message, move to next
Alt-Ctrl-X Delete message, move to previous
Ctrl-Shift-X Undelete message, move to next
Alt-Ctrl-Shift-X Undelete message, move to previous
Ctrl-D As Ctrl-X (moves in opposite direction)
Ctrl-F Forward message
Ctrl-B Bounce message
F2 Show files toggle open/closed
Ctrl-F4 New view
Ctrl-F2 Close window

5.13 Hints and tips Returned messages

Sometimes a message fails to get through. You will usually be notified of this by automatic software on the server which has not forwarded the message. Often a message will explain what the problem could be, for example that you have addressed the message incorrectly.

• Check the address and change it if necessary. If the return message contains any suggestions, follow them and try again.

Email etiquette

• Keep your signature file shorter than four or five lines. Resist the temptation to include any large examples of ASCII artwork (pictures made up out of keyboard characters).
• Do not mail large files to users with dial-up accounts unless you know that they want them.
• If you know some-one's email address, do not give it to others without their permission. It is considered particularly rude to post someone's address to Usenet newsgroups without their permission.

Finding addresses

One difficulty with email is that there is no single centralised directory for finding other Internet users' addresses. In many cases the simplest thing to do is to phone up and ask them.

Other options include:

• Visiting their Web pages, which often contain email addresses for contacting members of the organisation.
• Using a commercial Internet directory or search engine such as www.dejanews.com or www.four11.com.

For further information on ways to track down email addresses, see the Email FAQ to be found at the URL

http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html, which is also regularly posted to newsgroups including comp.misc.mail.

Mailing to non-Internet services

You can send email to computer users on networks other than the Internet. Most networks, such as America Online, CompuServe, CIX, have an Internet interface so that their users can exchange mail with Internet users.

BT CampusWorld username@campus.bt.com

CIX username@cix.compulink.co.uk

America Online username@aol.com

Note that spaces are stripped from the user name.

CompuServe 12345.123@compuserve.com

Replace the comma in the middle of the user's CompuServe ID with a full stop.