GNUMail.app User's Guide

by Martin Brecher <martin@mb-itconsulting.com>


Contents

Exploring GNUMail.app

The first look
The application
The application icon
The application menu
The Inbox window


The first look [top of page]

Now that we have set up the preferences, we should take a look at interface of GNUMail.app first. If you are already familiar with NeXT and GNUstep applications this might be boring for you. You may want to skip this chapter... but you may get to know some new details nevertheless.

The application [top of page]

The first thing GNUMail.app will do after launch is open the Inbox mailbox in which new mails are stored. However it will complain that no messages are in there. The following screenshot shows what GNUMail.app looks like after the fist start (and finished configuration).

No messages yet! After the first launch
No messages yet! The first impression
(Click the images for a full size view)

The application icon [top of page]

In the bottom left corner you can see the application icon. It is a 64x64 pixel big tile featuring a small image which symbolizes the application. Apart from telling you that the application is running on your desktop, app icons feature some other - more useful - functions:

  1. You can hide the application with all of its windows and menus 'behind' its app icon and bring it back double clicking the icon.
  2. You can dock the application by dragging its icon to the Dock. There you always have quick access to launch the application or bring it back to front.

The application menu [top of page]

On the left side you see the application menu. Unlike other graphical user interfaces, it is the NeXT way to have a separated and free floating menu which is not tied to a special window. The menu vanishes when you change your focus to another application (for example by clicking with the mouse on another program's window) and appears again as you change your focus to GNUMail.app again.

As the other GNUstep windows, the menu has a black title bar featuring the application's name. Below the title the menu contains eight menu items. The first six contain sub menus which is indicated by the little arrow they have on the right side. The two other items ('Hide' and 'Quit') are usual functions. As their names indicate, Hide will hide the application (you can bring it back by double clicking on the application icon) and Quit... well... you will see. The letters beneath a item tell you the hotkey of this function; you can use the hotkey by pressing ALT + CTRL, so ALT + CTRL + h will hide the application. - By the way, again the NeXT way of designing interfaces shows up by the placement of sub menus above normal items which makes orientation and menu navigation easier and more coherent.

Submenus follow the same design principles that the main menu does follow. You can open a submenu by clicking on the corresponding menu item. Additionally, you can drag sub menus off their parent and move them around on the screen as you like and close them again by clicking the small 'x' button which will appear in the title lines of the detached submenus.

The Info submenu The Info and Mailbox menus have been detached
The Info menu Detached menus
(Click the images for a full size view)

As an example, we will discuss the the top one, the info submenu, which is present in every application. It contains an entry for the Info Panel which shows you the version of the application and information about the authors and the license under which the program is distributed. Next, we find the Preferences entry which will bring up the Preferences panel we dealt with before. The Help item has its text printed in grey in difference to the other items - that means this is not available at the moment...

The Info Panel
(Click the image for a full size view)

You may have noticed that all the items in the Info menu have three dots ('...') at the end of their titles. This means that those items will open a panel or a window when clicked. Menu items which do not have those three dots they will just do 'normal' actions like the 'Get New Mail' item in the Mailbox menu which will just check for new mail.

The Inbox window [top of page]

Basically we can divide the window into three sections: the buttons at the top, the message list at the center and the viewing pane at the bottom.

Empty Inbox window
(Click the image for a full size view)

Well, that is enough for now. Later we will discuss this window in detail. To be able to further explore GNUMail.app, in the next chapter we will write ourself a message ...