GNUMail.app User's Guideby Martin Brecher <martin@mb-itconsulting.com> Reading Mail [top of page]Overview [top of page]This part will describe in detail the Mailbox windows that you already know from the "First Look" chapter. Apart from listing the mails contained in a mailbox, and letting you read their contents, these windows also let you perfom some actions on messags like replying, deleting etc. The Window Layout [top of page]First let us take an in depth look on the layout of the Mailbox windows to make you more familiar with their features and functions. General structure [top of page] As can be seen from a first glimpse the Mailbox window is structured into three parts. From top to bottom, first we have the Toolbar. Second there is the Message list showing the mails which are contained within this the currently opened mailbox. Last we have a huge text field, the Viewing pane, which shows you the contents of the message you have selected from the message list. The Toolbar allows you to easily perfom several actions on your messages or to quickly acccess often used functions using it's buttons.
The Message List [top of page] The Message List contains all the mail that is contained in the mailbox. Above the list there is a small line resembling some statistical figures about the mailbox: The total number of messages in this mailbox, the number of unread letters and last the amount of mail you have currently selected. Beneath the figures, the size of the messages is given within braces. ![]() The Message List composites of several columns. At the top of the list field there is a header giving names to the different columns. You can resize the columns by pointing to the borders of the header cells and dragging them smaller or bigger. ![]() Id: Every message in the mailbox has an unique id number to be correctly and individually treated by GNUMail.app. The numbers are generated when you open the mailbox, starting with the first message up to the last one. Status: This field can show you additional information on the status of a message by containing one ore several letters:
Date: The fields of this column tell you the date on which the message has been sent. From: Usually shows the name of the author; if no name is given, it shows the source email address. Subject: Presents the subject header of the message. Selecting a message in the list will show its contents in the Viewing Pane. You can select multiple lines by holding the mouse button and dragging the cursor up or down extending the selection. Also you can add single lines to the selection by clicking on the given line while pressing the SHIFT key on your keyboard. - This actually works in all GNUstep apps. Selecting messges can be simply done by using the menu: "Message -> Select All Messages." The Viewing Pane [top of page] As said before the Viewing Pane shows you the contents of a selected message. On the top of the pane, GNUMail.app shows you some of the headers of the message. Normally, the Date:, From:, To: and Subject: headers are shown but, as you know, you can change the define which headers to show in the Viewing preferences. Additinally you can easily make GNUMail.app show you all headers by using the menu function "Message -> Show All Headers" and switch back to the defined ones by using "Message -> Show Filtered Headers". Additional Functions [top of page]Saving to a file [top of page] In some cases you may want to have the text of a message in a text file, maybe for further editing or special backup purposes. You can easily save the content of the selected message to a file using the menu function "Messag -> Save text from message". Mark as read/unread [top of page] You can easily mark new messages as read or already read messages as unread by using the menu. On the one hand, marking mails as read is especially useful if you want to quickly discard mails without having to read/select them one by one. Just select them using the mouse and click "Message -> Mark as read." On the other hand you can also mark mails as unread. E.g. mails you want reply to next day or important messages you want to reread carefully. Viewing the raw source of a message [top of page] If you want to see the raw source of a message (including all headers, HTML-code etc), just use the menu function "Messag -> Show RAW Source". A small window will pop up showing you the entire and unformatted contents of the message. ![]() Directly adding addresses to the Address Book [top of page]
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