3.2 Understanding the Interface

3.21 The Group List Main GUI

The main GUI is the area where you manage your folders, create news ones, create new messages etc.

The buttons are configurable through the settings GUI

3.22 Message List GUI

If you have used another email program recently (a program based on the old unix way of handling email messages) you will probably be quite stuck when you first use the Microdot-II interface. This is not a bad thing as in the longer term you'll sick back and realise that Microdot-II makes handling mail and news much easier that many other email programs.

As you will see from the image Microdot-II works by building threads. These are messages which relate to each other. If, for example, you created an email and sent this to a friend (with the subject:Voyager is great") your friend will most likely respond (and the subject heading would like like re:Voyager is great) with the same subject header. If you then replied to his reply and he, in turn, replied again, you would start to build a thread of mails which looked something like:

So what's so special about threads? Well, if you have 100's of mails in your mailbox (which can happen after a few months being connected to the Internet) it is very difficult to look back and follow "conversations" which have occured a few months ago. Say, for example, your friend had put a phone number within one of the "Voyager is great" messages and a few months later you remembered that the phone number was in one of these mails. With Midrodot-II you could look back through the mails and instantly find the "Voyager is great" threads (ie. collection of mails relating to one subject).

With a normal mailer (which does not work with threads) you would have to search through your mails one by one looking for the "Voyager is great" subject header which, in between 100 mails, may not be too easy to find!

Here are two images showing the difference between a threaded mailer and a mailer which works with the old unix-style line-by-line system:

Threads Example	Normal List Based

As you will see, the threaded approach is more more clear and easier to follow. In use, the threaded system is a god-send when you are working with many messages.

3.23 The Message Reader

If you double-click or press return on any message within the Message List GUI you will be able to read the contents of that message.

This GUI is split into various areas. At the top you have the section which gives you the essential information about the message - Who is it from, the subject, time it was written etc. Underneath this you have a set of "bulbs" which, if lit, inform you of an action. For example, if the bulb for read was lit it would tell you that you have already read this mail. If delete was lit then this mail would be marked ready for deletion.

Underneath the "bulbs" you have the area which contains the message. If the message is a MIME based you might have the option to SAVE or VIEW any attached files. If you look to the top right of this GUI the same options are available. You will see a attached files lister where you will be able to save or view attached files.

3.24 Understanding the "Write New Message" Interface

There are three sections to this interface. The first page, which will be the main window where you write your email, is the most important. The other two are more 'advanced' and will be explained.

Text Folder

When you want to create a new message this is the GUI where you would type your text. More information about creating a message can be found here.

• To: - you can enter one or more email addresses in here which will become the recipients of your email message. If you click on the to: button, the internal addressbook or Contact Manager (default in NetConnect) will start and you will be able to highlight users from within this addressbook.

• Cc: - insert one (or more) email address(es) where you want the message to be copied to. If you create a message for a friend, you may also want the mail to be copied to another friend. Again, you can click on the cc: button to launch the internal addressbook or Contact Manager.

• Group: - if you are creating a news message you should enter the group name within this box. "comp.sys.amiga.misc" is an example. If you click on the group button, you will be presented with a list of all your subscribed newsgroups.

• Subject: - this is the name you want to give to your email. Sometimes the name can be relevant. ie. if you wanted someone to read your mail urgently you could put "Chris - read ASAP', but don't do this for every mail! The subject line doesn't need to be relevant however. You could just have 'hi' as your subject.

• External Editor: - this button will launch the external editor as configured within the textinput MUI settings for Microdot-II.

• Insert text file: - you can directly insert an external text file into your email message. For instance, say you had written something previously, and you didn't want to re-write this, and you had the text file on your hard drive, you could click this button, a requestor will appear and you would simply select the text file.

• Attach file: - you can attach virtually any external file to your email message (although it is best not to send huge file attachments!). Simply click this button, choose the files you want to attach and they will appear within the attached files list.

• Signataure: - select a signature to be tagged to the end of your message. You will have created some signatures within the signatures editor.

• Status bar: - this shows the amount of new text written. When replying to a message you should remove as much of the text within that message as possible. Sometimes you see people write one line in a reply to a 300 line email (on a newsgroup or mailing list) but they didn't delete the 300 lines! This is often annoying to people on the mailing list.

• Send button - this button will attempt to send your message immediately. If Microdot-II is working offline, the message will be stored to send later. Sometimes, if you are using Genesis for local as well as dialup connections, you might find that Microdot actually searches for your SMTP server, but can't find it (as you are not connected to the Internet). Simply ignore this message and send the message next time you are conected.

• Store button - this option will store the message for editing at a later date. It will not be sent if you do 'send all queued messages' from the Microdot menu.

Attachments Folder

This part of the write new message window allows you to add attachments you want to send with your email message. Simply click the 'Attach file' button, a requestor will appear and you can choose the files you want to attach.

The MIME-type part is the type of file you are sending. If you want more information about this click here.

You can also view the attached files, but this depends on the type of MIME attachment and how you have set this up within the MIME Prefs.

Special Folder

• Bcc: - Back Carbon Copy allows you to send the message to a recipient without the recipients listed in to: or cc: knowing they have received it! This is quite a sneaky way of cc:'ing a message to someone, without the 'proper' recipients realising they have received it.

• F-Up: - allows you to define a "Followup-To:" header so newsgroup replies are sent to. News message option.

• Poster: - if you select this no public replies are allowed, any replies have to personal via e-mail. Again, a news message option.

• Custom header lines - allows you to define your own headers.

• Request Receipt? - request a receipt that the recipient has received the message you have sent.

• Priority: - you can assign a priority to an email. This doesn't make it send any quicker, but indicates to the recipient that the email is of a 'high priority' and therefore urgent.

3.25 Understanding the Flags

Column	Image	Meaning
First		unread (seen, but not read)
		new, not yet read
Second		deleted message
		archived (will not expire)
Third		replied to message
		forwarded message
Spool		unsent message in spool folder

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