5.0 Let's Do Mail; Electronic Mail 

This section is designed to instruct the user how to use the Netscape mailer to do the following: 


5.1 Why do E-mail? 

Why do E-mail? That's a good question. You could pickup the phone, or pay someone a visit, or send them a letter. So why E-mail? There are several reasons and advantages to using E-mail as a form of communication. Here are a just a few that come to mind:  You should know that E-mail on our system is private and secure. What that means is that no one can read your mail nor can you have access to other user's E-mail. 

 
5.2 Introducing the Netscape Mailer 

Earlier in the tutorial, you learned how to "surf the web" using the Netscape Navigator. Built into Netscape is an Internet compliant mail tool. In this tutorial, you will use the Netscape mailer to handle all of your E-mail operations. 

The Netscape Mailer is not the only mailer available on the system. In fact, there are probably at least a dozen different mail programs available. We chose to introduce you to the Netscape Mailer because of its simplicity, its user interface, and its commonality across platforms. 


  
5.2.1 Starting and Exiting the Netscape Mailer 

There are a several ways to run the Netscape mailer. Since the Netscape mailer is built into the Netscape web browser, if you already have the browser up, you can start the mailer by simply choosing it from the Window menu. If you don't have the Netscape browser up and running, you can select Netscape Mailer from the Network Tools submenu off the WorkSpace Menu (you'll remember the Workspace Menu is the pop up menu you can access from the desktop background using the right mouse button). The third way to run the Netscape mailer it to issue the command nsmail from an Xterm window. 

Like everything else, there's more then one way to exit or quit the Netscape mailer. As discussed in an earlier session, you can quit the mailer by double-clicking the window menu icon located on the left hand side of the title bar. The preferred way to quit the mailer is to use the mouse to choose Close from the File menu. 
 
 


Looking at the File menu you might be wondering what the difference is between Close and Exit? Good question, glad you asked. As was mentioned earlier, the Netscape mailer is simply and extension of the Netscape Navigator. Choosing Close from the File menu will close the current Netscape window. Choosing Exit from the File menu will exit all Netscape windows. 


 
5.2.2 Window Layout 

The Netscape mailer's main mail window consists of three panes: the mail folder pane, the message header pane, and the message content pane. 

The mail folder pane contains a hierarchical list of your mail folders and three columns:  Three Netscape generated folders can appear at the top of the list of folders:  You can add more folders to help organize your mail. Any new folders you create will appear after the automatically created folders. Creating new mail folders will be covered in a later session. 

When you select a mail folder by clicking on it, the message heading pane displays the titles of messages contained in that folder and the following columns:  When you select a message heading by clicking on it, the message is displayed in the message content pane along with header information such as Subject, Date, From, To, and CC. 

You can use toolbar buttons or menu items to move on to the next unread message or to read the previous unread message. 

You can resize each of the three panes to accommodate mail information by positioning the mouse pointer on the border lines between two panes (the mouse pointer changes shape) and dragging to the proportions you desire. 

The Mail toolbar buttons and menu items offer further options for viewing, creating, sending, and storing mail messages. 

 Here is a brief description of each of the mail toolbar buttons and what they do: 

Get Mail 

Connect to the mail server and bring any available mail messages into the Inbox. 

Delete 

Puts the currently selected message(s) into the Trash folder. To: Mail Displays the Message Composition window for creating a new mail message. The To field is left blank. 

Re: Mail 

Displays the Message Composition window for replying to the current mail message. The 

To field is pre-addressed to the original message's sender. 

Re: All 

Displays the Message Composition window for replying to the current mail message. The To field is pre-addressed to the original message's sender and all other recipients of the 
current message. 

Forward 

Displays the Message Composition window for forwarding the current mail message as an attachment. The To field is blank. The original Subject field is prefixed with Fwd. 

Previous  

View the previous unread message in the message list. 

Next  

View the next unread message in the message list. 

Print  

Prints the currently selected message in the message heading field. 

Stop 

Halts any ongoing transmission of messages from the mail server. 

There are of course the top layer menus that provide even more functionality. Also note that there is a pop up menu available within each pane when you click the right mouse button. Some of these menus will be explored later in the session. 

 
5.3 Reading Mail 

Enough looking around, let's read some mail. 

In order to read any new mail you first have to check to see if you have any. Move the mouse pointer over the Get Mail icon on the toolbar and click it using the left mouse button. If you have any new mail waiting for you then you'll see it displayed, if not, then you'll receive a message box indicating that you have no new messages. 


 

Get Mail? Get it from where? Glad you asked. When you receive mail, it is delivered to your personal (secured) incoming mail file within your account and it sits there until you "get" it. When you press the Get Mail icon, the Netscape mailer will check your personal incoming mail file to see if you have new mail. If you do, the mailer will move the mail from your incoming mail file to what's known as your Inbox file. You read the messages located in the Inbox file and either reply to them, delete them, move them to other mail folders, or simple ignore them. You wouldn't ignore your mail would you? 

Notice in the mail folder pane (Figure 17) that it now indicates the number of messages you have in your Inbox. Also notice in the mail heading pane that you see a list of message (depending on how many messages you received) titles. The titles show you who the messages are from, what the subject of the messages are and the date of the messages. 

The body of the message, along with a few message headers, is displayed in the message content pane. The message headers displayed with the body of the message are:  If the message is longer then what will fit in the message content pane, you should be able to scroll through the message using the scrollbars on the side of the pane. 

To view other messages in the message list, you can either click on the message title in the message heading pane or press the Next icon on the toolbar. 

 
5.4 Replying to Mail 

Now that you've read your mail, its time to reply to it. Here's how. Be sure the message you want to reply to is the current message. If not, then select the message you want to reply to by clicking on the message title in the message header pane. To setup the reply, move the mouse pointer over the Re:Mail icon located on the toolbar and single click the icon using the left mouse button. 

A separate Compose window should pop up and you should see something likeFigure 5.3. 

You'll note that the To field has already been filled in as well as the Subject field. The body of the message you are replying to is also included as part of the body of your reply. 

You'll notice that each line of the previous message is prefixed with the ">" character. This is what is known as "quoting the message". By including what the other person said as part of your reply message, it helps to give context to what you say in your reply. One word of caution, you can over quote a message and make it unreadable. A good rule of thumb is to only quote what is relative to your reply. Message quoting is an option and can be disabled if so desired. 

 
 

 
You have full control over what goes in your message. You can delete any unwanted lines, move things around, add your reply in between quoted segments, or whatever. Some users like to begin their reply at the end of a quoted message, others like to begin their reply at the top of the message and let the quoted message fall underneath it. How you setup your reply is totally up to you. 

Position your mouse pointer over the message content pane of the composer and click with the left mouse button. You should notice that you now have a blinking cursor. You can move this cursor using the standard arrow keys on the keyboard to reposition it where you want to start typing. Here are some key sequences you might find helpful when editing your reply:  Once you have successfully composed your reply, you're ready to send it on its way. To do that simply position the mouse pointer over the Send icon, located on the toolbar of the compose window, and click it with the left mouse button. When your reply has successfully been sent, the compose window will disappear. 

Congratulations, you're doing E-mail. Are you hooked yet? 

 
5.5 Composing Mail 

Since we're having so much fun, let's continue in the same vein and send out some new mail. 

To compose a new mail message, move the mouse pointer over the To:Mail icon located on the toolbar of the mailer and click it using the left mouse pointer. Just as it did when we setup our reply message, the Composer window pops up as a separate window. You'll notice this time that all of the fields are empty. That's because it doesn't know who we want to send the message to or what we want to say. (wouldn't it be nice if it could read our minds?) 

The first place to start is with the Mail To: field. The blinking cursor should already be there waiting for us to type. Who are we going to send this to? Good question. Just for the sake of an example, let's send this message to the author of this tutorial. If you look back at the title page of this tutorial you'll find that the author's E-mail address is specified as, dmarlin@stat.ufl.edu. 

 What kind of address is that? No zipcode, no PO Box number? Well, to answer the question, that is a fully qualified internet E-mail address. We won't go into the details of the internet E-mail address scheme or how internet E-mail works. Suffice it to say that it would take too long to explain and its not consistent with the focus of this tutorial. 

One thing that should be explained is that the address could be broken into two major parts. On the left side of the '@' character is the user's username. On the right side of the '@' is what is known as the Internet domain. The importance of this fact is that if you are sending an E-mail message to someone in the same domain as your own, it is not required that you use a fully qualified address that includes the domain suffix; the username is enough by itself. So, in our example, if your domain is stat.ufl.edu then you can address this message to dmarlin without having to include the domain as part of the address. 

Back to our message. With the cursor blinking in the Mail To: field, type the E-mail address of the author, dmarlin. Pressing the <Tab> key should advance you to the next field which is the Mail CC: field. If you wanted to send a carbon copy of this message to another user (even yourself) you can type in their address here. Press <Tab> to advance to the Subject field. In the subject field, type in a few words that generally describe the content and purpose of your message. Press the <Tab> key twice to advance past the Attachment field (outside the scope of this tutorial) and into the message content field where you can type in the body of your message. You can type anything you want. See the next section of the tutorial for a note about style. 

The same editing and navigational keys mentioned in the Replying to Mail section apply here also. When you have finished composing your message, move the mouse pointer over the Send icon located in the toolbar and click it with the left mouse button. The Compose window should disappear indicating that your message was sent. 

You're really getting the hang of this now. No more phone calls. No more games of phone tag. 



5.5.1 A Note about Style 

The style of your message is important. How it looks visually may determine whether or not it even gets read. Just as how you speak says a lot about yourself, how you present yourself in writing says a lot about you. Be careful what you say and how you say it. E-mail is not a perfect tool of communication, primarily since it doesn't allow for tone or inflection as your voice would when you speak to someone. Nevertheless, a well composed message can easily convey what you want it to. 

 Here, then, are some rules of thumb for good E-mail style: 


5.6 Managing your Messages 

You don't have much mail right now but you probably will before you know it. What are you going to do with all those messages? Keep them in your Inbox? Not a good idea. 

The Netscape mailer (like most mailers) provides you with the ability to create folders in which to organize your messages. Mail folders allow you to categorize your mail into separate areas and group like messages together. The proper use of mail folders will help you find that certain message a lot easier next time you go looking for it. 

Not every message needs to be kept either. If you don't think you'll ever need to reference a message in the future, then you should probably delete it. Most E-mail messages are pretty small and don't take up much space, but if you have hundreds of messages, just sitting around in your account, it can add up pretty quick. 

 
5.6.1 Using Mail Folders 

By now you probably have an Inbox folder and a Sent folder. Those folders were created for you by the Netscape mailer. How do you create your own personal folders? 

There are two ways to create a folder, we'll go over both and let you determine which is easiest for you. One way to create a new folder is to select New Folder from the File menu. The other method is to position the mouse cursor over the mail folder pane and single-click the right mouse button. That should pop up a menu from which you can choose New Folder. Either method will cause a dialog box to appear to prompt you for the name of the new folder. For the sake of an example, type in Intro and click the OK button. Your new Intro folder should now be visible in the folder list. 

That was easy enough, now how do you get your mail messages moved over to that new folder? It's easier then you might think. Just pick it up and drop it in the folder. This is another example of a drag and drop mouse maneuver. Position the mouse pointer over the message title in the message heading pane. Click the message title using the left mouse button and hold the button down as you drag the message over to the Intro folder in the mail folder pane. When your mouse pointer (which now looks like an envelope) is over the Intro mail folder, release the left mouse button. The message title will disappear from the message header list and the number of messages in the Intro folder will increment by one. It doesn't get much easier then that. 

Moving your messages over to categorized mail folders is the best way to organize your mail and is highly recommended. 



5.6.2 Deleting Mail 

Often, once a mail message is read, it may be discarded. This conserves disk space and reduces clutter within your inbox. 

To delete a message, simply make it the current message, then single-click the Delete icon on the toolbar. Netscape doesn't actually delete the message but rather moves the message to a mail folder named Trash. If the Trash folder doesn't already exist it will be created for you by the mailer. Since all the Delete icon does is move the message to the Trash folder, you can do that yourself like you did in the prior session by picking up the message title and dropping it on the Trash mail folder. 

You may be wondering how to really delete a message. Fear not, there is a way. Every now and then its a good idea to take out the trash (at least that's what my mother always told me). To empty the Trash folder you should select Empty Trash Folder from the File menu. Since you will be committing the messages to extinction, you will be prompted to be sure of your intentions.