Mozilla offers a very nice E-mail handler called Mail. At PCN, we encourage the use of Mail as it is nicely integrated with Mozilla. The use of Mail is very straight forward. In this document some important features are highlighted to help you become more at ease with the use of this software.

SOME BASICS

If you use a PCN supported machine with Mozilla installed, you should already have all necessary preferences properly set to allow you to extract your email messages from the PCN server. In case you wish to make changes to the preference settings, open the mail program. This can be done with the icon at the bottom of the screen or going to the Window menu and selecting Mail and Newsgroups. Go to the Edit menu and select Mail and Newsgroups Account Settings..., which will display the dialog box as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Preferences

The content entered in the "Your name" box will be displayed in the sender information in your outgoing messages. You may choose the optional signature file which will display information about yourself and it will be appended to your outgoing message automatically along with every message you send out. You have two choices: One is to specify a path to an existing text file containing the "signature information", and the other choice is to use a fancier display of a business-card like information. To specify the path of your signature file, click on "Choose" button. Be aware that this option works well for only some mailers. Thus, the content of your "signature file" in this option may not display in the intended format by the recipient's mailer program.

To make changes to your mail server configuration, select Server Settings. This will display a panel similar to one shown in Figure 2. Mail gives you the option of whether to keep your messages in the server's inbox (IMAP) or to have them downloaded to your local machine (POP). PCN recommends using IMAP to access your email! Downloading them does NOT offer synchronization, i.e., your messages can be downloaded on top of each other every time you connect. Thus, this would limit the accessibility of all mail folders from multiple locations. In addition, downloading your messages doesn't work as well as leaving them on the server over a slow link connection. It would helpful if you remember to backup messages if you choose to download your messages from the PCN server each time you connect. If something happens to your Mozilla folder on your local machine, all of your email messages could be destroyed. Leaving your messages on the server allows for both local and remote folders so you have the option of keeping important mail with you or saved on the IMAP server.

If you use Mail to read your email messages from a "public machine" like those in PHYS-139, please do not check the "Remember password" box, unless you want uninvited guests to read your incoming messages.

Note that now, for either downloading your messages or leaving them on the server, be sure to select 'Use secure connection (SSL), since unencrypted access to PCN networks is not allowed.

Figure 2 - Mail server properties

Finally, click on the Outgoing Server (SMTP) menu. If you are on campus or ResNet, type "mail.physics.purdue.edu" in the server name dialog box. Check the box which says "Use name and password" and type your user name in the dialog box.

If you are off-campus (Insight, Verizon, AOL) you will need to use your ISP's SMTP server. Contact their tech support for assistance.

Figure 3 - Outgoing Mail server properties

READING YOUR E-MAIL MESSAGES...

There are several ways to read/retrieve your messages:

1- From a Mozilla session, click on the Inbox icon in the tool bar (as shown in Figure 4). This will bring up a window listing all messages in your inbox. Make sure that the inbox is highlighted. Then click on "Get Msgs" to retrieve any new messages. Then simply click on (highlighting) the message you wish to read and the content of the message will display in the lower portion of the split window.

Figure 4

2- Select Mozilla Mail from the start menu: START >> Programs >> Network Applications >> Mozilla >> Mail as shown in Figure 5 in the final menu section.

Figure 5 - Mozilla Communicator choices

Note that you may also create a shortcut icon of Mozilla Mail on your desktop for easy access.

COMPOSING A MESSAGE...

REPLY to a Message: To compose a reply to a message, simply click on the REPLY button on the tool bar in your Inbox window as shown in Figure 6. Alternately, you may use the key combination CTRL+R (Control key and "R" key) to reply to the selected message. If you want to reply to everyone in the distribution displayed on the original message, select the REPLY ALL button or use key strokes CTRL+shift+R (Control key,  Shift key, and R key at the same time).

Figure 6 - Replying to a message

You may customize the reply features by go into the Edit >> Preferences >> Mail and Newsgroups >> Composition submenu as shown in Figure 7. Click on the pull-down menus to select your preferences. If you don't want to include the original message, uncheck the box next to "Automatically quote the original message when replying" statement.

Figure 7 - Setting your preferences on reply features

Forwarding a Message

To forward a message (re-directing a message), click on the  button. You may set your forward preferences in the Forwarding and Replying to Messages group of Messages preferences as shown in Figure 7.

Composing a New Message

To start a new message, you may click on the Compose button or use key strokes CTRL+M. If the recipient(s) is (are) listed in your address book, you only need to type in the first few characters of the 'nick name' and Mail will complete the rest of the address (save typing time). Use the ENTER key to add as many recipient as you wish. Attachments can be included by clicking on the paper clip icon next to the address icon (See Figure 8 below). Images can be sent as an attachment or included as an in-line image (by simply copying the image from clipboard directly to the cursor position in your composing window).

Figure 8 - A typical composing window of Messenger Program

Note that you may use HTML format in your outgoing message. But be aware that not all mailer programs can display the intended format. Make use of the provided tool bar below the "Subject:" area to edit your message in HTML format.

SENDING...

When you are ready to send your composed message, simply click on the SEND button or use the CTRL+ENTER keys. You may choose to keep a copy of your outgoing message in a designated folder (default is "SENT" folder) by checking the appropriate box in the available preferences as shown in Figure 9. With Mail, you may also choose 'storage areas' where you keep the drafted copies of your outgoing message by specifying the path as you click on the "choose Folder" button in the Drafts and Templates group in Copies and Folders preferences.

Figure 9 - Copies and Folders options

For further help, please consult with Mozilla's On-line from Help menu.