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FlashMail is a web-email gateway which allows you to read and process your email from a web browser running on any machine with access to the internet ( or your intranet ). It is a full featured email client package which provides facilities to read new mail, send and forward messages, send and view attachments, use folders to organize your messages etc. FlashMail talks to a POP server but leaves your messages on the POP server so they can still be seen by any normal POP email client. However you can delete or reply to your messages or move them to FlashMail folders, in all these cases they will be removed from the POP server as you would expect. FlashMail can also use IMAP protocol and talk to an IMAP server. In this case your messages and folders are all stored on the IMAP server. You can thus see and manipulate all the same email messages and folders you can access from any standard IMAP email client, but from any web browser anywhere on the net. You can also swap backwards and forwards between any other IMAP client and FlashMail. Briefly . . . To use FlashMail, point your World Wide Web browser at the appropriate URL such as:
Then enter your Username and Password to login and process your new mail. It's that simple but for more details read on... Manual Contents:For quickly getting started... For more details...
This User Manual guides you through the various pages of FlashMail, noting the functions of all of the Buttons, Links, Check Boxes and Text Fields. For new users there is also a glossary of terms. Words or acronyms which have a glossary entry are shown thus URL* clicking on them will take you to the relevant glossary entry. How can I get my Mail?Here is the instant three step guide... |
| 1. | Start your web browser | - e.g. Netscape, Internet Explorer etc. |
| 2. | Point it at the FlashMail page | - your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Computer Department will have told you the URL to use, e.g. http://www.flashmail.com. |
| 3. | Depending on how they have setup FlashMail you might see a
login page if so enter your username and password (then click the 'Login' button) |
- again you will probably have been given a username and password to use |
| Bingo - you're at your Mail! |
For more detailed information please read through the next few sections.
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To login you must first supply a valid username and password. This username and password should have been supplied to you by your computer service center or ISP.
The Login page may also contain a box in which you can enter the name of an email host to connect to, this is optional. The FlashMail Administrator will have assigned a default POP or IMAP server for use with FlashMail. So, as a user, as long as you use the correct URL* in your web browser then you'll automatically log in to the correct location. So you do not have to enter anything in the 'Enter Host' box.
Once you have logged in, FlashMail will check the POP/IMAP server and will display a list of messages that are available. You should see a screen something like this:
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The screen is divided into two portions, the Menubar and the email List Page. The Menubar contains buttons to take you to other pages for setting up user options, creating messages etc. The menu buttons are described briefly below:
Menubar
Check Mail This button checks for new mail, selects the INBOX or "New Mail" folder and displays a list of messages in that folder. This is called the list page.
Compose This will take you to the new message page which allows you to create and send a new email message.
Options This will take you to the user options page. Allowing you to change your signature, add additional email hosts as well as changing other user options. For more details see User Options.
Popup This will bring up a popup window with a list of new messages in it. It will check for new mail every 5 minutes. You can then use the main browser window to go to other web sites. While the popup window is open your FlashMail account will stay open.
Folders This will take you to folder management page, where you can delete, rename or create new folders. For more details see Folder Management.
Addresses This will take you to the address book facilities available in FlashMail. Also displayed here are the pick list and distribution lists. For more details see Address Book Management.
Empty Trash This button will empty the FlashMail trash. This will remove messages (from any folder) that has been marked as deleted. i.e. messages that have ' next to them.
Help This button displays this help file.
Logout This will log your out of FlashMail. If you do not cleanly logout of FlashMail then the message:
Please Note: You did not Logout from last session.
will be displayed the next time you login.
The buttons have the following functions:
If you select a folder from the pull down menu and press the 'Get Folder' button, FlashMail will then display the emails in that folder.
MULTI attach
"john" Fwd 7/4/2000 4:26:21 am 25803 1+ luke@bobshouse.com This is a single email line. It shows the subject and sender of the email and icons representing status such as read/unread. Clicking on the subject of the email will display the entire email message. Clicking on forward will take you to the "Forward" page so you can forward the message to someone else.
The flag icons have the following meanings:
(read)
(new)
(replied)
The list of email messages that have been ticked will be forwarded.
This will delete the selected messages, or flag them as deleted or move them to the trash can. Which of these three actions is taken depends on how the administrator has set up message deletion for FlashMail.
The selected messages will be copied to the chosen folder. You cannot copy messages to the INBOX.
The selected messages will be moved to the chosen folder. You cannot move messages to the INBOX.
In the Email List page above if you click on the subject of a message you will be shown the full message on a page similar to the one shown below:
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A number of links are provided for moving to the previous or next message or returning to the Mail List page. You can also delete or save the message to disk. You can also reply to the message or forward it to someone else. The difference between reply and reply-all is that the reply-all will send replies to all the addresses in the To and Cc fields, while reply will only send the reply to the 'Reply-To' or 'From' addresses.
You can also change the viewing options of this email selected. There are 5 options available:
- Raw
This forces the body of the message to be display as it is is stored on the POP or IMAP server.- Show Headers
This forces the complete set headers of the email to be displayed
Return-Path: lynden@1.2.3.4
Received: from 1.2.3.4 ([1.2.3.4]) by 1.2.3.4; Fri, 17 Dec 1999 09:04:47 +1200
Sender: lynden@1.2.3.4
From: lynden@1.2.3.4
Reply-to: lynden@1.2.3.4
To: lynden@1.2.3.4
Subject: Testing New Mail.
X-Mailer: FlashMail to Mail Gateway v1.4o
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 09:04:46 +1200
Message-id: <385945de.ba.41@1.2.3.4>
X-Rcpt-To: <lynden@1.2.3.4>;- Variable width font
This will display the body of the message in a variable width font instead of a fixed width font.- Inline Images
This will tell FlashMail to try and display any images and html contained in the email.- Enable Attach HTML, Scripts, Forms and Applets
When viewing HTML inline, FlashMail for security reasons, removes scripts, forms and applets. Checking this box will leave these with the HTML. This setting unlike the others will not be saved and you need to check this each time you want to see the scripts, forms and applets
To create a new message to send to someone you press the "New Message" menu button which will display the following page:
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This screen will allow you to enter the address details, the message to send and then actually send the email.
email Recipients ( To, Cc and Bcc ) There are three fields in which you can enter addresses. You can use email addresses, distribution list names or nicknames in these fields.
- The 'To' field is who will receive this email message
- 'Cc' stands for carbon copy and these email address receive a copy of this email, the recipients do see who gets sent a carbon copy.
- 'Bcc' is Blind Carbon Copy, which is very similar to 'Cc' expect that the recipients do not get told who gets a Blind Carbon Copy.
The distribution list or address book nick names used in these fields are expanded out before the message is sent.
i.e. If you entered: Lynden@1.2.3.4, Ralph, work_people Into any of the three fields where, Ralph is an address nick name for 'ralph@1.2.3.4' and work_people is a a distribution label for 'lynden@4.3.2.1,john@4.3.2.1' then the finial field will be: Lynden@1.2.3.4, ralph@1.2.3.4, lynden@4.3.2.1,john@4.3.2.1
Reply Address ( Reply-To ) This is the address that replies to this message will go to. So if you entered myothername@whatsit.com in the field when someone replied to your message the reply would go to myothername@whatsit.com
Subject ( Subject ) This is the subject line of the message. This gives an indication of what the email is about so that the recipients can tell if they want to read it.
Attachments ( Attach ) You are allowed to attach any file to your email. Some administrators have limited the size of emails that can be sent and you should talk to your admin about this before attempting to send very large attachments.
Clear This button will clear the last selected 'To, Cc or Bcc' field. Removing all the addresses typed in.
Address Book This button will popup the quick address book. Allowing you to select people from your address book, to enter directly into the 'To, Cc or Bcc' fields. For more details see Address Book Management.
Pick List and
Distribution ListThis lists the 30 most recently used email addresses and distribution list names. Clicking on an item in this list will copy the address to the selected 'To, Cc or Bcc' field. This allows quick selection of who should receive this email.
Check Spelling This will check the spelling in your message. It allows you to change misspelled words or add new words to your user dictionary.
Save Draft Messages which you plan to use over and over again, or emails that you do not have time to finish can be saved for later use. Saving the message as a draft will store the message on the server until you are ready to send it. You need to select a folder to store draft messages in.
Sending Options These 3 check boxes you can select and will be remembered from session to session.
The first one 'Add Sig' will add your signature to the end of the body of the email.
'Send CC to Self' will also send a copy of the email to your own email address so that you can see the email was sent.
'Save to copies to self folder' This will save the email message to your "copies to self" folder. This is similar to "Send CC to Self" but does not involve the overhead of actually sending and receiving the message.
Send email Once you have finish writing the email message you can press this button and the message will be sent.
To view the User Options, press the "Options" menu button which will display the following page:
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The above screen displays all the user options that you can set. Allowing you to set your Real Name, Signature, Multi-Host and Mail Filtering Rules.
Pressing the folders menu button will take you to the "Manage Folders" page shown below:
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This page allows you to change and maintain your email folders. These folders are normally stored on the web server so are only visible from FlashMail. When using IMAP hosts folders are stored on the IMAP server and hence are accessible from other IMAP clients as well as from FlashMail.
You can create, rename and delete folders.
WARNING: When you delete a folders it will also delete all the messages stored in that folder.
The Folder List at the bottom of the page shows for each folder: the number of messages, total size of all the messages and status totals for messages read, drafts, messages marked for deletion and replied to.
Clicking on the folder name in this list will take you directly to the mail list page for that folder.
Pressing the "Address Book" menu button will take you to the address book page show below, this has three sections:
- Edit Pick List
- Distribution List
- Address Books
These are described separately below:
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Pick List Management |
(Top left of Address Book page) |
The pick list is just a list of your thirty most recently used email addresses. The list is updated automatically but you can edit it manually and then press save.
There is a tick box for "Add addresses automatically" if this is ticked when you send an email the addresses from the To, Cc and Bcc fields are added to the pick list. Similarly when you receive emails their From address is added to the pick list.
Distribution List Management? |
(Top right of Address Book page) |
Some times you have a small group of people you often want to send emails to, such as "my cousins" or "football team" You can give these groups names so that you can send email to everyone in the group just by entering the group name. The distribution list is where you can save time in retyping multiple email address. If you have a group of people that you are continually sending email to you can setup a label (e.g. work) where you just have to type this in instead of everyone's email address every single time. You can also use address book nick names in distribution lists.
Address Book Management |
(Bottom of Address Book page) |
This screen displays the email addresses in the selected address book, in this case the default address book. If you wish to change the details of a single entry, all you need to do is click on the nickname and enter the new details. The above example only allows you to enter Full name, email address and Address, but the system administrator can add any additional fields required such as Fax, Notes or whatever.
To add a user to the selected address book, all you do is enter the details including the Nickname, which is the name that you will use instead of their email address. Then press
Each nickname must be unique. If the nickname already exists then the values will replace the old ones. Clicking on the nickname on the right will load that users details and display them.
The 
button is also available in the 'New Message' screen. This makes the following appear in a
popup window.
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Clicking on a nickname in this case will copy the nick name into the selected 'To, Cc or Bcc' field. Allowing you to quickly located and select the nicknames from your address book.
