Figure 1 - Accounts dialog
About
Accounts
Accounts - Details
Accounts - POP3
Accounts - SMTP
Compose Email
Filter List
Edit Filter
New folder
Options - General
Options - Display
Send Receive
Select destination
Main window
Welcome to the Black Box Email user guide. First I will introduce you to the steps involved in the basic functioning of this program, and explain how to perform the essential core tasks.
After that I will describe each dialog in the program, what you will be using them for and how they work.
To install the program all that is needed is for it to be unzipped into the desired directory and run.
Once the program is running you will need to set-up an email account before being able to send or receive any emails.
From the tools menu select the "Accounts…" item. The dialog shown in Figure 1 will appear. (This dialog will be discussed in greater detail later on)
In the account name field enter a name for the account. A good name to choose would be the name of the company providing you with the email account. For example, if you have an ntlworld email address "ntlworld" would be a good name.
In the name field enter you're name, or you're nickname. This will be displayed to anyone you send an email to.
The organisation field is currently unused by Black Box Email, support for this field will be added in the future.
In the email address field you should enter you're email address; entering this incorrectly will mean that anyone replying to any email you've sent will be unable to do so. If you want replies to go to a different address enter it into the reply to field.
Clicking on 'SMTP' changes the dialogs appearance so that it looks like figure 3.
SMTP (Simple mail transfer protocol) is use to send any emails you write. In the server name field enter the name of the SMTP server. The name varies according to your Internet service provider (ISP). Only in exceptional circumstances will you need to change the port value or the timeout value. Some ISP's require you to log onto the SMTP server, if this is the case select the tick box and enter the username and password as appropriate.
Clicking on the Ok button will close the dialog, and you now have an email account set-up. All being well you are now ready to start sending and receiving emails. Black Box Email supports multiple email accounts, to add more simply repeat what you've just done.
During the process of sending and receiving the window shown in Figure 6 is displayed.
If you want this window to close automatically when you've finished downloading your emails click on the box labeled "Close when finished".
If for some reason you want to cancel the current operation click on the "Stop" button. This will cause the program to stop the current process after the current message has finished. If you are disconnected from the server whilst downloading your emails then they will not have be deleted from the server and will be downloaded again.
To help organise your messages better you can create new folders and move (or copy) a message into the folder. For example, emails received from a friend would be easier to find if all stored in a folder with the same name as this friend.
To create a new folder right click on the list of folders and select "New Folder…" from the popup menu. The dialog shown to the right will appear.
Enter the name of the new folder and if you want to make this folder a sub folder of another select the parent folder and click ok, if not click ok.
Enter the email address of the person you want to send the email to in the "To" box (the Cc and Bcc boxes will be explained later). In the subject box enter a brief description of what the email will be about (don't worry you can change it later if the email ends up being about something completely different!).
Click in the big white box (the message area) and start typing your message.
Once you are ready to send the email click on the Send button, this will cause the window to close and the email to be sent.
To move or copy emails between folders, select the emails you want to move or copy and click on either the 'Move Emails' button (as circled) or the 'Copy emails' button (directly to the right or the circled button) in the picture to the right. This causes the dialog show in figure 9 to be displayed. Find the folder you want to move/copy the emails to and click on ok.
After a brief period of disk activity the emails will be in the destination folder.
This section server as a reference for each window that the program can display, if you get stuck then have a look here to see if there's any pointers as to what to do, you may also want to read through this section to obtain a greater understanding than can be offered in the previous section.
Displays a small dialog briefly detailing some of the legal information about the program and other miscellaneous details.
The web address can be clicked on. This causes your default web browser to open this projects website.
This dialog displays a list of your available email accounts. From here you can add more accounts by clicking on the "Add Account" button, change the details of an existing account by selecting an account from the list and clicking on the "Properties" button and remove an account by selecting the account to be removed and clicking on the "Remove" button.
By using the "Move Up" and "Move Down" the user can change the order in which the accounts are checked for emails.
The user can change the default account by selecting the account and clicking on the "Set Default" button.
If you want to change the order in which the accounts are checked select an account and use the "Move Up", and "Move Down" buttons to move the account to its new position.
This dialog is used to enter or view some of the more generic details about your email account.
The account name is a name you use to remember the account by; a good choice for a name would be the same as the company providing you with the email account.
In the name you should enter your name, this is displayed with all the emails that you send. The organisation setting isn't widely supported, but if you are using Black Box Email for work purposes you should put the name of the place you work here.
The email address field is for you to enter the email address for this email account, this is provided by the people who are providing you with the email account, you should be sure to enter this correctly otherwise no-one will be able to reply to your emails!
If you want replies to your emails to go to a different email address enter the address in the reply to field.
This dialog is used to enter or view details about the POP3 server for this account.
The company providing the email account should provide almost all the settings in this dialog.
The server name (also called the pop3 server) is the name of the computer to connect to that stores your emails until you collect them. The port number should be left at the default value of 110 unless directed otherwise. If you have an exceptionally slow connection, or are connecting to a really slow email server you might want to increase the server timeout value, otherwise this values need not be changed.
All POP3 servers require users to logon and the username and password provided by the account providers should be entered into the username and password fields.
If after checking the account you want a copy of the emails left on the server you can by selecting the 'Leave Messages on Server' box. If you want to exclude this account from being checked for email then tick the 'Do not check for email' box.
This dialog is used to enter or view details about the SMTP server for this account.
The company providing the email account should provide almost all the settings in this dialog.
The server name (also called the smtp server) is the name of the computer that is used in the first step of sending the email to the destination. The port number should be left at the default value of 25 unless directed otherwise. If you have an exceptionally slow connection, or are connecting to a really slow email server you might want to increase the server timeout value, otherwise this values need not be changed.
Usually SMTP servers do not require users to logon, however in some rare cases it is required. The username and password provided by the account providers should be entered into the username and password fields and the 'Server Requires login' box ticked.
This window is used to reply to and create new emails.
If you are replying to an email the contents of the email will appear in the editing control, and will be quoted with the character '>'.
When entering email addresses in the 'To', 'Cc', and 'Bcc' fields you can enter more than one address if you separate each address with a semicolon for example dstrand@zebs.org.uk;dstrand@ntlworld.com causes the email to be sent to both addresses.
Once you've finished writing the message clicking on the send button will cause the email to be immediately sent, alternatively you can delay the sending of the email by using the "Send later" option in the file menu.
If you want to save the message and continue editing it at a later time select 'Save' from the file menu and close the window.
By selecting a filter and using the 'Move Up' and 'Move Down' buttons you can change the order that the filters are checked.
Filters are useful for dealing with large numbers of email from a single source, like a mailing list.
This dialog is used for creating new filters and editing existing ones.
Each filter must be given a name, and it should describe what the filter does so that you can easily know without having to thoroughly examine all the settings.
This dialog is designed to be read like a sentence with you filling in the spaces. For example if you are subscribed to a mailing list where all emails are sent from the address "bbe@egroups.com" the dialog would want to read "If the message contains bbe@egroups.com in the message To then move it to:" with the destination folder selected.
See the section titled Creating folders.
If you want Black Box Email to play a sound if a new message has arrived tick the first box. To change the sound that is played go to the sound control panel and change the sound associated with the new mail notification event.
Black Box Email can be set to automatically start downloading your email after starting, and can check your accounts after a specified number of seconds (minimum setting is 180, or 3 minutes).
See the section titled Checking your email.
See section Copying and moving Emails.
This window is the main interface to the program, and therefore your emails. The important parts of this window are show in Figure 21.
To change the currently displayed folder click on the name of the folder you want to display in the list of folders. If there are any emails in the folder they will be displayed in the message list. To view the contents of an email click on the email you want to view in the message list, this will cause the contents of the email to be displayed in the message display.
Both the message list and list of folders can be resized and detached. To resize the messages list move the mouse pointer to the resize line and when the mouse pointer changes click and resize.
To detach the messages list click on the detach line and drag the list to its new position.