IDC WebMail 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.
WebMail 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 WebMail folders, in all these cases they will be removed from the
POP server as you would expect.
WebMail 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 WebMail.
Briefly . . .
To use IDC WebMail, point your World Wide Web browser at the
appropriate URL, such as:
This User Manual guides you through the various pages of WebMail, 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.
Before you can use WebMail you need to login. When you run WebMail you will be
presented with the login page:
WebMail - Web Mail Client
General Help
WebMail is a web based email system, it lets you read / delete / forward / file the new
mail that is waiting on your local mail server, attachments can be viewed or downloaded,
and new messages can be sent, including attachments.
If you are the system administrator of this site and you wish to register this copy of
WebMail then you should click here WebMail v1.4s to enter
order details.
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 WebMail Administrator will have assigned a default
POP or IMAP server for use with WebMail. 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, WebMail will check the POP/IMAP server and will display
a list of messages that are available. You should see a screen something like this:
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 contacts the mail server and downloads any mail waiting there for you
Selected Multi-Host
This pull down Menubar displays the list of hosts you have been set up in the
user options. Changing the selected server and then clicking on the INBOX button will take
you to the INBOX of that host.
New Message
This will take you to the new message page which allows you to create and send a new
email message.
User 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.
Address Book
This will take you to the address book facilities available in WebMail. Also displayed
here are the pick list and distribution lists. For more details see Address Book Management.
Folder Management
This will take you to folder management page, where you can delete, rename or
create new folders. For more details see Folder Management.
Bulletins
This will take you to the bulletins page where you can see messages posted to the users by the admin
Empty Trash
This button will empty the WebMail trash. This will remove messages (from any folder)
that has been marked as deleted. i.e. messages that have ' next to them.
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 WebMail account will stay open.
Help
Help
This button displays this help file.
Logout
This will log your out of WebMail. If you do not cleanly logout of
WebMail then the message:
Please Note: You did not Logout from last session.
will be displayed the next time you login.
Email List
When you first login you will be viewing your INBOX folder and will see a screen like
this:
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:
(unread)
(read)
(new)
(attachments)
(replied)
(deleted)
(filtered)
the last three flags you can click on to toggle their
status. e.g. change from deleted to undeleted.
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 WebMail.
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.
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: WebMail 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 WebMail to try and display any images and html contained in the
email.
Enable Attach HTML, Scripts, Forms and Applets When viewing HTML inline, WebMail 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
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:
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 List
This 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.
next to them.
(unread)
(attachments)
(filtered)