Figure 1 - Logging in (from I.E., italian language)
To log in, you should use the following URL
http://.../mailer
You will be asked to enter the user_name and password you have been assigned.
You cannot change your user_name, but you can change your password any time you like
(see section User properties, later in this page).
Your identification will stay in place for the whole session.
To log out, you must end the navigator session (close the window).
Once logged in, you would receive a screen as the one in Figure 2
Important note. The login validation procedure requires system value QRETSVRSEC be set to 1.
Continued failures to login may depend from the fact that system value QRETSVRSEC is still set to 0.
Figure 2 - Initial screen
The screen is made up of three frames:
a thin top frame, dark cyan
a left frame
a right frame
Let us go through them.
Top frame
This frame contains four items, left to right:
The name of the mail directory (folder) being displayed in the right frame
(in this case, MailReceived)
The full name of this user.
If you click on this name, you open a popup window showing the properties of your profile.
You may also change properties, for instance your password
(for details, see section User properties at the end of this page.
Current date and time, updated on a one minute cycle.
Left frame
This frame contains a list of the available mail directories (folders) for this user.
The directory currently displayed in the right frame is in bold characters.
Each directory may display a number within parethesis: that is the number of mail messages not yet opened.
Click on a directory name to display its contents.
Three default mail directories are provided:
MailReceived contains the incoming mail
MailSent contains the outgone mail
MailRemoved contains the mail that you have temporarily removed from other mail directories and
is waiting for final deletion.
Of course you may create new mail directories and move or copy mail messages from a directory to another directory.
This is discussed in section Organize mail.
Two small icons are available at the end of this frame.
The one labeled refresh just refreshes the list of the directories in this frame
The one labeled manage allows you to create, rename, delete mail directories.
For detailson this, please refer to section Organize mail.
Right frame
This is the heart of mail processing. Mainly in this frame you have:
a stack of control buttons
a list of the mail messages available in the current directory
(you may change mail directory by clicking another directory on the left frame)
some check alluncheck all links
list of mail messages
one message per row
message columns for sender, receiver, subject, send date & time
messages not yet opened are in bold characters
to open a message, either click on any field of its row, or double click on its check button
control buttons
This is for receiving new mail. For details about receiving mail, see section
Receive mail
.
This is for creating a new message to be sent. For details about sending mail, see section
Send mail
.
To remove messages, select them through their check-boxes and press this button.
For details about removing messages, see section Remove mail.
This is for replying to the sender of a message. It requires that you select first - through its check box -
the message to be replied. For details about replying to messages, see section section Reply-to mail.
This is for replying to the sender of a message and copying all the people on the origina distribution.
It requires that you select first - through its check box - the message to be replied.
For details about replying to messages, see section section Reply-to mail.
This is for forwarding a message.
It requires that you select first - through its check box - the message to be forwarded.
For details about forwardinging to messages, see section section Forward mail.
This allows to display the messages in the list that match a given search string.
When you press this button, the following is displayed:
You should enter the search string (in the exampole the search string is "envoronment") and press the
button "search for ..."
All the messages in the page are searched for such a string in the fields From, To, and Subject and only the ones
matching are listed.
The "find" control button is replaced by the this button on your right, and pressing it you would cause
the complete list to be shown again.
Figure 3- Control buttons
check alluncheck all links
Use these links to check/uncheck all the mail messages in the list. This is useful expecially when you want
to remove all the messages.
The button "new message" is the one to be used for creating and sending a new message.
When you press this button, the screen in Figure 4 appears:
Figure 4 - Creating a mail message
Focus areas in this screen:
control buttons
address buttons and text areas
subject
message properties
message preferences
message text area
Control buttons
Just three control buttons are available:
Use this button to give up creating a new message and to go back to the previous screen.
Use this button to add attachments to this message.
Providing attachments is discussed later in this section.
This is the button to be used to send the message.
Outgone messages are stored in the MailSent directory.
Address buttons and text areas
Three text areas are available for entering distribution addresses: one for the To-distribution, one for the Cc(Carbon copy)-distribution,
one for the CCn(Blank copy)-distribution.
You may enter addresses manually, if you like, for instance by copying and pasting them.
The name of a recipient is not mandatory, while the e-mail address is.
The mail address must always be within acute brackets ( <...> ).
Multiple destinations must be separated by commas.
Some examples:
John Brown <brownj@starmail.com>
<dianaht@starlett.net>
John Brown <brownj@starmail.com>, <dianaht@starlett.net>, Tom Dooley <tomd@iseries.com>
The address buttons provide a convenient way to maintain an address book and to pick destination addresses from there.
Pushing one or the other of the three address buttons makes no difference.
The following popup is displayed:
Figure 5 - Address book
Picking contacts
In order to pick contacts and have them added to the address areas of the new message, operate as follow:
Select the contacts to be in the TO-destination and press the "To" button
Select the contacts to be in the CC-destination and press the "Cc" button
Select the contacts to be in the CCN-destination and press the "Ccn" button
Press the OK button
Finding contacts
The "Find" button helps in finding contacts from a huge address book.
Operate as follow:
enter a search string and press the "Find" button
only the names containing the search string are listed
blank out the search string and press the "Find" button to display the full list
Adding contacts
To add a new contact, press the button "New contact"
Updating contacts
Select the contact to be updated and press the button "Update contact"
Removing contacts
Select the contacts to be removed and press the button "Remove contact(s)"
Message properties
The following message properties:
Notify receipt (request to the receiving mailer to send a return receipt when the message is opened)
Importance
Priority
Sensitivity
can be set through the appropriate radio buttons.
Such message properties may be handled differently from one receiving mailer and another.
Message preferences
A subset of the user properties ("Options for sending e-mail", see for instance
Defining an Internet User)
character set
reply-to e-mail
return path
may be changed just for this message, or permanently by pressing button "Save preferences".
Message text area
Write the text of your message in this area.
The message is sent as TEXT/PLAIN.
TEXT/HTML is not supported.
The button "receive messages" is the one to be used for checking incoming mail.
By pressing this button you start a POP Client program that
logs in at the POP server specified in your profile
asks for a list of the available incoming messages
receives the messages that you are still missing
(you may have chosen to retain messages at the POP server until they are locally deleted)
tells the POP server to remove the messages that you have locally deleted since the last time the POP server was contacted
returns to you displaying
a feedback message about the number of new messages received
the contents of directory MailReceived
Examples of feedback messages
There are three cases:
The feedback message has the format no new messages (out of yy in the POP server)
Its meaning is as follow:
no new messages were received
If the user profiles specifies that messages should be retained on the POP server until they are locally deleted,
the POP server is currently storing yy mail messages, because they are not yet locally deleted.
The feedback message has the format xx new messages (out of yy in the POP server)
Its meaning is as follow:
xx new messages were received; they are listed (bold characters) at the end of the message list
If the user profiles specifies that messages should be retained on the POP server until they are locally deleted,
the POP server is currently storing yy mail messages.
xx are the new messages just delivered (and kept on the POP server)
yy-xx are messages kept on the POP server because not yet locally deleted.
no feedback message displayed.
If this happens, it means that the POP Client failed logging in at the POP server.
This may be due to one of the following:
the POP server could not be contacted (either port 110 of the iSeries is not active, or the IP address of the POP server is not correct)
the username or the password used to login at the POP server are wrong
Duties performed in receiving messages
The following is a list of the major duties performed by the POP Client program in receiving messages:
Store the received messages in appropriate IFS directories
Take the "fingertips" (properties) of each message. Such properties regard the main message headers (Date sent, Sender, Distribution,
Subject, Priority, etc.),
the body of the message (start and end position, content-type),
and the attachments (start and end position of each attachment, file name, transfer encoding, etc.).
These properties are vital for displaying the message and for extracting and converting the attachments
Extract and convert the attachments into separate IFS stream files. As this could be a heavy job, it is submitted to batch parallel
processing. Attachment decoding is supported for two widely used encoding algorithms, BASE64 encoding and QUOTED-PRINTABLE encoding.
Attachments with extension .zip are automatically unzipped. The inflated files are then listed as additional attachments.
Unattended Pop Client strategy
In order to improve Pop Client responsiveness to the end users, a twofold strategy has been implemented.
Batch Pop Client
The first WEB user asking to receive mail submits a non-ending batch job. This receives mail for each
of the AMailer user, goes asleep for fifteen minutes, goes again for mail receiving, and so on.
While doing this, it updates the feedback message for each user, so that, when an user logs in
at AMailer has already the latest mail made available, and he/she know how many pieces have arrived
while he/she was logged out.
Non-dormient WEB session
If an user logs in at and leaves the session idle and opened on the MailReceived directory,
the session will automatically perform mail receiving every fifteen minutes. Of course, these mail receiving sessions
may not have too much to do, as a alrge part of the job may have already been carried out from the Batch Pop Client.
As a final result, when the user comes back to her/his AMailer session will be able to see the latest mail.
Use this button, either
from the screen in Figure 2
from the screen in Figure 8
to reply to a message.
You will receive a screen similar to the one used to create a new message (Figure 4)
except that
the "To" address is already filled in
the "Subject" is already set
the message text includes the text of the original message.
If the original message had attachments, they are attached again to the reply-to message, but you may optionally remove them one at a time.
Use this button, either
from the screen in Figure 2
from the screen in Figure 8
to reply-all to a message.
You will receive a screen similar to the one used to create a new message (Figure 4)
except that
the "To" address is already filled in
the "Cc" address is filled in with all the other addresses existing on the original message
the "Subject" is already set
the message text includes the text of the original message.
If the original message had attachments, they are attached again to the reply-to message, but you may optionally remove them one at a time.
Use this button, either
from the screen in Figure 2
from the screen in Figure 8
to forward a message.
You will receive a screen similar to the one used to create a new message (Figure 4)
except that
the "Subject" is already set
the message text includes the text of the original message.
If the original message had attachments, they are attached again to the forwarded message, but you may optionally remove them one at a time.
By "Organize mail" we mean the ability to create, rename, remove mail directories (folders) and to move and copy
mail messages from one directory to another directory.
Three directories are given as default: MailReceived, MailSent, MailRemoved.
You may move and copy mail messages from / to these directories, but you cannot rename nor remove them.
To move and copy a message from one directory to another directory, you must first display the message, then to use the
"Copy/Move" button.
In addition, you may create your own user directories, that you can also rename and / or delete.
The facility that allows to maintain user directories is activated from the button
at the bottom of the left frame (Figure2).
Some images of this facility:
From the list of messages of a given directory (Figure 2),
by checking the check-boxes of the messages to be removed, and pressing the "Remove" button
When displaying a single mail message (Figure 8), by pressing the "Remove" button.
At this stage, a message is not deleted yet. It is moved into the "MailRemoved" directory.
To delete a message then, you must remove it from the "MailRemoved" directory.
What however happens at this point, dependes from some options in your profile (see section User properties).
if your profile tells "not to retain messages at the POP server once they have been received", your message
is deleted as soon as it is removed from the "MailRemoved" directory
if your profile tells "to retain messages at the POP server after they have been received, your message
- when it is removed from the "MailRemoved" directory - is not deleted, but "marked for deletion".
It will no longer show up in the "MailRemoved" directory, and will be deleted only during the next login of this user
at his POP Server. In fact, the local message record contains the ID assigned to this message by the POP server, and
this ID id needed by the POP client to tell the POP server that it can remove its message for good.
The exact timimg of message deletion makes no difference from a user perspective,
inasmuch the user has no control on it.
You may access your profile properties by clicking on your name on the top frame of an AMailer
screen (see Figure 2).
You may then change, for instance, your password, your options for sending mail.
You should however be very careful not to change by mistake your username at the POP server and the IP address of your
PPOP server. Errors would impair the ability of the AMailer POP client to login at the POP server
and to receive your mail.
It must be understood that all the mail messages and their attachments are stored on the iSeries, within its
Integrated File System structure. Messages and attachments are not ciphered, nor are the Amailer application records
(except two record fields, POP server user names and passwords).
However, accessing from the outside and from the internal site the AMailer data is not easy for a number of reasons:
Message stream files stored on the IFS can be accessed only via CGI programs (user profile QTMHHTP1)
Attachments stream files stored on the IFS can also be accessed via an HTTP URL (user profile QTMHHTTP),
however, it is not so easy to find what their URLs are
The way stream files are named and organized through directories, though rather simple in concepts, is hard to be understood by
anyone not familiar with the internalities of Amailer
Potential users should therefore be made aware of some potential risk on their data privacy.
button
,
named message properties, opens a popup to display the properties of the message.
,
named message script, opens a popup to display the MIME file, as it was received.
at the bottom of the left frame (
