This document describes the features of NewMail Version 2.1.

Introduction
License
What is NewMail?
Requirements
History of changes

Acknowledgements
The author
Additional credits

Registering NewMail
How to register NewMail

Installation
Installing NewMail

Configuration
Internet Connection
POP3 Servers
Notification

Usage
Running NewMail
Help in NewMail
The popup menu
Notification window
Describing the tray icons
Known bugs

Troubleshooting
How do I edit the settings?
How do I exit NewMail?
How do I disable NewMail without quitting?
How do I best configure my e-mail reader for NewMail?
NewMail interferes with telephone calls
NewMail locks up while checking for e-mail
Newmail locks up after a crash
How can I make NewMail only check for mail when I'm connected?

Copyright © 1996-1997 Ketil Hunn

License

You are allowed to use the NewMail package if you agree to the following terms:

1. Register NewMail.
2. The author makes no representations about the suitability of this software. The software is provided ‘as is’ without express or implied warranties, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The author is not responsible for any damages suffered by you or any user of the this software.
3. The software, help files, install program and its source code are a property of Ketil Hunn.

Distribution:

1. NewMail is not to be sold separately.
2. Distribution of the NewMail package is only allowed if all files are unmodified and kept together in the same archive.
3. Internet sites that have NewMail in their repository are allowed to include the NewMail package on compilation disks/CD-ROMs, but the author would like to get a notification of the event and a free copy of the disk/CD-ROM on which it was included.
4. Magazines are allowed to include NewMail on cover disks/CD-ROMs, but the author would like to get a notification of the event and a free copy of the magazine and the cover disk/CD-ROM on which it was included.
5. Any other kind of distribution will need my approval. Just send me an e-mail and we’ll work something out.

Copyright © 1996-1997 Ketil Hunn

What is NewMail?

NewMail is a small program for Windows95 and Windows NT 4.0 that stays in the background and notifies you when a new e-mail message has arrived.

Features:

• It’s small, only 57K!
• No annoying window on your screen (except when you configure it).
• Displays a small mailbox icon in the system tray. NewMail will a letter in the mailbox when a new message has arrived.
• It can establish PPP connection silently in the background, check for mail and disconnect if no new messages have arrived.
• Supports unlimited number of mailboxes.
• Detects the number of new messages, not just whether your mailbox has been updated or not.
• Checks for mail at regular intervals. Two timers; one that runs when you are not connected to the internet and one that runs when you are. The switching between the two are handled automatically by NewMail.
• It can display a message box, play a sound or even run your e-mail program (or any combination of these) when a new message arrives.
• Asynchronous message system that stays on screen until you acknowledge it, while the program works in the background. You’ll never miss an e-mail message again!

Requirements

• NewMail currently only support POP3 servers. In other words, it will not work on servers that requires Kerberos or other protocols
• NewMail may not run properly if you do not use Win95/NT4.0 native PPP connection or Ethernet card.
• NewMail needs the Mfc40.dll DLL (included in the archive) in order to run.

History

4. June 1997 - Version 2.1

February 17. 1997 - Version 2.0

November 26. 1996 - Version 1.1

November 2. 1996 - Version 1.0

First release.

The author

The best way to reach me is by using e-mail: ketil@sis.pitt.edu. I usually answer mail within a couple of days. If you experience any problem with NewMail, please tell me about it. I cannot make NewMail better without your input. Please include the following information in your bug report:

1. Which OS type and OS version you are using.
2. Which version of NewMail you are using (and if you are using a beta or not).
3. Type of connection to the Internet you use. (Win95 PPP Dial-Up, Ethernet card, ...)
4. Which e-mail reader and which version you are using.
5. Your settings in NewMail (all settings in the Internet connection, POP3 Servers and Notification tabs except for your passwords).
6. A thorough description of the problem: what did the program do, what state is the mailbox icon in, were you already connected/using the phone?,
7. Your mail will receive a higher priority if you set the subject to: NewMail bug report.

For general information about NewMail visit: http://newmail.home.ml.org. This homepage will always have the latest version of NewMail as well as beta releases.

For general information about me visit my main homepage at: http://ketil.home.ml.org.

IIf you for some reason prefer ordinary mail I can be reached at the following address:
Ketil Hunn
Torgny Segerstedtsvei 17
N-5143 Bergen
Norway

Additional credits

A sincere thank you to the following betatesters:

• Mike Hopper <svhorizon@usa.net>
• Fred McClaren <fredmac@netbox.com>
• Matt Oswald <moswald@umr.edu>
• Dan Reslink <reslink@who.net>
• Marc Smiley <mdsmiley@visi.net>
• Enzo Test <testa@direct.ca>
• Pat Weaver <peejay@ihug.co.nz>

without whom I could not have found all the bugs.

I would also like to thank all those of you that have sent me e-mail with bug reports, suggestions etc. It’s the huge amount of feedback that keeps me going… ;-)

How to register NewMail

NewMail 2.1 and later version are released as shareware while the earlier versions were released as freeware. Why has the status of NewMail changed? Simple, the enormous popularity of version 2.0 has made it one of the most popular e-mail notifiers on the marked and it has been spread all over the world. But this increased popularity also means more work on my part. I now receive 50 to 70 e-mail messages every day and I do my best to answer them all.

NewMail 2.1 does not have any limitations at all. I simply trust that you will pay the shareware fee. If this method doesn't work as expected, future versions will require a software key to unlock all features of NewMail.

The registration fee is a one time fee. You will never need to register NewMail again, all future updates will be free of charge, even if a software key will be introduced.

Price list

Print out the following order form and fill in the empty fields:
8< -----------------------------------------------------------------
NewMail Invoice

I hereby register ____ copy/copies of NewMail which comes to the total of
$_____ US dollars.

Version registering for:______

Registered to:
Name:_______________________________________________________________
Address:____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

City:_______________________________________________________________
Country:____________________________________________________________
e-mail:_____________________________________________________________

8< -----------------------------------------------------------------

Mail the invoice and the amount in US dollars (bills or US check) to:
Ketil Hunn
Torgny Segerstedtsvei 17
N-5143 Bergen
NORWAY

Thank you for supporting NewMail.

Installing NewMail

After you have downloaded the NewMail archive you need to unpack it using WinZip or a similar tool.

Once unpacked, run setup.exe and follow the instructions to install NewMail on your system. The installation program will ask you where you want to install NewMail (the installation program will suggest "Program Files\NewMail") and whether you want to run NewMail every time you start Windows/NT or not. Select Yes if you want NewMail to be fully automatic.

When the installation is done you may run NewMail by double-clicking on its icon.

If you have NewMail previously installed on your system you can install this version over the old one.

Internet Connection

Move mouse pointer over the mailbox icon in the taskbar and click right mouse button to show the popup menu. Select the Settings… menu item to display the Settings window.

Click on the Internet Connection tab to display this page. This page allows you to configure how NewMail should establish connections to internet.

Connect as needed
If this flag is checked, NewMail will automatically establish a connection to internet if needed. If you do not want NewMail to automatically connect, just uncheck this flag. NewMail will then stay quietly in the background until you connect and then start checking for incoming messages. If this flag is not checked all other options on this page will be disabled.

Permanent connection
Check this option if you use a permanent connection to the internet, such as Ethernet card, direct line etc. Note that NewMail still requires rasap32.dll to run.

Connection
Which Dial-Up Networking connection to use when connection to internet. NewMail will list all available connections on your system in this droplist object. If this list is empty you need to create a connection first. Please see your system manual.

Login
Enter your login name on the remote system. If you do not enter a login name NewMail will not be able to log on to the remote server.

Password
Enter your password on the remote system. If you do not enter a password NewMail will prompt you for a password when connecting to the server.

Save password
If this flag is checked NewMail will save the password in the NewMail.ini file. Your password will be saved in a cryptic format. If you check this flag you don’t have to enter your password every time you run the program. There is no real danger in saving your password in this program since you can’t see the contents of the messages, you have to run the e-mail program to do that.

Stay connected if new mail arrive
If this flag is checked NewMail will not disconnect if you have new messages. Note that NewMail will only disconnect if NewMail connected to the remote server itself. NewMail will not disconnect if you or another program established the connection.

Check mail every … minutes when not connected
Enter how often you want NewMail to check for new mail when you are not connected. A value between 15 and 60 minutes is usually a good choice. As soon as you connect to the internet (either manually, using other programs or using NewMail) NewMail will detect this change and switch to the timer on the POP3 Servers tab.

POP3 servers

Move mouse pointer over the mailbox icon in the taskbar and click right mouse button to show the popup menu. Select the Settings… menu item to display the Settings window.

Click on the POP3 Servers tab to display this page. This page allows you to configure what servers to connect to when checking mail.

Mailbox
NewMail supports unlimited number of mailboxes and this droplist displays the currently selected mailbox. The changes you do to the controls on this tab will only affect the currently selected mailbox, except for the timer which is global for all mailboxes.

New
Allows you to add a new mailbox. The new mailbox will appear at the end of the list of mailboxes.

Delete
Delete current mailbox. This button will be disabled when you have only one mailbox, because NewMail requires you to have at least one active mailbox.

Server
Name of the server to log on to when checking mail. If you use the same server as under Internet Connection you still have to fill in the necessary data here.

Login
Enter your login name for your e-mail account. If you do not enter a login name NewMail will not be able to log on to the server and check for mail.

Password
Enter your password for your e-mail account. If you do not enter a password NewMail will prompt you for a password when checking for e-mail.

Save password
If this flag is checked NewMail will save the password in the NewMail.ini file. Your password will be saved in a cryptic format. If you check this flag you don’t have to enter your password every time you run the program. There is no real danger in saving your password in this program since you can’t see the contents of the messages, you have to run the e-mail program to do that.

Check mail every … minutes when connected
Enter how often you want NewMail to check your mailbox(es) when you are connected. A value between 15 and 60 minutes is usually sufficient enough for most users.

Notification

Move mouse pointer over the mailbox icon in the taskbar and click right mouse button to show the popup menu. Select the Settings… menu item to display the Settings window.

Click on the Notification tab to display this page. This page allows you to configure what type of notification you want to see when NewMail detects new messages on your e-mail account.

Message on screen
If this flag is checked NewMail will display a simple message box with an OK button on the screen saying how many new messages have arrived since last check. If you have entered a mail reader in the Mail reader edit box and Automatic Launch is not checked, NewMail will display a message box with Yes and No buttons asking you if you would like to read the new messages. If you select Yes NewMail will start your e-mail program.

Show headers
If this option is checked, NewMail will display additional information in the message box, such as who sent the message, the subject and in which mailbox the message can be found. This option will only be enabled if you have checked Message on screen.

Show errors
If this flag is checked NewMail will show a error message on screen whenever things go wrong. This usually happens when the program can not log on to a server or if the telephone line is busy. This flag should usually be unchecked if you want the program to operate completely in the background, but it is probably wise to have it checked the first times you run NewMail to see if the login name and password are typed in correctly.

Play sound
If this flag is checked NewMail will play a sound every time a new mail arrives. In order to play a sound you must enter the path and name of a WAVE file in the edit box. You can use the Browse button to browse through the sound files on your harddisk. Note that NewMail currently does not accept shortcuts to be entered in the edit box. If you select a shortcut to a WAVE file in the file dialog, the WAVE file the shortcut points to will be inserted into the edit box instead of its shortcut.

There’s a selection of sounds available from the NewMail homepage: http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~ketil/newmail.html.

Play
Plays the selected sound. Use this button to test the sound you have selected.

Automatic launch
If this flag is checked NewMail will automatically start your e-mail program when a new mail has arrived. In order to start your e-mail program you must enter the path and name of your e-mail application. You can use the Browse button to browse through the files on your harddisk. Note that NewMail currently does not accept shortcuts to be entered in the edit box. If you select a shortcut to a program file in the file dialog, the program file the shortcut points to will be inserted into the edit box instead of its shortcut.

Running the program

Running NewMail at startup

Running NewMail automatically when you start Windows/NT is in most cases the preferred method.

The NewMail installation program will ask you if you want to start NewMail every time you start Windows. If you answered no on this question but later would like to start it automatically you can do this by adding a shortcut to NewMail in your startup folder in the StartUp directory.

Once you have started NewMail, you can more or less forget about the program. It will stay quietly in the background and only notify you when a new mail has arrived.

Checking e-mail

NewMail uses the POP3 protocol to check your e-mail. This means that you cannot use this program unless your e-mail server supports this protocol. Most servers today support the POP3 protocol.

While most other e-mail checker programs only checks whether your mailbox has been updated or not, NewMail will detect the number of new messages that have arrived since the last check. In order to do this NewMail sends the TOP command to the server. If this fails NewMail sends the RETR command which all servers understand. The reason for this is that the TOP command are not supported by all POP3 servers. Using TOP is usually a lot faster than RETR.

If your e-mail server does not understand the TOP command, checking mailboxes may take a while depending on the size of the messages.

Help in NewMail

NewMail offers two different ways of displaying help to the user:

• The first one is full help on the whole NewMail package. View this help document from NewMail by clicking on the Help button.
• The second method is a quick-help option. Clicking the right mouse button over any object or label to display a small What's This? menu. Selecting this item will display a small help text without directly in NewMail without opening the whole help document.

Note that the edit fields will override this help menu. To display help on edit fields simply right click on its label instead.

The popup menu

The popup menu is displayed up when you click right mouse button over the mailbox icon in the taskbar. Note that the popup menu will be disabled while checking for mail.

Settings…
Selecting this item will display the Settings window and allow you to configure NewMail. No e-mail checking will be performed while the window is visible. The Settings dialogbox can also be displayed by double clicking on the mailbox icon in the taskbar.

Read mail…
Selecting this item will launch your e-mail reader (if you have entered an e-mail reader in the Notification tab). You can also start the e-mail reader by double clicking with the left mouse button on the tray icon.

Check mail
NewMail will check for e-mail whenever this item is checked. If you for some reason want to disable checking temporarily you can uncheck this item. Check the item when you want NewMail to start checking your mailbox again. The mailbox icon in the system tray will be grayed out while NewMail is disabled.

Check mail now
Check for new mail immediately. This menu item will only be available if you have entered the data in the Internet Connection tab or if you are already connected. If you are not connected and you have not entered the necessary data in the Internet Connection tab NewMail will not be able to establish a connection and NewMail will then only check for mail when you are connected. The timer will be reset when you select this item.

Cancel check
This item is only enabled when NewMail is currently checking for new messages. Selecting this item will cancel a check in progress.

Exit
Quit NewMail. If NewMail is currently checking your mailbox this item will be canceled.

Notification window

NewMail will display a message box on screen whenever you have checked Message on screen on the Notification tab. This message box is displayed in a multitasking manner and it will stay on screen until you acknowledge it, while NewMail works in the background. You can thus keep the message box open on your desktop and NewMail will update the information in it as new messages arrive.

If you have unchecked the option Stay connected if new mail arrive, NewMail will disconnect immediately after checking your mailboxes while the message box will stay on screen. This feature is valuable for modem users that pay for their internet connection.

The size and look of this message box depends on the way you have configured NewMail. Here are two examples:

This is how the message box will look with the Show headers option unchecked and an e-mail reader configured with Automatic launch unchecked. This is somewhat similar to the message box available in NewMail version 1.0 and 1.1.

NewMail version 2.0 and later is capable of showing header information in the message box if you check the option Show headers in the Notification tab:

This dialog box is fully resizable and it will remember it’s position, size and column widths from the last time it was displayed.

Note that the Yes and No buttons will be replaced by a single OK button if you have not entered an e-mail reader or you have the Automatic launch option set in the Notification tab. Also, the text "Would you like to read them/it?" will disappear from the message box, since no e-mail reader has been configured.

Describing the tray icons

NewMail has three different icons it can show in the taskbar:

	will be shown whenever your mailbox is empty (or if NewMail have not checked your mailbox yet).
	will be shown whenever you have new mail that hasn’t been read. If you click Yes when NewMail asks you if you want to read your new mail and the selected mail reader has been started successfully, NewMail will reset the image to an empty mailbox.
	will be shown whenever NewMail is checking your mailbox.
	will be shown whenever NewMail has been disabled.

Note that you can double click with the left mouse button on the tray icon to start your e-mail reader.

Known bugs

Memory leak
If the connection for some reason is lost when NewMail is sending a command to the e-mail server, a few bytes will be lost.

Wrong number of new e-mail returned
This may happen if you leave e-mail on the server (if your e-mail reader is not configured to delete them) and you delete one or more old messages on the server by hand.

The buttons on the About tab don't work
For some reason these buttons don't work on all systems. See the author page for information on how to get in touch with the author.

How do I edit the settings?

You can configure NewMail by double-clicking on the mailbox icon in the taskbar or by right clicking and selecting the Settings... menu item from the popup menu.

How do I exit NewMail?

Move the mouse pointer over the mailbox icon in the taskbar and press the right mouse button. Select the Exit menu item from the popup menu.

Note that the popup menu is disabled while NewMail is checking for e-mail.

How do I disable NewMail without quitting?

Move the mouse pointer over the mailbox icon in the taskbar and press the right mouse button. Uncheck the Check mail menu item from the popup menu. E-mail checking will now be disabled until you check the menu item again.

How do I best configure my e-mail reader for NewMail?

You don't have to configure anything in order to use NewMail. However, there is one thing you could do to speed things up a little:

• If your e-mail server does not support the UIDL command you should make your e-mail reader deletes messages on the server (you will still have a copy on your PC...). This way NewMail does not have to go through all the e-mail to check their IDs.

NewMail interferes with telephone calls

Your modem is not configured correctly. Check the Wait for dial tone before dialing in your modem settings.

NewMail locks up while checking for e-mail

Your server does not support the POP3 protocol. Ask your internet connection provider for more information or use Telnet to see if the server is able to communicate on port 110.

Mailbox is locked after a crash 

This can happen to any program that access your mailbox and the program crashes or you reset your computer during the checking. The reason for this is that the mailbox is locked during a check, and if the access is prematurely terminated before the lock can be released, your mailbox will stay locked forever or until your server is rebooted or a timeout occures.

Here’s how you fix it (assuming an UNIX server):

1. Log on to your account manually
2. Type: ps -aux | agrep <your username> | agrep popper at the prompt. This will display the process that locks your mailbox and its ID.
3. Type kill -9 <process id> at the prompt.
4. The process is now killed and your mailbox has been unlocked.

How can I make NewMail only check for mail when I'm connected?
Simply uncheck both Connect as needed and Permanent connection on the Internet Connection tab.