The Main Menu Bar

The File Menu

License this software
This option exists on the menu only if you have not yet entered your license number into the application.
Retrieve mail
This option makes the program go to the server specified on the Mail Servers page of the General Settings, or to the PPO Inbox Directory if you have that feature activated on the Personal Post Office page of the Advanced Settings, to retrieve the mail. The new mail is placed into the current account's INBOX folder, except in cases where a Filter causes it to be placed elsewhere. If your server is an IMAP4 server, this option will still download the mail to the INBOX folder, just as if this were a POP3 server account instead. Use the Preview IMAP4 Mail function if you want to work interactively with your IMAP4 server and deal with the mail files and folders on the server.
Stop mail retrieval
This option is enabled only while mail retrieval is taking place.
Send mail
This option makes the program send the messages in the current account's OUTBOX folder to the SMTP or POP3 server specified on the Mail Servers page of the General Settings, or to the PPO Outbox Directory if you have that feature activated on the Personal Post Office page of the Advanced Settings. After it has been sent, it is moved from the OUTBOX folder to whatever folder you have specified on the Sent Folder page of your default Persona, or whatever folder you specified in the Sent folder field of that specific message while you were creating it in the compose window, either by selecting one manually, or by virtue of selecting a Persona which has a specified Sent Folder, or by virtue of selecting an address book entry which has a specified Sent folder.
Stop sending messages
This option is enabled only while a send is taking place.
Preview mail on the server
This option brings up the Preview Mail feature.
Message transaction log
This option brings up the Message Transaction Log window, which lets you view or print the log of all messages sent and received by the current account (the Transaction.Log file in the account subdirectory).
Popper message retrieval center
When you use the Retrieve mail automatically every [ ] minutes setting in an account without opening the Popper window, the automatic retrieves happen only while that account is open. When you open the Popper window, the old style of automatic retrieval which only works on the open account is terminated, and will not be activated again until you close and reopen that account, or close its settings notebook. When you turn on the Popper window's Retrieval Center is Active checkbox, automatic retrievals will be done not only for the open account, but also for all of your accounts that are configured for automatic retrieval. If the Popper window is open when you close the J Street Mailer, then it will automatically open the next time you open the program. After you've connected to the internet, turn on the Retrieval Center is Active checkbox, and the retrievals will begin.

First, the first account in the Popper window will do its retrieve, and each of the others will wait until the previous one is done. (Not only to spread the CPU usage out over time; but also in case you have two J Street Mailer accounts which access the same POP3 account, because most POP3 servers won't allow the same account to be accessed by two client processes at the same time.) The Popper retrieves the mail into a holding directory for each account (below the POPPER subdirectory of your Mailer directory), and then the new mail is actually brought into the INBOX folder after the Popper retrieve is done, only in the account that's open at the time. The mail for the other accounts will be left in each account's holding directory, and the count of messages in each holding directory is displayed in the Popper window. When you open any account, the program looks to see whether there's anything in its Popper holding directory and if so, it is immediately brought into the INBOX folder of that account and the Popper window's holding directory count is then updated for that account.

Turning on any account's Retrieve mail automatically every [ ] minutes setting will add that account to the Popper window if the Popper window is open at the time. Turning off that setting in an account will remove that account from the Popper window, even if that account is currently being retrieved in the Popper window (the retrieve is halted gracefully first). Turning off the Retrieval Center is Active checkbox in the Popper window gracefully halts any retrieval that is currently taking place, and prevents any more retrievals from starting until you turn the checkbox on again.

Settings
General
Advanced
Exit
This option closes the program.

The Account Menu

There is no limit to the number of different accounts you can set up under one J Street Mailer installation. You can use different accounts for different users, or for different internet addresses for the same user. Each account has its own settings, its own folders (though accounts can be made to share folders by having "local" folders under one account and "remote" folders under the other accounts pointing to the first account's local folder directories), its own Filters, etc.

Create a new account
This option lets you create a new account, for another user or for another internet address. If you specify just the account name, a directory by that name will be created under the MailData subdirectory of your Mailer directory, and the account files and folders will be created in that new directory. The program refers to these as "local" accounts. If you specify a full pathname, such as "D:\My New Account", then that directory will be created if it does not exist, and the files and folders will be created there. We refer to these as "remote" accounts. There are only two differences between local accounts and remote ones: When you delete a remote account, nothing actually gets deleted except the entry in the Account.Index file and the account directory's Account.Settings file. The directory, its other contents, and all of its folders and their contents will still exist; the J Street Mailer just won't see them anymore unless you "create" the same account again or manually add the entry back into the Account.Index file. And the name of the account, as displayed within the program, will include the pathname for remote accounts, but not for local ones.
Delete the current account
This option, when used while a "local" account (the usual type) is open, deletes the account's directory, all of its files, folders, subfolders and all their contents. The program warns you twice before doing so, because there is no way to undo it after it's been done. When used while the current account is a "remote" one, this option has a less drastic effect; see above.

At the bottom of this menu is the list of accounts, as specified in the Account.Index file in your Mailer directory. Selecting an account from this menu closes your currently open account and opens the one you selected.

The Folder Menu

Create a folder
This option lets you create a new mail folder, in which to store and organize your messages. J Street Mailer folders are nothing other than directories on your hard drive or other similar storage medium. Other than those limitations imposed upon directory names by your operating system or file system, you can name a J Street Mailer folder anything you like, as long as it doesn't end with the string ".POP" or ".pop". When you create a folder by specifying just its name, the folder is created as a directory by that name, as a subdirectory of your account directory. The program refers to these as "local" folders. If you create a folder by specifying a pathname instead (such as "D:\New Folder"), then that directory will be created if it does not already exist, and it will be the location of the new folder. We refer to these as "remote" folders, and their existence is known by the existence of an entry in the account's Remote.Folder.Index file. There are only two differences between local folders and remote ones: When you delete a remote folder, the program asks you whether you really want to delete all of the folder's contents or whether you just want to remove the folder from the account's list of folders (the Remote.Folder.Index file). If you make the latter choice, then the folder, its messages, and its subfolders will still exist; the J Street Mailer just won't see them anymore unless you "create" the same folder again or manually add the entry back into the Remote.Folder.Index file. The second difference is that the display of the folder name will include the pathname for remote folders, but not for local ones.

The support for remote folders means that you can have folders that are accessible by all of your J Street Mailer accounts: Just create a folder in one account as either local or remote; then create the same folder in the other accounts, as a remote folder, using the original folder's pathname. For example, let's say you have an account named EMAIL which you allowed the program to create in the default location. This means its pathname is probably something like d:\jstreet\Mailer\MailData\email. If you create a local folder named FOLDER in that account, then that folder's pathname is d:\jstreet\Mailer\MailData\email\folder. So when you create the remote folder in the other accounts, just specify d:\jstreet\Mailer\MailData\email\folder as the folder to create.

Any subdirectory of a J Street Mailer folder will automatically be seen by the program as that folder's subfolder. This applies to both local and remote folders.

Create a subfolder
This option lets you create a subfolder under the currently selected folder in the tree.
Folder tree font
This option lets you specify the font you want to use for the tree.
Delete
This option deletes the currently selected folder, all of its messages, and any subfolders and their messages. In the case of the INBOX, OUTBOX, and TRASH folders, it only deletes the messages and subfolders, not the folders themselves. And in the case of "remote" folders (see Create a folder above), it will ask you whether you want it to really delete the folder and all of its contents, or whether you want it to just remove the folder's entry from the Remote.Folder.Index file so that the program will no longer see the folder as being part of this account.
Expand all
This option opens all folders which have children, to display the subfolders, sub-subfolders, etc.
Collapse all
This option removes all the subfolders and sub-subfolders, etc., from the tree view area, so that only the main folders are showing.

The Message Menu

Some options on this menu, such as Delete and Copy to a folder, can be applied to all of the selected messages in the message list, at once. Other options, such as Sticky notes and Reply, can only be applied to one message at a time. If you use such an option while you have multiple messages selected, the option will act upon the top selected message and ignore the others.

Many of the options on this menu can be activated by keystroke combinations, when focus is on the browser section of the window. The default keystrokes are listed here, but you can change them to whatever you like, via the customized keystrokes feature.

Compose a new message
This option opens the compose window so that you can create a new OUTBOX message.
Browser window style
Also activated via Ctrl-X. This option lets you select whether you want to view your messages in the ICE HTML browser window, the HotJava HTML browser window, or the text browser window. The keystroke toggles among the selections, and the menu lets you choose each one explicitly.
Word wrap
Also activated via Ctrl-W. This option, when on, turns word wrap off; and when off, turns it on. When word wrap is on, which is the default setting, lines of text which are longer than the browser window is wide, will be wrapped down onto the next line. When word wrap is off, this will not be done; furthermore, a non-proportional font is used, so this is the correct setting to use when viewing a message which contains, for example, columnar data that was formatted for display by a character mode, rather than graphical, program.
Decode attachments
This option, when on, turns attachment decoding off; and when off, turns it on. When attachment decoding is on, which is the default setting, then when you open a message which contains an attachment, the binary attachment file data will be removed and decoded (if it was encoded before transmission) into a temporary file (in the atchmnts subdirectory of your Mailer directory), and the only part of the message which will show in the browser window will be the body text portion and any attachments that are recognized as plain text or HTML text; the binary attachments will be available to you via the attachment toolbar below the browser window. When attachment decoding is off, and you open a message which contains an attachment, then the browser window will show you the message just as it was sent to you, with the (encoded) attachment file data still inside it, in case you need to see it for diagnostic reasons.
Print
Also activated via Ctrl-P. This option prints the message(s) currently selected in the message list. If there are multiple selected messages, they will be printed together, for page numbering purposes, but an Advanced Setting lets you specify whether you want a page break between each one and the next, or not. Whether or not the header lines of the message(s) will print, and if so, how many of them will print, depends upon the current setting of the Headers option (see below).
Alter a composed message
This option is available only in the OUTBOX folder. Its purpose is to edit the selected message which you have created, before sending it.
Color code
Also activated via Ctrl-C. This option lets you add a color/shape code to the selected message(s) for identification and classification purposes, or select None to remove the existing color code(s) from the selected message(s). Each color/shape code has a description which shows in the Specify a Message Color Code dialog, to remind you of the purpose for which you've decided to use that color code. To specify or change a color code's descriptive text, select it in this dialog and press the Change button. Filters can also add color codes to incoming messages.
Sticky notes
Also activated via Ctrl-S, or the tiny icon at the top right corner of the message in the HTML styles of browser window. This option lets you add a sticky note to the selected message, as a reminder of anything you might want to remind yourself of, in relation to that message. It is actually a stream of text that is stored in the program's index file entry for that message, so when you copy or move a message, its sticky note will go with it. This option also lets you modify or delete a message's existing sticky note.
Add message addresses to address book
This option presents you with a list of all the internet addresses found in the currently selected message, and lets you pick one to add to the current address book. You can change the current address book there, before doing so. Or you can choose one address to add to one address book, and change the current address book and choose another address to add to that address book, etc. Each time you click on the Add button, the following dialog will let you specify the nickname for the new address book entry, and choose whether or not this new entry should be part of that address book's Short List. When you've finished adding the desired ones of the message's addresses to your address books, click on the Close button to dismiss the dialog.
Copy selected text to clipboard
This option copies the selected text from the browser to your clipboard, if you're using an operating system which has a clipboard.
Open browser using selected text
This option opens a browser window using the selected text (in the J Street Mailer main window's browser panel) as the URL to be visited. See The Browser Window for details.
Reply
Also activated via Ctrl-R. This option opens the compose window, in reply mode, with the Reply-to or From address of the selected message already entered into the Addresses: field of your reply, and the Subject: line matching that of the original message (with "Re:" inserted at the beginning if it was not already there). If the message to which you're replying has multiple addressees, or has a Sender: line which probably indicates it's from a Majordomo or ListServ type of mailing list, then the Select Address(es) for Reply dialog will also come up, offering you all of the email addresses found in the message. You can select as many as you want. Or if you Cancel out of that dialog, then the message's Reply-to address is the one to which your reply will be addressed.
Forward
Also activated via Ctrl-F. This option opens the compose window, with the Subject: line matching that of the original selected message (with "Fwd:" inserted at the beginning if it was not already there), and the message text (not including any encoded attachment data) copied into the text area of the compose window so that you can send it along to someone else.

This option is also used to resend a message you had previously sent. If you want to resend a message without making any changes to it first, you can just copy it to your OUTBOX folder.

Bounce
This option opens the compose window, with the Subject: line matching that of the original selected message, and the message text (including any encoded attachment data) copied into the text area of the compose window so that you can send it along to someone else. The From: and Reply-to: header lines of the new message will be copied from the original message, rather than being your own. Your signature, tagline, etc., will not be used. The Sent folder: field will be blank, so the message you're sending will not be retained unless you choose a folder here yourself before closing the compose window. If the original message has attachments, they will be sent as well (make sure your Word wrap value is set wider than the block of encoded data; and if the attachment was MIME encoded, anything you add to the message before the first MIME boundary or after the last MIME boundary will most likely never be seen by the recipient since any data in those two locations is normally discarded by any MIME processing software; though you shouldn't be adding anything to a bounced message anyway, as the purpose of a bounce is to send the message along as if from the sender, as if you'd never seen it). You cannot add your own attachments to a bounced message.
Route
This option lets you forward one or more selected messages, all to the same addressee(s), without taking the time to go through the compose window. First it lets you specify the addressees and optionally a short note. Then it creates one OUTBOX message for each of the selected messages, using the From and Reply-to names and addresses and the Sent Folder of your default Persona, the optional short note that you may have typed into the route dialog, followed by a line which says "Routing message from" and your From name and address and the date and time, and the text of the selected message. The Subject: line of each new message will be the same as that of the original from which it was created. Your signature, tagline, etc., will not be used. If the selected message has attachments, they will be sent as well. If the attachments are MIMEd, then the addressees will never see the "Routing message from" line or the preceding short note, because the receiving software routinely discards anything before the first MIME boundary line, according to the MIME standard.
Copy to a folder
This option copies the selected message(s) to a folder, after providing you with the Select a Folder dialog. This dialog has a tree view area just like that on the program's main window; Expand All and Collapse All buttons just like the menu options on the Folder menu of the main menu bar; and a New button which lets you create a new folder or a new subfolder of the selected folder. You can select an existing folder or create a new one and select that, and click on the OK button to have the selected message(s) copied to the specified folder.
Move to a folder
Also activated via Ctrl-M. This option is just like Copy to a folder above, except that it moves the selected message(s) rather than copying them.
Save as
This option copies the selected message (the *.POP file) to whatever drive, directory, and filename you specify.
Delete
Also activated via Ctrl-D. This option moves the selected message(s) to the TRASH folder, and opens the message below it in the browser window. Unless the current folder is the TRASH folder, in which case this option deletes the message from the drive.
Headers
Also activated via Ctrl-H. This option lets you select how many header lines you want to see for each message in the browser window. (The keystroke lets you cycle through the four choices in order; the menu lets you make a specific choice.) The state of this setting also determines whether or not the header lines will be printed when you print a message.
None
No header lines, just the message body text.
Brief
Just the From: and Date: headers on the first line, and the Subject: header on the second line, and the message body text.
Normal
The Date:, From:, To:, Cc:, Bcc:, and Subject: headers, each on its own line, and the message body text.
All
All of the header lines, and the message body text.
Message list font
This option lets you specify the font you want to use for the message list.
Browser window font size
Also activated via Ctrl-T. This option lets you specify the font size you want to use in the browser window. (The keystroke lets you cycle through the four choices in order; the menu lets you make a specific choice.)
Utilities
Mark opened
This option marks the selected message(s) as opened, so that they won't appear in a Virtual Folder of unopened messages, even if you don't want to use the normal method to open them.
Mark unopened
This option marks the selected message(s) as unopened, so that they will appear in a Virtual Folder of unopened messages, even if you've already opened them.
Copy to another account
This option copies the selected message(s) to the INBOX folder of another of your existing accounts, or even lets you create a new account as the target of this operation.
Move to another account
Just like the above option, except that it moves the message(s) rather than copying them.
Store attachment(s)
This option functions like the Store button on the Attachment Processor dialog, but automatically, on all the attachments in all of the selected messages, all at once, after asking you for the name of the directory where you want the files to be stored.

The Tools Menu

Address books
Mail filters
Download an internet file
This feature provides a quick way of doing simple file retrievals from the internet via the FTP and HTTP protocols. First, you specify the host and pathname/filename of the file to retrieve. If you don't specify the filename under which to store the file on your local system, the program will use whatever comes after the last slash character in the host filename, and put it into the directory from which the program was started. Or you can type the local path and filename, or the Find button will give you a file selection dialog to let you find the pathname and specify the filename. Specify whether you want to retrieve the file via the FTP or HTTP protocol. For FTP, you must specify your userid and password. The program will remember the userid you used the last time you used this dialog, and it will also remember the password if you turn on the Remember Password checkbox. The Options button will let you change the default parameters for the port numbers; time to wait for a connection; and maximum idle time to allow between packets received.
Virtual Folders

The Windows Menu

Toolbar
This option turns the toolbar on if it's off, or turns it off if it's on. The state of this setting also controls whether or not the compose window's toolbar will be present.

The Help Menu

Contents
This option brings up the online help window. The J Street Mailer help files are ordinary HTML web pages, which means that you can also use the online help window as a simple web browser; that's the purpose of the URL field at the top right. The only part of this window that isn't self-explanatory is the Toggle Contents button on the toolbar; it toggles the window between the normal display with the Contents and Index on the left and the browser section on the right, and just the browser section filling the whole window. (Note: This help system is called InnoHelp, and can be purchased by Java developers via InnoVal's home page, http://www.innoval.com.)
About
This option shows you the version number of the J Street Mailer installation you're running.