Using Insight e-mail

The Arache e-mail client is called "Insight" - because of its main competitor, called "Outlook" ;-)

The easiest way to set up Insight is using the e-mail setup wizard.

More advanced users can go to the options page. You should correctly set up the SMTP and POP3 server name in the network settings section, timezone and mail directory in the local settings section, and fill in your personal information and mail transfer preferences in the personal settings section. Another option is to edit ARACHNE.CFG - Arachne's plain text configuration file.

Once the e-mail is configured, you can use the Insight graphical interface to compose, send, receive, and read messages and files. You can send mails using a mailto type of URL. You can e-mail all displayed documents by just pressing the <F2> key and send other files by just clicking on their icons in directory listings.

Address book

Many Arachne testers were confused by the absence of an addressbook. Arachne does not have an e-mail-only addressbook: however, the Arachne Hotlist can contain any valid URLs, including the mailto: kind - also known as e-mail addresses. If you select a mail address with the right mouse button and click on "Add to hotlist" (or press hotkey "A"), you will be asked to edit the hotlist item name - which is usually the name of the person you are adding to your hotlist.

Sending messages

You can use multiple e-mail addresses in the To: or CC: fields. You can separate them using one of the following characters: , ; + : .

When composing an e-mail message, you don't have to specify the e-mail addresses of recipients manually from the keyboard. You can also use @filename in the To: or CC: field which allows you to use a list of e-mail address stored in a local file. No special formating is needed: it should be a plain text file with one valid e-mail address on each line.

You can choose two ways to submit each e-mail: send it immediately to the Internet (if you are online), or save it on your disk in the OUTBOX folder. In the second case, the message will actually leave your computer after clicking on the Send unsent mail icon in the Insight page (of course, you must be online to perform the upload). If you choose to send the mail when you are offline, the message will be saved to OUTBOX.

Folders

Received mail is stored in folders. Folders are simply subdirectories of your main mail directory. If you want to create, rename or remove them, just create, rename or remove the directory. You can do this using your DOS file manager - try Arachne Packages VC.APM or DC.APM if you don't have any file manager yet. Folders are listed in alphabetical order.

You can easily move received messages from one folder to another. New messages (in INBOX), archived ones, and sent ones have a "Move" button which allows you to move them to an existing folder or even to create a new folder and immediately move the message there. The "Trash" button is a shortcut for moving messages to the TRASH folder, and "Archive" is for moving them to the ARCHIVE folder.

Tip: to quicky delete an unwanted message from a folder, select it with the right mouse button (or Shift+Enter) and press Delete.

e-mail Messages are stored on your disk as normal text files - the following table explains the extensions:
*.CNMNew mail (Compatibility: Pegasus mail for DOS on Novell networks)
*.MESReceived mail - stored in folders (we avoided *.MSG because this extension is used for messages in the Fidonet netmail directory, which uses proprietary binary headers)
*.TBS"To Be Sent" - outgoing mail
*.SNTSent mail

More tips & tricks

While viewing an e-mail message, you can easily rename it and copy it to another directory using the <F2> key. You can use any filename you wish, but it is recommended to keep the *.CNM extension, so that Arachne or, for example, Pegasus mail for DOS can recognize the files later. The <F2> key is another way to forward an e-mail message exactly as it is - most e-mail clients will recognize such an attachment.

In case that you don't want your POP3 password to appear in the ARACHNE.CFG file, you have to enter the password into the input field in the top left corner of the Insight page and press the Accept button each time you restart Arachne.

You can also download mail by giving the following URL to Arachne:
pop3://username:password@server

If you want to transfer e-mail to more mailboxes and/or send and receive e-mail at the same time, you can use Arachne script files.

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