PDMSB EMail 

Following is a description of the operation of the PDMSB EMail System taken directly from my production PDMSB directory. Click Here to load a screen shot that you can print out for viewing.

Assuming you are looking at your print-out, you will see, from the title bar that you are in the [D:\pdmsb\DMS\EMail\InBox] directory, one click from the Master window. This is a 1024 x 768 window which is a good compromise between amount of data displayed and size of type.

This window will be empty when you start, and you will need to enter some information by pressing the F4- Properties function key, or clicking on it's representation on the screen. The Help system, press F1, on the properties window gives a complete explanation of the necessary inputs.

Entering property information is a one-time effort, so the normal first step is to fetch your EMail, F5 function key. The program will then attempt to connect to the Internet and your EMail POP3 server and download a screen full of messages, the object being to process your EMail in batches. You, of course, can control this with your property settings. Note that you will see status messages on the line above the date at the bottom of the window. 

If you accept the fact that I am trying to make it easier to select messages to be kept, as opposed to selecting files to be deleted, the procedure that works for me is to watch the Subject column while the messages are loading (I use dial-up). Then a quick glance at the Mail From and the Mail To columns, marking the messages with a right click, the first click yields a green for save, the next click yields yellow for future use, the next yields red for delete and the last click returns to white. For the time being, yellow, red and white mean delete. When a message is red on loading it means that you deleted a message from that source before.

The first column is simply a message number that is used for processing. The second column shows the size of the message, important if you use dial-up as the loading progress is displayed on the status line. The date sequence is determined by the POP3 server and seems to be random. The Type column indicates plain text (EMAIL) messages or html (EXPRESS) messages. This system will only display text messages (don't do scripts, don't do html) so if you wish to flirt with trouble I have provided a way to look at your message with other programs, as explained on the properties window. 

The Code column is for PDMSB to PDMSB communication and will be described in a help file on the system.

An "A" in the Flags column indicates the message has an attachment. the one you see on the screen shot is obviously a worm or virus and should not be saved. I'll fill in more details here as I work them out.

The Mail To: column may be the most interesting. Since my EMail name is Doug Skoglund, and since you don't see my complete name in that column, you can reasonably assume that you are looking at an entire page of Spam. One simple press of the F7- Process EMail and, POOF, they are all gone. F5 and you load the next batch - what could be easier??

I want to emphasize that I have been using my production system for the past couple of months, at this writing, and am quite satisfied that it is quicker and easier than using Outlook Express. But, please understand that the system is quite flexible and that I welcome your input on your experience and needs. It's a simple task to make new screen files to fit your needs, and dependent upon market reception, I hope to develop a user-friendly procedure for screen modification.

The primary advantage over OE is the fact that saved messages go into a ScrapBook of messages that will allow access via a variety of sort keys such as ascending date, descending date, title, from address, to address, and you may even mark your messages with up to eight keywords. Except for decoding, when necessary, your messages are kept in separate files with a .eml extension so that they are accessible with any program and capable of being offloaded to CD or DVD, maintaining accessibility from the original ScrapBook.

Thanks for you time,

Doug

Page update - 04/15/2004