Mail Tool Controls and Menus

The control area, shown in Figure 4-3, has three groups of controls.

Figure 4-3 Mail Tool Control Area

The first four buttons in the top row are the standard Mail Tool menu buttons. The first four buttons in the bottom row are user-defined accelerator buttons, which you can customize to represent any of the items available from the standard menus. The items at the right side of the control area are the Mail File controls. These include the Mail File abbreviated menu button and text field, and the Mail File Move, Copy, and Load menu buttons.

The following sections provide a brief description of each of these controls.

File Menu

The File menu has choices that you use to organize mail messages, print them, or commit changes (such as deleting and sequentially renumbering messages).

• Use Load In-Box to load and view messages from your In-Box. This is how you return to the default mail view after you are done viewing a different mail file. It is also how you can get your new mail in between mail delivery intervals. See "Organizing Your Mail Messages" for more information about mail files.

• Use Print to print the selected messages. See "Printing Messages" for more information about printing.

• Use Save Changes to incorporate changes. See "Saving Changes for Mail Tool" for more information.

• Use Done to incorporate changes and to close Mail Tool to an icon.

• Use Mail Files to display a window that helps you organize your mail messages into separate mail files. See "Organizing Your Mail Messages" for more information about mail files.

The default item of the File Menu is Load In-Box. Selecting this loads your inbox.

View Menu

The View menu has choices for different ways to view messages and move between them, and for finding particular mail messages.

• Use Messages to view messages with an abbreviated or full header.

• Use Previous or Next to view the message before or after the current message.

• Use Sort By to sort messages in your In-Box or mail files. See "Sorting the Contents of a Mail File" for more information.

• Use Find to find messages in your In-Box or mail file by sender, recipient, and/or by subject. See "Saving Changes for Mail Tool".

See "Mail Tool View Message Window" for more information about the first three items on the View menu.

The default item of the View menu is Next. When you select Next, the next message is displayed.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu has choices for editing and deleting mail messages and configuring your Mail Tool from the Mail Tool Properties window.

• Use Cut and Copy to put selected messages onto the clipboard. You can then paste these messages from the clipboard into other windows using the Text Pane menu. These options are dimmed if you do not have any selected messages.

• Use Delete to delete selected messages. This option is dimmed if you do not have any selected messages, or are not currently viewing any.

• Use Undelete to restore deleted messages. When you save your Mail Tool changes, deleted messages are really deleted, and can no longer be restored. The Undelete option is dimmed if you do not have any deleted messages.

• Use Properties to customize your Mail Tool. See "Customizing Mail Tool" for information about Mail Tool properties.

The default item of the Edit menu is Delete. When you choose Delete, the currently selected messages are deleted or the currently viewed messages are deleted if no messages are selected.

Compose Menu

The Compose menu has choices for opening Compose windows from which you can write and send mail messages.

• Use New to open a new Compose window.

• Use Reply to open a Compose window to respond to a selected message. See "Replying to a Message" for more information.

• Use Forward to open a Compose window that includes the selected message for forwarding. If the message has attachments, the attachments are also included in the forwarded message.

• Use Vacation to initiate or stop an automatic response to incoming messages when you are away from your mail. See "Using the Vacation Notifier" for more information about Vacation options.

The default item of the Compose menu is New. When you choose New, a new Compose window is opened.

Custom Mail Tool Buttons

The first four buttons on the second row of the control area are custom Mail Tool buttons. You can change these buttons to be any of the items on the File, View, Edit, or Compose menus.

The default items of the custom buttons are Done (from the File menu), Next (from the View menu), Delete (from the Edit menu), and Reply (from the Compose menu). See "Header Window Properties" for information about how to change the items on these custom buttons.

Mail File Text Field and Menus

You use the Mail File text field and abbreviated menu button to create and view mail files, and to store messages into mail files. You use the abbreviated menu button to choose from all your available mail files. See "Mail File Menus" for information on creating and viewing mail files.

Use the last three buttons on the second row of the control area to move or copy selected messages into a mail file, or to view (load) a different mail file. Each of these buttons displays a menu of the most recently used mail files. You can customize this menu to always include particular mail files. See "Mail File Menus" for information on creating and viewing mail files. See "Mail Filing Properties" for information about customizing your mail file menus.

Pop-up Menus

A pop-up menu in the Header pane, called Messages, contains a subset of controls from the File, View, Edit, and Compose menus. Display this menu by moving the pointer anywhere in the Header window pane and pressing the MENU button. Each item on the Messages pop-up menu works the same way as it does when you choose the same item from a menu button.

The text editing panes in the View Message and Compose windows contain a pop-up menu with the standard editing commands from the Text Editor. For a description of the text editing commands, see the chapter Chapter 3, Text Editor.