Reading and Editing Emails

If you click on an email in the overview of an email directory, it is displayed in the lower right frame of the email module window. You can use the symbols in the upper right margin of the frame to display the different functions in the detail view. Information on the sender and recipients of the email is shown against a yellow background, along with the subject line and the date the email was received or sent. The actual content of the email is shown against a white background. The attachment area is farther down on the screen. All the files attached to the email are listed in the form of a table here. File attachments are marked with the attachment icon . If the attachment happens to be in a format that your browser knows, you can view the contents of the attachment in the email by clicking on the plus symbol to the right of the attached file. If a false content type as been set for the attachment so that the attachment cannot be properly displayed, then you have the possibility of correcting this and setting an appropriate value via the list field at the side.

To hide the attached file displayed in the email, simply click on the minus symbol.

Opening and saving attachments

You can save the attachment to your hard drive by clicking on the icon. To do this, click on the button "Save" in the context menu that opens and select the appropriate directory and file name in the Explorer window to save the attachment. If you want to view the attachment right away without saving it, click on the name of the document instead of on the diskette icon . The new file attachment is then displayed in a new browser window if it happens to be in a file format that your browser can use.

Appointment and Task Notifications

You can accept or reject new appointments or tasks that are reported to you in emails directly through the Web Mail client. This information is then set immediately in the database. If you receive an email notifying you of an appointment or task request created in the Open-Xchange Server, selecting the email automatically opens a popup window where you can either accept or reject the appointment or task. To reject a task or appointment, mark the Deny radio button. To accept, select the Accept radio button. You can enter a short message into the text field in both cases. Confirm your response by clicking the OK button. If you do not wish to respond to the request at the moment, click the Cancel button. But please keep in mind that the next time you click on the item, it will not open a popup window. Next time you will have to go to the Appointments or Tasks module to accept or deny such a request manually.

Requesting Read Receipts

If the email sender activates the receipt notification option, a popup window opens automatically when you select the email. If you click on the OK button, the sender is automatically notified that you have opened his request. If do not want to notify the sender that you have received his email, click on the Cancel button. This popup function can also be turned off globally. The appropriate settings are found in the configuration section.

Adding Addresses to your Contacts

You can add the email addresses in an email you have received directly to your list of contact addresses. In the email, simply click on the green icon beside each email address in the To: or cc: lines. The email address is automatically entered into the context menu for creating a new contact, where you can enter additional information such as the telephone number and street address.

Exporting Attachments

The Open-Xchange Server web mail client offers you the possibility of exporting e-mail message attachments. Exporting means in this case that the attachment can be saved as a document in the Document module of the Open-Xchange Server. To export an attachment, click on the Export link to the right of the attachment. In the pop-up window that appears, select the index in the Document module in which the attachment is to be saved as a document.

Detail View Actions

Once you have received and opened an email, there are several things you can do with the message. These different actions are available to you via the symbols in the upper edge of the frame. You can select among the following symbols and actions:

Reply -Click on this icon if you want to reply to an open email. This opens a window for composing a new email, as described in the section on writing new email messages. The only difference is that in this case the email that you want to answer is included as a quotation in the new message. In addition, the person who originally sent you the email is included in the form as the recipient in the To line. The Subject line shows the subject of the original message with Re: in front to show that the message was sent in reply.

Reply all -As with the email reply, you can select this icon to answer everyone. This takes you to the form for composing new email messages as described in the section on writing new messages. The fields for Subject and To as well as the contents are filled in here as was the case for simple replies to emails. The only difference is that the new recipients in the To line also include the recipients who received a copy of the original email.

Forward -Normally, there are frequent occasions when you receive emails either that were not intended for you or that might be of interest to your coworkers. Such situations are what the Forward icon is meant to handle. By clicking on this, the form for writing a new email opens automatically. The Subject line now shows the same subject line as was in the original message. The abbreviation Fwd: appears in front of the subject in the line to indicate that the email was forwarded. You can now enter an email address for a recipient you want to forward the message to in the To: field. The contents and attachments of the original email are automatically copied into the new email. But you should note that these contents are not displayed in the form for writing a new email. These contents are included when you forward the message to the recipient.

Warning Delete

There is no security question here! The email is sent right to the Trash folder without any warnings. If you later delete the email from the Trash folder, the system will be removed permanently from the system.

Delete -The detail view of an email makes it very easy for you to delete it. Simply click on the Delete icon. The deleted email is automatically deleted and copied into the Trash email directory.

Print -If you click on the Print icon in the detail view of an email, the program automatically opens up the context menu of your printer software. There you can set up your printer as you normally would for printing and then print out the email by clicking on the Print button.

Figure 12.7. Printer Configuration Menu

Printer Configuration Menu

Options -Click on the Options icon in the detail view of an email and the Web Mail client automatically opens a new window where you can change the status of an email, export it or view its source code. You can select the individual options from the hierarchical directory list to the left. The following options are available in this window:

Status Change

This menu item allows you to change the status of an email. You can select the appropriate status by clicking on its list field. The status of an email can be set to one of the following values:

Read
Unread
Answered
Not answered

You can change the status of emails you have already read back to unread.

Figure 12.8. Changing the Status of an Email

Changing the Status of an Email

Export

This menu option allows you to export the contents of an email. To do this, simply select the appropriate option and click on the link message.eml behind it. You can now save the email with the name message.eml in any directory.

Viewing the Header and Source

These options allow you to view the header and the source text of an email in more detail. The email address of the recipient and sender of an email are probably the most important information contained at the head of an email. But the header and the source text of an email also include additional information that might be of some use in certain circumstances.

Figure 12.9. The Header of an Email

The Header of an Email

Email Header

The following information is found in the header of an email:

Return path:

This field displays an entry on the host that sent you the email. The information here serves to show a secure pathway to the recipient of an email. In nearly all situations, the entry under Return path is the same as the entry under From.

X sieve:

The sieve filter version used.

Received:

This line shows you the route through which the email was sent to you. Typical emails are not sent directly from the sender to the recipient. They are more often forwarded through a series of hosts. This entry has the following syntactic structure:

Received from Mail:

Name of the sender's host

By:

Name of the receiving host

With:

Name of the protocol used

ID:

The identification number assigned by the receiving host

For:

Email address of the recipient for whom the email is intended

Date:

When (date and time) the email was received by a host.If more than one host is involved, a received line is shown for each.

Message-ID:

This entry shows the specific identification number of the host through which the email is sent.

From:

This entry contains the email address of the sender.

To:

This entry contains the email address of the recipient.

Reply-To:

This entry contains the email address of the sender if it is not identical to the email address shown in the From line. This entry is always displayed whenever the sender has chosen to have replies to his emails sent to a different email address.

CC:

This entry contains the email addresses of any additional recipients.

Subject:

This line contains the subject line of the email.

MIME version:

This entry contains the mime version used by the sender. Here, MIME stands for multipurpose internet mail extension, and it is the common email standard. Depending on the mime version used, additional email formats may also be in use. This method is used, for example, to include additional non-text elements in an email.

Content type:

Different possible contents for emails are grouped into different categories according to the mime standard. These distinguish between text, graphics or audio elements. You can see which categories are contained in an email by looking at this entry.

Content transfer encoding:

This entry shows the mime encoding that was used to transmit the email components that went beyond the basic text components of the message.

X mailer:

This entry shows the potential name of the email client the email was written on. This entry is optional and not every email client includes this information.

X priority:

This entry shows the priority of an email. Some email clients, such as the Web Mail client in the Open-Xchange Server, allow emails to be marked as urgent with different levels of urgency. Mail clients that support this function emphasize emails that include such markings.

X confirm reading to:

Several email clients, including the Web Mail client in the Open-Xchange Server, allow the function Read receipt to be used in emails. As soon as the recipient of an email marked with this command opens the email, the original sender is sent a receipt message. You can see if this function is activated by looking at this entry.

Date:

This entry contains the date and time when the message was sent. Since emails are a global communication medium, the sender's time zone is also displayed.

Email source text

All the information shown in the email header is also contained in the source text of an email message. This function additionally displays the entire contents of an email along with its formatting tags.