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Using SCO Shell Mail

Organizing your mail

Mail can be saved to files called mail folders. You can create as many as you want, and with any name you choose.

As you read the mail in your system mailbox, you can decide which messages you want to keep, and save them to the appropriate mail folders.

When you want to read the contents of a mail folder, you can look at the contents of that folder instead of your system mailbox file. Listings for the messages in the mail folder then appear on your screen, and you can choose the messages that you want to look at. You can also delete messages from the mail folder, forward copies of old messages to others, and do anything else you would do with new mail from the system mailbox.

Mail folders are located in the mailfolders directory, which is a directory in your home directory.

SCO Shell Mail lists all of your mail folders and lets you choose the one you want.

If you create a lot of mail folders, you may eventually begin to lose track of them. To stay organized, you can create subdirectories or drawers within the mailfolders directory and distribute your folders among them. You can create a drawer to hold certain types of mail folder (for personal correspondence, for example, where each folder in the drawer holds mail from one of the people that you correspond with). You can also create a drawer for mail about customers, with each folder in the drawer holding mail about a specific customer.

Viewing the contents of a folder or drawer

To examine the contents of one of the drawers within the mailfolders directory, select Folder. The point-and-pick list now shows drawers only:

Select OpenDrawer, and pick the drawer you want to see, (for example Outgoing.old); its contents appear on the screen and the divider line displays its name:

Each drawer under the mailfolders directory always contains two standard entries: <mailfolders> and ../. Select <mailfolders> to return to the main mailfolders directory. You can do this from within any drawer, even if that drawer is inside another drawer (that is, a subdirectory of a subdirectory). Select ../ to return to the drawer above the drawer that you are in.

Starting mail from a different mail folder

To organize your mail, you may wish mail from certain users to be redirected automatically to other mail folders than the default mail folder. Do this by following the procedure described in ``Redirecting incoming messages to other folders''.
To start SCO Shell Mail from a different mail folder from the default system folder, select:

Options -> Applist -> Edit

from the main SCO Shell menu, choose the entry for Mail from the application list.

Add the option -f to the end of the path shown in the ``Path Name'' field, followed by the path leading to the mail folder you want. For example, if your login is nigel, your home directory is /u/nigel, and you want to load your general purpose mail folder, you would change the ``Path Name'' field to read:

$OALIB/email -f /usr/nigel/mailfolders/mbox

If you choose an alternate startup mail folder, you can still read new mail in your system mailbox. Select:

Option -> Switch -> System

to load the system mail folder into SCO Shell Mail.

Creating a new folder or drawer

To create a new folder or drawer, select:

Folder -> Create -> Folder

or

Folder -> Create -> Drawer

SCO Shell Mail prompts you for the name of the folder or drawer to be created. Enter the name, and press <Enter>.

By default, the folder or drawer is created in whatever drawer is currently showing on the screen. If you want to put the new folder or drawer in a different drawer, select OpenDrawer first to bring that drawer to the screen.

You can also create drawers and folders while saving a mail message, by selecting Save from the Mail or Read menus. See ``Saving a message to a mail folder''.

You can create a folder inside a different drawer than the one that is currently open. You do this by entering the pathname to the drawer where you want the new folder to be. You must first create the drawer if it is does not already exist.

Suppose you are in the mailfolders directory, which contains a drawer (or subdirectory) called projects. To create a folder named proposals inside the projects drawer, you would enter the path projects/proposals. The new folder then appears inside the projects drawer, even though mailfolders is still on the screen.

Select Drawer to create a new drawer. SCO Shell Mail prompts you to enter the name of the drawer. Enter it and press <Enter>.

By default, SCO Shell Mail puts the new drawer inside whatever drawer you have displayed on the screen.

If you want to create a drawer inside a different drawer than the one that is currently open, you have two options. First, you can select OpenDrawer to open the drawer, and then select Create again to create the drawer. Second, you can enter the directory path from the current drawer to the drawer where you want the new drawer to be created.

Renaming a folder or drawer

To rename a folder or drawer, select:

Folder -> Rename

Enter the name of the folder or drawer that you want to rename.

If the folder or drawer that you want to rename is not in the current drawer, you can use the ``>'' key to display the contents of other drawers without actually selecting them for renaming. When you highlight a drawer and press <>>, the contents of that drawer appear on the screen. You can then select one of the drawers or folders in the new drawer. To display the drawer above the currently displayed drawer, press <>> on the ../ entry. To display the mailfolders directory, if that directory is not on display, press <>> on the <mailfolders> entry.

Enter the new name for the folder or drawer and press <Enter>.

SCO Shell Mail renames the folder or drawer, and the Folder menu reappears.

Moving a folder

You might want to move a folder between drawers in order to reorganize your mail folders. To move a folder from one drawer to another, select:

Folder -> Move

You cannot move a drawer, only folders.

Highlight the folder(s) that you want to move. Highlight the drawer that you want to move the folders to, and press <Enter>. The folders move from their current location to the new folder.

Deleting a folder or a drawer

To delete a folder or drawer, select:

Folder -> Delete

Highlight the folder(s) or drawer(s) to be deleted, and press <Enter>.

Switching to a new mail folder

By default, SCO Shell Mail displays the new messages in your system mailbox file, not the old messages that you have saved in mail folders.

To look at the messages in one of your folders instead of in the system mailbox, select:

Options -> Switch

Then select the mail folder you wish to examine.


Next topic: Listing specified mail messages
Previous topic: Viewing the history of a message

© 2003 Caldera International, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 -- 11 February 2003