- Email services
- How do I?
- Webmail Help
- Address Book Conversion
ITS Web email tips and FAQs
These are general tips for using IMP Web-basd email on central campus. If you have a good tip please send it to: web.mail@yale.edu
IMP FAQ and Tips for Central Email and Network Services
Table of Contents:
- Download an email archive using medical campus Webmail
- Limitations
- Addressbook notes
- Mac OS 9: IMP is very slow on my Macintosh
- Why can't I connect from my Internet Service Provider?
- Why can't I connect from overseas?
- I saved my email password when using IMP. How do I undo that?
- I used another email program. Why are messages gone from my IMP Inbox?
- Why is email I deleted with IMP still there?
- Why is my time zone wrong when I use IMP?
- Interface, Open Source, and Modifications
- Where am I?
- Why are all my emails out of order?
- Managing Email with IMP
- IMP Folders are Server folders (IMAP)
- Maintenance Operations
- Making Message Counts Match in Open Folders and Lefthand Menu
- Sorting Tips
- Sent-Mail: Where is It Saved?
- Save Drafts Frequently while in Compose
- Attachments work well within limits
- HTML displays, but not all HTML is created equal
- Word Wrap
- Fonts cannot be changed in native IMP
- Japanese Characters
- Setting correct addresses on messages you send
- Folder Naming Conventions are very important
- Composing with multiple addresses via the Directory or Addressbook
- Replies: quoting the Original Message
- Printing What You Read
Limitations: IMP is not a substitute for other personal email applications
IMP is a unique program. It is wonderful to be able to look at your email from most any place with a web browser, but you need to consider that...
- Web based email is not fast on a network, and can be screamingly slow on a modem.
- You will not have access to your usual address books and groups, unless you have created them or imported them into the IMP addressbook.
- If you are in a "public" place, the browser might cache some of the messages and images locally, especially if you open attachments (see below).
- You have to remember that until you save web-based email in an IMAP folder it doesn't live anywhere. If you interrupt your session or use a Back button you can lose whatever you are working on. Keep messages brief or save to the drafts folder frequently. Please keep in mind that IMP is not meant as a substitute for full-featured email clients such as Eudora, Netscape and Pine. IMPv4, the upgraded version offers more flexibility and features, but it is not a replacement for other supported email programs. The intended use is for travelers when they do no have their computers handy, or for simple checking of email from a kiosk. If you will be away from campus and intend to do serious work involving email please contact your Support Providers, beforehand. They can assist you with ways to set up a computer for secure access away from Yale.
All versions of IMP through the latest (now v.4), only allow you one addressbook named "MyAddressbook." Unfortunately, creating and importing addresses is organized randomly. Thus, while you cannot sort addresses, you can search and retrieve them easily in several different ways while composing emai or from the Address book menu.
Mac OS 9: IMP is very slow on my Macintosh
This is primarily an issue for older Macs running OS 9. Webmail works much faster in OS X, and should not cause any problems in Safari or other Mac-supported browsers (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox). Mac OS X replaced OS 9 in 2000, and it has been the standard for several years now. It is highly suggested, if you are still running Mac OS 9, that you upgrade to the latest version of OS X (as of now, OS X 10.4 "Tiger") for full compatibility with Yale webmail. Support for obsolete machines and operating systems is very limited.
Why can't I connect from my Internet Service Provider?
Web-based email is convenient and will generally work with most Internet providers from many locations. However, it won't always work, largely due to factors beyond our control. All web based email clients require reliable and fast connections to web servers to allow you to connect and sustain a connection while you work with email.
This is not always available from the busiest commercial ISPs (such as AOL), all the time, or from all parts of the world. It helps to keep your inbox small: the inbox is indexed first as it loads and that index is updated frequently. This is a major contributor to slow performance. However, even if you have a small inbox, you may not be able to connect if the network you are using is very busy or has limited bandwidth. Also, for a variety of reasons, host countries may restrict access to the Internet or certain domains. Restrictions and connectivity may vary from region to region, so your experience in Beijing may not be the same as in Canton. As a guest, when you are visiting other countries, you must respect their rules regarding access.
Web based email clients are the slowest type of email and the most dependent upon good global Internet infrastructure. If you have a need for sustained email connectivity away from Yale's network you must make plans beforehand to forward to a local service which you know to be available or plan to take a network and email configured computer with you.
Why can't I connect from overseas?
Non-English Character sets and Webmail
Sometimes a problem with native character sets appears to be a connection problem. IMP webmail 3.x had issues with non-English character sets and did not accept logins or display email properly if your OS or browser are set for characters such those used by Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese. We believe that this problem has been resolved in IMPv4, which displays a variety of characters accurately. However, if you cannot connect from machines using these native character sets, try finding a machine with an English OS or browser. If you have your own machine with you, you'll have better success and access to more features if you use an email client program such as Apple Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird loaded locally. These programs are more aware of other character sets.
The Web is not the same Worldwide
The Internet experience is not same all over the world. Web based email is not a direct connection between where you are and our server the way another email client such as Outlook might be. Whether you are talking about IMP at Yale, or some other system and product, web based connectivity requires secure, timely cooperation and connection between anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand servers across the world depending upon your location. These servers can fail to synchronize or connect well enough for email to succeed for many reasons. Also, sovereign nations may choose to restrict web access for security or other reasons.
While the webmail experience is acceptable for brief, casual interactions, most seasoned travelers in the business world do not rely upon any sort of web-based email. They plan, in advance, to connect to their business accounts via desktop clients at intervals. They are cognizant that connectivity, even in the United States or other parts of the developed world, is not always assured. Many use a POP client, which allows them to compose and do other work off-line, and then connect briefly as needed to read email or respond to it. If you plan to have your own machine with you, it is not hard for you configure an appropriate client.
There is also another simple thing you can do to fill the gaps when you are away from your own machine. Use forwarding from our email configuration tool to forward messages to some account you are sure you can reach locally, but also to leave a copy of messages in your inbox (Check "Also keep a copy of forwarded email on my Yale account" ). In that way you can have the best of both worlds. If you have additional questions about remote connectivity, contact your at Support Providers.
I saved my email password when using IMP. How do I undo that?
Saving your password is not a feature of IMP, but of the operating system and browser you use. Using Windows and IE as an example: In IE go to the Tools Menu, then Internet Options
Then open the Content tab.
Then click the AutoComplete button.
Finally, click Clear Passwords and click OK to finish
If you use another OS or browser, use Help or Man pages with "password" as a keyword to find out what you need to do. Generally saving passwords on a machine which is not yours and not under your sole control is very bad idea. Convenience is not worth the likelihood and extreme inconvenience of identity theft, especially if you are away from home.
I used another email program. Why are messages gone from my IMP Inbox?
Eudora, Outlook, and similar clients are usually set up as POP clients. POP clients usually download all your email messages to your local computer using the POP protocol. Once you have done this, the messages are no longer on the ITS Email servers that IMAP clients, such as IMP, have access to. ITS suggests you set other email clients up for IMAP so that you can avoid this problem as well as work with the same folders as you do with IMP. If you prefer POP protocol, you should set your program to "leave mail on server for 15 days" so that you would have access to the last 15 days worth of messages. This may be a setting associated with an Incoming Mail option, or More Settings, or Advanced Settings. Look for these if you install or upgrade an email program - before trying to check your mail. It's generally not advisable to leave email on the servers for more than 15 days. However, you must be aware of the time limits you've set, or other things you may have done with a POP client that could delete email from the server. Usually you can find "lost" messages just by looking in the local inbox of the last machine you used a POP client on. Another thing you can do, if you are sure you left messages on the server within the last 3 days or so is to request a restore from mail server Central Backup. If you've deleted messages from your local machine's inbox, and have not left messages on the server recently, these messages will normally not be recoverable unless you have used Central Backup for your local machine.
Why is email I deleted with IMP still there?
IMAP uses a two step deletion process. When you delete messages - email is marked to be deleted later. When you select "Purge Deleted" from "Show Deleted | Purge Deleted" from the upper or lower right of the open IMP screen the messages are purged from the server. Many IMAP clients use this two step approach as a safety measure, because once you have deleted messages from the server, they usually cannot be recovered. Not purging deleted email is another way that an inbox can become very large. This in turn can aggravate problems when using other email clients to read your account, such as Eudora.A good way to keep track of what you are doing is to turn on Show Deleted. Deleted messages will then appear with a line drawn through them until they are purged.
Why is my time zone wrong when I use IMP?
This was broken in earlier versions of IMP. Now, with IMPv4 you should be able to select an appropriate time zone for the part of the world you are working from. Be sure to reselect the Eastern Time zone when you return to Yale.
Interface, Open Source, and Modifications
There are many factors that affect how IMP looks when used on different browsers on different platforms: monitor resolution and tuning; browser settings and capabilities; and accountholder eyesight, taste and judgment are among the most obvious. If you don't like the way IMP looks, here are some things you can do to change its appearance. Within IMPv4 there are Options which you can set for languages, colors, and HTML editing. There are no settings for fonts. Fonts and other settings are features of your browser and must be addressed through your browser's interface. You can try to -
- Resize the browser window
- Adjust the brightness or contrast on your monitor
- Modify the font or color settings in your browser
- Use a different browser
From time to time an accountholder will request a change to the interface or appearance of IMP. Some people expect that because IMP is an open source product it can be changed very easily. An open source product is still a product, whose parts must work together. While we are prepared to make changes that improve performance or correct major reproducible problems such as dropped sessions, most cosmetic changes to the appearance will not be entertained unless there is a clear benefit for all 20,000 accountholders, and they are incorporated in a new version of the IMP product. This is consistent with the way IMP is implemented by other sites, including our own Medical Center, MIT, and Columbia. Just as you cannot change many aspects of the accountholder interface for Netscape, Eudora and Pine there is no provision in IMP for individual accountholders to change names of menu items or types and locations of pointers and prompts. For the most part, the default settings work at least as well as their commercial counterparts, and will become familiar to you as you use IMP regularly. As we learn more about how people use IMP, and as the vendors at Horde.Org publish new versions with new features, we will continue to make these available in a measured and careful way as we have with IMPv4. When you propose suggestions via Web Mail ask yourself yourself if you would voice the same concerns about other vended products such as Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or Eudora, and also if you are sure that 20,000 people would benefit from or approve of the change. Not everyone sees colors, symbols or menus the same way you do, and you can often find ways to customize webmail by working within its extensive sets of Options.
When you open a mailbox folder in IMP , by default you will likely see what IMP believes are the most recent "unseen" messages on the last page. You can tweak this behavior to match your needs using Mailbox and Folder Display Options. One thing you can do right away is make the page size large (up to 999 messages) so that you can easily scroll to what you want to see.
If your messages extend over multiple pages a navigation bar appears at the top of the list of messages with a place to enter a page number, and arrows to allow you to move 1 page at a time, or to jump to the top and bottom of a folder. The large arrows on the left and right, jump to the top page and the bottom page respectively. The smaller innermost arrows move backward or forward one page at a time. In addition to this, IMP lets you search for addresses and phrases in messages in a folder from the Search menu. Using these tools, it normally takes as much time to jump to the beginning or the end of a folder as it does to scroll one page. Where possible, in IMP or other web-based applications, you should use native navigation controls, rather than the back button. When you use these controls, IMP maintains contact with the server and remembers where you are in your session. When you use a back button what you see depends upon your cache as well as your connection.
Why are all my emails out of order?
Sometimes you might find your all of your email messages in your inbox (or any other IMP folder) in some random non-chronological order. Email in IMP can be sorted according to a number of criteria, including message #, date, alphabetical from sender, alphabetical from subject, and size. In addition, each of these sorting criteria can be set to ascending or descending. It is very rare that you will ever need to use any other criteria besides descending message # to sort your email (the top of the '#' column is highlighted light blue, and the triangle-arrow is pointing down). Descending message # sorts all of your email in the order you received it, showing the newest messages at the top, and continuing down through to older email. This is the most common and easiest to use method of email sorting and organization, although some users occasionally like to use one of the alphabetical sorting options to find specific senders or subjects.
It is very easy to accidentally click on one of the other sorting options and suddenly find your email in some confusing, non-chronological order. It may even seem as if you have lost email messages, because the newer email was shuffled in with older email in the newly-sorted list. Keep an eye on how your email is sorted. It should almost always be selected to the descending message # sort. If you happen to find all of your emails scrambled or in some non-chronological order, simply click on the '#' at the top of that column to resort your email to message # order. Also, be sure that the arrow is pointed down (descending) so your newest messages are at the top. If not, simply click on the arrow to toggle it and switch its direction.
Because it is so easy to sort, select, or search through large folders, IMP is powerful tool for managing email, particularly if you are unfamiliar or unable to use other email clients such as Pine of Netscape to organize it. Some of the things you can do include:
- Selecting blocks of messages to perform actions on.
- Selecting and moving or copying blocks of messages from your inbox to other IMAP folders.
IMP Folders are Server Folders (IMAP)
Folders stored in local disks or home directories on the Pantheon with other email programs such as Pine, Eudora, Outlook, and Thunderbird are NOT ACCESSIBLE by IMP. Only folders stored in IMAP space on the central email servers are available here. These other email programs that have both local and IMAP folder storage can be used to move messages from local folders to IMAP folders.
If you haven't changed the default settings, IMP will ask you about Maintenance Operations on the first day of each month. Typically it will ask if you want to rename the old sent-mail folder, if you want to delete sent-mail folders older than 12 months, and if you want to delete the trash. If you check the boxes to rename sent-mail, delete old sent-mail, and to delete the trash, then click Perform Maintenance Operations, these actions take place. If you click Skip Maintenance - you will not be asked again until the first day of the next month.
[Click on the images to bring up a larger version]
Maintenance settings are toggled on or off under the IMP and Horde Options Menus as Login Tasks.
Details are set from Login Tasks under the Mail Options.People who have used Pine will recognize them, with some additional flexibility. By default IMP is set to ask you about maintenance monthly upon login . You may also preset whether IT not it will rename sent-mail folders, and whether it will delete old ones.
By default IMP will keep 12 versions of the sent-mail folder (a year's worth). You can set the number lower if you wish. We don't recommend that you set it higher due to IMAP space considerations. By default IMP will empty the IMAP (Server) Trash month ly if you perform scheduled maintenance. You can change this interval. In general we recommend that you do not alter the monthly maintenance settings, and that you do rename sent-mail and delete the trash once a month. It's very easy to forget to do housekeeping on IMAP (Server) folders, and while a lot of space is available, it's generally easier and faster to work with smaller folders. Some programs such as Eudora will load the In (inbox), Out (sent-mail, and Trash into memory, and most email programs, w whether web-based or desktop will devote considerable resources to checking the inbox and sent-mail if nothing else. Smaller is better and faster, and the maintenance tools will help you to do housekeeping efficiently with automatic reminders
Making Message Counts Match in Open Folders and Lefthand Menu
Some people notice that the message count shown in the folder they have open and those in the lefthand menu don't match except when then login. That's because these refresh at a different rate. Although this is a harmless phenomenon, if you wish you can adjust the refresh rate by using the Horde Options as shown.
Portal View refresh defaults to every 5 minutes; you can set it to be as rapid as 30 seconds. For a comparison, Pine refreshes its screens every two minutes so that is a good standard.
Dynamic Menu refresh defaults to every 5 minutes; you can set it to be as rapid as 30 seconds. For a comparison, Pine refreshes its screens every two minutes so that is a good standard.
Sorting in webmail only acts on the page you have open in front of you. It can also be impacted by the size of a folder. Larger folders may take a long time to sort, or may not sort at all. You need to be careful to place your mouse pointer so that it changes into a hand, not just click on the name or an arrow. Some of the names of columns have changed, although by inspection it's easy to understand why and what they refer to. Fortunately, none of this is hard to adjust to.
- To see the results of sorting better, make the number of messages per page larger, at least 100 messages per page instead of 20.
- Keep folders small, especially the inbox, to improve sorting and overall performance
- The focus of the pointer is important. If it doesn't change to a hand and you click, chances are nothing will happen or something unexpected will happen.
- In the sent-mail folder, instead of "to:" appearing in front of the address a message was sent to, the name of the column is "To:" and the addresses appear by themselves. This actually makes sense, as you send email to an address. It's not unusual for cosmetic changes to appear in different versions of a product, and webmail is a vended product (IMPv4 from horde.org) just as Eudora and Thunderbird are. Webmail was not created nor programmed by Yale.
For most people, the information already set up for them when they log in to IMP will be fine and should be left alone. In some cases you may want to see where email you send is saved, or change that folder. If several persons use an account, as with a departmental account, it's useful to do this, because the sent-mail folder may have been deselected by misadventure. You can see or change where email you send with IMP is stored by going to Mail Options -> Personal Information.
Caveats
- It's usually best just to work with the default mailbox name of sent-mail. Using this standard avoids confusion about where your email is.
- IMP monthly maintenance can create up to 12 versions of your sent-mail folder with names such as sent-mail-dec-2002 . If you saw messages in sent-mail last month, but not this month, and you do not use a POP client or an IMAP client that keeps sent-mail in a local mail-box, such as Eudora, look in the sent-mail folders for previous months.
Don't try to write the Great American Novel in web-based email...Save Drafts frequently!
When you connect to a server using a web-based program, you don't have a direct connection as you do with point-to Pine or Eudora. Your session is just another window, as are any other windows or menus you may open. What you perceive as a point-to-point connection relies upon a large number of machines (hundreds if you are on a remote network) maintaining a connected state. If any of these have a problem, your connection can fail without your realizing it. IMP sessions are set to timeout after about 30 minutes of inactivity, and CAS sessions, if you are running just one, time out after two hours.
In addition to programmed session limits, while you are reading mail, working with your address book, or composing mail, you can lose your connection for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the IMP program or Yale servers. In IMP, while you are using the Compose window, you are interacting with your local computer and not with the IMP server. If your connection fails while you are composing, you won't necessarily know, and your message will be lost when you attempt to send it, check its spelling, or open other windows. In IMP, Each time you click Save Draft another copy of your message in progress is saved to your Drafts folder. If you lose a connection only the copy which is open will be lost. Any others are saved. If you save frequently, you'll be able to use an earlier version of your draft in an emergency.
One further precaution that may be useful in between saves is to Select All and Copy. This is very quick and easy to do, right from your keyboard. In the middle of typing anything, simply press control-A (Select All) and then control-C (Copy). This will instantly select the entire text of your message and copy it to your system's clipboard. Afterward, be sure to click once where you left off typing, to bring the cursor back to the text and deselect your entire message so you don't accidentally overwrite anything. If the connection goes down or you lose your email message you were working on, simply press control-V (Paste) to paste your message you just copied back into a composing window. NOTE: On Macs, the keys are command-A (a.k.a. 'apple'-A), command-C (a.k.a. 'apple'-C), and command-V (a.k.a. 'apple'-V).
If an IMP sessions timeout occurs IMPv4 may display a resume_session window if your session expired while composing. However you must allow pop ups from IMP - http://www.mail.yale.edu or https://www.mail.yale.edu to open in a new window in order to see them.
If you see this message - be sure to copy and paste the contents of your message into another application BEFORE you close the window. That way, you will not lose your work and not have to retype your message when you login to start Webmail again. You should not relay on this feature - save your work frequently as a good practice.
Be sure that you remember that after you save a draft, you must open the drafts folder again to and then click on the copy you want . The Back to Drafts button will help you to do that. That is when you will see the "Resume". button that allows you to continue to work on a draft or to send it. You can't just save and then send from the current window. IMP opens a new window for each action.
Resuming
Saving
Back to Drafts
When you are finished writing your message, and have checked that the addresses don't contain typos, click the "Send Message" button to send it on its way. If you want to work on it later you can click "Save Draft". You can also "Cancel".
Attachments work well within limits
IMP can attach files to email and is a MIME compliant program. That means that it follows the Internet MIME Standard for encoding and decoding files. There are some size limits from our servers, and there may be others from outside Yale. In theory you can attach up to 4 files that are almost 2MB big using IMP (your total message size with attachments cannot exceed 8MB). In practice the head room may be less because some files increase in size when attached to email. If you receive attachments you have to think about where to put them. If you are using your own computer - downloading to a local disk or other media is trivial.
Sending:
You can attach files while composing new email by clicking the Browse button at the bottom of the composition screen.
This function allows you to browse the local disks to select the file(s) to attach. As you Attach files, their name and size are displayed. You must deliberately click the Attach button and be sure that you can see your file(s) displayed with their sizes below your message before sending.
Otherwise you may not have actually included the files.
When messages are attached, the Composition window changes to show a checkmark and message that a file has been attached, an prompt to save the attachment with the message in your sent-mail folder, and a place the type a short description of the attachment. Click here for more information.
Attachment Notes:
- Be sure you make the windows of your browser big enough so that you can see all the buttons when you are composing. If you cannot see the buttons at the bottom of the Compose window after you have maximized it, click the Attachments button to move the focus to the bottom half of that window.
- Total message size can be limited by servers. Total message size in IMP is limited to about 8MB. Each individual attachment is limited to 2MB.
- It's also good practice to tell people names and types of files you are sending explicitly, in the body of your message or in the description field for the attachment.
- Whether or not your recipient can read the attachment has very little to do with the Email program you use. It's more important that you save files in a format that they can read with application software that they have, before attaching the files. Do not assume that a person with Word 95 can read a document you created in Word 2000. In many cases - .txt files and Microsoft Rich Text Format .rtf files can be read by a variety of programs. There are many types of files and versions of software. Most files can be transmitted successfully if they are not too large - but it is up to you to know what you are sending, and to coordinate with your recipient explicitly, in order to be certain that they have applications which can open what you send.
- If you plan to exchange files frequently, or they are large, it may be faster and more reliable to use alternatives to attachments file transfer than to use any kind of email.
Receiving:
Receiving attachments in IMP Email depends upon whether you are allowed to store files on the machine you are using. Once saved, opening the files successfully depends upon whether or not you have compatible application software on the machine.
A good practice is to save the attachment on a hard drive, a diskette or removable drive, then open the file later from within the appropriate application.
Be careful if you save an attachment on a public machine such as a library kiosk or Internet cafe. DELETE the save file before you leave or it will be left on the public machine for the next person to read. Remember to:
- trash/discard it and empty the trash
- take your disk or R/W CD with you
Messages with attachments do not show any special symbol in the main listing of email as they do in other email clients such as Eudora. About the only indicator that a message may have attachments is it's size.
When you open a message you will see attachment information in the header, and you may also see image attachments in the body of a message.
All attachments will have a download link, which when clicked will trigger the download function of your browser.
As a matter of prudence and reliability, it is better to download a file and then launch it from within and application, than to try to open it directly. You are less likely to loose data by losing a connection that way.
Some email with attachments can contain viruses or worms that can perform a variety of malicious acts, ranging from rewriting parts of your hard drive to sending mass email. Yale and other institutions try to protect you from known viruses, but new ones can get through; often disguised within very innocent or important seeming email. Because of these challenges; you must be careful about opening messages or attachments unless you are very sure of their origin. For example, official Yale communications will have a certifying authority that you can verify on the web. Communications from friends and colleagues should be verifiable by some means. These days, being suspicious is a good thing.
HTML displays, but not all HTML is created equal.
IMP normally displays HTML without your setting anything. You can see the source code in a separate window if you click Message Source on the menu. Some messages may appear with their codes displayed due to bad formatting. You can often get around this by forwarding the message to yourself - which will allow IMP to try to fix the bad code.
You can also chose to compose messages in HTML by invoking that feature from the compose window.
You can set line length, character sets, and many other features of the composition window by using the Mail Message Composition Options
Fonts cannot be changed in native IMP
IMP does not allow you to set fonts as you read or compose. In this is it different from full-featured desktop clients such as Netscape or Eudora, as well as commercial web mail such as Hotmail and Yahoo. You may be able adjust this using your native browser preferences as in Netscape, or IE, but there are no accountholder switches in IMP.
IMPv4 includes better support for non-Roman character sets and other languages than its predecessors. You may select a language as you login. You may also select other character sets while composing.
Setting correct addresses on messages you send
Be careful, be honest, be yourself!
Most people at Yale have an email alias in the form of "firstname.lastname@yale.edu". You can find your email alias by searching for yourself at Yale's On-Line Directory or via LDAP in IMP. ITS suggests that you use this email alias for all your email messages. You can set this as your address on email messages you send from IMP by setting this in the Options. You can also specify a different address when composing email for convenience. Be honorable - only assert an email address which works and which you are authorized to use. Misusing email addresses and concealed identity are against University Policy as published in the ITAUP
Folder Naming Conventions are very important
How you name a new folder (mailbox) can affect how you use it and whether you can see it. Folders should not contain embedded spaces (which can be misread), or special characters such as "/ ( ) < > ! % & * ~ ^ * ?", or single or double quotes. IMP folders follow UNIX naming conventions which are different from those for Windows and the Mac OS. If you misname a folder: IMP may not store messages where you can find them easily. As with many things - simpler is better. Although some IMAP and POP clients permit nested folders, (folders within folders), this feature is not well supported nor recommended by ITS. One annoying feature within webmail is that changes to folders made within the Folder Navigator window may not be displayed until you have logged out of webmail and CAS and then logged in again, even though the changes wewre made on the server. If you want to be able to store or recover messages reliably, store them in single level folders with simple names all in lower or upper case using hyphens "-" or underscores as separators, as in "disbursements_08-23-2005" or "hybrid-vigor-casenotes". Simple is better and more reliable.
Composing with multiple addresses via the Directory or Addressbook
If you want to add more than one address to a message you are composing you can use either the Address Book button, or the Expand Names button.
To use Expand Names first be sure that you have selected both your addressbook and the Yale LDAP Directory as Addressbooks under Mail Options.
After you save this setting, you can type part of a name or address in the To:, CC:, or BCC: fields and click Expand Names to display a drop-down list from which you can choose addresses. This particularly helpful in working with large address books, and also puts the complete Yale LDAP directory at your finger tips while composing. Separate multiple addresses via commas ",", not semicolons ";"
Replies: quoting the Original Message
When you reply to email with IMP you can include the original text of the message. Sometimes this is a good thing because it preserves the context of a discussion. However, if a message has been forwarded or answered many times, it can grow quite large.
You control whether or not a reply displays the original message and summary of headers in Message Composition, under the Message Options. You can also control whether or not to save an attachment with sent-mail.
Remember that it is good practice in email to keep messages short and to the point.
If you've worked with web-browsers or web-based applications before, printing is very easy. Print is the last item displayed on the menu that appears above and below the message you are reading.
When you click Print after a few seconds your message appears in a new window, with the dialog box for your printer and browser in the foreground. These windows may differ slightly between Macintosh, Linux, and Windows machines, and if you use a different browser or printer connection.
Windows
Mac OS X
Printing can be slow. It doesn't use any more energy than other IMP processes, but you are opening windows, and talking to a printer at the same time that you are talking to a web server. This takes time, and that can be exacerbated on slower connections, such as those in some of the clusters, or off campus via dial-in , non-Yale, and/or overseas connections. Much as with attachments, especially with large files or slower Internet connections, you need to be patient and must not click buttons or press keys until IMP and your printer are finished.
