Quick Start Uniplex Electronic Mail

Quick Start Uniplex Electronic Mail

Written by Centreline 2000 Consulting

Date: January 1994

Version: 2.00

Firstly, you must start up Uniplex. Electronic mail is then accessed from the Uniplex main menu. In the centre column of options you will see:

M - Mail

Press M to select Mail. You will then see displayed the main mail menu.

This menu lets you access the normal mail features. Further options are also available from this menu by selecting the Administration option. We will look at this later.

There are three basic sections to the menu: Incoming Mail lets you examine mail that has been sent to you; Outgoing Mail lets you create and send mail messages; Check Mail Sent lets you view the status of the mail you have sent.

We will start by looking at the Outgoing Mail options.

There are three send mail options, each option provides a slight variation on the way in which mail is sent, and in particular the number of questions you must answer to send a mail item. The simplest and quickest way of sending a mail message is option 2 - Easi Send. Press <2> now to select this option.

The screen clears and you are now in the Uniplex Mail Memo Pad. This is a simple screen for entering mail messages on the spot.

Type in a short message now, such as "This is a test message". You can press <RETURN> to move down the memo pad. Press <RETURN> twice and add your name to the bottom of the memo. Note, you cannot move back up the memo pad.

Note, you cannot move back up the memo pad. If you have made any mistakes, or if you want to change the memo, then you can start up the Uniplex Word Processor, complete with your memo, by pressing <F3>. Do not do this now.

When your memo is ready enter <ESCAPE> <E> to end the memo. The next screen asks you who to send the mail to, which mailbox to use, and what the subject of the memo is.

You enter the details here, and then press <F1> or <ESCAPE> <E> to enter them. Your mail will then be sent. You must always enter at least one user name in the "To" field, and there must be a subject. The "mailbox" field can often be left blank.

We will first look at how to enter user names.

A user name for mail can take several forms, at its simplest it is the login name of the user you wish to send to. In addition your system administrator may also enter "aliases" for users. An alias is another name for a user. A simple alias would be:

Simon Walden = sqw

"sqw" is my normal login name, "Simon Walden" is my full name. You would be able to use either name in the "To" field. Other aliases may also include job titles, car registrations, short names. For example, I might have several aliases entered for me:

Simon = sqw

L123 ABC=sqw

Senior Consultant=sqw

You would be able to use any of these aliases and they will all send mail to me. For example, you would specify in the "To:" field, my full name:

To: [Simon Walden________________]

You can enter several names by separating them with commas, for example:

To: [Simon Walden, Tom Brown______]

You can see a list of all the names and aliases you can use by pressing the <F5> key. This displays a popup of all the users you can address.

You can use all the standard popup functions, such as letters and cursor keys to move around the list. There may be several pages to the list, you can move through pages with cursor keys or (if they are configured) <PAGE UP> and <PAGE DOWN> keys.

To select a name from the list press <RETURN>. Your selected name is entered automatically into the "To:" field for you. You remain in the popup and can continue to select names by moving to the name and pressing <RETURN> again. When you have selected all the names you require, enter <ESCAPE> <Q> to quit from the popup.

You may already have names in your "To:" field if you have been experimenting. Clear them out now, by pressing <CONTROL> <X>. Now enter your own login name, we will send this test message to yourself.

Press the <TAB> key to move to the "Mailbox" field, we will leave this blank for the time being. Press the <TAB> key again and move to the "Subject:" field. Here you must type a subject description, for example "Here is a test subject".

This is all you need do to send a message, you can now enter <ESCAPE> <E> to send the mail message. The message has now been sent, shortly you will see a notification popup to tell you that mail has arrived.

If you decide part way through sending a mail message that you wish to quit, you can enter <ESCAPE> <Q>. You will then see a prompt at the top of the screen:

Press * to confirm or RETURN to continue

Press the <*> key if you really want to quit. You will be returned to the main mail menu. If you do quit, then the memo you have typed will be lost.

When mail arrives for you to read, you see a popup notification on your screen. It looks like this:

You have mail

From: Simon Walden
Subject: This is a test message

You can press <RETURN> to continue with your normal work. If you are not in mail, you can also press <*> to switch to mail straightaway.

To read your mail, you must go to the mail main menu. Press <1> to select "Read Incoming Mail"

The next screen shows all of your incoming mail, it is split into two sections: mail you have read (usually at the bottom) and mail waiting to be read (at the top).

You can use all the standard methods for selecting a mail item to read. Move the cursor until you have selected the mail item you have just sent to yourself. You will see in the "From" column it shows the name of the sender (yourself), in the "Subject" the description you entered, in the "Date" column, the date and time that it was sent.

Enter <ESCAPE> <E> to select your test message for reading. You will now see the message you typed displayed in the main screen and a selection of options on a ring menu displayed at the top of the screen. We will now look at the menu options available to you.

We will now look at these options in more detail.

The reply or forward mail sequence is very similar, so we will run through the forward mail option to see how this works. The forward mail lets you send the current message onwards to another user, reply returns a message to the sender. Press <f> and <RETURN> to select "forward".

You are asked whether you wish to add any comments to the top of the letter (you do not have this option when replying) select "yes" and enter <ESCAPE> <E>.

You are now in the familiar Memo Pad, here you can frame a comment to go with the forwarded item. For example,

Thought you might be interested in this.

I would like to know what you think about it?

- Simon

Enter <ESCAPE> <E> when you have finished your memo. You are now in a full send mail form. We will ignore most of the options for the time being. All you have to do is enter the new names in the "To:" field. Again you can type them in, or you can use <F5> to see a list of users. Forward the mail message to yourself - this will let you see what a forwarded mail message looks like.

When replying, rather than forwarding mail, you will see the "To:" field is already filled in with the sender's name, so all you need do is accept the details. You could at the same time add additional users, but you cannot add any comments.

Select a mail message from your list of incoming mail. Again you can see the text of the message and the ring menu at the top of the screen. Enter <P> <RETURN> to select printing.

You are asked to choose "Easiprint" or "Print Using Form", you toggle between the options by pressing the <SPACEBAR>. The "Easiprint" option will use your current print defaults. The "Print Using Form" lets you specify the printer details you will use. Set the field to "Print Using Form".

There are many options over several pages on the Print Form, but you are normally only interested in the first two fields: "Printer" and "Style".

The "Printer" field is the name of the printer you wish to print on - this is a scrolling field, so you can see a full list of printer names by pressing any letter.

The "Style" field is the Uniplex Print Style to be used when printing the message. Print Styles are a long and complex subject that we will not go into here. However, for mail printing you will normally select either "Fixed-pitch" or "quality".

If the document does not seem to print correctly (usually with lines too long or too short, columns misaligned etc) ask your sender which print style they use, select the same option on this print form.

When you have selected your own printer and a suitable print style, enter <ESCAPE> <E> to print the message. Later we will show you how to print many messages at one time.

You can delete a mail message while you are reading it by selecting the "delete" menu option and pressing <RETURN>. You are asked to press <*> to confirm the deletion. The mail item is now removed from your mail system.

You can also delete mail from the mail list screen. Highlight the mail item you wish to remove and press <F3>. You are asked to press <*> to confirm the deletion.

You may wish to copy a mail message to a standard Uniplex file so you can edit the document. You can other files, such as spreadsheets, by mail - again you would use the copy option to save the file so you can use it.

Select a mail item and go to the read mail screen. Press <C> <RETURN> to select the copy option. You are asked for a file name. Enter the name you wish to save the file under. Enter <ESCAPE><E> to save the file. The file is saved in your current working folder.

Mail supports many additional options for sending a message, we will now look at all of these options. Go to the main mail menu and select option 3 - Send Letter.

Type in a simple memo message and enter <ESCAPE> <E>. You are now presented with the full mail options screen.

The "To:", "Mailbox" and "Subject" fields you have seen before, but now there are many more options available.

The Check Mail Sent is option 5 on the main mail menu. This option allows you to examine the status of all the mail items you have sent out. Here you can see who has read the mail message, whether it was delivered successfully and so on.

The main screen shows a list of mail items. For each mail item you can see the following: who the mail was sent to; the subject; the date and time. You will also see, just before the date, a "*", this indicates that mail has not been read by all of the recipients.

Select the mail item you have just sent and press <RETURN>. You will see displayed a list of users who have received the message (just yourself) and a ring menu. From the ring menu you can perform the following actions.

Note: Unless you selected "save" on the send form, you will not have a copy of the message. Therefore, you will not be able to read the message and you will not be able to resend the message.

Using mailboxes allows people sending mail to you to separate mail by topic. If you do not have a mailbox, all your mail appears in one list. If you choose to create a mailbox then mail sent to that mailbox will only appear in that mailbox list.

You may want to use mailboxes for special topics amongst workgroups. Clearly, unless all of you use the mailbox method then it does not help you.

To create a mailbox, select "A - Administration" at the mail menu. This takes you to the mail administration menu. There you can select option 5 - Create Mailbox. Here you enter a name for a mailbox and enter <ESCAPE> <E>. Once created any user can send to that mailbox simply by entering the mailbox name on the Send Form.

To delete a mailbox, select option 6 - Delete Mailbox. This lets you select the mailbox you wish to delete.

This option is not widely used in Uniplex mail systems because all users of the mail system need to be thorough in their use of the mailbox system. However, it can offer benefits in organising mail should you choose to do so.

Archived mail is mail that you have read and selected to archive. The archive keeps a copy of the mail messages. There you can read, copy or reply to the mail at any time. The archive is in fact another mailbox.

You select to archive mail when you are in the read mail form. One of the options on the ring menu there is archive. This instantly moves the message from your incoming mailbox to your archive mailbox. From then on it can only be viewed in the archive list.

To read your archived mail, select option 6 - Read Archived Mail at the main mail menu. You may then select and action your mail messages in the same way as your standard incoming mailbox.

Archiving mail is best used only for mail you wish to keep for some time. In general, with incoming mail messages, if you do not wish to keep them you should delete them straight away. This keeps your mail system clear and means you can process your mail faster. It also helps the system administrator.

These two options provide an automatic mail message to be sent whenever you receive mail. For example, you could set an auto-reply whenever you were on holiday. This would tell people sending you mail that you were away and would look at their mail on your return.

Alternatively, you might wish to forward the mail onwards to someone else to look at on your behalf. In this way the mail would be handled if you were away.

In both cases the incoming mail still remains in your mailbox for you to review and respond to later.

To set an Auto-Reply, select A - Administration on main mail menu, then option 1 - Set Auto-Reply on the Administration menu. You can enter the text of message that will be automatically sent out for you. Enter <ESCAPE> <E> when the message is complete.

To set an Auto-Forward, select option 3 - Set Auto-Forward. Enter the name of the person you wish to forward mail to. You can press <F5> to see a list of users. With auto-forward there is no automatic message to be entered.

To clear either of these options select Unset Auto-Reply or Unset Auto-Forward. You see a message confirming the automatic handling has been removed. A common mistake is to return from holiday and forget to unset auto-reply.

A mailing list is a list of names held together under one group name. This lets you send a mail item to the same list of people simply by selecting the group name instead of each of the individual user names. For example, the management team might regularly send mail to all members of the team. Instead of typing each of their names in the "To:" field you would just enter the group name "management".

You can create groups for yourself and the system administrator can create groups for you. Usually your group is only available to you, the system administrators' groups are available to everybody.

A mailing list can also be known as a "group list" or a "distribution list". These are all the same thing.

To create a mailing list go to the Administration menu and select option 7 - Create list. You have a simple form that asks for the List name - the name of the group; Availability - Personal or System Wide; the addresses - the users names.

The list name can be anything, but a useful tip is to start the list name with a "." - this means it will always appear at the top of the user list popup. Enter a name now and set the Availability field to "Personal".

The "Addresses" fields are for user names. You can enter one or many names here. If you are entering many names, separate the names with commas. These names must be the users login names - you cannot enter an alias name here.

Creating a mailing list with just one name is the same as creating an alias.

Enter some names and press <ESCAPE> <E>. The list is now saved for you. If you go to the send mail option and press F5 to list users you will see your new mailing list name entered. You can now enter this name and the mail message will be sent to all the users on the mailing list.

On some systems you may not be allowed to create mailing lists. Your system administrator may choose not to make this option available for system security reasons.