<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
 <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9">
 <TITLE>The Kmail Handbook: Using Kmail</TITLE>
 <LINK HREF="index-4.html" REL=next>
 <LINK HREF="index-2.html" REL=previous>
 <LINK HREF="index.html#toc3" REL=contents>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="index-4.html">Next</A>
<A HREF="index-2.html">Previous</A>
<A HREF="index.html#toc3">Contents</A>
<HR>
<H2><A NAME="sec-UsingKmail"></A> <A NAME="s3">3. Using Kmail</A></H2>

<H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 The Mail Reader Window</A>
</H2>

<P>The <B>Mail Reader</B> window is the window that appears when Kmail is started. The <B>Mail Reader</B> window 
is divided into three panes:
<P>
<P>
<DL>
<DT><B>Folders Pane (upper left pane)</B><DD><P>This pane contains a list of your message folders. (other email programs call them 
mailboxes) To select a folder, simply click on it. The messages contained in the folder
will now appear in the Headers Pane. See the 
<A HREF="#sec-Folders">Folders Section</A> 
for more information about how to use folders.  
<P>
<DT><B>Headers Pane (upper right pane)</B><DD><P>This pane lists header information (message Status Flags, Sender, Subject, and the Date the message 
was sent) for the messages in the currently selected folder. Clicking on a header will
select that message and display it in the Message Pane. You can also select a series of
messages by clicking on one message, holding down the SHIFT key, and clicking on
another message. The two messages you just clicked on will be selected, along with all
the messages in between. You may sort the messages by clicking on the column that you wish to
sort.
<P>
<DT><B>Message Pane (lower pane)</B><DD><P>Displays the header and body of the currently selected message. You can scroll through
the message page by page using the PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys, or line by line using the up and
down arrow keys. You can also use the following key shortcuts to skip through your 
messages without having to use the mouse:
<UL>
<LI>N - Next message</LI>
<LI>P - Previous message</LI>
<LI>+ - Next unread message</LI>
<LI>- - Previous unread message</LI>
</UL>
</DL>
<P>Messages can have several status flags, which can be changed from the <B>Message | Set
Status</B> submenu. The status flags are described below:
<P>
<UL>
<LI><B>New:</B>(red dot, message colored red) The message has been received for the first
time and is unread.</LI>
<LI><B>Unread:</B> (green dot, message colored blue) The message has already been retrieved off
the server at least once, but has not been read yet.</LI>
<LI><B>Read:</B> (dash) The message has been read. </LI>
<LI><B>Replied:</B> (blue u-turn arrow) A reply has been composed to this message. </LI>
<LI><B>Queued:</B> (envelope) The message has been queued in the <B>outbox</B> to be sent later.</LI>
<LI><B>Sent:</B> (angled envelope) The message has been sent. </LI>
</UL>
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 The Composer Window</A>
</H2>

<P>The <B>Composer</B> window is used to write new messages. It can be invoked from the <B>File</B> Menu or from the
document icon on the <B>Mail Reader</B> window button bar. If you have not set the location of your signature
file and you have <B>Automatically Append Signature</B> checked in the <B>Composer</B> tab of the
<B>Settings</B> dialog, you will be prompted for the location of your signature file before the <B>Composer</B> window opens.
<P>
<P>
<H3>Composing a Message</H3>

<P>To write your message, fill in the appropriate fields in the <B>Composer</B> window.  There are a variety of
shortcuts to help you with writing you messages.  The ellipses buttons next to the <B>To:</B>, 
<B>cc:</B>, and <B>Bcc:</B> fields will call up the addressbook so that you can select addresses 
from there instead of trying to remember them. When you are finished with your message, hit the Send
button (the envelope) to queue or send the message.
<P>
<H3>Attachments</H3>

<P>You can attach files to you message by using one of the methods below:
<UL>
<LI>Push the paper clip button and select the file you wish to attach.</LI>
<LI>Drag a file from the desktop or another directory into the <B>Composer</B> window.</LI>
<LI>Selecting one of the options in the <B>Attach</B> menu.</LI>
</UL>
<P>The <B>Message Part Properties</B> dialog will appear to prompt you for information about your 
attachment. The mime-type and file name fields are automatically filled in with the appropriate values.
You should then select an encoding method for your file from the list of encoding options. 
<P>Once a file is attached to your message, it appears in the Attachments pane at the bottom of the
<B>Composer</B>
window. You may remove, save, or get information about an attachment by selecting its line in the
Attachments pane and selecting <B>Remove</B>, <B>Save</B>, or <B>Properties</B> from the
<B>Attach</B> menu. 
<P>PGP keys may also be attached to your message by using the appropriate options in the <B>Attach</B>
menu. PGP key attachments are handled like file attachements.
<P>
<H3>Checking the Spelling of you Message</H3>

<P>To check the spelling of your message, press the ABC checkmark button in the button bar or select <B>Edit
| Spellcheck...</B>  Kmail uses KSpell to check spelling, which is the KDE frontend to the
the ispell spelling checker.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="sec-Folders"></A> <A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 Message Folders</A>
</H2>

<P>Message Folders are used to organize your email messages. When you first start Kmail the 
inbox, outbox, sent-mail, and trash folders are created. These folders each have special 
functions:
<P>
<UL>
<LI><B>inbox:</B> where Kmail puts your new messages when you ask it to check your mail. </LI>
<LI><B>outbox:</B> where messages are put while they are waiting to be delivered. </LI>
<LI><B>sent-mail:</B> contains copies of all messages that you have sent. </LI>
<LI><B>trash:</B> contains all messages that you have deleted.</LI>
</UL>
<P>
<P>You may find that the standard folders are fine for your needs. However, if you
receive a large number of messages a day, you will probably need folders to help you organize 
your messages. To create a new folder, select <B>Folder | Create...</B> A
window will then prompt you for the name of the folder and allow you to associate or
disassociate the folder with certain accounts. If you ever need to change the settings for a folder,
select the folder you wish to modify in the Folders Pane and select <B>Folder | Modify...</B> 
Kmail will then prompt you for the changes you wish to make to the selected folder.
<P>To move messages from one folder into another, select the message(s) you want to move and press the M key
or select <B>Message | Move...</B> A list of folders will appear.  Select the
folder from the list that you want to move the messages to and hit <B>OK</B>.  Messages can also be
moved by dragging a message from the Headers pane into the Folders pane.
<P>You may find that your folders are taking up a lot of disk space after they have been used for a while 
even though they may not have very many messages in them.  To fix this problem, select the folder and 
choose <B>Folder | Compact</B>.
<P>If you want to clear all of the messages out of a folder choose <B>Folder | Empty</B>. 
All the messages in the selected folder will be moved to the <B>trash</B> folder. If the
selected folder is the <B>trash</B> folder, all of the messages will be permanently deleted.
<P>Kmail does not currently support hierarchical folders.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss3.4">3.4 The Addressbook</A>
</H2>

<P>The addressbook is a place to store your commonly used email addresses.  You can call up the addressbook
from the <B>File</B> menu, the addressbook button on the Main window, or the addressbook button in the
<B>Composer</B> window.
<P>To add addresses to the addressbook, type an email address into the lower section of the window and hit
the <B>Add</B> button.  The address will then appear in the list.  To remove an address, select it from
the list and hit the <B>Remove</B> button. 
<P>Addresses can also be added to the addressbook from the <B>Mail Reader</B> window by right-clicking on
an email address in the <B>To:</B> or <B>From:</B> fields and selecting <B>Add to Addressbook</B>.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss3.5">3.5 Filters</A>
</H2>

<P>After using Kmail for a while, you may find that you have trouble sorting out the new messages in 
your inbox when they arrive. Filters allow you to automatically perform certain actions on
incoming messages and to manually perform actions on selected messages in a folder.
<P>The actions section of the <B>Filter Rules</B> window lets you perform up to eight actions in one
filter. You can use the "Skip Rest" option to skip the rest of the actions in the list.  
<P>The "Transfer" action is used to move a message into a specific folder.
It is useful to add "Skip Rest" as second action after "Transfer" to avoid
that filters down the list move the message into another folder.
<P>The "Execute" action executes the given program. The program has to be in
the path to be found.
<P>The "Forward-to" action forwards a copy of the message to the given email 
address.
<P>Usually, filters are used on incoming messages, but they can also be applied to a message or group of
messages.  To selectively filter messages in a message folder, select the messages you want to filter and
type CONTROL-J or select <B>Message | Apply Filters</B>. Note that this will apply all
of your filters to that message; there is no way to apply only certain filters to a message.
<P>If you ever need to remove a filter, select it from the <B>Filter Rules</B> window and press the 
<B>Delete</B> button.
<P>
<H3>Filter Examples</H3>

<P>If I am subscribed to the KDE User List, I could create a 
folder for the list (I'll call it KDE-User) and use a filter to automatically transfer new 
messages from my inbox to my KDE-User folder if they are from the KDE User List. Here is how
to create this filter:
<P>
<OL>
<LI>Think of a unique way of identifying the messages you want to filter. The unique property
of my KDE User List messages is that they always contain the phrase "KDE User List" in the
<B>To:</B> field. If I wanted to be even more specific, I could use the email address of the
KDE User List.</LI>
<LI>Select <B>Filter...</B> from the File menu.</LI>
<LI>Press the <B>New</B> button to create an empty filter.</LI>
<LI>Select the empty filter from the list. (It will appear as a pair of angled brackets:
&lt;&gt;).</LI>
<LI>The right side of the Filter window contains two sections: matching criteria and actions.
In the matching criteria area, select "To:" from the first pull-down menu, "Contains" from the
second pull-down menu, and type "KDE User List" in the text field.</LI>
<LI>Skip down to the actions section. Select "Transfer" from the first pull-down menu. A new
pull-down menu containing a list of folders will appear. Select the folder that you want the
filtered messages to be transferred to if they match the criteria you selected. For this example, 
you would select "KDE-User" from the pull-down menu.</LI>
<LI>Select "Skip Rest" from the next pull-down menu.</LI>
<LI>To save and try out your new filter, hit the <B>OK</B> button.  This will also dismiss the window.</LI>
</OL>
<P>You may find that you need to use more complicated criteria to properly filter your messages.
For example, you may only want to save the KDE User List messages that are written by your friend
Fred Johnson &lt;fj@anywhere.com&gt;. This is where the rest of the matching criteria section comes
into play:
<P>
<OL>
<LI>Open up the Filter Rules window and select the filter you just created.</LI>
<LI>Since you want to filter all messages that have "KDE User List" in the <B>To:</B> field
AND that are from Fred, select the AND option from the pull down menu between the two criteria
sections.</LI>
<LI>Now, go to the bottom criteria section and select the following from the pull-down menus: 
"From:", "Contains." Now, type "fj@anywhere.com" in the text field.</LI>
<LI>Select "Skip Rest" from the next pull-down menu.</LI>
</OL>
<P>You now have a filter that transfers all KDE User List messages that are from Fred Johnson. 
<P>
<H2><A NAME="sec-MultipleAccounts"></A> <A NAME="ss3.6">3.6 Multiple Accounts </A>
</H2>

<P>Multiple accounts are used to check mail from more than one email address and/or mail server. Select 
<B>File | Settings...</B> and click on the <B>Network</B> tab to add or change 
your account settings. See the 
<A HREF="index-4.html#sec-Customizing">Customizing Kmail</A> section for more 
information on the settings in the <B>Network</B> tab.
<P>To check mail from a particular account, use the <B>Check Mail in...</B> submenu to select the account
to use to check your mail. It not currently possible to tell which account is active, so if you have
created multiple accounts, use the <B>Check Mail in...</B> submenu instead of the <B>Check Mail</B>
menu item.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="sec-PGP"></A> <A NAME="ss3.7">3.7 Pretty good privacy </A>
</H2>

<P>To use the PGP features of Kmail, you will need to have public-key encryption software such as GNU
Privacy Guard or PGP installed and have your keys created. To configure PGP, select <B>File | Settings...</B> 
and click on the <B>PGP</B> tab. Type in your PGP user identity in the space
provided and select any other options that you want before pressing the <B>OK</B> button to save your
settings. 
<P>If you want to use PGP 5.x you have to set PGP's language to English. Otherwise
Kmail won't be able to use it.
<P>Once PGP is configured, you can use it to sign and encrypt messages. To sign an email message, toggle the
quill button on the button bar. When you send your message, you will be prompted for your PGP password.
The message will then be signed with your PGP signature and sent. 
<P>Encrypting a message is also easy. You must have the public key(s) of the recipient(s) of your message in
order for encryption to work. Toggle the key button in the button bar to enable encryption.  The
message will be encrypted once you send it.
<P>
<P>
<HR>
<A HREF="index-4.html">Next</A>
<A HREF="index-2.html">Previous</A>
<A HREF="index.html#toc3">Contents</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>
