SweetMail – FAQ

This text originally was a mail from Bill West to the sweetmail@yahoogroups.com mailing list, who had collected and edited mailings to this list. Florian Drechsel added a bit of markup to it and corrected some typos.

I, Tobias Jung, added a few more changes.

Bill West wrote:

Here are a number of the "How To" tips from the first 212 YahooGroups/Sweetmail messages. From January 2001 to 19 May 2001. Many explanations are by Ichise-san.
This listing just includes "how to do things."
I've ignored all the messages concerning what doesn't work (many of those bugs have been fixed in our later versions – SM 2.09r5 now), messages relating to the Swedish and German builds (mostly font problems – OfDah, only English concerns), and I ignored X related issues (I haven't even begun to think of installing X).
No authors cited – check the archives – this is roughly in chronological order. Perhaps this will keep us newbees from annoying good Ichise-san with, "What does that blue and green dot mean again?"

 

What is the best way to get all of my mail, mailboxes, templates, and preferences from the old version into the new one? That is, what is the best way to UPGRADE SM and keep all prefs, addresses, etc that are in the old version Mail Spool? – (also see further down this list of tips)

What you have to do is just a one thing. Swap old-application-file and new one.
– Quit SweetMail.
– Move ald application file to Trash on Finder – just the SM app itself
– Move new application file to previous place – with all the other old app files (including mail Spool) still in old app Folder now with the New app replacing the Old app)

I think my incoming mail used to be displayed with HEADER INFORMATION in it, but it doesn't anymore. How do I get the header info displayed with the message? I sure can't find any preference that does it, nor can I find a template to edit.

There are two ways to do this. Open a message viewer window first, then:
a) Choose 'Window View' menu in 'Special'. You may see what you want.
b) Click the small button at the top of scroll bar. It is cyclic. The last setting is kept to use in next time.
Click on the little tag on the top of the vertical scroll bar. You get 3 different views. No header, some header, and the whole header.

It seems that Sweetmail adjusts the WIDTH of my messages to the width of the message I am replying to. Is it possible to always use my own width (50 characters)?

Yes. SweetMail wraps at position of the SLIDER placed in ruler. You may see the RED color part and small control. You can move it to assign position.
And I think you may set it in templates.(system and user-created) The position of slider is kept in template file. However, all you have to do is select-all Cmd-A and smart wrap Cmd-Y.

I second the need for a keyboard SHORTCUT TO OPENING THE ADDRESS BOOK.

Well then just put one in there. I used Cmd-L. Just go to the prefs, then the key tab, and scroll down to the special menu entries and pick whatever you want. Works great. I picked Cmd-L since that was what I used in Eudora before I switched to sweetmail.

What's the BLUE DOT mean?

In thread-view, new coming messages may be placed in various position of list. To make easy to find out them, the small dot indicates what are most-recent coming messages.
It indicates the message is send before 24 hours from now. (Time zone is not calculated,sorry)

Can anybody tell me the intention of the GREEN DOT in the first row of >the foldersView?

It indicates that the message is sent in recent 24 hours by reading 'Date:' header field (without calclating time zone). I added this feature to help user for finding out new message in thread view.

Is there just some option I am missing to make it AUTOMATICALLY REWRAP?

Edit... Intelligent Wrap – after highlighting what needs wrapping or the whole message. If it's so intelligent, I think it should do it without being told to! Manually, for now – Command-Y. The lack of AUTOMATIC REWRAPPING has bothered me, too.
It doesn't wrap right in compose – all that dangling red text, etc
For now, I just select the whole paragraph and hit command-Y (smart wrap), which fixes everything. It should work automatically, though.

I think the mailbox-file (for "outbox") may be broken.

0) Quit SweetMail.
1) Delete the TOC file (may be named outbox.toc)
2) Move the mailbox-file for outbox to another folder.
3) Launch SweetMail.
4) The outbox mailbox may be empty.
5) Import the mailbox-file (moved on step 2). At this step, If the mailbox-file has dummy data (ie: not compacted yet), SweetMail can not import completely. The mailbox-file is simply plain text file which is sepaleted with 'Special From marker'. You can edit it by using some text editor.

Sometimes when checking, the programme does a LENGTHY SEARCH of all emails ON THE SERVER, while downloading those that are new. Is there a way to prevent this? I pay phone bills by the minute and this wastes time online. Any suggestions appreciated.

You could disable the "Leave mail on server" option in File->Account...->receive or set a shorter period after which emails should be deleted. Or use remote Mail to select emails to delete, if You have important mails still on the server. But if You pay by the minute, I'd rather have all emails deleted after downloading and then backup Your mail spool folder regularly.

I have a mac.com account, where I can read my mails whithout any problems. The problem comes up if I want to send mails via smtp.mac.com, then the following problem occures: Error on RCPT command. 530 delivery not allowed, try authenticating

The problem: SMTP doesnt have any autorisation. So at the most free mailer you must check your email (=POP=autorisation) before sending with SMTP.

How can I KEEP MY OLD MAILBOXES with all the old mails when using the new version?

Hum, seems You have been "dragging in the wrong direction". You shouldn't drag the Mailboxes but the new application. Simply drag the new SwM 2.09 application to Your old SweetMail folder. Since this would normally overwrite the old app, I rename each new version (SweetMail -> SweetMail209 or something like this). Looking at how often Ichise updates, it's easier that way... and I think it's a quite usual way to update (works with GrafikConverter, with iCab and other programs.)
Couldn't hurt to backup Your Mail Folder (Just copy MailSpool to the desktop) before, though. I had all my §$/%)§$!! German Umlauts scrambled once....
Remark: Of course, questions regarding updating seem quite useless right now...

Where does SweetMail place its 'Mail Spool' folder?

How SweetMail SEARCHES 'Mail Spool' folder is very simple.
Classic version: * Folder named 'Mail Spool' in same folder of application.
Carbon version: * Folder named 'Mail Spool' in
/User/{$USER}/Library/Preferences/SweetMailSpool/
Both version can use alias. You can share it between Classic and Carbon.

Compacting Mailboxes...

The message files in "Mail Spool:Mailbox" folder is simply text file. When a new message comes to a mailbox, it is appended at the end of file in anytime. When a message transfering to another mailbox, it is NOT deleted in original mailbox's file, just updated original file's TOC file. The TOC (Table Of Contents) file contains where the message begins in message file, the size of message, an attribute and more.
It is just performance reason.
So, transfering messages makes message file bigger. 'compact mailboxes' command deletes unused message in the file to make small.
SweetMail accepts ANY text file to make easy importing message-file.
When you drop NON message file, it may be crashed in some case. It depends on contents of file.

Is it possible to save messages as DRAFT and ensure that they will not accidentally be sent when I SEND other messages?

Send Now: send now. :-)
Later: will be sent on next receiving
Save: to keep in draft mailbox click floppy-disk icon, or just close composer.
"Send" will connect and send the message right now. "Later" will send the next time you connect to fetch mail. "Save" just saves it until you tell it "send" or "later."
I use "Later" a lot because I read and write mail off line. When I go online again everything gets sent. If I use "send" it will dial up and log on every time I write a message.

So how do you create a GROUP then? I can't find any such function. You can make single contacts, but no groups.

There is no real feature to create group in addressbook.
But you can do something similar in the address book. All you do is paste multiple email addresses under a nickname. Separate them by commas.
Pasting them from a text file into separate lines works too.

Is there a way to get the OSX and Classic Sweetmail apps to use the SAME MAILBOX?

Yes, it is very very simple. Use alias of 'Mail Spool' folder to share:
1) Make alias of ~/Library/Preferences/SweetMailSpool/Mail Spool
2) Rename it to 'Mail Spool'.
3) Put it into MacOS9's place
That's all.

Often when I reply to a message the text of the MESSAGE is NOT INCLUDED IN THE REPLY. Sometimes it is solved by closing the reply message and clicking on "reply" again. Sometimes it is not.

Select a portion or all of the text, Cmd C, Cmd R.
btw, this sometimes happens to me when I've been working on the attachments:
e.g. I've dragged an attachment to the Finder. In SweetMail the attachment is still selected. So when I hit the 'reply' button, SweetMail tries to copy the selected portion of the original message to the reply. Trouble is, there is a selection, but it's not text that is selected.
Just click into the window of the original message, this'll unselect everything that has been selected. Now SweetMail will include the original text into the reply as usual.

To begin a new message with a special template, I can choose "Message > Use Template". But is it possible to select a template on replying?

Yes, it is.
So, here's the way to "reply with template..." in SweetMail:
Choose "New User Template" from the "File" menu.
In the template edit window, there's the "Option" menu.
Select "Reply mode" from this menu.
Now, you can set up the template as usual.
Save the template when it's ready to your User Templates directory.
Now, when you want to reply to a message using this very template, the trick is NOT to choose "reply" in the tool bar, but to choose "Template..." (from the tool bar or from "Message - Use Template - User - ..."). The templates that were set to "Reply mode" are marked with the "Reply" icon that's also in SweetMail's tool bar. Choose one of that Reply templates. And voila! You've got that "Reply with template" function!
And it's even easier if you work with Mailbox Preferences, just select a folder in your Mailbox list and choose "Special > Mailbox Preferences..."
Have a look at the options and you'll probably guess what to do...

I am only receiving a portion of each message when they download, usually the first two or three lines are missing. I have to download them with another email program to make sure each message is in its entirety. What am I missing?

Would you check the Mailbox Preferences of "Special" menu. I guess that you checked the checkbox of "Determine advertisement in msg" in "Ad" tab. If you check it, you can't sometimes see some lines at the head of message.

 
 

short english information about SweetMail: Information & Download
german article about SweetMail / deutscher SweetMail-Artikel: SweetMail