4 Known Problems and Workarounds
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1. Introduction
MediaMail is a comprehensive electronic mail system that
enables you to send and receive messages and manage your
mail efficiently.
You can create new messages, read, reply to, forward, and
print messages. You can also organize your mail by deleting,
saving, sorting, searching, and prioritizing messages.
Options are available for customizing the application. All
of these features are accessable via pulldown menus.
Additionally, buttons are provided for quick access to the
most commonly used features.
Note: MediaMail online help contains a copy of the Software
License Agreement. This software is provided to you
solely under the terms and conditions of the Software
License Agreement. Please take a few moments to
review the Agreement.
This document contains the following chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Installation Information
3. Changes and Additions
4. Known Problems and Workarounds
5. Documentation
1.1 Release_Identification_Information
Following is the release identification information for
MediaMail:
Software Product MediaMail
Version 3.1
Product Code SC4-W4D-5.2
System Software Requirements IRIX 5.2 or later
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1.2 Online_Release_Notes
After you install the online release notes for a product
(the relnotes subsystem), you can view the release notes on
your screen.
Note: You can read the online release notes for most
products before installing the software. Refer to
the booklet in your CD-ROM case for more information.
Select ``Release Notes'' from the Help submenu of the
Toolchest. This displays the grelnotes(1) graphical browser
for the online release notes.
Refer to the grelnotes(1) man page for information on
options to this command.
1.3 Product_Support
Silicon Graphics, Inc., provides a comprehensive product
support maintenance program for its products.
If you are in the U.S. or Canada and would like support for
your Silicon Graphics-supported products, contact the
Technical Assistance Center at (800)800-4SGI. If you are
outside these areas, contact the Silicon Graphics subsidiary
or authorized distributor in your country.
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2. Installation_Information
This chapter lists supplemental information to the IRIS
Software Installation Guide. The information listed here is
product- and release-specific; use it with the Installation
Guide to install this product.
2.1 MediaMail_Subsystems
MediaMail includes these subsystems:
mmail.sw.mail MediaMail application
mmail.books.MediaMailHelp MediaMail online help
mmail.man.mail MediaMail man pages
mmail.man.relnotes MediaMail release notes
2.2 MediaMail_Subsystem_Disk_Space_Requirements
This section lists the subsystems (and their sizes) of
MediaMail.
If you are installing this product for the first time, the
subsystems marked ``default'' are the ones that are
installed if you use the ``go'' menu item. To install a
different set of subsystems, use the ``install,''
``remove,'' ``keep,'' and ``step'' commands in inst to
customize the list of subsystems to be installed, then
select the ``go'' menu item.
Note: The listed subsystem sizes are approximate. Refer to
the IRIS Software Installation Guide for information
on finding exact sizes.
Subsystem Name Subsystem Size
(512-byte blocks)
mmail.sw.mail (default) 8900
mmail.books.MediaMailHelp (default) 1985
mmail.man.mail (default) 284
mmail.man.relnotes (default) 45
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2.3 Installation_Method
All of the subsystems for MediaMail can be installed using
IRIX. You do not need to use the miniroot. Refer to the
IRIS Software Installation Guide for complete installation
instructions.
2.4 Prerequisites
To view MediaMail online help, you must have the
insight.sw.client subsystem installed.
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3. Changes_and_Additions
This chapter lists the changes and additions made to
MediaMail since the 3.0 release.
3.1 MIME_Compliance_and_Attachment_Types
MediaMail conforms to the new draft Internet standard
message format. The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
(MIME) extend the standard RFC822 message format. They
facilitate interoperability across mailers and platforms for
messages with multiple parts or attachments, enabling
exchange of multimedia information such as pictures, sounds,
and voice, as well as text in different character sets.
If you are exchanging multimedia messages with users of
other MIME-compliant mail programs or MediaMail users at
other sites, you should avoid using "extended" MIME
attachment types in the Attachments dialog. Extended types
are indicated by an "x-" in their names. By avoiding the use
of extended types, you will improve the chances that the
recipients of your multimedia message will be able to
successfully view it.
3.2 Pager_Enhancements
The text pager dialog has been significantly enhanced. From
within the pager window, you may now open, insert, save, and
print files using the File menu on the menu bar. The Edit
menu contains items for text manipulation, including Cut,
Copy, Paste, Select All, and Search/Replace/Spell.
3.3 Motif_1.2_Support
MediaMail now uses Motif version 1.2 on some platforms. With
this version of Motif, the default behavior of mouse buttons
has changed somewhat. The middle mouse button is now used to
support Motif drag-and-drop features; previously it was used
to paste the contents of the X Window System clipboard. To
paste from the X Window System clipboard under Motif 1.2,
use the middle mouse button in conjunction with the Alt key.
3.4 Use_of_SGI_Help
MediaMail now uses SGI Help for online help. Access online
help by choosing a command from the Help menu or clicking on
the Help buttons that appear in most dialogs.
The Help menu includes an "Index" command and a "Click for
Help" command. To find help on a specific topic, choose
"Index" to bring up a list of topics. Then double-click on
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an entry to get help for that topic. To find out how to use
a particular region of MediaMail, choose "Click for Help."
Then click on the area of the application about which you
want information.
3.5 New_Menus
There are new default menus in all windows. This section
provides a brief overview.
The Main Window has nine menus.
o The Folder menu contains items to create, open, rename,
remove, update, and close folders. The Quit item is
also located on this menu.
o The Message menu contains items to read messages, save
messages to folders, delete and undelete messages,
print and pin-up messages, to preserve or unpreserve
messages, as well as items to assign marks and
priorities to messages.
o The View menu is used to hide or display message
summaries. New items are View New Only, which hides
messages once they've been read, and Hide Deleted,
which hides messages once they have been marked for
deletion.
o The Find menu is used to access the Pattern and Date
Search dialogs, and to select messages that share an
author, subject, message ID, priority, or mark with the
current message.
o The Sort menu allows you to order messages in a folder
by date, subject, author, message ID, priority, mark,
or message length. You may also access the Custom Sort
dialog to sort messages based on your own criteria.
o The Compose menu is used to initiate a new composition
or a reply, to forward a message to another user, and
to access the Address Browser and Template dialog.
o The Options menu is used to access the Aliases dialog
(to create or edit aliases), the Signature dialog (to
create or edit a signature), the Envelope dialog (to
select headers to be displayed on incoming messages,
and set the value of dynamic headers), the Headers
dialog (to specify headers for outgoing messages), the
Colors dialog (to specify the colors in your MediaMail
windows), the Fonts dialog (to specify the fonts used
in your MediaMail windows), the Toolbox, and the
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Variables dialog. The final item on this menu is Save
Configuration, which is used to save the state of
MediaMail to your .zmailrc file.
o The Layout menu is used to display or hide parts of the
Main window.
o The Help menu is used to access online help.
The Message Display Window has eight menus.
o The Message menu contains items to save messages to
folders, delete and undelete messages, print and pin-up
messages, to preserve or unpreserve messages, as well
as items to assign marks and priorities to messages.
The Attachments item on this menu brings up the
Attachments dialog, which is used to detach
attachments.
o The Edit menu contains items to copy selected text to
the Clipboard, and to select the entire message. You
may also use this menu to page and scroll through a
message.
o The Find menu is used to access the Search dialog, and
to select messages that share an author, subject,
message ID, priority, or mark with the current message.
o The Compose menu is used to initiate a new composition
or to bring up the Templates dialog.
o The Reply menu contains items to initiate a reply to
either the sender of a message or to all recipients.
You may also include the original message in your reply
using the Sender (Include Msg.) and All (Include Msg.)
items.
o The Forward menu is used to send the message to another
user. You may resend the message directly, put the
message in the body of a reply that includes your
edits, or send the message as an attachment.
o The Layout menu is used to display or hide parts of the
Message Display window.
o The Help menu is used to access online help.
The Compose Window has seven menus.
o The Message menu has items to: initiate another
composition in a separate window, reuse the current
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composition (this item is only active once the
autodismiss variable is unset for the Compose option),
send the composition, save the composition to a file,
print the composition, bring up the Attachments
dialogm, cancel the composition, and close the Compose
window.
o The Edit menu contains items for manipulating the text
of a composition. In addition to Cut, Copy, Paste, and
Delete, there is a Paste Special submenu, which has two
items: Indent is used to specify a prefix for each line
of pasted text; Fill is used to have pasted text
automatically filled.
Items on the Format submenu may be used to fill,
indent, and unindent selected text. This submenu also
contains the Pipe through Command item, which is used
to pass the selected text through a Unix command.
The Select All item selects the entire message body.
Search/Replace/Spell brings up the Search and Replace
dialog. Editor invokes the external editor specified by
the wineditor variable.
o The Include menu is used to append messages or files to
a composition.
o The Address menu is used to move the insertion point to
the To, Subject, Cc, or Bcc fields.
o The Options menu contains toggles for several options.
You may also access the Compose Options dialog from
this menu.
o The Layout menu is used to hide or display parts of the
Compose window.
o The Help menu is used to access online help.
3.6 New_or_Changed_Variables
(See the Variables dialog for more details about the
following new or changed variables.)
o autosave_count (numeric) -- Compositions are now
automatically saved periodically. autosave_count
controls the number of keystrokes between automatic
saves. The defaultis 100.
o compose_lines (numeric) -- The compose_lines variable
allows you specify the number of lines in the Compose
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window in GUI mode. Previously, this variable was
called msg_win.
o message_lines (numeric) -- The message_lines variable
allows you to specify the number of lines in the
message window. Previously, this variable was called
crt_win.
o summary_lines (numeric) -- This variable is used to
specify the initial number of messages summaries
displayed in the MediaMail main window. Previously,
this variable was called screen_win.
o timeout (numeric) -- This variable specifies the
maximum amount of time MediaMail will try to lock the
mail spool. In command-line mode, timeout specifies a
minimum number of seconds between checks for new mail.
o use_pop (boolean) -- This variable must be set to true
if you are using POP.
o window_shell (string) -- The window_shell variable is
now used only when a tty window is needed for input or
output from MediaMail and the winterm variable is not
set, or when a tty window is needed for an external
editor and the wineditor variable is not set.
o winterm (string) -- The variable specifies the program
to run when shell processes are created in GUI mode. If
the WINTERM environment variable is set, winterm is set
by default to its value.
o wineditor (string) -- The wineditor variable specifies
the program to run when you invoke an external editor
in GUI mode. If the WINEDITOR environment variable is
set, this variable is set by default to its value. If
wineditor is not set, external editors are invoked in
GUI mode by appending the value of the visual variable
to the value of the window_shell variable and executing
the result as a Unix command.
3.7 New_or_Changed_Z-Script_Commands
(See MediaMail online help for for more details about the
following new or changed commands.)
o New chroot command -- In GUI mode, you may use the
chroot command to change the root directory for File
Finders to the specified directory. The File Finder
will only allow the user to access files which have
this directory as a prefix.
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o New compcmd command -- The compcmd command is used to
perform an operation on a composition already in
progress. See the online Help for a complete list of
supported operations.
o New enable and disable commands -- These commands are
used to restrict or grant access to other Z-Script
commands. They are normally used only by the system
administrator in the $ZMLIB/ system.zmailrc file.
o New hide and unhide commands -- These commands are used
to control the display of the message summaries. They
alter the state of the hidden flag, which may also be
set with the hidden variable.
o Enhancement to page command -- The page command now
supports a -c option, which may be used to specify the
MIME character set with which to display text. In order
to take advantage of this feature, you must edit the
Zmail*paging_dialog*output_text.fontList resource in
the /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Zmail file. By default,
this resource specifies only a single font:
Zmail*paging_dialog*output_text.fontList: \
-*-screen-medium-r-normal- -14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
To use page -c to view text in different character
sets, you must specify both additional fonts and MIME
character set names in this resource. For example, the
following resource provides the ability to view text in
a Cyrillic font:
Zmail*paging_dialog*output_text.fontList: \
-*-screen-medium-r-normal- -14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1:, \
-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-15-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-5:iso-8859-5
The text following the colon in this resource setting
must be provided as an argument to the -c option. For
example, if the resource setting above is used, the
following command displays text in a Cyrillic character
set:
page -c iso-8859-5
The first font in this resource definition has no tag
following the colon. This indicates that this font is
the default; when the page command is invoked without
the -c option, this font will be used.
o New textedit command -- The textedit command is used to
manipulate the contents of text areas from within Z-
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Script functions.
o The alias command -- It now accepts a file name as a
source of addresses.
o The cd command -- The actions of the cd command are now
restricted by the chroot command, which is described
above.
o The edit command -- It may now be used in GUI mode to
edit the contents of a folder.
o The flags command -- It now supports the -H and -V
options, for hidden and unhidden messages,
respectively.
o The trap command -- You may now supply the name of a
signal (HUP, INT, etc.) as an argument to the trap
command.
o The write command -- When you save messages to file
using the write command, the status of those messages
is not changed to "S".
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4. Known_Problems_and_Workarounds
o As the result of a Motif bug, crashes occasionally
occur after double-clicking on a message summary.
o In some cases, the To field is shortened when adding a
Bcc field to a Reply message. If this occurs and you
are using a larger than default sized font, you may be
unable to enter text in the To field. Use a smaller
font.
o As a result of an IRIX bug (FAM), if your Mailbox is a
linked file, new mail may not arrive automatically. If
this occurs, open dirview for the linked file.
o Specifying the following font will cause multiple
console errors messages to be displayed:
Zmail*XmText.fontList: \
--space-medium-r-normal--10-100-72-72-m-60-sgi-fontspecific
If you leave this font selected and subsequently
minimize, then maximize a window, the window appears
grayed out and is not redrawn.
o You can not search for the "[" character in a received
message using the Search dialog. Use the Pattern Search
dialog instead.
o If you set the quiet variable "gui" option, MediaMail
still "beeps" when new mail arrives. Set the "newmail"
option, and MediaMail will not "beep" or write
notifications to the Output area when new mail arrives.
o If you set the wrapcolumn variable to 80, and use an
external editor to compose your message, the column
will wrap at 79 characters when returning to the
MediaMail editor. To prevent this from occurring, unset
the autoformat variable.
o Occasionally this error message appears:
X Error #1:
XGetWindowProperty returned 1!
This is harmless and occurs when a previous copy of
MediaMail exits abnormally.
o Attaching or detaching attachments with backslashes or
single quotes in the file name causes unexpected
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results.
o Extremely long printer names can overflow a buffer in
the Printer dialog.
o Parsing of backslashes when sourcing script files
differs in subtle ways from the syntax when typed at a
line-mode prompt. In particular, \" will always cause
an unmatched quote error, whether matching quotes
actually appear or not.
o Using the headers command in the GUI Command field
redraws and selects too many messages, and doesn't
scroll the display.
o New arrivals box does not behave appropriately when
viewing the contents of the file specified by the
record variable.
o Choosing "Fill" from the Format submenu in the compose
window can leave an extra space when wrapping lines
exactly on a sentence boundary.
o The main window output area tends to jump up and down a
lot when there is a steady stream of output. This
happens because MediaMail attempts to compensate for a
Motif text widget bug by scrolling back down when Motif
erroneously scrolls up.
o Filters are not run on new mail that is discovered
during an update.
o The sender's MAIL environment can get copied into the
recipient's MediaMail -receive when sending to a user
on the same machine who is running MediaMail from
.forward.
o You cannot perform an update command from within a trap
command.
o If the window manager sends a WM_DELETE message to the
client and then the server shuts down, MediaMail may
not exit gracefully.
o Changing folders from inside a filter causes odd
behavior. The current folder for purposes of new mail
checks remains the folder that was active when the
filter went off, even though the main window correctly
displays the switched-to folder. If you use a redraw
command or the like in the filter, to try to force the
current folder and the main window folder to be the
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same, you end up displaying the wrong folder in the
main window and the first time you take any other
action there the view will change to the correct
folder.
o The Encoding header should wrap at some reasonable
number of characters.
o The timed-out ask dialogs sometimes time out too
quickly if MediaMail is running over slow connection.
o The sizes of very long (larger than 50K) messages are
sometimes reported incorrectly.
o The hide and unhide commands do not report errors if
they are given arguments that are not message numbers.
o Strange behavior sometimes occurs when many (greater
than 25) attachments are open simultaneously.
o Page down doesn't work correctly if you have all
messages selected.
o Geometry resources for dialogs containing file finders
are ignored in some cases.
o Cutting 8-bit characters from and Emacs window and
pasting them into a MediaMail composition has
unexpected results.
o If a message has a "From " line, but no "From:" line,
the pick -f command will never find the message.
o If you turn off all the panes in the main, message, or
compose window, they are not correctly sized when you
turn them on again.
o The alwaysexpand alias does not work when sending mail
from the command line.
o MediaMail does not use the view rule for text/plain for
parts of unrecognized subtypes of text, nor does it
provide a wildcard mechanism in attach.types.
o The text area in the Task Meter dialog sometimes
appears too short for its font.
o Colors saved in a ~/.zmcolors file are not always
restored when MediaMail is restarted.
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o Attachments of type message/rfc822 are not displayed
correctly if they do not have rct822 headers.
o Buttons do not resize correctly when their font is
changed.
o Occasionally, task meters ignore the setting of the
intr_level variable.
o MediaMail occasionally takes a very long time to open
very large folders read-only.
o If a task meter appears when several messages are being
written to files, it does not update during the
operation.
o The Attachments dialog flickers when it is redrawn.
o MediaMail does not refuse to attach an empty file.
o Word wrapping doesn't work properly with multibyte
fonts.
o Occasionally there is a lengthy (about 10 seconds)
pause when switching between two active folders.
o It is possible to set numeric variables to negative
numbers with Z-Script. Range-checking is not enforced
by the Z-Script set command.
o The addresses constructed when auto_route is set may be
incorrect if you reply to a message from an address
containing multiple (!-separated) UUCP hosts.
o When you chroot to a non-existent directory, many
redundant error messages are displayed.
o When the last element of a directory name is invalid,
chroot takes the valid part of the path as its
argument, which can yield unexpected results.
o Running compcmd on a composition in GUI mode may take
the input focus away from the compose window.
o File finders exhibit strange behavior when you double-
click on a directory for which you don't have execute
permission.
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5. Documentation
5.1 User's_Guide_and_Reference_Manual
To obtain a copy of Z-Mail User's Guide or Z-Mail Reference
Manual, contact Z-Code Software, 101 Rowland Way, Suite 300,
Novato, CA 94945, (415) 898-8649.
o The Z-Mail Reference Manual does not document the
arith, calc, or textedit commands. They are, however,
documented in the online help.
o The Z-Mail User Guide documents Iconify menu items in
both the main and compose windows. There are no Iconify
menu items.
5.2 Use_of_SGI_Help
MediaMail now uses SGI Help for online help. Access online
help by choosing a command from the Help menu or clicking on
the Help buttons that appear in most dialogs.
The Help menu includes an "Index" command and a "Click for
Help" command. To find help on a specific topic, choose
"Index" to bring up a list of topics. Then double-click on
an entry to get help for that topic. To find out how to use
a particular region of MediaMail, choose "Click for Help."
Then click on the area of the application about which you
want information.
5.3 POP3_Support_is_not_Documented
MediaMail now includes support for POP3 (Post Office
Protocol). Three environment variables control MediaMail's
interaction with POP3:
o MAILHOST. This environment variable should be set to
the name of the host MediaMail should contact in order
to connect to the POP3 server.
o If the USE_POP environment variable is set, MediaMail
attempts to establish a POP3 connection to the machine
specified by MAILHOST. The value of this variable is
not significant.
o The MAIL environment variable must be set to the name
of the file to which mail obtained via the POP3
connection should be appended. The file is treated by
MediaMail as the user's system mailbox during a POP3
session.
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When MediaMail attempts its first POP3 connection at
startup, it prompts for a POP password, which is normally
the same as the password for the user's account on MAILHOST.
If, after multiple attempts, a correct password is not
entered, MediaMail starts anyway, but no further POP
connections are attempted.
There are three MediaMail variables associated with POP:
pop_options, pop_timeout, and use_pop. These are discussed
in the section titled New or Changed Variables.