Manual 4ePost version 1.0

Introduction
4ePost is a mailer which is able to exchange email or news in ASCII using the Internet.
The special features of 4ePost are: It’s speed and the spamstring.
Warning: This is *not* a beginners pack.
Minimal needs:
1.
Win32Forth Version: 4.2 Build: 0671
2. Windows95
tm or better
3. Internet Explorer 4.0 or better

Status 4ePost:
This is a test release. So there might be some bugs.
4ePost is an open project.
That means it is not finished yet and you are free to contribute to this pack.
mailto "Jos v.d.Ven"
josv@wxs.nl when you are serious.
Do not forget my full name, otherwise I might miss your message.
Add an entry to
the Bug/wishlist and your name when you have the intension to solve it.
Send the entry to me so I can change the
the Bug/wishlist on my site at http://home.planet.nl/~josv. Put your name and date near your modifications when you change sources. Check my site for progress.
An updated version of 4ePost might have another database definition.
In this case you will loose all you messages when you update the program.
Save your valuable messages as a txt-file in another directory. Use a clear name.
4ePost is free and you are allowed to use it as you wish at your own risk.

Preparing Win32Forth and WinView for 4ePost:
You can skip this section when you use Windows95
tm.
In Windows2000
tm, WindowsXPtm and some versions of Windows NTtm you might experience an error when Winview gets to the Setforeground.
Work around:

An easy way out for setforegroundwindow in Winview is to
remove or disable ( 2 times ) setforegroundwindow: self
Then choose Make Winview of the Win32Forth package.
Check the date and name of new image it might be Wv.img rename it to Winview.img
Note: On Windows NT
tm Windows2000tm and WindowsXPtm there should only be a Winview.exe It makes Winview more stable.I use it and I do not miss it.

Startup:
Compile
_4ePost.f ( Do not forget the underscore )
The first time a number of questions are asked.
When you are entering the password, you must enter the password with which you receive email.
The answers will be saved for the next time.
Resize the window, open the menu accounts and add your newsgroups en mail lists.
Close 4ePost and restart 4ePost by recompiling _4ePost.f
Now you are ready to send or receive mail.
When you would like to change your own account you will have to
follow the steps at
restart for a new startup.

Receiving mail:
Received mail or news will be clustered.
A cluster can be an account, newsgroup, list or an email address or a part of anything you find in the header fields: From: To: Cc: and Bcc:
When a message does not fit in one the defined clusters it is considered to be spam.
There is a separate cluster for spam.
Check the spam cluster when not all received messages are shown.
A spamstring protects your personal account.
The default spamstring begins with a wildcard ( * ) followed by you email address
In 4ePost a wildcard represents a number of unknown characters before the next character. The level of spam can be reduced when you include a part of your name in it.
EG:
Your name is Leonardo da Vincy and your email address is:
leon@wxs.com
During the first startup there was a cluster defined as
leon@wxs.com
A good spamstring might be *L*Vin*
leon@wxs.com
As soon as you get mail there will be a check to see if indeed something containing a L*Vin*
leon@wxs.com is in the email address. When it is in the email in the header fields From: To: Cc: and Bcc: the message will be shown in the cluster leon@wxs.com
Notes:
1.Clusters and spamstrings are case sensitive.
2.A spamstring must start with a wildcard otherwise all your mail might be spam.
3.Substrings between the wildcards must be unique!
4.Only your account is checked for spam.
Messages with spam can be deleted without downloading the body of the message.
Open the menu Options and choose Include spam to receive spam or not.
Do not do this at the start. Look some time what is going in your spamcluster.
Test your spamstring by sending an email to yourself.

Seeing mail:

As soon as you received mail you will only see new mail which is not in the spamcluster. When you open the menu Messages and choose Show all messages you will see all the messages again. To see spam you will have to open the spamcluster. Click 2 times on Spam in the treeview to do this.
Attachments can be extracted using a decoder like UUDEVIEW FOR WINDOWS
Messages with long lines can be seen by copying and pasting them into wordpad.

The addressbook:
Anyone you add to the addressbook can be emailed.
Open the menu Accounts and choose Add to addressbook.
Add yourself and send an email to yourself

Sending Mail:
1. Select a message, a cluster or a person from the addressbook ,
2. Open the menu Messages. Choose: Prepare a reply or new message
3. Accept or change the subjectline.
4. Write your mail in WinView using the new file.
5. Save and close the message in WinView
6. Open the menu Messages. Choose: Send message
7. Check if the person or newsgroup is right and put it in your outbox.
8. The next time you open the menu Internet and choose Get/send mail and News all messages will be send.
When you would like to test the newsmailer you can use alt.test.clienttest.
Notes:
1.
Your mail will not be received when a cluster has an invalid email address or newsgroup name.
2.When a message is deleted from the outbox it will not be send.

Deleting mail or cluster:
Select your cluster or mail.
Open the menu Options and choose Delete item.
The last-read counters of news-groups are not changed.
To reset these counters you have to open the menu Options and
choose Delete all messages from cluster.
When you delete one or more a messages they are going to the spamcluster.
The deletion of messages and headers and the recycling of the database space are still on
the Bug/wishlist

Restart for a new startup:
1.Delete the ini-file from the program directory where 4ePost is located
2.Empty or delete the mail directory

Delete an invalid message using Win32Forth
When you do a little experiment with this pack the last message might be invalid.
In this case the 4ePost-window will not be shown.
Enter the following line in Win32Forth after compiling 4ePost:
MAP>LAST-RECORD DELETE-ITEM DROP
When this does not solve your problem you will have to restart for a new startup.

Password encryption:
The key can be changed by changing the string in the definition encryption-key.
When you do this you must enter your password again.

Bug/wishlist for 4ePost Intended developer
Recylce database space Jos
Deletion of messages and headers Jos
Translate MIME text/plain to ASCII for Winview  
Attachments  
Quoting from the orignal post  
A better Setforeground for all windows systems  


The used trademarks are of Microsoft