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ProxiMail 1.0 Beta 2 User Manual

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 What's new in ProxiMail 1.0 Beta 2?
3 Downloading and Installing ProxiMail
4 Configuration
5 Composing Mail
6 Sending Mail
7 Receiving Mail
8 Support and Bug Reports
9 FAQ

Introduction

ProxiMail, formerly known as TopGun Postman, is a POP3/APOP3 and SMTP compatible mail application for the PalmPilot Professional and newer Palm models. ProxiMail enables you to send mail messages that you have composed offline, and retrieve mail messages that are waiting for you in your POP3/APOP3 accessible mail spool. ProxiMail is not a complete mail package - it relies on the built-in Mail program for the composition and viewing of messages.

This release is a beta version of the program, which means that although we believe we've eliminated most of the bugs, you may find some in this release. If so, please report them to us.

What's New in ProxiMail 1.0 Beta 2?

  • Support for retrieving unread mail. ProxiMail will now ignore the POP server message flags and retrieve all messages that it has not previously downloaded.
  • Support for message queries. ProxiMail will allow you to interactive select which messages you would like to retrieve.

Downloading and Installing ProxiMail

  1. Download ProxiMail and unzip the archive.
  2. Install ProxiMail.prc on your Palm (using Hotsync on your Mac or Windows machine, or pilot-xfer on your Unix machine).
You are now ready to configure ProxiMail.

Configuring ProxiMail

  1. Ensure that your Network and Modem preferences on your Pilot are set correctly to establish a PPP connection.
  2. Open the ProxiMail application. You should see a screen that looks like this:
  3. Tap on the Preferences button to edit your mail profiles. You should see a screen that looks like this:
  4. Select the Mail Profile that you would like to edit. Give it a new name so that you remember which profile is which.
  5. Tap on the SMTP Prefs... button. You should see a screen that looks like this:
  6. Enter the hostname or IP address of your SMTP server in the first field.
  7. Enter your email address in the second field.
  8. Enter your real name in the third field. This is the name that will be used on your outgoing mail.
  9. Tap on the Save button.
  10. Tap on the Pop Prefs... button. You should see a screen that looks like this:
  11. Enter the hostname or IP address of your POP3 server in the first field.
  12. Enter your POP3 username in the second field.
  13. Tap on the Tap to enter box to bring up the password box, which looks like this:
  14. Enter your POP3 password in the field, and tap on OK.
  15. If you are using APOP, tap on the checkbox next to Use APOP. APOP is a more secure version of the POP protocol. Note that your mailserver must be running APOP for this to work.
  16. If you want to see headers other than To:, From:, Cc:, and Subject:, pop up the list next to Paste extra headers, and select either "Top" or "Bottom". These extra headers will appear at the beginning of the message if you select "Top", or at the end of the message if you select "Bottom". Selecting "No" will suppress the extra headers.
  17. If you want incoming messages to be truncated automatically at a certain size, select that size from the popup list next to Truncate messages at. If you would rather not truncate your messages, select the "Mem" option from the list. ProxiMail will then truncate the message only when it cannot allocate any more memory for its storage. Messages are usually limited to about 20-32K in size.
  18. If you want to automatically delete messages from the server after downloading them, select "Yes" from the popup list next to Delete from server. If you select "No", messages will stay on the server after you download them. If you select "If complete", messages will be deleted from the server only if they were not truncated during download.
  19. The popup list next to Saved allows you to choose which messages are 'new' and should be saved in your mailbox . If you select "Unread messages(POP), ProxiMail detects previously read messages by noting that the R status flag is set in a Status: header retrieved from the POP server. It then will retrieve only the messages not marked as read.  If you select "Unread messages (ProxiMail), ProxiMail will save messages it has not previously retrieved, regardless of whether or not the R flag has been set.  If you choose "All messages", ProxiMail will retrieve all messages on the server.  
  20. If you want ProxiMail to query you for what to do before downloading each message (giving you the opportunity to view the headers for a message before downloading it), tap on the checkbox next to Query for each message. This is useful in case people like sending you postscript or large MIME inclusions by email.  If you have selected an option other than "All messages" in the Save list, you will NOT be queried regarding previously read messages. 
  21. Tap on the Save button.
You are now ready to use ProxiMail.

Using ProxiMail

Composing Mail

To compose mail, use the Mail application that is built into the PalmPilot. Your composed mail will be filed in the Outbox, which is where ProxiMail will look for messages to send.

Sending Mail

To send previously composed mail, launch ProxiMail and tap on the Send mail button. ProxiMail will attempt to start a PPP session (if one hasn't already been started), and then will connect to the configured SMTP server and send your mail. All successfully sent mail messages will be refiled in the Filed folder.

Receiving Mail

In order to receive new mail messages, launch ProxiMail and tap on the Get mail button. ProxiMail will start a PPP session (if necessary), and then will connect to the POP server. If authentication is successful, ProxiMail will begin downloading messages. You should see the following dialog box while messages are being downloaded:
The "Retrieving message X of Y" indicator tells you how many messages are in your POP mail spool, and the status bar below this indicates the download progress of the current message.

If you have indicated that you want ProxiMail to query you for each message, a dialog box will pop up after the header of each message is downloaded; this dialog box contains two buttons and a checkbox as well as the message headers and size of the message. It looks like this:

If your POP3 server does not support the "TOP" command, you won't be able to preview the message headers, and will only see the message size. Select an entry from the Delete from server popup list if you want to override the default delete behavior for this message; the selections are the same as in the POP Preferences screen. Then, tap on either the Get Message or the Skip Message button depending on whether you want the message to be retrieved or not. Note: if you tap on Skip Message, but have Delete from server set to "Yes", the message will not be downloaded but will be deleted from the server.

All downloaded messages will be automatically filed in your Inbox. If you hit the Cancel button in the middle of a POP3 mail transfer, any downloaded messages will be preserved on your Pilot, but no messages will be deleted from the POP3 server.

Note: to send your outgoing messages and download your POP mail all at once, you can tap the Both button at the bottom of the main title screen.

Support and Bug Reports

Please submit bug reports to proximail-beta@proxinet.com.

Support for ProxiMail can be obtained from proximail-support@proxinet.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Why can't ProxiMail drop my PPP connection when I'm done downloading/sending mail?

    ProxiMail doesn't control PPP - Palm OS automatically forges the default PPP connection when the network library is accessed. A useful trick, however, is to simply turn off the Pilot by pressing the green button instead of going to the Network preferences screen to manually disconnect PPP. Turning off the Pilot causes an open PPP connection to be gracefully shut down.

  2. Can ProxiMail handle file attachments?

    No.

  3. What is the maximum message size that ProxiMail handles?

    Mail Inbox records are limited to roughly 32KB in size by Palm OS, so we cannot store mail messages larger than this. We do gracefully handle large messages by truncating them as needed.

  4. Why doesn't ProxiMail work with my iPOP server?

    ProxiMail does not support iPOP (Pine POP) servers at the present time.


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