Reading mail

When you are sent a message, it is put in your system mailbox file. When you start SCO Shell Mail, your system mailbox is loaded. You then see a list of all messages in your mailbox and can read any of them.

To read your mail messages, select Read from the Mail menu. Move the highlight to the message you want to read and press <Enter>. The message you selected appears below the message header (``To'', ``From'', and ``Subject''). If the message has an attachment, the header information tells you so.

Once you begin reading the message, you can select Continue from the Read menu or use the cursor keys on your terminal to move forwards and backwards through it. For a full list of keyboard commands, select Help from the Read menu, or press <F1>.

You can redisplay the message headers after you have begun to read your messages by selecting Quit from the Read menu.

Speed-reading mail

To quickly read through several messages, select Read from the Mail menu. Subsequent messages are displayed in turn as you press <Enter>.

Reading an attachment

SCO Shell Mail allows you to send a separate file or clipboard item along with mail messages. Unlike the message itself, this attachment can be a file with a special data format, such as a spreadsheet file, word processing document or binary program.

An ``a'' next to a message in the header list tells you that the message has an attachment. The message header tells you the name of the attached file (``File Attached'') and its file type (``Attachment Type''). If the attached file has a special file format, it is automatically translated for you.

To view the attachment, you must first display the message (containing the attachment) on the screen, then select:

Extra Attachment

The attachment appears on the screen, and you can scroll through it with the cursor movement keys. You can save the attachment to a file; see ``Saving a message with an attachment'' for details.

If SCO Shell Mail cannot translate the attachment's file format, an error message appears. Press <Enter> to return to the Read menu and save the attachment to a file. You should then seek advice on decoding the file from your system administrator.