What is WebMail?
WebMail provides a simple interface for checking your CIS email when
you are not at your personal computer without the need to set up a mail
client with your CIS account information. The software we are using is
Hastymail (http://hastymail.sourceforge.net/). This was chosen for its ease of install and use and because it is used by some other departments on campus.
A direct link to CIS Webmail: http://www.cis.rit.edu/webmail
Why use Webmail?
Webmail is mainly useful when you can not access your normal mail client. Examples of this include (just to name a few):
- On a differnt part of campus.
- In a lab.
- Outside of campus.
- etc.
Precautions
There are a few things you should take note of while using CIS WebMail.
Passwords in Browsers
Most modern browsers come with a password manager which will prompt you
to store passwords anytime you enter one in an encrypted field (a text
box that fills in with ***).
While this feature can be useful for ones own personal computer that
has your own password protecting the user account, it is a terrible
idea for public machines. Since CIS WebMail is cheifly meant to be used
to remotely access your mail, chances are you will be on a public
machine. If you allow the password manager to save your password,
anyone else who touches that machine can gain access to your mail. See Figure 1 for an example of a password manager prompt.
Figure 1: Firefox Password Manager prompt (Click Never for this Site).
In short, DO NOT allow the web browser to store your password.
Other Mail Clients
Make very sure that no other mail clients (ie. Netscape, Thunderbird,
Pine, etc...) are accessing your mail account when you log in to CIS
WebMail. If more than one mail client tries to access your mail at the
same time, you may have a loss of mail or other unfortunate results.
Attachments CIS WebMail has a
maximum upload file size set at 2 megabytes, so very large files should
be sent using a normal mail client. This is a PHP limit. Rememmber,
webmail is designed as an alternative way to access your mail and is
not intended to process very large files and mail folders.
Logging in to Webmail
To access the login for CIS WebMail go to https://www.cis.rit.edu/webmail. You will be greeted with the screen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Webmail Login
Do the following:
- Name: Mail account name
- Password: Mail account password
- Click "Login"
Managing Mail
You should now be looking at the inbox. You will be presented with the following screen:
Figure 3: Main Screen
The three major toolbars are displayed:
- Account Toolbar
- Folder Toolbar
- Message Toolbar
Each one of these toolbars will be described in detail in their own sub-sections.
Account toolbar
The toolbar at the top of figure 3 is the toolbar you can use to affect your account in general. I'll be explaining each element from left to right.
List of buttons and their function:
- Folder Navigator: The listbox at the very left of
the toolbar with the button "Go" next to it, is used for navigating
between folders. To use this:
- Click on the listbox.
- Select the folder you want to go to.
- Click Go.
- New: This button runs a quick filter and displays only new messages recieved in your mail account.
- Search: A comprehensive search function which allows you to find messages or a class of messages based on your criteria.
- Options: Brings up the options screen where you can customize the mail client to your needs.
- Folders: Takes you to the folder management screen where you can:
- Create Folders and subfolders.
- Delete Folders.
- Change a Folder's name.
- Modify Folder properties.
- Contacts: Takes you to the address book management screen.
- Compose: Starts a new message.
- Logout: Logs out of CIS WebMail
Folder toolbar
The folder toolbar is used to affect the current folder that is opened. It is the second toolbar highlighted from the top in figure 3. As with the last section, I'll be explaining things left to right.
The folder toolbar is split into 3 separate boxes. Each box serves
a different purpose and the description of the toolbar will be divided
by boxes from left to right.
- Folder Label: The first box on the left simply holds the name of the folder that is open currently.
- Page Navigator: The second box is used to navigate through pages. To simply navigate page by page, click the '<<<' to go back a page or '>>>' to go forward a page. If you want to jump to a page, do the following:
- Click on the list box with the page numbers.
- Select the page number to jump to.
- Click the Page button.
- Sort and Filter: The last box allows you to sort
and filter the current folder. To use either just select the criteria
from the listbox and click the button to the left of the listbox.
Sorting will just order the messages in the folder based on the
criteria. For example, if you select -> Arrival,
the folder will be sorted by time arrived, with the most recent first.
Filter works the same way, but only displays the messages which meet
the criteria selected. So, if you select Unread, it will only display the messages in the current folder which have not been read.
Message toolbar
The message toolbar is used to manage specific messages in the folder that is currently open. This toolbar is the third highlighted toolbar from the top in figure 3. The buttons on the message toolbar only operate on the messages
selected by checking the box next to the subject line, by default.
- Operation Target: The first listbox on the left
of the message toolbar is used to choose how messages are selected for
operation. There are three options:
- Selected: This is the default, only the messages which have been marked by checking their box will be effected by the operations chosen.
- This page: The operation that is selected will only effect the page which is currently being displayed.
- Whole Folder: The operation that is
selected will effect the entire folder. Be careful with this one, it is
very easy to delete the whole folder when doing an operation on the
entire thing.
- Read: Marks selected targets as read.
- Unread: Marks selected targets as unread.
- Expunge: Any messages which have been
deleted(often from another mail client) may appear in the folder with a
line through them. Expunge removes these messages from the folder.
- Flag: Flags the selected messages. This useful for marking important messages. Folders can be filtered based on flags.
- Unflag: Unflags the selected messages.
- Delete: Deletes the selected messages.
- Copy: Copies the selected messages to the folder selected in the listbox on the very right side of the message toolbar.
- Move: Operates the same as copy, except the original copy is not preserved.
Setting Options If this is
your first time logging in, you should make sure to set the options as
the default options will probably not correspond to how your mail works
in a normal email client.
Activating folders
You will want to activate your Sent, Trash and Drafts folders so they will appear in your webmail client.
- Click Options at the top of the screen
- Click the boxes next to the following folders:
- Enable Sent Folder
- Enable Trash Folder
- Enable Drafts Folder
- Click Update Settings below the box you made changes in.
Configuring Profile At
the bottom of the options page you will see profile configuration.
Configuring your profile will allow you to change how other people will
see your email address as well as your signature. The configurable
fields are:
- Name: The name that will appear next to your email address when sending mail.
- Email: The address that will appear to the reciever of your message.
- Signature: An optional footer that will be added to the bottom of each message you send out.
- Click Update Settings below the box you made changes in.
Other options
There are a number of other options that can be tweaked to customize the interface to your liking. For example, there are 24 different color schemes to choose from. To get back to your inbox for the next step of the tutorial:
- Select Inbox from the drop down menu on the top tool bar
- Click Go button that is next to the drop down menu.
Getting Help
If you experience any problems while using CIS WebMail, send an email to
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.
Report the problem with as much detail as possible. Include the time of
the problem, and the specific mail message if it is not
private/confidential. Also, forward the message to
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using a different mail client (ie. thuderbird, netscape, outlook). Also, any comments or suggestions are welcome.
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