Exploring Ameol Messages	< Previous  |  Next >

• Marking Messages
• Searching for a message
• Copying messages
• Viewing and sorting messages

Marking messages

Ameol holds all of your messages in a database on your machine. This means that you can mark your messages in a number of ways to make referring to them easier.

If you go to the Message menu, you will see in the second section of the menu the following commands. The menu is context sensitive so you may see the command in either of the forms listed. Any commands that don’t apply to the current messages will be greyed out.

You can use these commands by selecting them from the Message menu or by pressing the corresponding letter key.


Searching for a message

You can search for a message by choosing Search from the File menu or by pressing F3. This will bring up the Find dialogue which contains many options that you can use to search for words, authors and date ranges.

You can save frequently used searches by clicking the Save Search As button when you have defined your search in the rest of the dialogue box. Simply enter a name for your search and click OK. Your saved search will now appear in the saved searches list.

When you are happy with the search that you have defined, click the Find button. Ameol will now search the message base and go to any messages that it has found that match your search criteria. Click Next in Msg to look for another instance in the current message; Next to look for the next message that matches; Mark to bookmark that message so that you can come back to it later; and Close to end the search.

Copying messages

You can copy messages from one Conference to another or forward a message via email.

To copy a message, open the topic by double-clicking on it in the In Basket. In the message window select the message that you wish to copy. Now go to the Message menu and select Copy or press Y.

A dialogue showing your message database structure (as seen in the In Basket) will appear, and you should click on the topic that you wish to copy the message to. Click OK to copy the message. If this is to a Conference, Usenet newsgroup or mail topic it will be added to the Out Basket.

You can also move messages within your Ameol database. To do this, select Move from the Message menu or press Ctrl + Y. Again a dialogue showing your message database structure will appear, and you should click on the topic that you wish to move the message to. Click OK to move the message.

To forward a message to another email address, choose Forward from the Message menu or press V. Enter the email address that you’d like to forward the message to, or click the Forward To button to choose an address from the Address Book.

Viewing and sorting messages

The Message Window allows you to view information about your messages in different columns. You can also sort your messages in a number of ways.

Open the Message Window by double-clicking a topic in the In Basket. To change the columns of data shown in the top right-hand pane of the Message Window, go to the View Menu and select Show Columns. A sub-menu will appear showing Number, Name, Date, Size and Subject. Those that are already displayed will have a tick next to them.

To add a column to your Message Window click the item in the Show Columns sub menu. These items toggle, so clicking an item that currently has a tick will remove that column from the Message Window.

To sort the messages in the Message Window go to the View menu and select Sorted By. A sub menu will appear with the items Reference, Roots, Number, Name, Date, Size, Subject and Ascending. The current sort item is shown by a dot next to the name. By default this is Reference. The Ascending item is a toggle command which uses a tick in exactly the same way as the Show Columns sub menu, you can also select the title bar in the thread window so for example if you want to sort by number in ascending order just click on the name column header, to reverse the order to descending just click on the name column header again, a small arrow will also appear in the header to indicate which column the messages are being sorted on and whether it is ascending or descending.

Sorting by Reference shows the messages with comments threaded beneath the original messages to which they refer. You can collapse a thread of messages into a folder by double clicking the folder symbol next to the original message. Sorting by Roots retains the same order a Reference but each thread of messages is collapsed into a folder which opens when you click on it. When you move to a different folder the previous thread collapses once more.

If you sort by Number the messages lose their thread structure and appear in numerical order. Similarly Date, Size and Subject sorts do not have a thread structure. You can use the Ascending option with any of these sorts to change from ascending to descending order.

Ameol saves column and sort settings for each individual topic or newsgroup so making changes to one topic won’t change every one.