Mail > Reading Mail

When you receive email messages in the inbox or junk mail folder, you can open the email message in orchidmedia to read the contents, save attachments, and follow web links.

To open an email message, select the message from the Mail view displayed in the activity panel, and select the Open button from the Mail Toolbar or the Actions | Open Email Message Menu action from the menu bar in the Mail Activity. You can also double click with the mouse over the item to open it. When you open an email message, the mail editor displays with the contents of the message for you to read:-

Reading Mail in Mail Editor

The Mail Editor toolbar provides a number of buttons to Reply to sender (1), Reply to All (2), Forward (3), Print (4), and to control web browsing (5).

Mail Editor Toolbar

The Reply to button will create a new message with the contents of the original message for you to reply to the sender of the original message. The Reply All does the same thing, except that it includes all recipients in the reply aswell. File attachments are not included in the reply. (see Replying to Mail for further reading).

The Forward button will create a new message with the contents of the original message for you to forward to another email address. File Attachments are included in the Forward message. (see Forwarding Mail for further reading.)

When reading mail messages in the Mail Editor window, you should see the sender's email address displayed in the From field (6), and your email address displayed in the To or CC Field (7).

The priority of the message is shown in the Priority field, and whether the sender has requested a read notification is shown in (8). When you close the email message, you will be asked if you want to send a read notification message to the sender, if the read receipt field is ticked.

A read notification messages sends an email to the sender with the time and date that you have read the email message.

The subject title for the message is displayed in the Subject field (9).

If the sender is a new contact, you can use the Contact Update button (10) to add the Sender's name and email address as a new contact in one of the contact folders in orchidmedia. (see Adding Contacts for further reading).

If there are file attachments, the Attached field (11) displays the filenames of the attachments, and you can either use the Save attachments button to the left of the Attached field or right click on the Attached field to display the Attached popup menu:-

Attached Popup Menu

You can save the attachments to orchidmedia's Media Folders using the Save to Library Menu action or save the files on folders on your computer using the Export As... Menu action. Select all the files attached using the mouse or keyboard selection keys, or select and save each file individually. (see Saving Attachments for further reading on saving files to orchidmedia's Media Folders). Selecting the Export As... Menu action will display the file dialogue window to provide the computer folder and filename for the selected file.

The content of the email message (12) displays as Raw, Plain or HTML formatted text depending on the Text format button (13) selected. The Raw format button displays the entire contents of the message, including multiple part messages as unformatted plain text. The Plain format button displays the message with no text formatting, if the message has a Plain text part. The HTML format button displays the message content as a web page, if the message has a HTML text part. Pictures and resources which need to be downloaded from the internet for the HTML text part will only download if you are working online. (see Send and Receive Mail - for further reading on the dangers of HTML web emails).

Many HTML email messages contain links to web pages on the internet. If you are working online, you can click on links to go to web pages on the internet using orchidmedia. When you click on a link a new Tab window opens to display the web page inside the Mail Editor Window. (read Following Email Links for further reading on web browsing within the Mail Editor Window.

You can close the mail editor window without indicating that you have read the message using the Cancel button (14), or you should click on the Save button to close the mail editor window and return to the Mail view. The Send button is disabled when reading email messages, since it has no role at this stage.