Ishmail Features

Ishmail's most distinguishing feature is its graphical user interface. It gives you a fast and easy way to compose, read, and manage your electronic mail. The full capabilities of the graphical interface are exploited through the support of multi-media mail. Here is a list of Ishmail's features.

• A "WYSIWYG" text editor is included for composing mail messages. This editor lets you interactively apply font and format changes and imbed multi-media data in messages. multi-media data are represented by icons which flow with the surrounding text.

• Ishmail includes built-in support for composing, viewing, and printing mail with mixed fonts, character sets, and formatting attributes (bold, italic, underline, etc.).

• You can use international character sets when composing, reading, and printing mail (including RFC1522 mail headers).

• You can use an external editor, such as vi or emacs, to compose message text. An external spelling checker can be used to verify spelling. (Ishmail uses ispell as its default spelling checker.)

• You can include or attach external files in messages you are composing.
  • Icons representing the files are imbedded in, and flow with, the message text.

  • You can expand a file in-line, or include it as an icon.

  • You can attach a pointer to a file, rather than copying the file into the message.

  • The list of file data types understood by Ishmail can easily be extended.

• Multiple mail folders can be used concurrently.
  • You can move message among folders using drag-and-drop.

  • You can save one or messages to one or more folders, in a single operation.

  • You can quickly switch between lists of folder contents.

• You can select mail folders by names, using wild cards, or you can select them from menu lists using the mouse pointer.

• Three major mail folder formats are supported. You can create, delete and use folders in any of these styles:
  • UNIX (mailx)

  • mh

  • MMDF

• You can sort the list of messages in a folder by combinations of criteria.

• You can reformat the message list, including reordering and resizing its columns.

• A powerful search function for is available for finding messages or information within messages.
  • Search forward or backward for a message, or find all messages matching a pattern.

  • UNIX regular expression can be used for matching patterns.

  • Message body, headers, or both can be searched.

• You can reconfigure and redefine shortcut buttons in the Main, Reading, and Composition windows.

• Multiple Reading windows can be opened at once, each showing a different message.

• Multiple Composition windows can be opened at once, allowing you to have more than one new message in progress.

• Fonts and colors can be customized.

• You can specify patterns (using UNIX regular expressions) to look for in message headers, then take action when a match is found. Each pattern can have a different action. These actions include:
  • Automatically file the message in a specific folder.

  • Run an alert command (for example, play a specific sound).

  • Display a specific icon pixmap.

• You can specify multiple signature files.
  • A different signature for internal mail than for external mail.

  • A different signature for MIME messages versus plain text messages.

  • An executable signature program, which generates a different signature each time it is used.

• World Wide Web addresses (URLs) are recognized in messages. Holding down the Control key while clicking on a URL will launch the Web browser of your choice to follow the link.

• Many operations are protected by a confirmation prompt ("Did you really mean to do that?"). However, any or all of these can be disabled by a "power user."

• You can use, and create, alias names for e-mail addresses. Alias files can be shared with programs such as pine, elm, Z-mail, and sendmail.