POPMail Release Notes, IMPORTANT
Download
The download comes in 2 pieces, the base install which includes a non-functional version of the program's exe and all the dlls and controls,
and the latest version of the executable.
Once you have done the base install once, you only need to download the new executable for upgrades
(unless advised differently in the Version Info at the bottom of this page..
Download base install
Download current exe (copy to your install directory)
Software License available here.
Installation
Unzip the POPMail-base.zip file in a temporary directory and run the Setup.exe program.
Unless you change the default settings, the program will install in C:\Program Files\POPMail
and create an entry in the Start menu.
If you select another directory, make a note of it.
Then download the POPMail.exe file directly into the program's installation directory.
It will overwrite the POPMail.exe file created by the base install.
Prerequisite
To view HTML messages, you need to have Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 at least, or more recent, installed.
Internet Explorer is not part of the POPMail program installation files, but if you do not have it, you can always
download the most recent version from www.microsoft.com
Setup and Operation
Select "ISP Setup" from the menu and enter your ISP's information. The top field (ISP) is not critical,
enter a name that is easy for you to associate with this account (example "My Cox Account").
The other fields are all critical and should have been provided by your ISP.
- If you click "Add", the account information will be saved in the Registry,
otherwise, the information will be lost when you shut off the program.
- You only need to click "Add" when you create a new ISP (either from scratch or by changing the name
of an existing account).
If you only change the information for an existing ISP, clicking "Ok" will save that new information.
- If you have selected "Save Password", the password will also be saved to the registry in Base64 encoding,
but this is NOT ENCRYPTION. The Base64 encoding will only discourage the casual snoops.
- If you have not selected "Save Password", you will have to enter the password each time you use that account.
- If you have selected to save the pasword, but later change your mind, click "Unsave password".
- At this time, there is no tool to easily and completely remove an account from the registry.
If you need to do that, use Regedit, look for POPMail and delete the key for the ISP you want to remove.
To retrieve mail, click "Get Mail". The message subjects will display in the top window.
When the available message subjects have been downloaded, double-click on one message to display it, or click "View Msg".
If you click "View Msg", the message is downloaded and the next message is automatically selected.
This makes checking your mail easy and fast.
If you click "Delete" (normal left-click), the message currently selected (with the blue background) will be marked
for deletion (see below for details) and the next message will be selected (but not downloaded).
If you right-click "Delete", the message currently selected (with the blue background) will be marked for deletion
and the next message will be selected, downloaded and displayed.
Messages you have read are marked with an "R". This information is lost when you disconnect from the server
(using the Disconnect button, or because of time-out.) That means messages that are not deleted remain on the server.
HTML messages are automatically displayed in HTML. To see the text, click on the "Text" button.
This will display the entire message, including all headers.
Some messages may have some HTML tags, but may miss important tags to tell the program they should be displayed as HTML,
so you can force those messages to display as HTML by clicking "HTML". The program will ask for confirmation.
To view all the headers, click on "All".
If the message is a MIME multipart message, the MIME Part window will contain the list of the various parts.
Click on the part you want to see to display it.
There are a number of choices under "Options". I tried to pick names that were descriptive of their functions.
- "Confirm Delete" asks for confirmation before deleting a message. Please note that as long as you have not
clicked "Disconnect", the deleted messages can be recovered by clicking "Reset".
The "Reset" key undeletes all messages currently selected for deletion though, not just the last message or the current message.
Once you have selected messages for deletion and you click "Disconnect", the messages are gone.
If the program crashes, or the connection times out, the messages are NOT deleted.
- "Keep Alive" tickles the POP server regularly to keep the connection open. Once the connection is closed,
you have to click "Get Mail" again to see messages.
This does not work perfectly and servers sometimes disconnect even with "Keep Alive" checked.
- "Delete spam" worksw by deleting messages that contain one of the strings entered in the next menu:
"Enter spam search string".
Here are the entries I use for my mail providers Cox and Globat:
-- Spam --
***SPAM***
- "Show HTML Msg in Browser" opens a Browser window where the normal text message window is. The browser runs
a subset of Internet Explorer and displays relatively simple HTML such as what is used in email messages
pretty competently, including downloading embedded pictures (if "No Pictures in HTML" is left unchecked).
Normal precautions regarding IE and security are applicable:
If you are planning on viewing spam in the browser, I strongly recommend that you download
and install Ad-Aware software to
protect you from spyware and other malware, and if you use Windows XP and have not installed SP2 yet,
you should seriously consider doing that now, even more so if you use Internet Explorer, as a
standalone browser, or to view HTML messages with this program.
- If "No Pictures in HTML" is checked, pictures embedded in HTML messages are not downloaded (this is much
safer with IE)
- "Clear Suspicious IMG tags" suppresses downloading pictures that have your POP server's name embedded in the IMG tag,
or images that are generated by scripts (they have a "?" in the image link.)
Such images are used to track the fact that the email address is valid (at least that someone reads the messages).
This is valuable information for the spammer, who then knows this is a good email address, so they can send you
more spam.
Please note that there are a number of ways to track usage that do not involve either of these methods,
so this feature is not as secure as not displaying pictures at all, but if you really want
to see the pictures, it provides a little added protection against spamming.
- "Enable Debug Buffer" is used to troubleshoot problems by storing the entire transfer when retrieving the
list of messages from the server. It causes a significant slow down when there are more than 10 or 20 messages waiting,
so it is not enabled by default.
- "Fixed Width Font" selects Courrier New as the font for the message window.
Some messages are formatted expecting a fixed width font and don't look good with the default Arial font.
- "Increase Text Size" and "Decrease Text Size" are self explanatory. You can use the short cuts "Ctrl & +" and "Ctrl & -".
When you delete a message, the server (your ISP) marks the message for deletion.
When a message is marked for deletion, it is not immediately erased, it remains in the server, but inaccessible.
It will be physically deleted from the server when you exit the server using "Disconnect"
(this is a feature of the POP protocol, not of this program).
If you change you mind and want to "undelete" a message that has been marked for deletion,
use the "Reset" button. This will "unmark" all the messages that may have been marked for deletion.
There is no way to undelete a single message. This is a "feature" of the POP protocol, not of this program.
If you mark one or more messages for deletion, and let the server time-out (or close the program without
clicking "Disconnect"), the messages will NOT be deleted and will be displayed the next time
you click "Get Mail".
As always, there are no guarantees. If you have questions, I will do my best to address them.
Bugs
Bugs?? Nah!!!
Here are the bugs I have come across, in random order:
- Error 430: If you get error 430 when starting the program, read this article
Acknowledgments
This project includes work by others, including:
Version: 0.1.63 (October 1st, 2005)
- Small fix to Mark Spam As Deleted routine
Version: 0.1.57 (September17, 2005)
- Delete Spam works with email services such as Cox and Globat and all services that put a special
text string in the subject to identify spam.
Version: 0.1.50 (December 10, 2004)
- Added advanced options to Replies
Version: 0.1.48 (December 5, 2004)
- HTML messages now may be printed as HTML or plain text
Version: 0.1.46 (December 2, 2004)
- Right click on "Delete" deletes the current message and views the next
- Most significant performance improvement: the debug window is now optional when populating the
message list window. Do not use it if you have a slow computer and a lot of messages.
- A number of small bugs squashed
Version: 0.1.32 (November 24, 2004)
- Performance should be better when there are a lot of messages in the inbox.
Version: 0.1.30 (November 23, 2004)
- Password now saved in the Registry with Base64 encoding (not very secure, not to be confused
with encryption, but OK for casual snoops)
Version 0.1.29 (November 21, 2004)
Version 0.1.25 (November 17, 2004)
- Cleaned up menus
- Added button to display all headers (and entire message.)
- Added message size in Message List window.
- ATTENTION: I have observed that large messages (> 100k) may take A LONG TIME to download, so you may
want to avoid doing that until it is fixed.
- Message List can now be resized using the + and - buttons to the right.
- Font size can be changed (for text messages only, the font size of HTML messages is set by the Browser.)
Version 0.1.23 (November 15, 2004)
- New option to display text messages in fixed width font
Version 0.1.22 (November 15, 2004)
- The name of attached files are displayed, attachments are not yet decoded.
- TextWrap fixed in Debug Window
- Multi-part messages are better handled. HTML and text parts are separately decoded.
- View Text and View HTML work as originally intended: with multi-part messages, they display the text and html parts respectively.
With an html only email, it displays the same message in the browser or in a text window. With a text only message, you can still display
it in the browser if you wanted to, even though it does not generally look good.
Version 0.1.21 (November 15, 2004)
- ISP Setup now allows easy ISP selection.
- Debug and message windows no longer limited to 32k characters under Win95/98/Me (use RichTextBox control)
- Quoted-Printable encoding now properly decoded
- More bug fixes, source code cleaned up and better organized.
- To Do:
- Display attachments (at least the file names)
- Display embedded graphics that are Base64 encoded
- Decode utf-8/iso-8859-1 encoded messages
Version 0.1.17 (November 5, 2004)
- You need to download a new POPMail-base.zip file
- Sending SMTP mail now works.
- Displaying HTML messages is much smoother now
- Messages can be saved
- Navigation is improved (the next selected item is now always visible, the ListBox scrolls automatically)
- The Debug window shows all headers and traffic. Its content can also be saved.
- Many more small bugs squashed
Version 0.1.11 (October 31, 2004)
- More bug fixes
- HTML display works much better, even on Win95/98
- SMTP still not complete
- Don't forget to download the new base package if you were below v0.1.1
Version 0.1.1 (October 29, 2004)
- Fixed a memory problem with Windows 95/98 (and probably Me).
Apparently, TextBox'es in VB can only take 32k of stuff under W95/98, but do not have such limitation under XP.
So, the debug window is truncated under W95/98 if there is more than 32k of stuff to print.
- There is a new Base program, much MUCH smaller than the old one. It contains new controls, so you must download it.
- Window now resizes properly. There was a problem there on some machines.
Version 0.0.19 (October 27, 2004)
- More bug fixes (I am on a roll...)
Version 0.0.18 (October 27, 2004)
Version 0.0.8 (October 26, 2004)
- Many bug fixes, basic functionality pretty good now
- Added image filtering in HTML mail
- Added email filter in image tags (these small images that return your email to the
server to tell him that you have read the message)
This is useful because it allows you to view most images without which HTML mail has
little interest, yet does not make it easy for the spammers.
Please note that this does nothing for those spammers who use codes other than plain
text email addresses in their image tags.
- Framework for SMTP message sending capability (does not work yet)
- Debug window can save the buffer to disk (useful for troubleshooting)
Version 0.0.5 (October 25, 2004)
- Now works with 2 of my ISPs (!)
- Still problems getting a complete list with some servers/networks due to fragmentation
Version 0.0.3 (October 24, 2004)
- Stupid mistake fixed (at least one :-)
Version 0.0.4 (October 24, 2004)