6. The menu options of Sylpheed.

The menu in Sylpheed is the primary entry to all the things you can do with Sylpheed. The menu structure gives you following options:

6.1 File menu

• Add mailbox: this option lets you add a new MH mail-directory. It will generate IN, OUT, QUEUE, DRAFT and TRASH mailfolders inside the new mailbox.
• Check for new messages in all folders: rescans the entire tree of existing mailboxes to reflect the correct state (usually won't be necessary).
• Folder: lets you add, rename or delete a mailfolder.
  • Create new folder: to create a new folder. You must select the top level node of the folder tree of a sub folder before using this menu entry, in order to define the location of the new folder to create.
  • Rename folder: change the name of the selected folder.
  • Delete folder: delete the selected folder (also delete the messages contained in the selected folder).
• Import mbox file...: lets you import an mbox file (like created by Pine) into an MH mailbox.
• Export to mbox file: lets you export an MH mailbox to an mbox file.
• Empty trash: obviously, this will empty the trash folder.
• Save as: lets you save the selected e-mail to a plain textfile on disk.
• Print: lets you print the selected e-mail to a printer.
• Exit: ends Sylpheed.

6.2 Edit menu

• copy: lets you copy the selected text to a buffer, from where you can paste it into a different place. Shortcut: Ctrl-C
• select all: selects all the text in the current window. Shortcut: Ctrl-A
• select thread: selects all the messages of the current thread.
• Find in current message: searches a string in the current message. Shortcut: Ctrl-F
• search messages: searches a message based on its To, From, Subject header fields or body content. Start searching from the selected message, in the selected folder. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-F

6.3 View menu

The view menu allows you to change the way that Sylpheed appears. You can set different windows separately (folder view, messages etc.), enable or disable the statusbar and so on. It contains also the commands to toggle the display of some parts of the current message, or sort the messsages in the selected folder based on different attributes.

• Show or hide: let you control the parts of the Sylpheed user interface you want to display.
  • Folder tree: not implemented yet
  • Message view: show or hide the message pane. When hidden, the messages are displayed in a separate window. To read a message double click in the summary pane. The message is then opened in a new window. You can close this new window by pressing the escape key.
  • Toolbar: sets how you want to see the toolbar. Icons and text, or one of these.
    • Icon and Text: show icons and text in the toolbar.
    • Icon: only display the icons, do not display the text below them.
    • Text: only the text, hide the icons.
    • None: hide the toolbar.
  • Status bar: show it or hide it.
• Separate folder tree: selects between having the folder tree attached to the main window, or floating separately.
• Separate message view: selects between having the selected message in the summary pane attached to the main window, or floating separately.
• Sort: controls the way the messages are sorted in the selected folder. Each option sorts the messages in descending order (the bigger one being on the top of the summary pane), and can be reversed by selecting the same menu entry a second time (each time you select the same menu entry the order is reversed).
  • Sort by number: sort the message based on their MH number.
  • Sort by size: sort the message on their size.
  • Sort by date: sort the messages based on their date.
  • Sort by from: the messages are sorted by their sender address (From field, sorted alphabetically).
  • Sort by recipient: the messages are sorted by their recipient (sorted alphabetically).
  • Sort by subject: the messages are sorted by their subject (sorted alphabetically).
  • Sort by color label: sort the messages based on their color. Read the context menu description below to find how to assign colors to messages.
  • Sort by mark: separate marked and unmarked messages. Read the context menu description below to find how to mark messages.
  • Sort by unread: separate read and unread messages.
  • Sort by attachment: separate messages with and without attachment.
  • Don't sort: do not sort the messages.
  • Ascending: sort the messages in ascending order. If the field used to sort the messages is displayed in the summary view, a little arrow on the right side of the corresponding summay column header reflects the sort order you select from the menu.
  • Descending: sort the messages in descending order.
  • Attract by subject: move close to each other the messages having the same subject (or a close subject).
• Thread view: turn the threaded view on or off. When turned on the messages of the same thread (the same discussion generated by replying to each other mail) are grouped as a tree representing the discussion flow. Each reply being linked to its orignal message. Each branch can be open or closed by using the small plus or minus sign next to it. The threads are based on the In-Reply-To and Reference fields of the mail header, so never start a new conversation by replying to an old message, this will add your new mail to the old unrelated thread. Shortcut: Ctrl-T
• Expand all threads: if the threaded view is selected, expand all the threads in the opened folder.
• Collapse all threads: if the threaded view is selected, collapse all the threads in the opened folder.
• Set display item: use it to change the list of items to display in the summary view. This setting can also be changed through the common preferences.
• Go to: use it to navigate from message to message based on the sub-menu criterias.
  • Prev. message: go to the previous message in the current folder. Shortcut: P
  • Next message: go to the next message in the current folder. Shortcut: N
  • Prev. unread: go to the previous unread message. Shortcut: Shift-P
  • Next unread: go to the next unread message. Shortcut: Shift-N
  • Prev. new: go to the previous new message.
  • Next new: go to the next new message.
  • Prev. marked: go to the previous marked message.
  • Next marked: go to the next marked message.
  • Prev. labeled: go to the previous labeled message.
  • Next labeled: go to the next labeled message.
  • Other folder: change the current folder. Opens a new window with the folder tree, and open the selected folder.
• Code set: allows you to select what codeset you want to use for your e-mails. This codeset will be used when sending mails. Note Sylpheed will always try to use the more compatible codeset based on the characters used in your message, so unless you use special latin-1 characters in your mail, the encoding will be defined as 7bits ASCII even if you have selected the ISO-8859-1 character set. The auto-detect option let Sylpheed automatically detect the character set based on the content of the messages.
• Open in new window: open the selected message in a new window. This new window can be closed by pressing the escape key. Shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-N
• Message source: opens a new window and display the complete source of the message in it (without any formatting and with all the header fields). Shortcut: Ctrl-U
• Show all header: toggles on and off the display of the complete message header. Shortcut: Ctrl-H
• Update summary: update the Sylpheed window. Shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-U

6.4 Message menu

Here you find the following options:

• Get new mail: this will collect all new mail for your default mail-identity. Shortcut: Ctrl-I
• Get from all accounts: Sylpheed will poll all defined mail-identities for new mail. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-I
• Cancel receiving: stop the new mails reception.
• Send queued messages: all the messages that you put into the "Queue" folder will now be sent off.
• Compose new message: allows you to write a new e-mail message. Shortcut: Ctrl-M
• Reply: an e-mail message will be created with the sender of the selected message in the summary pane as recipient. Depending on the settings, your signature will be added to the mail, and the original mail text will be quoted. If a part of the original mail is selected, only this part will be quoted in the reply. Shortcut: Ctrl-R
• Reply to
  • all: as Reply, but the recipients will be all e-mail addresses in the original messages (including the ones in the cc: part). Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-R
  • sender: as Reply.
  • Mailing list: reply to the mailing list. To use when replying to a mailing list (unless you want to reply only to the poster of the message). Shortcut: Ctrl-L
• Reply to sender: as Reply, but the recipient is the address defined in the Sender header field (not the Reply-To address).
• Forward: a message will be created with the original message in the summary pane as text. You can then enter a recipient e-mail address, edit the text if you want, and send it. Shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-F
• Forward as attachment: as Forward, but the message text will sent along as a separate textfile. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F
• Redirect: re-send the selected message to someone else. Compared to a forward, the message is not marked as forwarded, and the sender is the original mail sender.
• Re-edit: lets you open all already sent message in edition mode to re-send it.
• Move: lets you move the message to a different folder. You can select the destination folder from a browse-window.
• Copy: as Move, only that the message is copied to the new folder, instead of moved. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-O
• Delete: lets you delete the message that is selected in the summary pane. Shortcut: Ctrl-D
• Mark: Gives a submenu: Mark/Unmark/Mark as read/Unmark as read. When you mark messages, you can do a specific action (e.g. move, delete) on all of the marked messages. You can unmark messages that you mistakenly marked. The other options do as they say, they mark or unmark a message as read, and mark all read, marks all the messages of the current folder as read.

A note on functions like Move, Copy and Delete: if you did not specify to execute the commands immediately (in the configuration), you will have to select the Execute command. This is a button in the toolbar, and can also be found in the Summary menu.

6.5 Tool menu

In the Tool menu are grouped the filters control, address book access and log window control.

• Address book: opens the address book window. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-A
• Add sender to address book: adds the sender of the selected message to one of your address books. When selected a window opens to let you select the target address book.
• Filter messages: apply the filter rules to the messages of the inbox.
• Create filter rule: create a new filter rule based on the selected message.
  • Automatically: open the filter rules creation window to define a new rule.
  • By From: opens the filter rules creation window and fills the filter settings fields to build a filter based on the sender of the selected message.
  • By To: opens the filter rules creation window and fills the filter settings fields to build a filter based on the receiver of the selected message.
  • By Subject: opens the filter rules creation window and fills the filter settings fields to build a filter based on the subject of the selected message.
• Actions: this menu is empty until you define some actions (see the configuration menu description).
• Delete duplicated messages: This will remove messages from the active folder that were sent twice to you. For example you received a message directly and through a mailing list at the same time.
• Execute: execute all the pending move, delete, and copy commands. Only if execute immediately is off in the common preferences. Shortcut: X
• Log window: opens the log window. In the log window, you can see what Sylpheed is doing. Keeping track of things in that way is very good when you suspect there is something wrong. You can paste the info of the log window into an e-mail and send it to the developer or the mailing list. Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-L

In the log window, you can see what Sylpheed is doing. Keeping track of things in that way is very good when you suspect there is something wrong. You can paste the info of the log window into an e-mail and send it to the developer or the mailing list.

6.6 Configuration menu

In the Configuration menu, clearly, you can set up Sylpheed the way you want it to work and react.

• Common preferences: in this option you will be presented a dialog in which you can select a number of tabs. Each tab represents a specific set of settings in Sylpheed. In the next chapter, these dialog options are explained in more detail.
• Filter setting: this option shows you a dialog in which you can set up the filtering rules that you want Sylpheed to process on receiving new e-mails. You first specify on which part(s) of the e-mail Sylpheed has to check, and then you tell Sylpheed what to do. You can move the message to a different directory (including trash to get rid of spam mail). Selecting the destination folder is possible through a browser window that comes up when you press "Select..."

  You can choose not to receive the e-mail. Note that this will leave the message on the mailserver of your provider, the message will not be removed!

  When you press the "Register" button, the filter rule is added to the list of rules. Do you select "Substitute", then the selected rule is replaced by the information of the setting entered. "Delete" in the end will delete the selected filtering rule.

  Please note that you can set up two selections for a rule, which can be "OR'd" or "AND'd". OR means that one of the two selections will have to match for the rule to be executed. AND means that both selections have to match before an action is performed.

  To the right of the selection rules you see buttons called UP and DOWN. You can move rules up and down in the list. This will often trigger different behaviour in the selections, so consider the order in which you set the rules.

• Template: let your create a new message template. When composing a new message you can then used one of the defined templates and insert it (or use it to completely replace the content of your mail). The templates can contain some special characters that are replaced when the template is used in order to create a dynamic text. Use the symbols button on the templates definition window to see the list of the available symbols.
• Actions: let your create new commands to be added to the 'Tools/Actions' menu. An action is a command that processes the select part of a message, the message body or the complete message file. It can be a background process, used as a filter (reads, modifies and replaces a message),...
• Preferences for current account: here you can set the specifics for the account you are currently using. Should mail be deleted after fetching, what is the server it comes from, etc. Basically it is the same dialog form as shown in setting up a new account.
• Create new account: here you name the account (each account has a recognizable name), you set up your name and e-mail address etc. You set up the type of server you access (POP4, IMAP4, local mailbox, newsserver) and where the downloaded messages have to go (default folder is the inbox). In the RECEIVE tab you select or unselect options, in SEND you can set up how to send your messages. In COMPOSE you can point to a specific signature file, and in ADVANCED you can set up alternate ports for the server, if these exist. (Do not mess with these unless you are sure you have to!!)
• Edit accounts: here you can select one of the accounts you created, from a list, and edit the information about them. Note that you cannot edit an account for which you are writing a message at the same time. This to ensure data integrity.
• Change current account: here you can select what account you want to use, to write a message. If you have enabled the status bar (in the view menu), the name of the current account is shown in the bottom right corner of the Sylpheed window (in the status bar) and can be changed by a click on it (then a menu appears and lists all your accounts).

6.7 Help menu

This menu lets you look at the manual and FAQ of Sylpheed, and you can also see the "about" info, who wrote Sylpheed.

6.8 Context menu

You can pull up context menus (through clicking button2) for the folder tree and the summary pane. (windows users: button2 is the right mouse button.)

In the folder view you can add, rename and remove folders through the context menu. You can also set the folder properties (define the selected folder as an inbox, outbox, trash, ...).

In the message summary you can do a host of things from the context menu, like viewing message headers, opening a message in a separate window (also possible by double clicking on a message) etc...