OrganiZATOR User's Guide

[Home]  [Init]  [Index]


Postbox (messaging system)

§1  General

Zator has a messaging system to send and receive messages between members of a work group on an intranet. It may be a good substitute for those notes that colleagues leave on the table advising us in our absence, that someone has come to visit, or phone to us. But of course, can be used for messages of any kind.

For maintenance, there are three tabs titled Sent box; In box and To send box, which give access respectively to the trays Sent messages, Received messages and Pending to send messages for the Zator's messaging system (see an introduction to this service in Sending messages).

The ability of send messages is in the init screen (toolbar button ), and except the option to forward messages from the Messages pending to send tab, the options available in these tabs refer exclusively to the maintenance of the respective trays. Should also remember that the existence of messages in the Sent messages tab, depends on the state of the corresponding switch in the Initial settings, because of the fact that the elements stored in this tray are what we have called local copy of the sent messages.

The tabs Sent box and In box only allow the option of erasing, because neither the copy of the messages sent or received can be modified. For his part, the tray of pending messages, represents those that where unable to reach its destination because being inaccessible at the time. In these cases, the date column marks the first attempt, and the menu offers the possibility to try to resend and modify. Although in the latter case, is possible only to change the subject and body (is not possible change the initial destination address).

When a message from the pending tray is sent successfully, is removed from this tray, and if they were connected the adequate switch in the initial settings, is creates a copy of it in the Sent messages tray.

§2  Location of the files

The messaging system tabs, which collectively we call Postbox, can display the contents of the mailbox from any workspace. But by default, shows the box at the address specified in the Message-box path of the Initial settings. Remember that when this argument is empty (contains no explicit direction), the address of the postbox coincides with the local area of dBase. Also, keep in mind that for all purposes, the address specified in this section of the initial parameters, is considered the local area of the messaging system. Who, as have noted, need not match the address of the local area of dBase or the Scheduler [1].

Thus, depending on the value indicated in the initial settings, the user's postbox may be in the same area of the local dBase, or any other location in the intranet, although both options have advantages and disadvantages. Locate the mailbox in the dBase local area, has the disadvantage that this address must be accessible to other users who can send messages (which must have write-permission).

Note in this regard that, through Zator, other users can not do anything more than leave the relevant messages. Unless of course, they have an "account" as users in our dBase and/or it have an "public" access (guest or owner passwords equal to "DISABLED").

On the other hand, place our postbox in a remote area. For example on a network node, which serves as mail station and is accessible by all users, has the advantage of greater security, but at the cost that our messages can not link with our dBase elements, because the limitation that a link can not take place between elements of different work areas.

Remember that when you select any postbox tab, the caption bar of the main window shows whether you are connected to the local postbox (which need not be in the local area) or elsewhere. At the same time, when you mouse over the title of any of these tabs, the popup window (tooltip) displays the actual address of the file being used.

§3  Browsing

The tray's windows appear empty if has not been received/sent any message, or there is nothing in the pending tray. On the contrary, appears a line for each message in the corresponding tray showing the contents of its fields. The inspection of its content is the usual in Windows applications. Can be made horizontal/vertical scroll with the corresponding slide bars to inspect hidden elements. The title bars are resizable, so that you can drag them to widen. At the same time, successively clicking with the mouse on the title of any column, lists the content of the selected column in direct/inverse alphabetical order.

Note that the Note column indicates the number of characters in the field (----- if it is empty).  The actual content of this field in the line that has focus at the time, can be seen in the Note window (which indicates <Empty> if it do not have content). At the same time, the window of the bottom status line (purple) contains the entire field Subject, besides the creation/modification dates of the message, while the lower windows show the possible links that the message had.

Notice that the Logbook window remains empty because the messages do not have this component. Likewise, the lower windows other than the titled Linked from and its Type, also remain empty, because the messages can not be the source or type of links -only target-.

While on a tab other than Agenda, the calendar window has no effect on the items displayed.


§4  Maintenance

The maintenance is as usual; by right clicking on the window, you can get a contextual menu.  The options that relate to maintenance are three in the best case, in the To send box tray, because the other two, Sent box and In box only allow to delete the corresponding item (sent and received messages can not be modified):

 

  • This item > Modify  (To send box tab only)
  • This item > Delete
  • This item > Select as link's Target [2]
  • This item > Resend  (To send box tab only)
  • Print this row
  • Print this group

These options are also available via the keyboard:

  • [Del]   Delete the message pointed out by the cursor
  • [Alt]+[M]   Modify the message pending to send (To send box tab only).
  • [Alt]+[T]   Resend (Transmit) the message pointed out by the cursor (To send box tab only)

 

  Top.


[1]  Another way to see this is considered that the local area has an extension (mailbox) that can be physically in a different direction that the file zDB1 of the local directory of the application.

[2]  This option is only enabled if a user has write-permission -other than the guest- and the postbox is in the same direction as the current dBase (see tooltips on dBase tabs).