Message Editor
Message editor allows you to compose a new message, edit reply to a message or edit forwarded message.
Depending on which option you used, it may appear as a blank message or it may contain original message you are replying to. Original message appears as quoted just after your original message.
Here are some ways to invoke message editor:
- Clicking Create Email, Reply, Reply All or Forward buttons from the main toolbar or clicking equal option from the main menu.
- Double clicking on a contact name in Contacts area or right clicking and selecting Send Email.
- Right clicking message to invoke context menu and then selecting Reply, Reply All etc.
Message editor fields
The largest field is used for entering message text. One-line fields are:
- From - Lets you select an account which will be used for sending email. It will also use "From" name and email defined for that account. You may also have multiple accounts with the same server name but different "From" name.
- To - Lets you type-in email addresses of your recipients - you can enter one or more. Use this field for emailing people who are directly involved with the message and may reply to it. If you have entries in your address book they will be looked up and displayed in drop-down box below your typing. You can use arrow up-down keys to select and enter key insert name/address from the drop-down box. You can separate addresses by using comma, semicolon or enter key. Your recipients will see all email addresses you place in this field.
- Cc - Input more email addresses. These are carbon copy addresses which will receive a copy of a message. This field is commonly used for people who you want to know about a message but are not involved with the message and don't need to reply to it (although they may if they want to). Your recipients will see all email addresses you place in this field. Note that this field can be hidden in View menu options.
- Bcc - Input email addresses as well. This is blind carbon copy. Email addresses you place in this field cannot be seen by recipients of your message, in other words, they are invisible to each other, but still message is sent to all of them. Use this if you don't want your recipients to see who you sent your message to, for example, to send message to a small mailing list of people who are not involved with each other. Note that this field can be hidden in View menu options.
- Subject - Subject of a message (usually abbreviated message content) as it will appear to your recipients.
- Attachments - This field is hidden but appears when you add attachments to the message. You can also remove attachments from the message, using this field. If field is not present, your message has no attachments.
Additionally, to input email addresses into fields you can also click buttons next to fields To, Cc and Bcc. Once clicked, they open address book where you select addresses and add them to To, Cc and Bcc fields using appropriate buttons. Once you click OK, addresses are copied to message editor window. If you click Cancel (or close address book window) message editor addresses remain unchanged.
Cc and Bcc fields can be toggled using Show Cc/Bcc clickable label.
Message Editor Formatting Bar
A formatting bar with various buttons is located just above the message body. This bar will only be visible if the message is in HTML format. The buttons, which are customizable, can be used while editing the message. The available buttons include:
- Font Name: Changes the font of the selected text.
- Font Size: Adjusts the size of the selected text.
- Clear Formatting: Removes all formatting from the selected text.
- Bold: Makes the selected text bold.
- Italic: Makes the selected text italic.
- Underline: Underlines the selected text.
- Font Color: Changes the color of the selected text.
- Text Highlight Color: Changes the background color of the selected text.
- Strikethrough: Draws a line through the selected text.
- Subscript: Makes the selected text appear slightly below the line of text.
- Superscript: Makes the selected text appear slightly above the line of text.
- Formatting Numbers: Creates a numbered list.
- Formatting Bullets: Creates a bulleted list.
- Decrease Indent: Decreases the indent level of the selected paragraph.
- Increase Indent: Increases the indent level of the selected paragraph.
- Align Left: Aligns the text to the left.
- Center: Centers the text.
- Align Right: Aligns the text to the right.
- Justify: Aligns the text to both the left and right margins, adding extra space between words as necessary.
- Insert Horizontal Line: Inserts a horizontal line into the text.
- Create Hyperlink: Turns the selected text into a hyperlink or inserts a new hyperlink. A hyperlink is a clickable text that directs you to another location, such as a webpage.
- Insert Picture: Inserts a picture at the cursor's location, embedding it into the email text.
- Insert Emoji: Inserts an emoji at the cursor's location. Emojis can be selected in the popup window, searched by their common name, or selected from the list of recently used ones.
- Insert Table: Inserts a table at the cursor's location.
- Insert Symbol: Inserts a special symbol at the cursor's location.
- Left-To-Right Paragraph: Changes the direction of the selected text to left-to-right. This is typically used for languages that are written from left to right, such as English.
- Right-To-Left Paragraph: Changes the direction of the selected text to right-to-left. This is typically used for right-to-left languages, such as Arabic or Hebrew.
- [Separator]: A visual divider between groups of related buttons. It's not a clickable button, and its purpose is to help you better organize other buttons when customizing the toolbar.
Message Editor Source Editor
On the bottom of the main part of the message editor window there are 3 tabs - Edit, Source and Preview. You can use them to switch how you edit the message - using a visual editor or HTML source editor. Source editor can be used when you need to make advanced changes to the HTML source code generated by the visual editor or when it is not easy to make a change using the visual editor. Switching to Source editor copies the current visual editor message to the HTML source and switching back copies the current HTML source to the visual editor message. Preview tab is used to preview Source editor HTML as it will appear when the message is received. This is useful when editing stationery.
Managing email lists in an external file
OE Classic has built-in capability of storing email groups and email folders in its address book. You can create new folder or new group inside the address book and add/remove contacts from it. However, some people prefer to store email lists in separate files, outside of the program and that also can be done.
If you want to manage an email list in a text file or in a spreadsheet file, you can use the following tricks to effectively manage your contact lists.
It is possible to keep contacts in a text file or in a spreadsheet file and then copy and paste them into the To/Cc/Bcc fields in the Message Editor. For the purpose of sending to a mailing list, all recipients should be pasted in the Bcc field. This way the contacts don't see each other's email addresses when you email them which is the preferred way of emailing to a list and not revealing private information of the recipients. Note that if you don't put any address in the To or Cc fields, the To field will be automatically filled with your own email address (but you won't receive a copy of the sent email back). Not having a blank To field, will help avoiding some spam filters labeling your email as spam. When you paste items from your text list, they will be automatically converted into individually separated email entries in the Message Editor.
Examples of the formats you can use for your email list (all of these formats can be pasted into the To/Cc/Bcc fields. The items below are just examples, in the real list they would be actual names and actual email addresses.
| Description |
Example |
| Email address only, no enclosing |
email@example.com |
| Email address only, but enclosed in less-than/more-than characters |
<email@example.com> |
| Name portion followed by Email address enclosed in less-than/more-than characters |
name <email@example.com> |
| Longer Name portion, in the same format as above, arbitrarily long name portion is possible and international characters can be used as well (in the Name portion only) |
name1 name2 <email@example.com> |
| Name portion can also be enclosed in quotes, the same format as above |
"name1 name2" <email@example.com> |
| Name portion contains comma (for example, where last name is being used first), which is normally a separator for multiple email items, but enclosing it in quotes makes it being interpreted as part of the Name portion with the Email address being associated with that Name - without the quotes, the comma would be interpreted as first email item (name2) and the part behind the comma as second email item (name1 <email@example.com>) |
"name2, name1" <email@example.com> |
| Name portion is enclosed in quotes, but as it contains "name2" which is also in additional quotes, the inner quotes are escaped with backslash character to properly interpret them as part of the Name |
"name1 \"name2\" name3" <email@example.com> |
| Individual email items must be separated by comma (all of the above formats can be used) |
name1 <email1@example.com>, name2 <email2@example.com>, name3 <email3@example.com> |
| The items can also be separated by new lines, so you can also keep them in a spreadsheet file or in a text file with new lines separating the list entries - if new line is used, comma is not needed as a separator |
name1 <email1@example.com>
name2 <email2@example.com>
name3 <email3@example.com>
|
| New lines and commas can even be combined as separators |
name1 <email1@example.com>
name2 <email2@example.com>, name3 <email3@example.com>
name4 <email4@example.com>, name5 <email5@example.com>
|
International and special characters are supported in the Name portion. If your Name portion contains comma the Name portion must be enclosed in quotes (see examples above). If your Name portion contains quotes, they must be escaped (prefixed) with the backslash ("\") character and also enclosed in quotes (see examples above).
It is also possible to right click a name in the preview pane header, choose Copy from the popup menu and paste into message editor. It will be properly recognized (as it is basically just one of the formats above).
Message Editor Main Menu
Main menu contains all options. Most common options can be started by clicking toolbar buttons as well.
File menu
- New » Mail Message [CTRL+N] - Opens a new email message window.
- Send Message [ALT+S] [CTRL+ENTER] - Stores message in Outbox folder and attempts to send it immediately if the checkbox option Send messages immediately in the Compose section of Options is checked. If the option is unchecked, the message is still stored in the Outbox folder but only sent when you click Send/Recv button or Send All drop-down option.
- Send Later - Behaves the same way as Send Message (stores message in Outbox folder) but does not attempt to send it immediately regardless of the Options checkbox.
- Save [CTRL+S] - Saves messages to Drafts folder, for example, for finishing it later. Saved message can be reopened later from Drafts folder.
- Save As - Save message as .EML file.
- Save as Stationery - Save message as .HTML file (to be used as stationery).
- Close [ALT+F4] [ESC] - Closes message editor. Message won't be sent nor saved (a dialog to choose if you want to save is shown before closing the window).
Edit menu
- Undo [CTRL+Z] - Undoes last operation. You may, for example, use this to correct an error in typing. Multiple clicks to undo move you more steps back.
- Redo [CTRL+Y] - Reverts last operation. Not present in the main menu but available through keyboard shortcut or toolbar icon.
- Cut [CTRL+X] - Cuts (copies and deletes) selected text under currently active field.
- Copy [CTRL+C] - Copies selected text under currently active field.
- Paste [CTRL+V] - Pastes previously copied text under currently active field.
- Select All [CTRL+A] - Selects all text under currently active field.
- Remove Hyperlink - Removes linked text just below the text editor cursor.
View menu
- All Headers - If checked, Cc and Bcc fields are always visible. If unchecked, Cc and Bcc fields are visible only if the current message uses them, otherwise they automatically disappear.
- Toolbar » Customize - Customize toolbar with icons on the top. Also available by right mouse click over the toolbar.
- Toolbar » Customize Editor - Customize toolbar with icons for text formatting (only visible for HTML messages). Also available by right mouse click over the toolbar.
- Source Edit [CTRL+TAB] [CTRL+SHIFT+TAB] - Toggles whether source editing tab will be visible or not - to allow source editing (Edit/Source/Preview tabs, also use keyboard shortcuts to cycle).
Insert menu
- File Attachment - Offers you a browser to select file you want to attach to a message. Once attached, files appear in the attachments list and will be sent along with the message. File is received by your recipient in unmodified form.
- Text from File - Inserts a plain-text message from an external file you selected into the message body at cursor position.
- Picture - Inserts a picture from an external file you selected into the message body at cursor position.
- Hyperlink - Opens a new window with hyperlink editor to create linked text.
- Horizontal Line - Inserts a line into the message body at cursor position.
- Signature [CTRL+SHIFT+S] - Inserts a signature in the message body - a couple of lines of text usually ending your message (although you can insert signature in different position in text), may be your "sincerely" line for example. You can edit signature text in Options.
- Signature » [Your Signature List] - Inserts a signature in the message body. If you have multiple signatures, you can choose which one to use from this list.
Format menu
- Increase Indent - Moves text in the paragraph away from the left edge.
- Decrease Indent - Moves text in the paragraph closer to the left edge.
- Align Left - Aligns current paragraph to the left.
- Center - Centers the current paragraph.
- Align Right - Aligns current paragraph to the right.
- Justify - Aligns both left and right edges of the current paragraph (stretched to fill the available space).
- Background Color - Adds background color to your message.
- Background Picture - Adds background picture to your message.
- Background Sound - Adds background sound or music to your message. Although OE Classic uses tags compatible with wide range of programs, this may not be compatible with all email programs so not everyone will hear your sounds. There are 2 available options - Repeated playback (repeats sound/music in a loop when it has finished playing), Show audio controls if possible (displays sound controls like play, stop and volume, if email program on recipient's computer has more recent viewer which supports these controls).
- Encoding » Left-To-Right Document - Sets typing direction from left to right (LTR) as used in many scripts.
- Encoding » Right-To-Left Document - Sets typing direction from right to left (RTL) as used in scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew or Persian.
- Rich Text (HTML) - Set message format to HTML. Also available in the status bar popup menu (on the bottom).
- Plain Text - Set message format to unformatted text. Also available in the status bar popup menu (on the bottom).
Tools menu
- Spelling [F7] - Start spell checking document.
- Request Read Receipt - When you check this checkbox option a special "code" (so to speak) will be sent with the message informing the recipient that the message needs a confirmation about being read to be sent back. Not all programs support sending a read confirmation even though many popular ones do. Also, sending a read receipt can be disabled in other programs so you may not count 100% on receiving a read receipt - it is a helpful option, but by no means a 100% sure method of receiving a confirmation.
- Check Names [CTRL+K] - Checks for errors in the To/Cc/Bcc list of recipients. This function is also automatically called just before sending a message so it is not needed to explicitly use it.
- Select Recipients - Opens a recipient selection window which allows you to select To/Cc/Bcc recipients.
- Address Book [CTRL+SHIFT+B] - Opens your address book if you need to find a contact.
- Add Sender to Address Book - Add sender of the message into Address Book. Only available when replying to a message. Sender is added after the message is sent if the option is checked.
Message menu
- New E-Mail [CTRL+N] - Opens another blank message compose window.
- New Using » Select Stationery - Lets you select a stationery file (HTML template) to use in a new message. Stationery are pre-made HTML messages that can contain animations, images, backgrounds, music, sounds etc.
- Priority » High Priority - Sets message priority to high (a bar will appear, indicating high priority). In many email programs, this lets your recipient see this message marked as urgent.
- Priority » Normal Priority - Sets message priority to normal (a bar will disappear). Most messages should have this priority.
- Priority » Low Priority - Sets message priority to low (a bar will appear, indicating low priority). In many email programs, this lets your recipient see this message marked as as non-urgent.
