Information Technology Services

October 2006: What's new with Webmail

On Thursday, October 12th, during the normal maintenance window of 6:00am-8:00am, Denison will be upgrading the webmail client to a new version. The new version has many nice new features and a few issues to watch out for. This document covers what will change with the new version.

Automatic Filter Control

All filters created in webmail are now applied automatically to new messages and only need to be manually applied to old messages. In the past only blacklists, whitelists, and vacation filters were executed automatically. Additional filters (e.g. discarding all message with [SPAM] in the subject) were only run when the user logged into webmail. Now any additional filters you set in webmail will execute whether you are using webmail to view your mail, or another client like Thunderbird.

You also have more flexibility in defining filters. You can not only move messages to folders, you can set a forwarding address, apply it only to specific messages, or set priority on messages.

More Flexible Spam Control

The spam sensitivity can be lowered. In addition to deleting offending messages, spam can be moved to another folder if you want to read the "borderline" messages to make sure good messages are not being culled out.

Improved Spell Checker

The spell check interface is much more intuitive.

Expanded Search Capabilities

The new webmail client can now remember searches you have done since you logged in. You can search on several different fields, including the entire message or a selection of more specific criterea.

Improved Import Ability

You can now fetch mail from other servers so that all your mail can be centralized in one spot.
You can import calendar entries via CSV (comma separated values), vcalendar or icalendar formats. You can also create multiple calendars for your own use.

New Compose Options

When reading a message from a listserv, you can choose "Reply to List" to send the reply to the listserv rather than the sender.
Email addresses are auto-expanded using your address book or the Denison directory.

New Display Functions

Users can see the address of the sender in addition to the display name when the cursor is moved over the "From:" address in the index. The full subject is also visible when you move the cursor over the subject line.
Messages are now flagged to let you know if you forwarded the message or printed it.
You can use "View Thread" function to see a series of related messages all at once.
Another new option is a side bar that lists all the e-mail folders. In order to view the side bar:

Choose "Options" from the menu bar.
Choose "Display Options" from the main page.
Check the box that says "Show the Horde Menu on the left?"
Set the width of the side bar to 150.
Save your settings.

Known Issues

On Apple computers using Safari as their browser, if the screen is not wide enough the icons at the top of the window are not labeled. A work around is to extend the width of the webmail window.

Attachments larger than 2Mb are not accepted (this was a problem with the old version as well).

Some mixed format attachments (e.g. text and html in the same attachment) can not be shown when reading a message. They must be downloaded and read outside of the webmail client. A work around this problem is to reply to the message, read the text, and then cancel the reply.

We have found that e-mail filters stored in the previous version of webmail will not work properly with the new version. We are currently testing some conversion methods. Meanwhile, we have made it possible for any one to view and manually re-create their old filters and immediately take advantage of new filtering capabilities. If you would prefer to wait until we complete testing our conversion methods, you need to do nothing now; filters that have not been modified will be updated from the old system when it becomes possible. To see your old filters you can access the old webmail software at the following address https://oldwebmail.denison.edu. Instructions are below for moving over white and black lists. Folder filter rules and vacation filters need to be created using the new webmail software see spam filters and message sorting filters

Instructions for copying filters from old webmail

To see the existing filters currently active in the new webmail software:

1. Login to Webmail
2. Click on "Filters"
3. Click on "Script", what you will see is the filter script for your filters. It may contain Whitelist Addresses, Blacklist Addresses, vacation script information, filter rules, etc... This is the current script, but may not be the Active script.
4. Click on "Active Script" to see what is currently running. The active script can be deactivated, but it cannot be modified.

To move a white or black lists from the old webmail to the new webmail:

1. Login to Webmail
2. Open another browser window and login to https://oldwebmail.denison.edu/
3. Click on "Filters" in both the new webmail and the old webmail.
4. Click on "Whitelist" or "Blacklist" in both the new webmail and the old webmail.
5. Highlight the list of addresses in the old webmail and at the top of the window click edit/copy or right click and select "copy".
6. Place your cursor in the window for the filters in the new webmail and at the top of the window click edit/paste or right click in the empty window and select "paste". At this point your black or white list should be shown in the new webmail list window.
7. Click on save in the new webmail list window. You should see the messages "Changes saved" and "Script successfully activated."
8. Click on "Return to Rules List"