Maggie's Farm

When we last left the riveting 'multiple email identities' story, the cruel, heartless plutocrats at Microsoft had eliminated one of Windows' best features by turning the superb Outlook Express into the dippy 'Windows Mail' and trashed its ability to handle multiple identities.  That was Windows Vista.

Then along came the whiny crybabies moaning about how "bloated" Vista was (a total fabrication as I disproved here) and Microsoft, ever the one to pander to greenies, liberals and whinybabies everywhere, promptly eliminated any email program in Windows 7.

There's just nothing like progress, is there?

That, in turn, forced the sad but wiser Dr. Mercury to scour the globe looking for a multiple identities email program that would work in Vista and Win7, and eventually I dug up a quirky, buggy program called The Bat which, while quirky and buggy, did the multiple identities job perfectly.

Too perfectly, in fact, in the sense that it actually did a much better job with the multiple identities than Outhouse Express did.  So, even though I was still using Windows XP and could have used Outlook Express, I switched to 'The Bat', buggily quirks and all.

Then, when I reposted the Computin' Tips Index a while back, ol' JLW stepped up to the plate and hit a home run by suggesting I re-look at Thunderbird.  There was a trick I'd missed the first time around, about making individual 'Input' boxes.  They've made a big revision, though, and now the accounts are completely separate by default.

Preparation

First off, incoming and outgoing mail use different 'port' settings, and we need to know them.  Assuming you already have a working email program, open the account's properties or options and dig up the port numbers for both incoming and outgoing.  In Outlook Express, it would be Tools Menu, 'Accounts', 'Properties', 'Advanced' panel.  They'll be there somewhere.

Note: If you're moving a GMail account to your local computer and T-Bird, there's some setting on the GMail site you have to change.  It'll be something like "Switch IMAP to POP", since you're switching the emails from residing on the GMail site (IMAP) to your own computer (POP).  If you see a FAQ or a Help file, it'll be in there.

Setup

The home site is here.  Download the file, install.

The first time you run it, it will want to set up your main account:

— Enter your name, email address, password for account.

— If says "cannot connect", click on 'Manual Setup'.  That brings you to the Options page which I'll cover below.  You'll enter the info manually.

— If it says "IMAP" on the 'Incoming' line, click 'Edit'.  Change to 'POP'.  Change the port numbers in the next column over.  Hit 'Re-test'.

— When it says 'Create Account' below, click on it.

— If the 'Add Security Exception' box pops up, click 'Confirm'.


To go over the account's options, click on the account name on the left, then 'View settings':

Server Settings:

— If 'Connection security' says 'None', set it to 'SSL/TLS' if it's a GMail account (also other public online email companies, like HotMail), 'STARTTLS' if it's a regular commercial web hosting business.

— Set 'new messages' time to '1' minute.

— If you don't have a sig file, click on 'Composition' and uncheck 'Include sig'.

— Unless you have spam problems, click on 'Junk Settings', disable it.

— If you're doing the (smart, professional) True Image system backup routine, click 'Local Folders', set to (smart, professional) remote folder.

All of that was for incoming mail.  To change the outgoing mail settings, click on 'Outgoing Server' down at the bottom, highlight the entry, 'Edit':

— Change the port number if it's incorrect.

— Use 'STARTTLS' for 'Connection security'.

— If you're using multiple identities, put the 'User Name' (from the 'Server Settings' part up above) in the 'User Name' box.  Each separate email account needs a separate outgoing server account.


Main Program Options

Go to Tools Menu, 'Options'.

General:

— Uncheck the 'start page' if you want.
— Uncheck 'Show an alert'

Display:

— Uncheck 'Display emoticons...'

Composition:

— Uncheck 'Auto Save'.

— The "Check for missing attachments can be both helpful and annoying.  It pops up a box that says "You haven't attached anything yet!" if you write the word "attach" in the email.  Helpful for the forgetful sort, but annoying otherwise.  Your choice.

— On the 'Addressing' tab, you might want to uncheck the 'Automatically add...' option.  It's sometimes handy having it automatically put the addressee in your address book, but it also starts cluttering up the address book like crazy.

— Spelling tab, check 'Check before sending'.

Advanced Panel / Reading & Display:

— Select 'An existing...'

— Check 'Close messages...'

Update:

— Select 'Ask me what to do'.

Testing & Troubleshooting

If you have another email account and program already set up, send an email to the new account and reply to it.  If it's the same account, shut down the original program right after sending it and open T-Bird.  If you don't have an email program already set up, just use T-Bird to send tests to yourself.  Make sure both the incoming and outgoing are working.

Incoming Problems:

— Try the other 'security' setting, then 'None'

— Make sure the 'Server Name' is correct.  For a GMail account, it should be pop.gmail.com".  A normal hosting agency might be "mail.yourdomain.com".

— If the 'User Name' is just the name, add the @domain stuff to it.  If it has the @domain stuff, remove it.  GMail wants just the name, but normal hosts often want the whole thing.

Outgoing Problems:

Open settings, click on 'Outgoing Server' down at the bottom.  Click on the account and 'Edit'.

— Make sure the port number is correct.  It's usually 25 for GMail, often 26 for others.

— The 'Server Name' should either be 'smtp.gmail.com' for GMail (and similar), and possibly 'mail.yourdomain.com' for normal hosting companies.

— Try the 'SSL/TLS' security setting and 'None'.

— The 'User Name' must be the same as the one up above in the 'Server Settings' area for that account.  For a host like GMail, that's usually just the name.  For a regular host, it might want the entire name@domain line.

— Double-check that the 'Outgoing server' (at the bottom of the main 'Account Settings' page) is set to the correct one.

Add-Ons

Add-Ons are usually small options that weren't in the original package and someone added later.  The two add-ons you might want immediately are Manually Sort Folders (to organize the order of the email accounts on the left) and Minimize To Tray (to minimize the icon to the SysTray, rather than the Task Bar).

The full page of add-ons is here.

To install an add-on, first download the file, then go to Tools Menu, 'Add-ons', click 'Install' and browse to the file.  After it's installed and T-Bird's re-started, go back to the Add-ons panel and click on the add-on's 'Options' to set things.

If you install 'Minimize To Tray', go into its Options and uncheck 'Double click to restore' so you only have to click on the SysTray icon once.  Then, in the SysTray area, click on the little arrow on the left and open 'Customize'.  Find the Thunderbird entry and make it 'Show icon and notifications'.  The first time an email comes in, go back into 'Customize' and find the second T-Bird entry and set it to the same.

Themes

There are a number of themes if you want to change the looks of the program.  The themes page is here.  Install them just like the add-ons.  You'll see a 'Themes' tab appear on the add-ons panel.  Note: I tried about ten themes and three or four of them wouldn't work with the latest version of T-Bird, so expect some of that.

Allowing Remote Content

As a security concern, by default T-Bird doesn't allow anything besides text to come through unless you tell it the site's okay. In certain cases, like emails from Office Depot or Netflix, you'll probably want to see the accompanying pictures.  T-Bird permanently allows access to the remote content by adding the email address to your Address Book.  The hitch is that it then starts cluttering things up, so do this:

— Click on 'Address Book' on the tool bar to open the Address Book.

— In the window that opened, click on File Menu, 'New', 'Address Book'.  Call it something like 'Remote'.

— Highlight an email from the company.  You'll see "Always load..." at the top of the message.  Click on it, set the 'Add to' box on the upper-left to your 'Remote' folder and 'OK'.

General Tips

— Every 'box' can have the 'Subject', 'From', 'Date' (etc) bar changed by right-clicking on it.  You'll usually want to remove 'Thread' and 'Starred'.

— To include a second recipient, click on the line below the address and another 'To:' line will appear.  Type in any letter of the email name and a list will appear to choose from.

— The 'From' will automatically be from whichever account is active at the time you click on the 'Write' button.  You can change it via the drop-down menu.

— Normally, the whole email will be quoted when you reply.  If you first highlight a section, only it will be quoted.

— If you've pasted a quote or something into the program and it brought along colors, font styles, links, etc, that you don't want, highlight the line and select 'Remove All Text Styles' from the Format Menu.

— If you want to edit the source code of the entire email, use the Edit HTML add-on.  Select 'horizontal' in its Options.  It adds an 'Edit HTML' entry at the bottom of the Format Menu.  If you just want to insert something quick that uses HTML brackets, use the 'Insert' menu, 'HTML'.  About the only time I ever use it is using strikethrough fonts, putting a <strike> before the text and a </strike> after.

— For security reasons, the program won't show any images and such in incoming messages until you give it the 'all clear' by clicking on the 'Show Remote Content' button.

— When doing an 'Export' from the Address Book, you'll need to save a file for each selected area.

Bug Report

— It occasionally doesn't shut down completely.  If you get an "already running" message when re-starting it, open Task Manager, 'Processes' panel, find 'thunderbird.exe' and 'End Process'.  Then re-start it.

— The size of the fonts can get really goofy, sometimes changing size just because you pasted in a link or whatever.  And having a 'Larger' and 'Smaller' button is pretty lame.  If it suddenly drops down a size, highlight just that area and click once on the 'Larger' button.  And sometimes it changes after a quoted section, starting in the default Arial but switching to 'variable', which is ugly, yet Arial is what you still see on the page.  The only way you can tell it's switched is looking at the 'Font' box.  If this program has one serious bug, this is it.

— When you import an image, it demands you either put in some alternate text (because browsers that don't display graphics are just so plentiful these days) or click on the pesky 'Don't use alternate text' gadget.

Then, should you have the temerity to want to change something on the pic, like put a thin black border around it:

Because, after all, pretty much everybody has their images disabled for faster browsing, right?  I certainly do.

In fact, these guys are so anal that you actually have to click the 'Do not use alternate text' gadget again, just to make double-sure that you intend to be so mean to all of those poor people out there with disabled images.  Sheesh, guys, get a life.

Summation

Well, 'The Bat' (buggily quirks and all) was much better than Outlook Express, and this is much better than 'The Bat', so I guess that says it all.  Outside of the somewhat erratic fonts (and, admittedly, most editors have a bug or two with fonts), it works superbly.