Windows Mail Guide
A guide for users of the Jaws screen reader, written by David Bailes.
More guides are available on the
Jaws Guides page
of the VIP Software Guides website.
Contents
Introduction
This is a guide to the email program Windows Mail, running
under Windows Vista.
Windows Mail is similar in many ways to Outlook Express, which
runs under Windows XP. Two of the main changes are:
To open Windows Mail, open the Start menu, then either type
in windows mail and press Enter, or press
Down Arrow twice, and then press Enter.
If no email accounts have been set up in Windows Mail, then when
it opens, it immediately opens the wizard for adding an email
account which is described in the
Adding an email account section
later in the guide.
An email message has to contain number of pieces of information,
like the email address of the sender, and the email address of
the recipient, as well as the message itself. In this guide, these
pieces of information will be referred to as headers, and the
message itself as the message body.
Main Window
Assuming that the Preview pane is hidden, as described in the
Hiding the preview pane section,
the Main window contains the following components:
- The title bar, which contains the name of the folder selected
in the Folder list, followed by the name of the program —
Windows Mail. To read the title bar, press Insert + T.
- Menu-bar.
- Search edit box. This can be used for finding messages,
as described in the
Searching for messages section.
- Toolbar. This can't be reached by keyboard navigation, but
all the commands are also available from the menus.
- Folder list. This contains your email folders such as
Inbox and Sent Items. One folder is always selected, and its
contents are displayed in the Message list. See the
Folder list section for more details.
- Message list. This is a list of the contents of the folder
which is selected in the Folder list, and is described in detail
in the Message list section.
- Status bar. If one of your email folders in the Folder list
is selected, then the status bar contains both the total number
of messages, and the number of unread messages in this folder.
In addition, the status bar contains the text either
Working Online or Working Offline. To read the status bar,
press Insert + Page Down.
Moving around the main window
- As for any window, to move to the menu bar press
Alt, and to leave it, press
Esc or Alt.
- You can move between the Folder list and the Message list
by pressing Tab or Shift + Tab.
Folder list
The Folder list tree view contains two top level folders:
Local Folders, and Microsoft Communities. The latter folder is
for newsgroups and won't be described in this guide. If you select
it, a Windows Mail dialog opens to ask you about subscribing to
Newsgroups. If you're not interested, just press Esc.
The Local Folders folder contains the following folders, and
if any of these is selected, its messages are shown in the
Message list:
- Inbox. For incoming messages.
- Outbox. A waiting area for outgoing messages.
- Sent Items. After you send a message, a copy is placed
in this folder.
- Deleted Items. When you delete a message from a
folder (except this folder), a copy is saved here, just
in case you change your mind.
- Drafts. This contains messages either that you were
working on when the computer crashed, or that you save
from a new message window to send later.
- Junk E-mail. This contains the messages which were classified
as Junk by the Junk E-mail filter, which is described in the
Unwanted messages section.
- Any other folders that you create, as described in the
Folders section.
If the Local Folders folder is selected, then the next control
becomes an unnamed list view, rather than the usual Message list.
This unnamed list view lists all the folders contained in the
Local Folders folder, and has three columns: Folder, Unread (the
number of unread messages in the folder), and Total (the total
number of messages in the folder). If you forget the column headings
you can use the standard Jaws keystrokes to read them:
Insert + Ctrl + 1, Insert + Ctrl + 2,
etc. In this list view, if a folder contains any messages, you can move
to the Message list for that folder by selecting it and pressing
Enter. Note that if you do this for a folder that
contains no messages, Windows Mail looses the focus, and you have
to use Alt + Tab to get it back.
Selecting a folder
You can always select the Inbox, and move to the Message list
by pressing Ctrl + I.
There are two ways of selecting any folder: by navigating the
Folder list, or using the Go to Folder dialog, and these are
described in the next two sections.
Selecting a folder using the Folder list
Unfortunately, this tree view has the following behaviour which is not
particularly helpful for those using only a keyboard. If you select
a folder, then if the folder contains any messages,
then after a pause of about one second, the focus
is automatically moved to the Message list. As a result of this
using Up Arrow and Down Arrow
to select a folder can be quite frustrating, as you often have to
Tab back to the Folder list. It's better to use
the first letter or letters of the folder. As long as the letter
of letters are unique, then you'll move straight to the folder, and
then automatically to the Message list.
As a reminder, these are the standard keystrokes for selecting
an item in a tree view:
- As for any list, you can use these keystrokes:
Up Arrow, Down Arrow,
HOME, END, and the first letter
or letters of the folder you want to select.
- Left Arrow has two uses: if you're focussed
on an open folder, it closes it; else it moves you up the list
to the parent folder.
- Right Arrow also has two uses: if you're
focussed on a closed folder, it opens it; else if you you're
focussed on an open folder, it moves you down to the first
child folder.
Selecting a folder using the Go to Folder dialog
To select a folder and move to its messages using the Go to
Folder dialog:
- Choose Go to Folder on the View menu (Ctrl + Y).
- The Go to Folder dialog opens, and the first control is
a Folder list tree view. The first time you open the
dialog after starting Windows Mail, the Local Folders folder
is selected, and closed, and so you have to press
Right Arrow to open it.
- Select a folder, and press Enter to press
the default OK button.
- You're returned to the main window, and the focus is the
Message list which contains the messages of the selected folder.
Message list
The Message list list view contains the messages in the folder which is
selected in the Folder list. You can always easily check which
folder is selected by reading the title bar. In addition, you can find
out the number of unread messages by reading the status bar
(Insert + Page Down).
The list view is set to have a details view, and for the purposes
of which columns are present and so how Jaws reads each item,
and how the messages are sorted, there are two groups of folders:
- The folders which contain messages which you've received:
Inbox, Deleted Items, Junk E-mail, and any folders which you've
created. For the messages in these folders, then by default Jaws
reads: who the message is from, the subject, and when it was
received. In addition, Jaws also says if it's unread and if it
has any attachments. By default, the messages are sorted by
when they were received, with the most recent at top of the list.
- The folders which contain messages which have been sent
or will be sent: Outbox, Sent Items, and Drafts. For the messages
in these folders, then by default Jaws reads: who the message is
addressed to, the subject, and when it was sent (or saved in the
case of the Drafts folder). In addition Jaws say if it's unread
except in the case of the Sent Items folder,
and if it has any attachments. By default the messages are sorted
by when they were sent, with the most recent at the bottom of the
list. Note that when you move to a Message list which is sorted
by when it was received or sent, the focus is the most recent
message, whether this is at the top or bottom of the list.
How to select messages, and to change how they are sorted are
described in the next two sections. You can also search for messages,
as described in the
Searching for messages section
later in the guide.
Selecting messages
- You can use the standard keystrokes Down Arrow,
Up Arrow, Home, and
End.
- To select the next unread message, press Ctrl + U.
If there are no more unread messages in the current folder, then
a Windows Mail dialog opens which tells you this, and asks you
whether you want to move to the next folder with unread messages.
If you don't want to, just Tab to the No button
and press it.
- To select more than one message, you can use the standard
keystrokes for doing this, which use the Shift and Ctrl keys.
Sorting of messages
You can change how the messages in a folder are sorted by using
the Sort By sub-menu on the View menu. This sub-menu contains
two groups of items. The first is the columns by which the messages
can be sorted by, and the second group consists of the items Sort
Ascending and Sort Descending. One item in each group is checked.
To change the sorting, choose an unchecked item in one or both
of the groups.
Note that if you change the sorting of a folder which contains
messages which you've received, then this changes the sorting
of all the other folders which contain messages which you've
received. There's a similar effect for the folders which contain
messages which you've sent or are due to be sent.
Reading messages
Windows Mail downloads messages from your email account provider
or providers:
- When you open Windows Mail.
- By default every 30 minutes when Windows Mail is open.
This time interval can be adjusted on the General page of
the Options dialog.
- At any time by pressing Ctrl + M.
To read a message, select it in the Message list, and press
Enter. A message window opens, which is described
in the next section.
Reading message window
The window contains the following components:
- Title bar, which contains the subject of the message.
- A menu bar.
- A number of read-only edit boxes for the message headers:
From, Date, To, Cc, Bcc if displayed, and Subject.
- An Attachments list view, if the message has any
attachments.
- A read-only edit box for the message body.
When the window opens, Jaws automatically reads the sender
and subject of the message, and then the message body.
You can use all the standard Jaws reading keystrokes for
reading the message body. For example, if you want to read the
message again, just press Ctrl + Home to move
to the start of the message, and then Insert + Down Arrow
to read all the message.
Jaws automatically reads the sender and subject headers at the
start of reading a message. If you want to read these again, or
any of the other headers, there are two ways of doing this:
- Press Alt + 1, or Alt + 2,
... or Alt + 6, to read the headers:
From, Date, To, Cc, Bcc, and Subject. These keystrokes do not
change the focus – so if you're in the message body edit
box when you use these keystrokes, you remain there.
- You can use Tab or Shift + Tab
to move around the controls in the window.
To close the message window, press Esc. You
can close it using Alt + F4, but using Esc
is easier, and ensures that you don't accidentally close the
Windows Mail main window.
To read another message in the same folder, you don't have to go back to the
main window:
- To read the next message in the Message list, press either
Alt + Right Arrow or Ctrl + Period.
- To read the previous message, press either
Alt + Left Arrow or Ctrl + Comma.
- To read the next unread message, press Ctrl + U.
Tasks in the Reading message window
Opening an attachment
In the message window:
- Move to the Attachments list view either by pressing
Insert + A, or by Tabbing to it.
If there are an number of attachments in the list view, select the attachment
you want to open. Note that unfortunately, the list view is
set to have an icon view, so you may have to use the left
and right arrow keys and/or the up and down arrow keys to
make your selection. Press Enter.
- Either the attachment is opened using the appropriate program,
or a Mail Attachment window opens, asking you whether you want
to open this file, and this window is described in the next step.
- If a Mail Attachment window opens, this tells you the name and the type
of the file that you are about to open, and the default button is
Cancel. The purpose of the window is to alert you to the type
of file you're about to open – some types can be risky to open.
However if the type of file is reasonably safe to open, like
a Microsoft Word document, then to open the file
and stop the Mail Attachment window opening in future for this
type of file: Tab to the “Always ask
before opening this type of file” check box, and press
Spacebar to uncheck it; then Tab
to the Open button, and press it.
Saving attachments
There are two ways of saving attachments. The first method can
only save a single attachment, whereas the second can save one or
more attachments.
To save a single attachment:
- Move to the Attachments list view either by pressing
Insert + A, or by Tabbing to it.
If there are an number of attachments in the list, select the attachment
you want to save. Note that unfortunately, the list view is
set to have an icon view, so you may have to use the left
and right arrow keys and/or the up and down arrow keys to
make your selection. Choose Save As from the attachment's
context menu.
- A Save Attachment As dialog opens, which has the same structure
as a standard Vista Save As dialog. To read the path of the
current folder, press Alt + D to select the
Address bar. In the Folder view list view, you can move up
to the folder which contains the current folder by pressing
Alt + Up Arrow, and you can move down to a folder
by selecting it and then pressing Enter.
To save one or more attachments:
- To open the Save Attachments dialog, either choose
Save Attachments from the File menu, or move to the Attachments
list view and choose Save All from the context menu.
- The first control in the Save Attachments dialog is an
Attachments list view. Initially all the attachments are selected,
but if you want to save only some of the attachments, then just
change the selection. Tab to the next control.
- The Save To edit box contains the path of the folder where
the attachments will be saved. If you're happy with that, then
press Enter to press the default Save button.
- If you need to change where the files are saved then
Tab to the Browse button, which is the next control,
and press it.
- A Browse for Folder dialog opens. Tab to
the “Select a folder to save attachments into”
tree view, and select a folder. Press Enter
to press the default OK button. Note that the dialog also contains
a Make New Folder button, if needed.
- You're returned to the Save Attachments dialog, and the focus
is still the Browse button. Tab to the
Save button, and press it.
Sending messages
There are a number of ways of composing a message which you want
to send, and they all use a message window for doing this. This
window will be referred to as the New message window, and will
be described in the next section.
New message window
The window includes the following components:
- A Title bar which contains the words “New Message”
if there's no text in the Subject edit box, and the subject when
it has been entered.
- A menu bar.
- To, Cc, and Bcc edit boxes. By default the Bcc edit box is not shown,
but you can show/hide it by opening the View menu, and choosing
All headers (Alt + B).
In these edit boxes, you can use one or more of the following items
to specify the recipients: email address, name of a Contact,
or name of a Contact Group. If you use more than one item,
they should be separated by a semi-colon, and both Contacts
and Contact groups are described in the
Windows Contacts section
later in the guide. You can always type
in complete addresses and names, but you'll normally make use of
auto-completion, which is described in detail in the
Auto-completion of names and addresses section.
- A Subject edit box.
- An Attachments list view, if you've attached any files to
the message as described in the
Adding attachments section.
- An edit box for the message body. Note that this edit box has
no name, and when you move to it, Jaws just says “edit”.
You can check the spelling of the message by pressing
F7, as described in the
Checking spelling section.
You can move forward through the controls by using Tab,
and backwards using Shift + Tab. However, if you're
in the message body edit box and you press Tab,
then the Tab is entered into the message. To move from the message
body edit box, you can only use Shift + Tab.
Note that if you're using Windows Mail with more than one
email account, then before the To edit box, there's a From combo
box, which is initially set to your default account, but which you
can change to send messages from your other accounts.
Ways of composing messages
Write a message from scratch
- Press Ctrl + N.
- A New Message window opens, and the focus is the To edit
box. Type in one or more email address, contact, or contact group,
and then press Tab
to move to the next control.
- In the Cc edit box, type in one or more email address, contact,
or contact group if required,
and then Tab to the next control.
- In the Subject edit box, type in a subject of the message, and
then Tab to the next control.
- When Jaws moves to the message body edit box, it just says
edit. Type in your message.
- To send the message, choose Send Message from the File
menu (Alt + S). Alternatively, to save the message
to the Drafts folder, choose Save from the File menu
(Ctrl + S).
Replying to a message
- You can reply to either to a message selected in the
Message list in the main window, or to a message which has
been opened in it's own message window. In either case choose
Reply to Sender on the Message menu (Ctrl + R).
- A new message window opens, and two of the edit boxes have
already been filled in for you: the To edit box contains the name
and email address of the sender of the original message; and the subject edit box
contains the text Re: followed by the subject of the original message.
When the window opens, Jaws says the subject of the message,
followed by the word edit to indicate that the initial focus is
the message body edit box. So all you have to do is type in a reply.
Note that by default, the original message is automatically
included below the text which you type in.
- To send the message, choose Send Message from the the File
menu (Alt + S).
Forwarding a message
- You can forward either a message selected in the
Message list in the main window, or a message which has
been opened in it's own message window. In either case choose
Forward from the Message menu (Ctrl + F).
- A new message window opens, and two of the edit boxes have
already been filled in for you: the subject edit box
contains the text Fw: followed by the subject of the original message;
and the message body edit box contains the original message.
When the window opens, Jaws says the subject of the message,
followed by To: edit to indicate that the initial focus is
the To edit box. Type the names or addresses of who you want
to forward the message to, and optionally Tab
to the message body edit box and type a comment before the
original message.
- To send the message, choose Send Message from the the File
menu (Alt + S).
Composing a message from your Contacts folder
You can also compose a message from your Contacts
folder, as described in the Windows contacts section.
Auto-completion of names and addresses
Auto-complete can complete both email addresses, and names of
contacts and contact groups if you've already sent them at least
one message. Auto-complete is on by default, and can be switched
on and off using the “Automatically complete e-mail
addresses when composing” check box on the Send page of the
Options dialog.
As you start typing in characters, auto-complete tries to complete
the email address or name, and Jaws reads what has been completed.
If initially, the completed address or name is not the one you want,
just carry on typing characters until it is. As soon as it completes
correctly, you can press either Tab which confirms
the auto-complete and moves you to the next control, or Enter
which also confirms the auto-complete, but leaves you in the edit box so
that you can add another name or address. In both cases, a semi-colon
is added after the text, so there's no need to add another semi-colon
if you typing in another name or address.
For individual recipients the text that is completed takes the
form of either a name or an email address, followed by an email
address in angle brackets. Jaws reads the opening and closing
angle brackets as less and greater. This completed text behaves
as a single character for the purposes of editing.
Auto-complete uses the last 29 addresses to do its completion.
Unfortunately this will include any incorrect addresses that you've used,
and the only way of removing on of these is either to wait till it's
been replaced by a good address or edit the registry.
Completion of names and addresses using Check Names
An alternate to auto-complete is to use Check Names. This uses
the names and email addresses of your Contacts and the names
of Contact Groups, rather than the most recent names and addresses which
have been used.
To use Check Names, type in one or more names or the first characters
of names that make up the full name or address of a Contact, or the
name of a Contact group, and then choose Check Names on the Tools menu
(Ctrl + K). What happens next depends on the number
of matches:
- If the match was unique the name is completed and a semi-colon
is appended. Unfortunately Jaws doesn't read the completed text,
so to read it you have to read the current line
(Insert + Up Arrow).
- If the text matches more than one name, then a Check Names
dialog opens, telling you that there were several matches.
Select the name you want in the List of matches list view,
and press Enter to press the default OK button.
- If no matches were found, then a Check Names dialog opens,
telling you that there were no matches. The initial focus is
the Show More Names button. If you want to find the name in
your contacts, press this button, and a different
Check Names dialog opens. Tab to the Address list
list view, select a name, and press Enter to
press the default OK button.
Adding attachments
- Choose File Attachment from the Insert menu.
- An Open dialog opens which has the same structure as the
standard Vista Open dialog. To read the path of the
current folder, press Alt + D to select the
Address bar. In the Folder view list view, you can move up
to the folder which contains the current folder by pressing
Alt + Up Arrow, and you can move down to a folder
by selecting it and then pressing Enter.
Select one or more files in the Folder view list view, and then
press Enter to press the default Open button.
- You are returned to the new message window. The focus within
the window is unchanged, but there is now an Attachments list view
between the Subject and message body edit boxes.
If necessary, you can repeat this procedure to add more
attachments to the message.
Checking spelling
To check the spelling of the message body, choose Spelling from the Tools menu
(F7). There is also the option to run the
spell checker automatically each time you send a message. This
option is set using the “Always check spelling before
sending” check box which is on the Spelling page of the
Options dialog which is opened from the Tools menu in the
main window.
Note that the first time you try and run the spell checker,
you might get a Spelling dialog opening and telling you that
this language is no longer available for spell checking. This
is a bug. To fix it, in the main window, open the Options dialog
on the Tools menu. Move to the Spelling page, and find the Language
combo box, which will probably be set to the correct language.
Select a different language, and then select the correct language
again. Finally, press the OK button.
The spelling dialog contains the following controls:
- Not in Dictionary read-only edit box.
- Change To edit box, which initially contains the Spell checker's
best suggestion.
- Suggestions list box, which contains suggested alternatives
to the misspelled word.
- Eight buttons: Ignore, Ignore All, Change, Change All, Add,
Suggest, Undo last, and Cancel. The Add button adds the
“misspelled” word to the spell checker's dictionary so
it will no longer be classed as misspelled.
When the dialog opens, or when the spell checker moves to the next error,
Jaws reads the word not in the dictionary and spells it out,
and then reads the best suggestion in the Change To edit box and
spells this out. If you press Insert + C then Jaws reads the
line of the message which contains the error.
The focus is the Change To edit box, and as long
as there are suggested alternatives, then the default button is Change.
Common actions include:
- To replace the misspelled word by the best suggestion, press
Enter to press the default Change button.
- Tab to the Suggestions list box, select
an alternative, and press Enter to press the
default Change button.
- Tab to the ignore button and press it
(Alt + I).
- Tab to the Add button and press it
(Alt + A), to add the “misspelled”
word to the spell checker's dictionary.
When the spelling check is complete, a Spelling message box opens
to tell you this, and you can press Spacebar or
Enter to press the OK button.
Windows Mail uses objects called Contacts for keeping
information about a person or organisation. This information can
include names, email addresses, telephone numbers, postal address, etc.
Once you've created a Contact for someone, and stored their email
address, then you don't have to remember their email address when
you send a message to them, you can just use their name.
There are also Contact Groups, which are just collections of
Contacts, and are the equivalent of Address lists or Mailing lists
in other email programs. If you regularly send a message to a fixed
group of people, then it saves time to create a Contact Group.
Then you can send a message to all of them just by using the name
of the the Contact Group.
These Contacts and Contact Groups are stored in your Contacts folder, which
is one of the sub-folders of your personal folder, just like Documents,
Downloads, Music, etc. This means that you can access you Contacts
independently of Windows Mail.
The following sections describe the Contacts folder, creating
and using Contacts, creating and using Contact Groups, and finally
searching for Contacts.
Contacts folder
You view and edit the Contacts and Contact Groups in your Contacts folder using
Windows Explorer, just like other folders. There are a number
of ways of opening this folder, including:
- From the Windows Mail main window, choose Windows Contacts
from the Tools menu (Ctrl + Shift + C).
- Open the Start Menu, type in “Contacts”, and
then press Enter. You can, of course, do this
whether or not Windows Mail is open.
There are a number of important customizations for the Contacts
folder: hiding the preview pane so that Windows Explorer does not freeze;
changing the view of the Folder view from Tiles, and making sure
that file extensions aren't hidden. These are described in the
Customizing the contacts folder section
which is part of the Customizing Windows Mail section.
The Contacts folder can contain the following objects:
- Contacts, which have a .contact extension. For example, if
you have a Contact for Donald Duck, Jaws will read this as
“Donald Duck dot contact”
- Contact groups, which have a .group extension.
- Folders. If you have a large number of Contacts you may
want to create folders to store some of them separately.
You can use the first letter or letters of a Contact or Contract
group to quickly find them. In addition, you can search for
Contacts and Contacts groups using Window Explorer's search box,
as described in the
Searching for Contacts section below.
Creating a new Contact
Three ways of creating a new Contact are described in the
following sections.
Automatically adding people to your Contacts
There's an option that whenever you reply to a message,
the sender of the message is automatically added to your Contacts.
This option can be set on the Send page of the Options dialog,
where there's a check box “Automatically put people I reply
to in my Contacts list”, which is checked by default.
Adding the sender of a message to your Contacts
If someone has sent you a message, then you can add the sender
of that message to your Contacts:
- Select the message in the Message list.
- Open its context menu, and choose “Add Sender to
Contacts”
Manually adding a person to your Contacts
If you know someone's e-mail address, then you can add them
to your Contacts manually. You can do this either in the
Windows Mail main window, or the Contacts folder.
- On the File menu, open the New sub-menu, and choose Contact.
- A Properties dialog opens. This is a multi-page dialog,
and it opens on the Name and E-mail page, which is described
in detail in the
Editing contacts section below.
However, the only information you'll often want to enter is the contact's
first and last names and their email address, and this is
described in the following steps.
- The first edit box in the dialog box is for the person's
first name. Type this in, and then press Tab twice
to move to the Last edit box.
- Type in the person's last name, and then press Tab
four times to move to the E-mail addresses edit box.
- Type in the person's e-mail address, and then press
Enter which presses the Add button which
is next to the edit box, and is temporarily the default button.
The e-mail address is added to a list
of e-mail addresses for this person, and the focus remains in
the E-mail addresses edit box. Normally, you'll only add one
e-mail address for a person, but you can add more.
- Finally, press Enter to press the default
OK button of the dialog box.
Sending messages using your contacts
Two ways of using your Contacts the send messages are described
in the next sections.
Entering names rather than email addresses
In the To, Cc, and Bcc edit boxes in a New message window
you can use the names of Contacts as well as email addresses to
specify the recipients of a message.
Using your Contacts folder
- In your Contacts folder, select one or more contacts.
- Open their context menu, then open the Action sub-menu
(access key A), and then press Enter to choose
the first menu item which is Send E-mail.
- A New Message window opens. The one or more contacts are
already entered in the To edit box, and the focus is at
the end of this edit box.
If you've stored more than one email address for a Contact,
then the above method uses the preferred email address (see the next
section for more details). To send a message to a Contact using
an address which isn't their preferred email address, then in the
above method, on the Action sub-menu open the Send E-mail To sub-menu,
and choose an email address.
To edit a Contact in your Contacts folder, select it and press
Enter. A Properties dialog for the Contact opens,
and you can then change and add information in this dialog.
The Contact properties dialog is a multi-page dialog, and the pages
cover different areas of information about the contact. For the
purposes of email, the only page that matters is the Name and
E-mail page, and the dialog opens on this page when you create
or edit a contact. The title of the dialog box is the Full
Name of the contact, followed by the word Properties.
Although you'll often have only a single email address for
a contact, you can store more then one address. One of the
addresses is set as the preferred address. This is the address
which is used by default when you send a message to the Contact,
but you can use the other addresses as described in the previous section.
Because of the ability to store multiple email addresses,
the Name and E-mail page contains a number of controls to enter
and edit these addresses, rather than just a single edit box for
a single email address.
The Name and E-mail page of the dialog contains the following
controls:
- Edit boxes for the First, Middle and Last names of the
contact.
- A Full Name edit combo box. The full name of the contact
is the name which appears as the contact's name in the Contact
folder. When you type in names in the previous edit boxes,
they automatically appear in this control, so you can just leave
the text as it is. However, you can type in whatever full name
you want, or press Alt + Down Arrow to open
a drop down list of alternatives which includes the option of
having the Last name appearing first in the Full Name.
- Edit boxes for Personal Title and Nickname.
- E-mail edit box, and Add button. These controls are used
for adding an email address to the list of email addresses for
the contact (see below). Whenever there is any text in the
edit box, the Add button temporarily becomes the default button for the
dialog. So after you've typed in an email address in the edit
box, you can just press Enter to add it to
the list of addresses.
- A List of e-mails list view, followed by Edit, Set Preferred,
and Remove buttons. These controls are used for viewing and
editing the contact's email addresses. To perform an action
on an email address, select it in the list view, and then
press one of the buttons.
The command to create a new Contact Group is available on the
toolbar, but not on any of the menus. So to create a new
Contact group:
- Tab to the Organize button, which is the
first control on the Toolbar.
- Press Right Arrow until you get to the
New Contact Group button, and then press it.
- A Contact Group Properties dialog opens. This is a two page dialog,
and it opens on the Contact Group page, which is described
in detail in the
Editing Contact Groups section
below. However, the following steps describe how to name the group
and add existing contacts.
- Type a name for the group into the Group Name edit box.
- To add existing Contacts to the group, Tab
to the Add to Contact Group button, and press it.
- An Add Members to Contract Group dialog opens, which has
a similar layout to the standard Vista Open dialog. By default
the view of the Folder view is Tiles, so the first time you
use this dialog it's worth setting the view to List. To do
this, press Shift + Tab twice to move to the
Folder view, but do not select any files. Open the context
menu, then open the View sub-menu, and choose List.
- In the Folder view, select one or more Contacts or Contact
Groups, and then press Enter to press the
default Add button.
- You're returned to the Contact Group Properties dialog, where
the focus is the Add to Contact Group button. Because the focus
is a button, you can't just press Enter to press
the default OK button. Instead, either Tab all
the way to the OK button and press it, or just Tab
to a control which isn't a button or a link, and then press
Enter.
Sending messages using your contact groups
In a similar manner to using contacts, you can send messages
using your contact groups either in a New message window, or from
your Contacts folder.
In a new message window, you can type in the names of contact
groups, just as you would the names of contacts. When the message
is sent, the name of the group is replaced by all the addresses
of the contacts.
Alternatively, in your Contacts folder:
- Select a Contact group. (In fact you can select more
than one contact group, and contacts as well.)
- Open the context menu, then open the Action sub-menu
(access key A), and then press Enter to choose
the first menu item which is Send E-mail.
- A New Message window opens. All the contacts in the contacts group are
already entered in the To edit box, and the focus is at
the end of the Edit box.
To edit a Contact Group in your Contacts folder, select it
and press Enter. A Properties dialog for the Contact Group opens,
and you can then change and add information in this dialog.
The Contact group properties dialog is used both for creating
and editing contact groups. The dialog has two pages: Contact
Group and Contact Group details. The latter contains controls for
optional data that you might want to give about the group. The
controls on the Contact Group page are:
- A Group Name edit box.
- An Add to Contact Group button for adding existing contacts
or groups to this group. This was described above in the
Creating a new contact group section.
- A Create New Contact button for creating a new contact and
adding it to the group.
- A “List of group members” list view.
- A Remove Selected Contacts button. However to remove one
or more contacts, it's easier just to select them in the
List of group members, and then press Delete.
- Contact Name and E-Mail edit boxes, and a Create for group
only button, for adding a contact to the group but not to your
Contacts.
If you have a large number of Contacts and/or Contact Groups,
then you can quickly find one using the Search box which is always
available in Windows Explorer.
- Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search box.
- Type in one or more search terms. Note that if there is
any existing text, this is not selected, and the current
character is the blank character immediately after the text.
If you press Esc then this clears all text and
moves you to the Folder view.
- Press Down Arrow to move to the Folder View,
whose contents have now been filtered.
Notes on matching
- Each of the search terms can be either a complete word or number,
or the first character or characters of a word or number.
- For Contacts, each search term is matched to all the words and numbers in the
contact name, the email address, and the business and home
phone numbers. For Contact Groups, each search term is matched to
all the words and numbers in the Contact Group name and phone number.
- In the case of email addresses, each character string separated
by a period or @ is considered as a separate word. So if your
search term was yahoo, you'd find all the contacts who had
a yahoo email address (or were called yahoo).
Unwanted messages
Windows Mail provides a number of ways for keeping your Inbox
free of unwanted messages, and protecting you against fraud:
- Blocked Senders list. If you receive a message from an address
of your Blocked senders list, it's automatically moved to
your Junk E-mail folder.
- Junk E-mail filter. Spam messages are unsolicited mass mailings
which advertise cheap drugs, financial deals etc. If the Junk E-mail
filter thinks a message is spam, it's moved to your Junk E-mail folder.
- Safe Senders list. Occasionally, messages from people you
know may be moved to the Junk E-mail folder by the Junk filter.
However if their address is on the Safe Senders list, then
even if the Junk E-mail filter thinks it's spam, then it will
stay in your Inbox.
- Phishing filter. Phishing messages are unsolicited mass mailings
which try and trick you into revealing bank passwords and the like.
They contain a link to a website which looks genuine, but isn't.
Windows Mail uses the same Phishing filter which is used by
Internet Explorer. If the phishing filter detects a phishing message,
it opens a dialog to warn you, and the message appears in red
text in the Message list. Note that if you're also running
an anti-virus program or an internet security program, this
may quarantine the message before it even gets to the phishing
filter.
The following sections give more details of these methods of protection
and their options. Most of these options are set in the Junk E-mail
options dialog, which can be opened from the Tools menu in the
main window, and which contains the pages: Options, Safe Senders,
Blocked Senders, International, and Phishing.
Blocked Senders list
If you receive a message from an address in your Blocked senders list,
it's automatically moved to your Junk E-mail folder.
If you've received a message from someone, and you want to
add their address to the Blocked senders list, then either:
- In the main window, select the message in the Message list,
open its context menu or the Message menu, open the Junk E-mail
sub-menu, and choose Add Sender to Blocked Senders list.
- In a message window, open the Message menu, open the Junk E-mail
sub-menu, and choose Add Sender to Blocked Senders list.
You can view and edit the Blocked Senders list on the Blocked
Senders page of the Junk E-mail Options dialog, which you can
open on the Tools Menu. This page contains a list box containing
blocked senders, and Add, Edit, and Remove buttons.
Junk E-mail filter
If the Junk E-mail filter detects one or more junk (spam) messages then
as well as moving them to the Junk E-mail folder,
it opens a Windows Mail dialog telling you that Windows Mail
has downloaded a message that appears to be either junk or
a phishing email. The dialog contains a “Please do not
show me this dialog again” check box which by default is
unchecked. Depending on how much junk email you get, you might
want to check this check box. To close the dialog either
Tab to the Close button, or just press Esc.
The Options page of the Junk E-mail Options dialog contains
two controls:
- A group of radio buttons for setting the level of protection
provided by the filter. Setting such a filter is always a compromise:
the higher the level of protection, the more likely legitimate
e-mails will end up in the Junk E-mail folder, and so the
greater the frequency which you'll have to check the e-mails
in this folder.
- A check box to “Permanently delete junk e-mail instead
of moving it to the Junk E-mail folder”. By default,
this is unchecked.
Safe Senders list
If you receive a message from someone who's on your safe senders
list, then even if the Junk E-mail filter thinks it's junk, it
won't be moved to your Junk E-mail folder.
If you've received a message from someone, and you want to
add their address to the Safe Senders list, then either:
- In the main window, select the message in the Message list,
open its context menu or the Message menu, open the Junk E-mail
sub-menu, and choose Add Sender to Safe Senders list.
- In a message window, open the Message menu, open the Junk E-mail
sub-menu, and choose Add Sender to Safe Senders list.
The Safe Senders page of the Junk E-mail Options dialog
contains the following controls:
- A list box containing the addresses of Safe Senders, and
Add, Edit, and Remove buttons.
- An “also trust e-mail from my Windows Contacts”
check box, which is checked by default.
- An automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders List”
check box, which is unchecked by default.
Phishing filter
If the Phishing filter detects a phishing email then:
- A Windows Mail dialog opens telling you that Windows Mail has
downloaded a message that appears to be a phishing email. Just
like the Junk mail dialog, it contains a “Please do not
show me this dialog again” check box, which by default
is unchecked. It's recommended that you don't check this, because
this is the only warning of a phishing message
which a user of a screen reader will notice.
- In addition, if the Junk E-mail filter thinks the message is junk, then
a dialog telling you this will open, unless you've previously
checked the “Please do not show me this dialog again”
check box in this dialog box. Also the message is moved to the
Junk E-mail folder.
- In the Message list, a message which is thought to be
a phishing email is indicated by the item being displayed in
red text. To check the colour of the text, you can press the
standard Jaws keystroke for text colour, Insert + 5.
- If you open such a message, there is a pane above the message
body which says that Windows mail thinks that the message is
suspicious and it has blocked the links and images. However,
Jaws does not read the text in this pane, and although you can't
open the links using a mouse, you can using the keyboard.
The Phishing page of the Junk E-mail options dialog contains
two check boxes:
- “Protect my Inbox from messages with potential
Phishing links”, which is checked by default.
- “Move phishing E-mail to the Junk Mail folder”,
which is only displayed if the previous check box is checked,
and which is unchecked by default.
Searching for messages
Windows Mail provides two ways of searching for messages. The
first uses the Search edit box in the main window, and searches
the messages in the current folder, using the text in the headers
and message body. The second is a more advanced search, and allows
you to search one or more folders using a wide range of criteria.
Simple search
You can search for messages in the Message list using the
Search edit box. Because the results of the search
are also shown in the Message list, you can also think of this operation
as filtering the contents of the Message list.
- Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search edit box.
- Type one or more words or the beginnings of words. For each
message in the Message list, each of the search terms is matched
against the text in all the headers, and the message body.
- Press Down Arrow to move to the Message list which
contains the results of the search. Note that if there are no
results, then Jaws reads the contents of the edit box, and the
edit box retains the focus.
Additional notes:
- If you move to the the Search edit box and it contains existing
text, then this text is not selected, and the current character
is positioned after the existing text. You can delete the existing
text by pressing Backspace one or more times.
Note that you can also clear the text by pressing Esc,
but if you then press Esc again by accident, with the focus
anywhere in the main window, then the text reappears and the Message
list is filtered again.
This is a potentially very confusing bug, and so using
Esc to clear the Search box in Windows Mail is
not recommended.
- The search is not case sensitive.
- To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks,
for example “Donald Duck”.
More advanced search
- Open the Edit menu, then the Find sub-menu, and choose
Message (Ctrl + Shift + F).
- A Find Message dialog opens, and the controls in this dialog
are described in detail below. If necessary, change the folder
to be searched, and set the criteria for the search using one
or more of the controls. Press Enter to press
the default Find Now button.
- You are moved to a Message list list view which appears at
the bottom of the dialog box, and contains the messages found
by the search. You can open a selected message by pressing
Enter, and there are several other actions available
on its shortcut menu.
- To perform another search, just Tab to
the controls for setting the search criteria and start again.
You can clear all the criteria by pressing the New Search button,
and close the Find Message dialog by pressing Esc.
This is a detailed description of the controls in the Find Message
dialog:
- Three controls for selecting the folder or folders which are searched:
- A read only edit box which contains the name of the folder to
be searched. By default, this is current selected folder.
- An “Include subfolders” check box, which
is checked by default.
- A Browse button, which opens a Windows Mail dialog.
In the Folder list tree view, select the folder you want
to search, and then press Enter to press
the default OK button. To search all your mail folders,
select the Local Folders folder.
- Four edit boxes: From, To, Subject, and Message. Enter any
text to be searched.
- Two Date-time picker controls for Received after, and
Received before. When you move to one of these controls, the
initial focus is a check box which indicates whether this
criteria is active in the search, and by default it's unchecked.
It can be toggled in the usual way using Spacebar,
but unfortunately, Jaws does not read the state of this check box.
However, you can tell whether it's checked by pressing Left Arrow
or Right Arrow: if unchecked, then nothing happens;
if checked, then you cycle round the the fields of the date and
the check box. To change one of the date fields, either type
in a number, or use Up Arrow or
Down Arrow.
- Two check boxes: Message has attachment(s), and Message
is flagged.
Folders
If you keep a large number of messages, it's often useful to
organise them in to folders. The following sections describe how
to create a folder, and move messages to a folder. In addition,
you can create messages rules which automatically move incoming
messages to a particular folder based on some criteria, such as
the sender of the message. See the
Message Rules section for the details.
Creating a folder
To create a new folder:
- Open the File menu, then the New sub-menu, and choose
Folder.
- In the Create Folder dialog, type a name for the new folder,
and then Tab to the next control.
- In the Folder list tree view, select the folder in which to
create the new folder. Often, the selected folder will be the
Local Folders folder, so that the new folder is at the same
level as the standard folders such as the Inbox. Then press
Enter to press the default OK button.
Moving messages to a folder
If you're in the main window, then to move one or more selected
messages to a folder:
- Choose Move to folder on the shortcut menu of the selected
message or messages (Ctrl + Shift + V).
- A Move dialog opens. In the folder list tree view, select
the desired destination folder, and then press
Enter to press the default OK button.
If you're in a message window, then to move the message:
- Choose Move to folder from the File menu.
- A Move dialog opens. In the folder list tree view, select
the desired destination folder, and then press
Enter to press the default OK button.
Message rules
A message rule automatically applies
one or more actions to incoming messages which match one or more conditions.
For example, you could create a rule that moved all incoming
messages from a certain person to a Folder that you'd created
for that person's messages.
You can create a rule either from scratch, or base it on an
existing message. Both of these methods use the New Mail Rule
dialog.
The Message Rules dialog is used both for managing message
rules, and for creating rules from scratch by launching the
New Mail Rule dialog. The Message Rules dialog has two pages,
one for rules for mail messages, and the other for rules for News messages,
but only the former of interest in this guide.
To open the Message Rules dialog on the Mail Rules page: in
the Windows Mail window open the Tools menu, then open the Message
Rules sub-menu and choose Mail. If there are no existing rules,
a New Mail Rule dialog opens, rather than the Message Rules dialog.
The following sections describe the New Mail Rule dialog,
the Message rules dialog,
and creating a rule from a message.
New Mail Rule dialog
The New Mail Rule dialog contains four controls for specifying
the rule: list views for the conditions and actions, a Rule
Description edit box which enables you to further specify the conditions
and actions, and a Rule name edit box where you can type in a
meaningful name for the rule. The first three of these
controls are described in the following sections.
Select the Conditions for your rule list view
This contains check boxes for the possible conditions, and
unfortunately Jaws doesn't read the name of this list view.
Check one or more of the conditions. Many of the
conditions need further specification, and this
is done in the Rule Description edit box, as described in a later
section. For example, if you check the condition “Where
the subject line contains specific words”, then when
you get to the the Rule Description edit box, you can set what the
specific words are.
If you check more than one condition, then by default the message
must match all the conditions. However, in the Rule Description
edit box you can change this to the message must match any of the
conditions.
Select the Actions for your rule list view
This contains check boxes for possible actions, and again
Jaws does not read the name of the list view. Check one or
more of the actions. As was the case with the conditions, many
of the actions need further specification, and this is done in
the Rule Description edit box, which is the next control, and
is described in the next section.
Rule description edit box.
This edit box contains the following lines of text:
- The first line is always “Apply this rule
after the message arrives”.
- One line for each condition which you checked.
- One line for each action which you checked.
If a condition or action requires
a value that has to be specified, this is indicated visually
by the phrase that defines that value being underlined. Examples
of such phrases are:
- The phase “contains specific words” in the
condition “Where the subject line contains specific
words”.
- The phrase “contains people” in the condition
“Where the From line contains people”.
- The phrase “specified” in the action
“Move it to the specified folder”.
If you read the description
line by line then if the line contains a phrase that can be
edited, then Jaws reads the line, and then repeats the
phrase which can be edited. The phrase is automatically selected,
and you can edit it by pressing Enter, which
opens an appropriate dialog which allows you to edit it.
Two of of the dialogs for editing phrases are described in
the next sections: the Type specific words dialog and the Select people
dialog.
In addition, if there is more than one condition, then at the
start of the line of the second condition and all subsequent conditions,
there is the word and which can be edited just like
the phrases used to further specify some of the conditions
and actions. If you edit one of the ands then
an And/Or dialog opens, which allows you to change all ands
to ors.
Type Specific Words dialog
If you edit the phrase “contains specific words”,
then the Type Specific Words dialog opens, which contains the
following controls:
- An edit box, into which you can type a word or phrase,
and an associated Add button. Whenever there's any text in this
edit box, the default button is temporarily the Add button. Pressing
the Add button adds the word or phrase to the Words list box
described below, clears the edit box, and the default button
reverts to the OK button.
- A Words list box. The first item is the text
“Where the subject line contains”
or something similar. Subsequent items are the words or phrases
which you've added.
- Remove and Options buttons, which are associated with the
Words list box. You can remove an item by selecting it
and then either pressing Delete or the Remove
button. The Options button gives you yet more options, as you
might have guessed.
For example, if you're in the Rule description dialog, and
the phrase selected is “contains specific words”, and
the specific phrase you're interested in is Mark Twain, then
if you press Enter to edit the selected phrase:
- The Type Specific Words dialog open. Type in the phrase
Mark Twain, and press Enter
to press the Add button.
- Press Enter to press the OK button.
- You are returned to the Rule Description edit box. The phrase
which you edited, “contains specific words”, has
been replaced by the phrase “contains Mark Twain”.
Select people dialog
If you edit the phrase “contains people” in one
of the conditions, then a Select people dialog opens. This has
a structure similar to the Type Specific words dialog described
above, and contains the following controls:
- An edit box, into which you can type either the name or
email address of a person, and an associated Add button.
Whenever there's any text in this edit box, the default button
is temporarily the Add button. Pressing this button, adds the
name or email address to the People list box described below,
and clears the edit box, thus changing the default button back
to the OK button.
- A People list box. The first item is the text “Where
the From line contains” or something similar, and the
subsequent items are the names and/or addresses which you've added.
- A Contacts button which opens a Rule Addresses dialog, which
allows you to use your Contacts to specify email addresses,
and which is described below.
- Remove and Options buttons, which are associated with the
People list box. You can remove an item by selecting it
and then either pressing Delete or the Remove
button. The Options button gives you yet more options.
As mentioned above, if you press the Contacts button, a Rule
Addresses dialog opens. In this dialog:
- Tab to the Address list list view, and select
one or more contacts.
- Press Enter to press the temporary default
button which adds the addresses to a Rule addresses list view.
- Press Enter again to press the default
OK button.
Note that if you edit the phrase “people” in an action, that
also opens a Select people dialog, but this has a different structure,
and is not described here.
Message rules dialog
The Mail rules page of the Message rules dialog contains a list
of the existing rules, some buttons for
creating and managing rules, and an edit box containing a description
of the rule selected in the list of rules.
Giving some more detail, the dialog contains the following
controls:
- A list view which contains a check box for each existing
rule. If the check box is checked, then the rule is active,
otherwise the rule is turned off. The rules are applied to
an incoming message in the order of the rules in this list view.
- A number of buttons:
- New button, which opens a New Mail Rule dialog for
creating a new rule, and which was described above.
- Modify button, which is used for modifying the rule
selected in the list view. It opens an Edit Mail Rule dialog,
which has exactly the same structure as the New Mail Rule dialog.
- Copy button, which creates a copy of the rule selected
in the list view, and places it immediately below the
original rule in the list.
- Remove button, which deletes the selected rule, though
it's easier just to press Delete.
- Apply now button, which is used for applying one or
more of the rules to the existing messages in one or more
of the folders. It opens an Apply mail rules now dialog.
- Move Up and Move Down button, which are used for
moving the selected rule up and down the list respectively.
- Rule description edit box, which contains a description
of the rule selected in the list view. This has the same
functionality as the Rule description edit box which was used
for creating a rule, and so you can edit the phrases/values
of the rule using this edit box. See the section above on the
Rule description edit box
for more details.
Creating a rule from a message
A quick way of creating a new rule in which the condition
is that it comes from a certain person is to use the
Create Rule from Message command, which is on the Message menu.
This command opens a New Mail Rule dialog, which is described above in the
New Mail Rule dialog section above.
The condition “Where the From line contains people”
is already checked, and in the Rule Description edit box,
the phrase “contains people” has been edited so
that it contains the address of the sender of the message.
Email accounts
This section describes how to manually add email accounts to
Windows Mail and manage them. Providers of email accounts
often supply programs, either by download or CD, which add the account
to Windows Mail for you, so you may have no need of the information
in this section.
Internet Accounts dialog
In the Internet Accounts dialog you can add and manage email
accounts. To open this dialog, choose Accounts on the Tools
menu in the main window.
The dialog contains an accounts list view, followed by the buttons:
Add, Remove, Properties, Set as Default, Import, Export, and
Set Order. The Add button starts a wizard to add a new account, and
this is described in detail in the next section.
The accounts list view is divided into three groups by the headings: Mail, News,
and Directory service. The first item in the list view is the Mail
heading, followed by your email accounts. Unfortunately there
are a few problems both with the keyboard navigation and with how Jaws
reads this list view:
- When you open the dialog, the Directory service heading is
the focus, not the first item as Jaws says.
- Jaws does not read a heading when you move to it, but you
can read it by pressing Insert + Up Arrow to
read the current object.
- The keystrokes Home and End
don't always work if a heading is the focus.
Many people use Windows Mail with a single email account, but
you can use Windows Mail with as many accounts as you want. One
account is set as your default account, and this is used by
default when you send a message.
Adding an email account
Adding an email account consists of either one or two stages.
The first is to use a wizard which guides you through entering
information which is needed to set up all email accounts.
For some accounts, this may be all that's required, but for others
additional settings are required, and you then have to
open the account's properties to make those settings, guided by
information supplied by the account provider.
To start the wizard to add an account, press the Add button.
Before describing the individual pages of the wizard, here's some
general information:
- Jaws doesn't read out all the text on these pages. To read
more of the text press Insert + B. However, this
still doesn't reading the main heading of each page, or necessarily
all the text.
- All but the last page has a Next button, which takes you
to the next page, and is also the default button. The final
page has a Finish button, which is also the default button.
- To go back a page to change something, either Tab to the back
button and press it, or press Alt + Left Arrow.
- There are links on most of the pages which open Help on
an appropriate page.
The wizard to add an account consists of the following pages:
- Select Account Type. A list view contains
the types of account you can create, and the E-mail account type is
initially selected.
- Your Name. In the Display name edit box, type in the
name that will appear as the name of the sender when
people receive email from you.
- Internet E-mail address. In the E-mail address edit box
type in your email address for this account.
- Set up e-mail servers.
- Incoming mail server edit box. Assuming that your mail account uses
a POP3 server for incoming mail, which is normally the case,
then type in the name of the POP3 server supplied
by your account provider. In the case of a IMAP server, you
must first move to the previous control, which is a combo box
for the incoming sever type. Set this to IMAP, move forward to the
edit box, and then type in the name of the server.
- Outgoing e-mail server edit box. Type in the name of the
outgoing (smtp) mail server.
- “Outgoing server requires authentication”
check box. Check this if instructed by the account provider.
- Internet Mail Login.
- E-mail username and Password edit boxes. Type in the
username and password supplied by the account provider.
- Remember password check box, which is checked by default.
You'll normally want to leave this checked, so that you
don't have to type in your password each time you access
you emails.
- Congratulations, which is the last page. The “Do not download my e-mail at
this time” edit box is unchecked by default. Even if you
leave it unchecked, it tends to download your emails your after you've finished.
Tab to the Finish button and press it.
If additional settings are required by the account provider,
with the new account still selected in the list view, press the
Properties button to open the Properties dialog for the account,
and make any necessary settings.
If you use a backup or disk-imaging program, you may have already
arranged for your messages and Contacts to be backup up regularly.
The following sections describe how to backup and restore them
manually. If it would be a major problem if you lost your messages
and/or contacts, make sure you back them up regularly.
Backing up messages
One way of backing up your messages is to use the Windows Mail
Export wizard. This needs an empty folder into which it puts the backed up
folders and messages. So if you want to back up messages to
a CD, you first have to back up to a temporary folder, and
then copy this folder to a CD. In theory, you should be able to back
up directly to an empty folder on a USB flash drive, but there appears to be a bug
in Vista which means you can't.
The following steps describe how to back up your messages to
a temporary new folder in your Documents folder, and then copy
this folder to an external drive or CD.
- Open the File menu, then open the Export sub-menu, and
choose Messages.
- A Windows Mail Export wizard opens. In the list box for
selecting the export format, select Microsoft Windows Mail,
then press Tab to move to the Next button and
press it.
- There are two controls for selecting a folder for the
exported messages: a read-only edit box which contains
the path of the folder after you've selected it, and
a Browse button. Tab to the Browse button,
and press it.
- A dialog with the title “Select the location to
which you want to export the e-mail messages” opens.
This has a structure similar to the standard Vista open dialog.
To check the current folder, press Alt + D.
- If you aren't in your Documents folder, a couple of ways of
getting there are:
- Tab to the Folder view list view.
You can move up the the folder which contains the current
folder by pressing Alt + Up Arrow, and
you can move down to a folder by selecting it and then
pressing Enter.
- Tab to the list of favorite links.
Unfortunately Jaws does not read the name of this list,
but it's two controls after the search box. If you come
across “show hidden items” in this list, press
Tab to the next control which will probably
be the collapse folders button, but which Jaws may read
as Explorer pane. Press Spacebar to
collapse the folders, and then Shift + Tab
to move back to the favorite links which should all now
be visible.
- To create a new folder in your documents folder,
in the Folder view with no items selected, open
the context menu, then open the New sub-menu, and choose
Folder. Type a name for the folder, and press Enter.
Note that if an item is selected in the Folder view, then
you can deselect it by pressing Ctrl + Spacebar.
- With the new folder still selected, Tab to
the Select Folder button, and press it.
- You're returned to the Windows Mail Export dialog, and the
focus is still the Browse button. If you want to check the folder
selected, you can move back to the edit box which is the previous
control. Tab to the Next button and press it.
- To select the message folders to export there's a pair
of radio buttons: All folders and Selected folders. If you
choose the latter, then Tab to the next control
and select the folders. Tab to the Next button
and press it.
- A progress bar appears, and then you're taken to
the final page of the wizard, which tells you that your messages
were exported in the Windows Mail format. Press the Finish button.
- To copy the temporary folder to an external drive or CD,
Open Windows Explorer to show the contents of your Documents
folder. (For example, open the start menu, press Tab,
then press D, then press Enter.)
Select the temporary folder, open its context menu, then open
the Sent To sub-menu, and choose either an external drive or
a DVD/CD drive.
- Delete the temporary folder in your Documents folder.
Restoring messages
To restore messages which you've backed up using the Windows Mail
Export wizard, as described in the previous section, you use the
Windows Mail Import wizard, which is very similar.
- Open the File menu, open the Import sub-menu, and choose
Messages.
- The Windows Mail Import wizard opens. In the list box for
selecting the format you want to import select Microsoft
Windows Mail 7, then Tab to the Next button
and press it.
- There are two controls for selecting the folder which contains
the messages which you want to import: a read-only edit box which contains
the path of the folder after you've selected it, and
a Browse button. Tab to the Browse button,
and press it.
- A dialog box with the title “Select the location
of the e-mail messages that you want to import” opens,
and it has a similar structure to the standard Vista open dialog.
In the Folder view navigate to and select the folder, and then
Tab to the Select Folder button and press it.
- You're returned to the Windows Mail Import dialog, and the
focus is still the Browse button. If you want to check the folder
selected, you can move back to the edit box which is the previous
control. Tab to the Next button and press it.
- To select the message folders to import there's a pair
of radio buttons: All folders and Selected folders. If you
choose the latter, then Tab to the next control
and select the folders. Tab to the Next button
and press it.
- A progress bar appears, and then you're taken to
the final page of the wizard, which tells you that your messages
were imported in the Windows Mail 7 format. Press the Finish button.
- In the Folder list, there is now an Imported Folder folder,
which contains all the folders that you imported. From these folders
you can move the messages which you lost to your normal set of
folders. You can then delete the Imported folder.
Backing up and restoring contacts
Because both Contacts and Contact Groups are stored as individual files
in your Contacts folder, you can back them up simply by copying
your Contacts folder to an external drive or CD
To restore any lost Contacts or Contact Groups, just copy them
back to your Contacts folder.
Customizing Windows Mail
Hiding the preview pane
If the preview pane is shown in the main window, then as you
Tab round the controls, you also have to Tab
through any links in the message in the preview pane. To hide the
preview pane, and simplify the navigation of the main window:
- Choose Layout on the View menu.
- The Windows Layout Properties dialog opens. Tab
to the Show preview pane check box, uncheck it, and then
press Enter to press the default OK button.
Options dialog
The Options dialog can be opened from the Tools menu. It's a
multi-page dialog, and it contains most of the options for customizing
Windows Mail. Some of the more important options are highlighted
in the following sections, and many of these have been already
mentioned in the guide.
General page
- “Send and receive messages at startup” check box,
which is checked by default.
- “Check for new messages every” check box, which
is checked by default. This is followed an edit spin-box which
is set to 30 minutes by default.
Send page
- “Send messages immediately” check box, which
is checked by default. If you use a dial-up connection, you
may want to uncheck this.
- “Automatically put people I reply to in my Contacts
list” check box, which is checked by default.
- “Automatically complete e-mail addresses when
composing” check box, which is checked by default.
- Mail Sending Format radio buttons: HTML and Plain Text.
By default this is set to HTML, but if you use Plain Text your
messages are less likely to be accidentally classified as spam.
Spelling page
“Always check spelling before sending” check box,
which is unchecked by default.
Hiding the Preview pane so that Windows Explorer doesn't freeze
When Windows Explorer is displaying the Contacts folder, if
the Preview pane is shown, then there's a bug in Jaws which causes
Windows Explorer to hang/freeze when you move through the contacts
in the Folder view. There are two ways of hiding the preview pane.
The first is to hide the preview pane and the details pane for all
folders:
- Choose Folder Options on the Tools menu.
- The Folder Options dialog opens on the General page, and first control is
a Tasks group of radio buttons. Select the Use Windows classic
folders radio button, and then press Enter to
press the default OK button.
The second way is to hide the preview pane just for folders which
contain contacts:
- Tab to the Organize button, which is the
first control on the toolbar, and press it.
- The Organize menu opens. Open the Layout sub-menu, and move
to Preview Pane. If this is checked, then press Enter
which changes it to unchecked and closes the Organise menu.
Setting the view of the Folder view to list or details
By default, the view of the Folder view is set to Tiles. So
that you can navigate all your contacts using the up and down arrow
keys, change the view to either List or Details by choosing one
of these from the View menu. After you've done this, it's best to
apply this view to all folders which contain contacts, so that
if you either search your Contacts or create folders in the
Contacts folder, then the Folder view will also have this view.
To do this:
- Choose Folder Options on the Tools Menu.
- The Folder Options dialog opens. Move to the View page
of this dialog. The first control on this page is the Apply to
Folders button. Press it.
- A Folder views dialog opens, asking whether you want to do
this. Press Enter to press the Yes button.
- You're returned to the Folder Options dialog. Tab
to the OK button, and press it.
Showing extensions
Note that if Jaws doesn't read the file extensions like .contact,
this means that the option to hide extensions in your folder options
is switched on. To switch it off so that Jaws reads the file extension,
and so you then know the type of file:
- Open the Folder Options dialog on the Tools menu.
- Move to the View page, and then to the tree view on that page
- In the tree view, find the “Hide extensions for known
file types”. If it's ON, then press Spacebar
to switch it OFF.
- Tab to the OK button, and press it.
Keystrokes
Main window
| Command |
Keystrokes |
| Move to Inbox |
Ctrl + I |
| Go to Folder |
Ctrl + Y |
| Move between Folder list and Message list |
Tab, or Shift + Tab |
| Create new message |
Ctrl + N |
| Windows Contacts |
Ctrl + Shift + C |
| Select next unread message |
Ctrl + U |
| Reply to selected message |
Ctrl + R |
| Forward selected message |
Ctrl + F |
| Move selected messages to folder |
Ctrl + Shift + V |
| Simple message search |
Ctrl + E |
| Advanced message search |
Ctrl + Shift + F |
Reading message window
| Command |
Keystrokes |
| Read header |
Alt + 1, Alt + 2, ... Alt + 6 |
| Move to Attachments list view |
Insert + A |
| Reply to message |
Ctrl + R |
| Forward message |
Ctrl + F |
| Delete message |
Ctrl + D |
| Next message |
Alt + Right Arrow, or Ctrl + Period |
| Previous message |
Alt + Left Arrow, or Ctrl + Comma |
| Next unread message |
Ctrl + U |
New message window
| Command |
Keystrokes |
| Send |
Alt + S |
| Save as draft |
Ctrl + S |
| Spell check |
F7 |
| Read line containing spelling error, when in the Spelling dialog |
Insert + C |
| Show/Hide Bcc edit box |
Alt + B |