Address DB Browser Help

The Address DB Browser window is accessed from the Addresses.../Address Book menu item in the exmh main window. This window allows you to view the contents of the Address Database and operate on the contents of the database.

The Browser window shows a formatted and sorted list of mail addresses as in the example below. The full name and email address are shown. In addition the presence of a "-" preceding the email address indicates that the record is marked for exclusion from searches.

Brent B. Welch            <welch@acm.org>
Brent B. Welch          - <brent.welch@scriptics.com>

At the bottom of the Address DB Browser window is an entry field labeled Find. Text entered in the Find field will applied as a case-insensitive regular expression filter to the records in the Address Database and only matching records will be displayed.

After using Find, to return to viewing all records it is necessary to delete any text entered in the Find field and press enter.

Address DB Browser Buttons

The following buttons are available in the Address DB Browser window:


Help
Shows this help.

New
Pops up a window that allows you to manually introduce a new address in the addresses database.

The following fields exist in this window:

Full Name
The "text name" of the person associated with this email address and it may be blank.

Address
This is the email address of the person. Don't add the angle brackets to it ("<>") as they will be added when needed.


Database...
Pops up the Database... menu, a group of operations on the entire database.

Selected...
Pops up the Selected Records menu. Items available in this menu operate on the currently selected record or records in the database.

This menu is disabled when no records are selected. Selection of records is accomplished by clicking or dragging using mouse button 1 and may also be done using the keyboard arrow keys and spacebar.

Dismiss
Closes the Address Database Browser window


Database... menu


Save <Meta-s>

Pressing the Save button or the <Meta-s> key unconditionally writes the current contents of the complete Address Database to disk. Note that the Address Database will also be saved when exmh exits normally and may optionally be saved each time you change the current folder if the database has changed and if "Checkpoint on folder change" is set to "on" in the Address Database Preference panel.

Reload <Meta-r>

Pressing the Reload button or the <Meta-r> key causes the current contents of the complete address database to be discarded and the last saved file to be reread. If the database has changed you will be prompted to confirm the reload to prevent inadvertent loss of changes.

Sort <Meta-t>

Pressing the Sort button or the <Meta-t> key causes the contents of the address browser list to be resorted. This may occasionally be desirable since new database entries are added to the end of the browser list for performance reasons.



Selected Records menu

Items in the Selected... menu operate on the currently selected record or records and are only available when records have been selected in the Address Browser listbox.

Edit

Pressing the Edit button will open an Address DB Editor window for each selected record. A single record can be quickly edited by double-clicking mouse button 1 on a record in the Address DB Browser.

Delete <Control-w>

Pressing the Delete button or the <Control-w> key removes all the selected record from the database. No confirmation will be requested but the change is not committed to disk until the Address DB is saved.

Toggle Excluded <Meta-x>

Pressing the Toggle Excluded button or the <Meta-x> key will invert the "excluded" flag for all selected records. This can also be done by clicking mouse button 2 in the list box with records selected. No confirmation will be requested but the change is not committed to disk until the Address DB is saved.

View Last Msg

Pressing the View Last Msg button will cause a new window to be opened for each selected address. The windows will contain the last message received from the selected address(es). Note that this may give incorrect results if the selected message was moved, the folder was packed, or the message was deleted. The Address Database field containing the last message information is only updated when an address is saved.




Address DB Editor Help

The Address DB Editor is used to change the contents or exclusion status of a single record in the Address Database.

Address DB Editor Fields

The following fields are available and may be altered. No checking of contents is done so preserving valid data is strictly up to you.

Full Name
The "text name" of the person associated with this email address. This may be blank. It is not necessary to provide quotation marks around addresses containing commas or other restricted characters as the Address Database will automatically provide them when needed.

Address
This will display the fully formatted address containing the full name (quoted if necessary) and the email address. The email address will be enclosed in angle brackets ("<>") if there is a full name.

If you alter this field you should only enter a valid email address.

Last Message
This field will contain the fully qualified filename of the last message received from this address. It will only be correct if you have not packed the folder, moved the message, or deleted the message. This field is used when you press the Last Msg button in the Address DB Browser.

Date
This field will contain the contents of the Date: header from the message pointed to by the Last Message field above. When displaying messages in exmh this field is used to determine if the Last Message field should be updated.

Address DB Editor buttons



Exclude / Include
If the record being edited is marked for exclusion from searches then the Include button will be available to unmark it. If it is not currently marked for exclusion the Exclude button will be available to so mark it.

ViewLastMsg
Pressing the ViewLastMsg button will open a window containing the last message (as listed in the Last Message field).

Delete
Pressing the Delete button will remove the current record from the Address Database and close the Address DB Editor window.
Save
Pressing the Save button will save changes from the window to the in-memory Address Database. This does not commit the changes to disk.

Dismiss
Pressing the Save button will close the Address DB Editor window, discarding any changes made in the window.



Address Database Help

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