Things Eudora wants to know: (Most of these instructions will work regardless of which version of Eudora you are using. The latest version 4.x, has a number of new features that are not documented here [some are]. You can either download the Eudora manual or read the online help to learn more about these new features. How to use filters, for example, is really outside the scope of these pages. We are primarily concerned with getting you online so you can get your mail.)

Things Eudora wants to know:

Win95/98 ALERT Changes to the wcnet mail server require that you have host and domain set under the Network icon in the control panel for the send mail section of Eudora to work. The control panel can be found on the start button or in My Computer. Open it and then double-click on the Network icon. You are looking for tcp/ip. Double-click on it. Click on the dns configuration tab. Make sure that the dot is in enable dns. When it is, the host and domain name fields are capable of being filled in. Put your login name in under host and wcnet.org in for domain. Make sure these are both in small letters (no CAPS). Click ok. Click ok again. Your computer may want to restart. That's it. Actually, you may have already done this when you got your computer online to wcnet. These instructions are similar to the ones sent to Win95/98 users.

Some commands and what they do:

Most of the commands under file and edit are self-explanatory.

Under mailbox: Clicking on in will take you to your inbox, where new mail comes. Clicking on the out box will show you mail you have sent. By default, Eudora will keep a copy of sent mail here until you manually delete it. This is an option that can be changed. The trash mail box contains messages you deleted and has to be emptied by clicking on empty trash unless the option to empty trash on exit is selected. The new mailbox option allows you to create a mailbox to store messages in. This is advantageous if you wish to save all correspondence from a particular source. For example, you might have a mailbox named work where you save messages related to work. You can also create folders to put mailboxes in. You could have a folder named family and then mailboxes for each member of the family.

Under message: New message opens the mail form to create a new message to someone. Reply opens a message you received and allows you to return the message to the sender with comments. Forward sends a copy of the current message to a different person. Redirect does much the same thing. Send again resends the same message. This is useful if the message got returned with a bad e-mail address. Rather than retyping the whole message, you can just change the address and resend it. The next section under message contains all the above options but with a "to" added. You can make a list of common recipients of your e-mail and use the send new message to or reply to, etc., to send messages. This way you won't have to type in the person's e-mail address each time you want to send them a message. Recipients are added under the Special menu. Send immediately is self-explanatory.

Attach file is used to send another file you created with an e-mail. You can use this to send pictures, sound files, or anything else you can think of to send. (A note of warning: Large files take a long time to send over e-mail.) Once you have your e-mail message typed, click on attach file. Eudora will bring up a directory window where you can choose the file to attach. Click on the chosen file and it will appear under the attachment section of the mail form.

Delete does just what it says.

Under Transfer: This is where you move e-mail from one mailbox to another. Highlight the message to be transferred, click on transfer and move the mouse pointer to the mailbox you want to store the message in. That's all there is to it. You may still have to delete the message from the original location if you've chosen to keep copies of all messages in a certain place. Under the latest version of Eudora you can also drag a message to a mailbox or folder to transfer it. Under Win95, the right mouse button will bring up commands that include transfer.

Under Special: Make nickname (This has been moved to Tools, Address Books in the latest version of Eudora. The principle is still the same). This is another way to save typing e-mail addresses. If you write to someone often, but not often enough that you want them in your recipient list, use the nickname option. You type a simple name (like Kirk) into the To: section of the mail form and Eudora will put the e-mail address associated with that nickname into the To: field when it sends the mail. Add as recipient and remove recipient are the places where you maintain your recipient list. By highlighting an e-mail address and clicking on add as recipient, that person's e-mail address will be added to your recipient list. It does just what it says. If you decide you don't want to have that person on your list, click on remove recipient and then on the person to remove. Empty trash does that. Compact mailboxes is used when your mailboxes are rather large. By clicking on this, unclaimed space in the mailboxes can be reclaimed. Change and forget passwords only change the passwords in Eudora. Clicking here will not change your password at wcnet. In fact, you only have to use these if you change your password at wcnet.

Tools: Mailboxes and Address Books are where you do mailbox and nickname maintenance. Change the order, rename, remove, add and other things can be done here. The PH section, in my experience, does not work under wcnet. If you want to append some pithy saying or important information to every message you send, use Signature. This will open a box where you can enter text that will be added to all your e-mail messages. This is the last bastion of ascii art. Options is where you add all the information used by Eudora, like pop servers, how you are to be alerted when mail comes in, etc. These are all fairly explanatory.

The Window and Help menu items are standard.

The mail form:

To: The person you are sending the message to.

From: Your e-mail address

Subject: Can be left blank, or not.

Cc: Carbon copy. Sends a copy of the same message to anyone added to this field. You can add more than one and separate them with a comma.

Bcc: Blind carbon copy. The paranoid option. This is used if you want to send a message to someone but you want to send it to someone else to cover your whatever. The carbon copy will be sent but the original recipient will not know anyone else has received a copy.

Attachments: This field is automatically filled by Eudora if you click on the attachment section of the message menu.

The buttons on the mail form: The first button choose priority. Leave this set at normal. This only changes the priority your mail is sent from Eudora, not the server. In other words, changing it to highest priority will not get it to anyone sooner. E-mail is so fast it wouldn't matter anyway. Of course, the person receiving your e-mail will notice that it is high priority. Whether that person agrees with you is up to them. The next button is the signature button. If you created a signature, make sure that this option is on. Encoding is next. Choose MIME. The next four buttons all relate to how the message will look when sent and printed. Put them all on. The next button, keep copies, is used if you don't have the option selected already and want to keep a copy on this occasion. The next big button, send, speeds your missive on its merry little way. You can also send a message by using the send command under file. The send button is easier and faster.

The buttons above the mail form are shortcuts to common commands found in the menu items. You can click on them to send a new message, print, trash a message etc.

For more help refer to the Eudora Web Site.