IMAP & News

IMAP

As mentioned in the introduction, M2 also supports the IMAP protocol. I myself do not use the IMAP functionality in Opera, so all the following text is from other sources (primarily the Opera.com IMAP tutorial) and user experiences.

When you use POP, messages are left on the server and managed with a Webmail interface, or downloaded to your computer and managed by your e-mail client. With IMAP, you can use M2 to manage your mail directly on the server. You can delete messages on the server without downloading them or can organize them into folders. Since your messages are still on the server, they are accessible from other on-line connections, or offline if you have downloaded the message bodies.

If you are online while making changes in M2, such as marking messages as read, moving messages, or deleting them, the mail server will also make these changes. This also applies if you make changes in M2 while offline and connect to the mail server before exiting Opera. If you use M2 on two different computers, you can keep them synchronized with the server and each other, or use different settings on each computer.

Another advantage of IMAP with M2 is that you can choose which messages to download, which saves time on slower connections. M2 is set by default to download only headers (the subject line and some other information about the message) when checking for new messages. Then, when you select a message header, M2 fetches the message "body" (the text and any attachments). If you leave M2 in this default configuration, you must be online in order to read your messages. If you want to read messages offline, you can change your preferences to let M2 fetch message bodies as well as headers when the system is checking for new mail.

IMAP settings

Mark messages as read if already downloaded
If this option is selected, M2 will synchronize itself with the mail server when it first connects. If a message has been marked as "Read" using another mail client, it will also be marked as "Read" in M2.

Download message body when checking
Message bodies will be fetched along with headers when checking for new mail. This takes longer than just downloading headers. However, the advantages of downloading message bodies to disk include faster reading and searching of messages once they are downloaded, and being able to read your messages offline. Also, messages with attachments will appear in the "Attachments" access point, which is not available when downloading only headers.

Keep local copy of message body
The message body will be stored on disk when it is downloaded. If you choose not to keep a local copy, the message body will be displayed, but it will have to be downloaded again from the IMAP server the next time you want to view it.

Path to IMAP root folder
This is the location of the user's personal mailboxes stored on the server. You can leave this empty and M2 should locate the root folder correctly. Otherwise, common values are "mail/" and "INBOX."

Subscribe to IMAP folders

Subscribing to IMAP folders can be done by going to Mail --> IMAP Folders and you will be presented with this dialog.

Newsreader

The new newsreader in M2 is tightly integrated with the mailclient and now also supports multiple servers and offline reading. The newsmessages are considered to be merely a special type of e-mail and are therefore handled identically to normal e-mails. This means that newsmessages can also appear in accesspoints. This behaviour can be changed under the View settings.

Subscribing to newsgroups

Adding a newsaccount can best be done by going to Mail --> Newsgroups and selecting 'New account' and filling in the required info. After that you will return to the Newsgroups dialog and M2 will download the list of available newsgroups on the selected server. This may take a while as these lists can be very long. After the list has been loaded you will be able to subscribe to different newsgroups by simply ticking the appropriate checkboxes.

Using news

The newsgroups to which you are subscribed are listed under the "News at <server>" accesspoint. When you download messages for the first time, M2 will download the 250 latest headers/message bodies. This number can currently not be changed. Double-clicking on a newsgroup under the accesspoint will connect it to the server and download new messages.

To read a messge click on the message header and the body is downloaded automatically. By default, Opera does not download message bodies when checking for new messages. This can be changed in the preferences. To download message bodies automatically when retrieving new messages from the server, go to Mail --> Manage accounts, select your news account, and click on "Edit". Under "Incoming", select "Download message body when checking". For offline access, enable "Keep local copy of message body".

Writing a news message

Replying to news messages is simply done by clicking 'reply' and you will get a Compose window with some different fields, including the News field which is for the newsgroup you are replying to and Followup which sets the newsgroup to where all replies should go.

Cancelling message

Cancelling messages is also possible, by selecting your sent message either in the Sent folder or in the newsgroup accesspoint (message recognizable by the upward pointing arrow) and selecting "Cancel" from the right-click menu.

Retrieving News

By default the newsreader will only retrieve the 250 latest messages. This cannot be changed via the UI but you can sort of download more if you wish. The following was written by an Opera developer, Frode Gill.

You can use the URL-types I use internally in the newscode directly from the addressbar. Find the last message in a group, display all headers, and find the number in the Xref-header. This is the last NNTP number for this group on this server. Now, enter the url in this format: news://newsserver/group/from-to , as in news://news.opera.com/opera.general/1-72861