Copyright: Copyright 1996 Diamond Ridge, Inc.


MailAlert Introduction

MailAlert is a convenient utility for Microsoft Windows operating systems that notifies you when you have received electronic mail. MailAlert works with a variety of commercially available mail systems, and has the advantage of taking up very little memory when in use.  Since you do not have to keep your mail system in memory, MailAlert improves the performance of your other applications, while still keeping you informed of any incoming messages.  You can customize MailAlert to respond to incoming mail differently based on author or subject.

Basic Notification

MailAlert displays an icon in the notification area of your Windows 95, or Windows NT 4.0 task bar. When you receive new mail, the icon will change to show that you have new mail, and will slowly flash until you click on the icon to acknowledge the new mail. You can configure MailAlert to beep, play a sound or video, show a picture, or run any program or document when you receive new mail. You can also have a message box displayed with the Envelope information (author, subject, and date) of any new messages displayed.

Custom Notification

You can also customize MailAlert to notify you differently based on the message author or subject. For example, you could play a special sound (.wav) file when you get e-mail from your boss. For each custom notification you set up, you have the notification options as above, and you can also display a custom message box.

Ignore Unwanted Messages

If you receive lots of mail, there are two ways to limit which messages you are notified of. Using a custom notification, you can configure MailAlert to ignore messages from a particular author, or having a subject that contains some specified text. For example, you can set up a custom notification to ignore all messages from a particular coworker that contain the word “Help” in the subject. In addition, there is an option to only notify you of messages for which you have set up at least one custom notification. Of course, when you run your e-mail program, all messages will be there regardless of whether you didn’t want to be notified of them as they arrived.

Works with Internet E-Mail or Dial up access to E-Mail

If you are using an internet e-mail postoffice you can be notified of mail if you use the Microsoft Exhange Client (Inbox) to read your mail. Also, MailAlert will cause the Exchange client to dial-up and download your e-mail at the time interval specified in the properties dialog under the Tools->Services menu without having to leave the Inbox running. For example, you can set the Inbox to check for internet mail every 60 minutes, and MailAlert will dail your e-mail postoffice, download any  new messages, and notify you when you have new mail.

ShareWare

MailAlert is a shareware program written by Diamond Ridge, Inc.  You can try it out for 30 days free of charge. If you find MailAlert useful and desire a registered (non-expiring) copy, please refer to the Registration section of this help file.


Properties

The MailAlert Properties dialog box contains the Default Settings , Custom Notification, and Registration tabs.

There are three ways to bring up the Properties dialog box.

1.	If the MailAlert icon is visible, click the right mouse button on the icon and then choose Properties from the resulting menu.

1.	If your MailAlert is configured to start running when Windows does, choose the MailAlert icon from your StartUp group. This will display a message that says, “Activating previously running copy of MailAlert,” and then bring up the Properties dialog box.

1.	If the MailAlert icon is not visible, use the Windows Explorer to start MailAlert from the folder into which you installed it. This will also display a message and then bring up the Properties dialog box.


Default Settings

To view or change MailAlert’’s Default Settings, first bring up the Properties dialog box, then select the Default Settings tab.

Mail System:  This drop-down list box lets you choose your electronic mail system.  If your mail system is not in this list, see Mail System Compatibility.

Mail Program:  This field holds the full path name of your electronic mail program.  (This is the program that MailAlert will run when you invoke mail.)  The Browse button lets you navigate your file system to find your mail program.

Mail Profile:  This field is specific to Microsoft Exchange.  It should contain the name of the profile configured in Microsoft Exchange.

Check for new mail every ___ minutes:  This field lets you specify a number between 1 and 10,000.  This is how often (in minutes) MailAlert will check for new mail.  The lower this number is, the sooner you will know when you have received mail.  Depending on the speed of your system, however, there may be a small but noticeable delay when MailAlert checks for mail.  If this is the case, you may choose to check for mail less frequently. This setting is hwo often MailAlert checks for new mail, not how often mail is delivered. That depends upon which e-mail system you are using. It you are using Internet Mail through the Inbox, you still need set the time interval in the Tools->Services Properties dialog.

Show unread count:  This option describes what happens when you put the mouse on the MailAlert icon (without clicking).  If this box is checked, the unread count is shown along with the new message count.  If this box is not checked, only the new message count is displayed.

Hide icon when no new mail:  This option governs the behavior of the MailAlert icon.  If this box is checked, the icon is only visible when there is new mail, even though MailAlert is still running all the time.  If this box is not checked, the icon is always visible.

Ignore all except custom notifications:  This option allows you to screen your new message notifications.  If the box is checked, only mail with pre-specified subjects or authors (see Custom Notification) will cause an alert.

Load on Windows startup:  This option determines how MailAlert starts.  If the box is checked, MailAlert begins automatically when Windows starts (i.e., MailAlert is added to your StartUp group).  If this box is not checked, MailAlert will not start unless you start it manually during your Windows session.

Default Notification:  These options define how MailAlert notifies you of a new message that is not covered in any of the Custom Notification cases.

Display Envelope Information:  If this option is checked, MailAlert will display envelope information (author, subject, and date) when you receive a new message.

Beep:  If this option is checked, MailAlert will beep (i.e., play the sound Windows assigns to a “Default Beep”) when you receive a new message.

Media File:  If this field contains the name of a file, MailAlert will “play” that file when you receive a new message.  This file can have a variety of formats, including sound, video, picture, or executable file. The Browse button lets you navigate your file system to find the file you want to play.  The Play button lets you test the file you have chosen.

Note:  If you don’t have a sound card, you can still play audio files by using a PC speaker driver.  You can find a PC speaker driver on the Web page for Diamond Ridge (www.diamondridge.com).


Custom Notification

MailAlert allows you to create multiple custom notifications.  If you would like to be notified in distinctive ways for messages with certain subjects or from certain authors, you can do this easily in MailAlert by defining custom notifications.

To view or change custom notifications in MailAlert, first bring up the Properties dialog box, then select the Custom Notification tab.

Custom Notifications:  The list box displays all the custom notifications that have already been created in MailAlert. To edit an existing notification, select it from the list and then use the controls below to make changes.  To create a new custom notification, click on the Add button.  Clicking on the Remove button will delete the custom notification currently highlighted in the list box.

Conditions:  The condition controls allow you to create or modify the conditions for the currently selected custom notification.

Author:  To customize the current notification based on the authors of incoming messages you need to decide what text you want to compare the author to and how you want to do the comparison.   Your choices for the author comparison are “any", “equals”, “starts with” and “contains”.  Use the author drop down list box to select the desired comparison operator and the text box next to it to enter the text you would like to compare the author of incoming messages to.

For example if you select:

Contains	Jones

you would receive notification for any incoming message where Jones appears anywhere in the author text. If you select:

Equals	Jones

you would receive notification for any incoming message where the author text is exactly Jones.

Subject:  To customize the current notification based on the subjects of incoming messages you would follow the procedure outlined above for customizing based on author.  The text you enter in the text box associated with the subject will be compared against the subject of incoming messages.

Do Not Notify:	 To turn off notification for a particular author or subject, check this checkbox.

Notification Options:   Use the Notification Options to indicate what type of notification you would like for the currently selected custom notification.  You can select any combination of the available notification methods for each custom notification.  When an incoming message is received that meets the criteria set in the Options (above) for this notification, the selected notification methods will be activated.

Beep:   If this option is selected, MailAlert will beep (i.e., play the sound Windows assigns to a “Default Beep”) when you receive a new message that meets your criteria.

Media File:  MailAlert will play the media file that you enter.  To browse your system for a media file, press the Browse button.  To preview the media file you have selected, press the Play button.

Note:  If you don’t have a sound card, you can still play audio files by using a PC speaker driver.  You can find a PC speaker driver on the Web page for Diamond Ridge (www.diamondridge.com).

Message:  MailAlert will display a pop-up dialog box containing the message you have entered in the text box.


The MailAlert Icon

When the MailAlert icon is visible (see Default Settings), you have several ways to interact with it.

Moving the cursor over the MailAlert icon brings up information about the number of new and unread messages.

Single left-click on the MailAlert icon acknowledges mail (and stops the icon from flashing)

Single left-click and hold on the MailAlert icon brings up the Envelope Information dialog box.  If you don’t have any new mail, your system will beep once.

Double left-click on the MailAlert icon brings up your mail system (configured in Default Settings).

Single right-click on the MailAlert icon brings up the MailAlert menu (see below).

Menu options:

Run Mail Program brings up your mail system (configured in Default Settings).

Send Mail brings up your mail system’’s New Message screen.

Envelope Information brings up the Envelope Information dialog box.

Check Now performs the check for new mail immediately, instead of waiting the amount of time specified in the Default Settings dialog box.

Notify Again checks for new mail and if there are notification action(s) specified in the MailAlert Properties for any new messages, those alerts will happen again.

Properties brings up the Properties screen.

Help Topics brings up this help file.

About MailAlert brings up a window with information about the MailAlert program.

Exit closes MailAlert.  Note that if you choose this option you will no longer be notified when you receive new messages.


Envelope Information

This screen provides a list of new messages.  You can start your mail system by double-clicking one of the messages or pressing the Run Mail button.

The Hide button will hide the selected message so that it doesn’t show up as a new or unread message in MailAlert. When you run your mail program the message will still be there.

The Delete button deletes the highlighted message. This is useful in some cases where you don’t need to read the whole message before deleting it.


Mail System Compatibility

MailAlert works with electronic mail systems that conform to the simple MAPI communications standards.  If your mail system is not mentioned explicitly in MailAlert’s configuration list, refer to your mail system’s documentation to see what standard it uses.

Microsoft Exchange (Inbox), and Microsoft Mail are both supported.

Support for Non-MAPI mail systems.

CC-Mail and Lotus Notes email support the VIM email standard. In order to use MailAlert with VIM email systems, you need to have a MAPI to VIM translation DLL.  Microsoft and Lotus (IBM)  both currently have MAPI to VIM dll’s.  Any Microsoft Office product also includes such dlls.

Instructions for using MailAlert with VIM compliant mail systems.

Diamond Ridge is unable to distribute the Mapi to VIM dll’s do to licensing restrictions, but if you have one (MAPIVI32.DLL for example) you can use MailAlert. You need to copy the dll into the windows system directory, and choose CC-Mail from the MailAlert Default Settings Property sheet. If you have Mapi to VIM dll with another file name, you can tell MailAlert to use it instead by adding a registry entry under:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Diamond Ridge\

The ValueName should be “MapiDLL” and the Value should be the path to your dll.

Again, note the the Microsoft office products come with a version of MAPIVI32.DLL that you can use if you have a license for one of those products (Excel, Word, etc).


Removing MailAlert
Installing and Removing MailAlert

To install MailAlert:

1.	If you have MailAlert.zip, then unzip the files into any location where you want to put MailAlert.

2.	Move the MailAlert.cnt and MailAlert.hlp files to the help directory under your windows 95 directory. Usually it is c:\windows\help.

3.	Run MailAlert.exe - It will bring up the Properties dialog to set it up.

4.	Note that in the Default Settings property page you can check the ‘Load on windows startup’ box  to create a shortcut to MailAlert.exe in your startup folder.

To Remove MailAlert:

1.	If your registration evaluation period has expired, you can get an extension by contacting Diamond Ridge.. If you still want to remove MailAlert, then here is how:

2.	Delete MailAlert.exe from the location where you installed it.

3.	If you are running MailAlert from you startup folder you need to Delete the MailAlert icon from there also.

4.	Delete MailAlert.cnt and MailAlert.hlp from the help directory under your Windows directory. (Typically c:\windows\help)

5.	Check to make sure MailAlert.cnt and MailAlert.hlp files are not in the directory where MailAlert.exe was. If you originally copied them instead of moving them, you will need to delete them from that directory also.

6.	Run the program regedit (Registry Editor). Find the section HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Diamond Ridge. Highlight the MailAlert folder and press the delete key to delete it and all of its subfolders.


Registration

MailAlert is shareware.  It is not free.  You are welcome to try the unregistered version to see if the product is useful to you, but if you decide that you do indeed want to use MailAlert, you need to register and pay for the registered version. Please see the description under Shareware.

There are several benefits to registering your copy of MailAlert.

•	You will receive a registration number to enable you to continue using MailAlert after 30 days.

•	You will receive the latest version of MailAlert.

•	You will be eligible for free software upgrades for a year after your purchase, and reduced price upgrades thereafter.

•	If you choose, you will be placed on the Diamond Ridge, Inc. mailing list, to be notified of new versions and products.

Entering your Registration Number

When you register MailAlert, you will be given a registration number that you enter along with your  name in the registration property page. You can then press the “register” button. If your registration number and name are entered correctly, your copy of MailAlert is then registered for use.

Getting an evaluation extension

If your evaluation period has expired and you need more time, contact Diamond Ridge, and we can give you a special registration number that will extend your evaluation period by another 30 days.

Price

MailAlert is $15 per person. Corporate and site licenses are available at reduced rates.

To register:

First, read the Agreement section of this help file.

If you found this software on one of the various on-line forums that support shareware, you may be able to register there using your credit card.

Otherwise, you can send us a check at:

Diamond Ridge, Inc.

Attn. Software Registration

3 Cabot Way

Clifton Park, NY  12065

In addition to your payment, we need the following information to register the software:

Name

Mailing address

Number of copies

Windows system and version

Preferred diskette format

Do you want to be informed of new versions of MailAlert?

Do you want to be informed of other Diamond Ridge, Inc. products?

and would appreciate this optional information:

Company

Title

E-mail system

E-mail address

How you heard about this product

Where you got your copy of MailAlert from

welcome comments and questions about the registration process at (518)371-0078.


Agreement
Disclaimer - Agreement

Users of MailAlert must accept this disclaimer of warranty:

“MailAlert is supplied as is.  The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose.  The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of MailAlert."

MailAlert is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation.  Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system.  The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products.  If you find this program useful and find that you are using MailAlert and continue to use MailAlert after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment of $15 to Diamond Ridge, Inc.  The $15 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time.  You must treat this software just like a book.  An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another, just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the

same time.

Commercial users of MailAlert must register and pay for their copies of MailAlert within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn.  Site-license arrangements may be made by contacting Diamond Ridge, Inc.

Anyone distributing MailAlert for any kind of remuneration must first contact Diamond Ridge, Inc. at the address below for authorization. This authorization will be automatically granted to distributors recognized by the (ASP) as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such distributors may begin offering MailAlert immediately.   (However, Diamond Ridge, Inc. must still be advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of MailAlert.)

You are encouraged to pass a copy of MailAlert along to your friends for evaluation.  Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it.  All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the MailAlert system.

Registration address:

Diamond Ridge, Inc.

Attn. Software Registration

3 Cabot Way

Clifton Park, NY  12065


Diamond Ridge, Inc.

Diamond Ridge, Inc. was founded in September of 1995 by a group of friends (who also all happened to be computer folks) weary of the headaches of working in a big corporation and curious about the headaches of running a small corporation. We are based in Saratoga County, NY, and do mostly custom software development and networking, although we are also trying our hand at shareware ventures like this one.  So far it has been rewarding and frustrating by turns, but never dull.

We welcome any comments or questions you have about our company, our software, or life in general (no guarantees on this last, however).  You can contact us at:

E-mail:  mailalert@diamondridge.com

WWW: www.diamondridge.com

Phone:  (518) 371-0078

Snail mail: 	Diamond Ridge

3 Cabot Way

Clifton Park, NY  12065


Shareware
About Shareware

Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you  get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with printed  manual.

Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their

Shareware.

Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy.  And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it.


Support

Diamond Ridge offers free technical support for MailAlert. The best way to contact us for support is to send E-Mail to MailAlert@diamondridge.com. You can also leave us a message at our Web site at www.diamondridge.com/diamond.

Our phone number is 518-371-0078.