Balsa User's Guide
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# The Preferences Window

`Balsa` has many more options than the initial Druid reveals. To access the configuration window, select Settings->Preferences. You will see a notebook. The tabs and options are explained below.

Figure 9. Preferences Window

## Identity

This page lets you specify how you present yourself to the rest of the world through your email.

`Your Name`

  This doesn't have to be your name, I guess. But it's the word prefixing your email address in mail you send.

`E-Mail address`

  As you wish it to appear in your "From" header.

`Reply-To address`

  The address that you wish people to reply to your email with (if you have a home and a work address, for instance).

`Default domain`

  The domain that you wish to append to all e-mail entries where you did not specify the domain. Normally you would use your local domain. You need to enable Alias Expansion for this to work.

## Signature

Use this page to set up signature files and how `Balsa` will use them in your messages

`Use Signature File When`

  `Sending Mail`

    Include the signature file when sending email.

  `Replying to Mail`

    Include the signature file when replying to mail

  `Forwarding Mail`

    Include the signature file when forwarding mail

`Signature file`

  The text to append to all your messages. This text can come from one of three places:

  - From a regular file. List the path to any regular file, and the text from that file will be appended to your messages.

  - A named pipe or FIFO. In this case, to Balsa, the file looks normal, but in reality, it is a pipe to a program that is generating the content. List the path to the pipe.

  - An executable program. Balsa will execute the program and read its output, appending that text to the message. List the path to the program with a "|" prepended to it. For example:

    "|/home/user/dynsig.pl"

  You also get to control when the signature is appended.

`Reply Prefix`

  The character sequence to prefix quoted lines in a reply with

`Enable Signature Separator`

  When checked, this has `Balsa` insert the standard signature separator before your signature.

## Mail Servers

This page lets you specify how you get POP3 mail, send mail, etc.

`Remote Mailbox Servers`

  These are POP3 servers that you receive email from. The three buttons let you create, modify, and remove records. POP3 mailboxes will not show up in the mailbox list. You can specify multiple servers, when adding a server you will be asked to give:

  - mailbox name that will identify the mailbox

  - The server you have the POP mailbox on.

  - The port that will be used to connect to the server. The port number is usually 110 but you may change it if you for example use some kind of connection tunneling,

  - The user name on the mailbox server.

  - Corresponding password.

  - What does the check check box mean?

  - You can select the 'delete from server' button to remove the downoladed messages from the server.

`Local Mail Directory`

  This is the directory that `Balsa` will scan looking for mail folders.

`Remote SMTP Server`

  Specify the domain name and optionally the port for of the SMTP server you use for submitting mail. Please note that the default port number is 587. The syntax is hostname[:port]. Port can be a decimal number or the name of the service as specified in `/etc/services`. Typically you can just set this to "localhost:smtp".

`User`

  If the remote SMTP server requires authentication, enter your user name here. Note that the exact format depends on the MTA in use. For example, some systems expect a user name, others may require an email address.

`Pass Phrase`

  If the remote SMTP server requires authentication, enter your pass phrase here. Some systems refer to the pass phrase as a password. Limitations on the length of the pass phrase depend on the SMTP server.

## Address Books

`Balsa` supports the use of multiple address books, both local VCARD and remote LDAP address books, both of which can be configured here. `GnomeCard` also uses VCARD address books, so this allows Balsa to share address books with other GNOME applications

The main portion of the preferences page is occupied by the list of current address books for `Balsa`. The list shows the type of address book, the name, and whether it is included in automatic alias expansion when typing new messages. There are also several buttons that manipulate the list of address books:

Add

  Using this adds a new address book for `Balsa` to use to find addresses. It brings up a series of dialog boxes that step through the process of adding a new address book.

  Figure 10. Add Address Book Dialog (Step 1)

  If `Balsa` was not compiled with LDAP support it will not let you choose LDAP as an addressbook type. Once the type of address book is selected you must specify the name and location of the address book.

  Figure 11. VCARD Address Book Dialog (Step 2)

  With LDAP support, the dialog looks somewhat different, offering options to set the location of the directory instead of a file.

  Figure 12. LDAP Address Book Dialog (Step 2)

  In order to use a LDAP address book, you need to know the host name of the LDAP server. Depending on the server configuration, you may need also so called Base Domain Name which identifies your particular department. You can always try leaving Base Domain Name field empty and a default value will be used (OpenLDAP stores the default Base Domain Name in `/etc/openldap/ldap.conf`). If this does not work, you may need to ask your administrator for the value of this. The usual values are usually similar to: "dc=theochem,dc=KTH,dc=se" or "o=Theoretical Chemistry, c=SE".

Modify

  This enables you to change the properties of the selected address book.

  Figure 13. Modify an Address Book

  It is possible to modify both the name and location for any address book. Also, you can change whether the contents of the address book will be used when attempting to auto-complete an address when sending a message.

Delete

  Delete the selected address book.

Set as Default

  Set the selected mailbox as default.

## Mail Options

Use this page to set the `Balsa`'s behaviour regarding incoming and outgoing messages.

### Incoming

`Check Mail Automatically`

  If selected, `Balsa` will connect to your POP3 servers at the given interval and check for mail.

  | Using "0" as an interval is a really bad idea.

`Quoted Text Regular Expression`

  The entry box allows you to set a regular expression you would like to use to identify text that should be considered quoted for incoming messages. The regular expression should match the beginning of line of quoted text a single level deep, the program will then use this to calculate the depth of quoting and alter the quoted text colours appropriately. A default regexp is provided that should work in most situations.

  This regexp affects both highlighting and spell checking, and uses the extended regular expression set. For more information see the grep(1) manual or info page.

### Outgoing

`Wrap Outgoing Text`

  Have `Balsa` wrap all outgoing mail at the specified column.

`Default Bcc`

  An address to Blind Carbon Copy to on all emails.

## Display

This page controls how `Balsa` appears to you.

`Use Preview Pane`

  Set whether to use the preview pane to display messages, or rely on the separate mail viewing window.

`Show Mailbox Info`

  This will allow the number of total and unread messages for each mailbox to be shown in the left pane of the `Balsa` main window.

`Toolbars`

  Use this to determine whether `Balsa`'s toolbars display only text, only icons, or both text and icons.

`Display Progress`

  This sets the behaviour of the dialog that is shown when `Balsa` retrieves messages from it's specified POP3 servers. The dialog can be shown only while the messages are being retrieved, automatically closing after `Balsa` is finished. Or it can be set to stay active until manually closed. Finally, the dialog can not be displayed at all.

`Date Encoding`

  Set the format used to display dates in `Balsa`. This uses the same format string as `strftime`, a summary which is provided below:

  - `%a` — The abbreviated weekday name.

  - `%A` — The full weekday name.

  - `%b` — The abbreviated month name.

  - `%B` — The full month name.

  - `%d` — The day of the month.

  - `%R` — The time using a 24-hour clock. (HH:MM)

  - `%r` — The time using a 12-hour clock (HH:MM AM/PM).

  - `%T` — The time using a 24-hour clock, with seconds (HH:MM:SS).

  | See the `strftime` manual page for a full listing of conversion specifiers.

`Displayed Headers`

  A space-separated list of the headers to display in the message window.

## Printing

`Print Command`

  The command executed when the print button is pressed. The message text in the command is signified by "%s".

`Break Line`

  Whether to break the output line at a specified column, or to let the printing program do the wrapping to the page.

## Spelling

The pane to setup Balsa spell check options. Balsa uses the Portable Spell Checking library (pspell) to do provide an interface to the spell checking program of your choice. Currently there are modules for ispell or aspell, both of which can be found at the pspell website. For more information visit the Balsa homepage.

`Pspell Module`

  The Pspell library allows you to use whatever spell checking engine you prefer, though the use of loadable modules. Currently Pspell has support for two modules, the traditional ispell, and the newer and more advanced aspell.

  Ispell is most likely available on your system as it is a Unix standard, however Aspell is more advanced as it uses an advanced phonetics engine and adaptive techniques to learn how you tend to misspell words. More information is available at the Aspell website.

  Balsa will attempt to use whatever module you specify here, however if the module is not installed it will not work and generate an error.

`Suggestion Mode`

  The suggestion mode determines how hard the computer will search for suggestions for misspelled words. There are three options:

  `Fast`

    This mode quickly scans for replacements, which means it might be used by a good speller who occaisonally makes typographical errors.

  `Normal`

    The Normal mode is probably good enough for most people, it should produce the correct suggestion in the majority of cases.

  `Bad Spellers`

    The Bad Spellers mode is the most thourough and accurate mode, however it also takes the longest to find a list of suggestions.

`Ignore Length`

  This provides the ability to ignore words shorter than a certain length. It may be useful to automatically skip short acronyms that are normally flagged as incorrect.

## Encoding

Set `Balsa`'s character set encoding.

`Charset`

  A string representing the character set for `Balsa` to use to use by default.

`Encoding`

  Set the character encoding method to either 7 bit, 8 bit, or what the quoted message is using.

## Misc

`Debug`

  Toggle the output of debugging information. Depending on what notification priority set for it in the Display page, it can show up in list or dialog as the program runs.

`Empty Trash on Exit`

  Set Balsa to delete all messages in the Trash mailbox when Balsa exits.

`Preview Pane Font`

  The font used to display the text of the message in the preview pane.

`Unread Mailbox Colour`

  Set the colour of mailboxes that contain unread messages.

`Expand aliases as you type`

  This will expand aliases as you type them. Read more about this feature in the Alias Expansion section. Note that some address book types (like LDAP) may require that you explicitly request address expansion by by pressing Ctrl-R.

## Startup

`Check Mail at Startup`

  If set, `Balsa` will automatically attempt to download mail from the POP3 mail server upon startup.

`Remember Open Mailboxes Between Sessions`

  When marked, `Balsa` will remember and reopen mailboxes that were open when `Balsa` was last quit.

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