Messenger

Communicator
Navigator
Composer
Messenger

Messenger is Communicator's email and newsgroup reader.   In order to use these tools, you need to configure Communicator first; go here to see how to do this.   The email and newsgroup readers are complete applications that compete well with such products as Eudora and Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express.  Here we will look at just one of its many features, the message editor, which has a number of uses beyond its role in Messenger.

Message Composer

When you write an email or a newsgroup message, Messenger spawns Message Composer, an applet that allows you to write and send messages.  Message Composer can also be invoked from any of Composer's applications by selecting MENU: File --> New --> Message.   The great thing about Message Composer is that, as the name implies, it is a little Composer: it can be used to create html documents that you can then send to people, including yourself.  If you use Messenger as your mail reader, you can then read your html email message as a formatted web page.  You can also drag and drop from Navigator into Message Composer, just as we did with Composer in the previous section.  This is a great tool to have students use in a class that shares a newsgroup or an email list.  Just remember, though, that if you send html-encoded email to someone who is not using an html-capable browswer, such as Pine, the message arrives either as an attachment or with all the markup. 

To set up Messenge Composer to write in html, select MENU: Edit --> Preferences... --> Preferences: Mail & Newsgroups --> Formatting --> Use the HTML editor to compose messages = "checked".   (Choose the other option to write in plain text mode.)  Now, open up Message Composer by choosing MENU: File --> New --> Message.   Notice the html toolbar above the message space.  Try dragging an dropping things into the page, send it to yourself, and read the message in Messenger.  Both cool and useful.

© 1998 Rafael C. Alvarado, McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, Princeton University.
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This site was last updated on Tuesday, August 25, 1998.