SOMA - Stefan's own Mail Application
Version: 0.3.2, 24 Jun 1996

Copyright (C) 1995,96 by Stefan Khnel
E-Mail: kuehnel@stud.uni-hannover.de
WWW:    http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~kuehnel

0.	CONTENTS OF THIS FILE

1.	WHAT IS SOMA?
2.	COPYING POLICY
3.	INSTALLATION
4.	SOMA on other platforms than x86 under Linux
5.	REQUIREMENTS
6.	FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
7.	COMMON PROBLEMS
8.	OFFLINE MAIL-READING WITH SOMA
9.	KNOWN BUGS AND PROBLEMS
10.	ERROR AND BUGS REPORTS


1.	WHAT IS SOMA?

Soma is an XView based mail user agent for Linux/X11. That means that 
you can read and write your E-mail with Soma under X11 having an 
OpenLook user-interface. Therefore you can exchange data wiht other 
open look applications like "textedit" via drag & drop. Soma delivers 
the outgoing mail via SMTP running either on the local machine or a remote
host. 

2.	COPYING POLICY

Soma can be copied, distributed and modified under the terms of the
GNU General Public License (GPL, see file COPYING). 
NO WARRANTY, neither for correct function nor for not causing damages,
is taken over. If you distribute Soma on CD-ROM or as part of a
greater Software-Package you should consider to send a sample copy to
the author (address is given at the end of this file).

3.	INSTALLATION

Edit the makefile and type make. Sorry for not having an Imakefile.

After successful compilation set the group of the executable to "mail" 
and set the GID-Bit. If you are not doing so, you'll not be able to delete 
mail from the mailfile in /var/spool/mail. This settings should be done 
automatically by "make install". 

4.	SOMA on other platforms than x86 under Linux

"make configure" tries to find out what kind of operating system you are
using and creates a machine-dependent Includefile ("machine.h"). 
"make configure" should be performed automatically if there is no "machine.h".
If you are using another OS than SunOS or Linux you can try to change either
the configure-script or the include-file "machine.h".
This mechanism has not been tested yet, because I could not find a proper
installed set of development-tools and libraries on any of the SunOS and 
Solaris machines I have access to. 

Soma has been compiled and tested in the following environement

	- Linux 1.2.12 with gcc 2.5.8, gcc 2.6.3 and gcc 2.7.0 with X11R6 and 
	  XView 3.2 on a PCI machine with an AMD486DX4-100
	- Linux 2.0 with gcc 2.7.2 on the same machine

5.	REQUIREMENTS
	
To compile this software you need the following software to be installed on
your computer:

	- gcc 2.5.8 or later
	- Libraries and include-files for X11R5 or X11R6
	- Libraries and include-files for XView 3.2 or later

To run this software you need the following software to be installed
and well configured on your computer: 
	
	- an SMTP mail transport agent, e.g. sendmail
	- at least loopback-networking support

6.	FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

The following list of things is planned to be implemented in the next
future, if I have enough sparetime

	- MIME Support
	- POP3 Support

7.	COMMON PROBLEMS

Problem:	There seems to be no mail, but other programms (elm,pine,mail)
		say, that there is mail.
Solution:	Check the Entry "Mail-File" in the Options-Window. If this is
		OK check the rights of the mail-file and of your 
		Soma-executable (see also the section: INSTALLATION)

Poblem:		When going to view mails >500 KB an error-message is
		displayed
	       
Solution:	The internal Textbuffer for the viewing Window is 512 KB by 
		default. Try to change the #define MEMMAX in global.h

Problem:	Deleting mail-messages causes an error message.
Solution:	Check the rights for the Soma-executable and for your
		mail-file (normally /var/spool/mail/USERNAME). See also section
		INSTALLATION in this file.

Problem:	Sending a mail causes an error-message.
Solution:	Check the Entry "SMTP-Server" in the Options-Window. Normally
		you should use "localhost" as "SMTP-Server". Therefore you
		need at least "loopback networking support" to be compiled in 
		your kernel. If the SMTP-Server is working you can find out
		by an "telnet smtp-server-address 25". You should get a 
		message like that in the following example:

	LuniX:~/programme/c/soma$ telnet localhost 25
	Trying 127.0.0.1...
	Connected to localhost.
	Escape character is '^]'.
	220 LuniX Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #14 ready at Sun, 7 Jan 96 17:29 GMT

		If the server is not responding check your network
		configuration.

Problem:	It is not possible to edit signatures with more than four lines
Solution:	Due to the netiquette signatures should not have more than
		four lines.

8.	OFFLINE MAIL-READING WITH SOMA

It is planned for future releases to support at least the POP3-protocol from 
within Soma. 
But nevertheless you can use Soma for offline-mail-reading and
sending. You only need a POP3-client like "popclient", written by Carl
Harris and available via ftp under this URL: 

	"ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/system/Mail/pop/popclient-2.21.tar.gz"   

Popclient gets your mail from a POP3-Server and stores it in a
local-file. If you create a Soma-Folder with this file as folder-path
you can read the mail with Soma. For offline sending Soma offers the
following technique: In the compose window you can either
select "Send now" or "Spool for later sending". If you choose the
latter the mail will be added to a spool-file (the path to this file can
be edited in the options-window). At the time you have a IP-connection
to your provider you can send the contents of this spool-file with the
utility "smtp_send" that is provided with Soma. The syntax of this
Utility is very simple:

	smtp_send [-s <smtp_server>][-f <spool_file>] [-v] [-h|-?]

The default values for smtp_server and spool_file are taken from the file
.soma_rc in the users's home-directory. The -v option puts smtp_send in the
verbose mode and -h/-? provides usage information.

Smpt_send sends all messages contained in the spool_file and deletes 
the spool_file afterwards.

9.	KNOWN BUGS AND PROBLEMS

There are a few known bugs and problems:
	
	- the folder menus contains some empty entries after deleting
	  folders
	- Problems with handling of very large messages (>512K)
	
10.	ERROR AND BUGS REPORTS

Send error reports (in english or german) to

	E-Mail: kuehnel@stud.uni-hannover.de

Suggestions for improvements are also welcome.

