Glossary
A
Account
An account represents an identity within Claws Mail. As such only
one email address is associated with each account. However, the number
of accounts you can setup is unlimited.
Action (filtering/processing rules)
An action is something that is performed on a message when it matches
the rule conditions. A typical action is moving the message to a
particular folder. See also .
Actions
Actions are user-defined commands that can be applied to a message, or
part of a message, using a special syntax. They are presented to the
user in a customisable menu.
Address book
Storage for names, mail addresses and custom user attributes. Also
provides access to servers and files.
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard using 7 bit. It's defined as an
Internet standard in RFC 20.
Attachment
Additional file(s) included with a mail message. Some attachments can
be displayed by Claws Mail, others require external programs.
can provide additional functions for
attachments.
C
Character encoding
A map between written symbols, like letters and other symbols, and the
numbers used to represent them inside the computer. The most well-known
character encoding is probably , but it has
been superseded by others, such as .
Compose
Create new a message text or a reply to a received mail in the Compose
window.
Condition (filtering/processing rules)
The prerequisites that a mail message must fulfil in order for the
rule's action to be executed. See also .
D
Digital signature (GPG)
A piece of data obtained from merging a message and a cryptographic key
which ensures message authorship, in a similar way that a hand-written
signature does in a document. This piece of data is sent with the m
essage so the recipient can verify its validity.
E
Encryption (GPG)
Scrambling a message with a cryptographic key so that only the
recipient and ownwer of the key password can unscramble it for reading.
F
Face
A more modern implementation of the , it's a
coloured image (48x48 pixels) included in the message headers.
Filtering rule
A applied to incoming messages. Filtering
rules can be also applied manually to the contents of any folder.
Folder
A folder is the primary message container. Folders can be local or
remote, but they are managed in a uniform way by Claws Mail.
Forward
To send a copy of a received mail to another recipient, optionally
adding your own message.
H
HTML
Acronym for Hyper-Text Markup Language. It was the standard language to
encode web pages in the beginning of the .
Some mail clients use this language to encode the textual body of mails
in order to craft special effects to text at the cost of multiplying
the message size several times. HTML mail is also widely used by
spammers to send .
I
IMAP4
Internet Messaging Access Protocol (version 4). A protocol for
accessing email on a remote server from a local client. All messages
are stored in the remote server.
Immediate execution
When the Execute immediately when moving or deleting
messages
option is used, operations
performed on messages, (like deletions or movements), are performed
immediately. If the option is turned off, all operations performed on
messages by the user are only carried out when the
Execute
button is pressed.
ISP
Internet Service Provider. A company which provides Internet access to
its customers. In the dialup access age these were the big telephony
companies, with the arrival of broadband access the number of companies
and types of services offered has grown exponentially.
L
LDAP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. A protocol for accessing
information directories such as organisations, individuals, phone
numbers, and addresses.
LDIF
LDAP Data Interchange Format. A text file format widely used for moving
data between servers and/or other programs.
Local mbox file
A local mailbox spool file in format.
Log window
A special window which records protocol operations in detail that are
performed by Claws Mail. It's a useful tool for debugging.
M
Mailbox
The root folder of the folder hierarchy.
Maildir
A mailbox format in which all mail is kept in separate files.
Maildir++ is an extension to the maildir format.
Mailing-List
Electronic mailing-lists are a special usage of email that allows for
widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. They
often take the form of discussion lists, like the Claws Mail users'
list, where a subscriber uses the mailing-list to send messages to all
the other subscribers, who may answer in similar fashion.
Mark (message)
An arbitrary indicator that can be set on a message by the user in
order to draw attention to the message. Marks are shown in the Mark
column of the Message List.
MBox
A mailbox format in which all mail is concatenated and stored in a
single file. The mbox format supported by Claws Mail is
mboxrd.
Message
A message is the basic piece of information handled by Claws Mail.
A message is usually an email message, which is stored in format on disk. Other kinds of messages (and storage
formats) can be handled through .
MH
A mailbox format in which all mail is kept in separate files. This is
the default mailbox format used by Claws Mail.
MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. Internet standards for
representing binary data in text format,
encoding and s.
N
NNTP
Network News Transfer Protocol. The protocol used to post, distribute,
and retrieve messages, also called news
articles or simply news for short.
Newsgroups
A set of hierarchical partitions of
messages on a . The protocol allows the user to subscribe to one or
more newsgroups. New messages posted to the subscribed groups are
automatically downloaded on connection.
News server
Server which provides access to messages
in through the protocol.
P
PDF
Portable Document Format. An open binary file format developed by Adobe
Systems to allow interchanging of printable documents between different
platforms. Inherits some features from
but not being a language made it easier to process, especially on
desktop computers.
PGP Inline
Digital signing method which includes the signature data in the message
body. Currently deprecated in favour of .
PGP MIME
Digital signing method which includes the signature data as a separate
.
Plugins
External modules which can be loaded and used by Claws Mail to
extend its functionality. Technically speaking these modules are
shared libraries which can register one or several functions to be
called by Claws Mail when something
interesting is being done.
POP3
Post Office Protocol (version 3). A protocol for retrieving email from
a remote server. Messages can be automatically removed from server
after downloading.
PostScript
Page description language primarily used and understood by printing
devices to generate its output. Was developed by Adobe Systems and
is now a widely used standard in the printing industry. As it's a
fully featured interpreted language it requires some processing power
to deal with.
Privacy (GPG)
Privacy provides methods for both signing and encrypting mail messages
you send and also for verifying and decrypting signed and encrypted
messages that you receive.
Processing rule
A or set of rules belonging to a folder
which are executed on entering the folder.
Q
Queue
Temporary storage for messages which are waiting to be sent, either
because they couldn't be sent due a network failure or because the
user requested them to be sent later.
Quick Search
A powerful way to search for messages using almost any criteria that
you can think of.
Quotation
When replying to a message the user will often include a quoted section
of that message to provide the context. The quoted section is shown by
the prepending of a common character, usually >
.
R
Recursive (Quick Search)
A recursive will also search in all
subfolders of the selected folder.
Redirect
To send a copy of a received mail in its original form to another
recipient.
Reply
Answer to a received message. As verb also the act of answering a
message.
ROT-13
Simple encryption method used since Romans age,
which uses an alphabet rotated thirteen positions to encode each
letter of the message. Used sometimes to hide funny messages on mails.
Rule
Logical structure comprised of one or more conditions (see ) and one or more associated actions
(see ). Rules are used for filtering
mail messages.
S
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol for sending email to servers.
SMTP server
A server which receives mail messages from other hosts and/or sends
mail messages to other hosts using the
protocol.
Source (message)
The full text of a message as it is transmitted over the network. This
includes all headers, message body and encoded attachments if present.
Spam
Junk mail, unsolicited commercial emails.
Spell checking
Automatic verification of spelling while typing or after composition
has finished.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer. A protocol used to encrypt and protect data sent
over a network.
SSL certificate
A certificate installed on a secure server that is used for
identification.
STARTTLS
STARTTLS (Start Transport Layer Security) is a command used to initiate
a secure connection between two servers using .
Sticky (Quick Search)
When the sticky option is set on the
search terms are not cleared when changing folders.
Synchronisation (folder)
Making the contents of a local folder mirror those of an equivalent
remote folder in the associated mail server.
T
TCP
Transmission Control Protocol. The main protocol used in the Internet.
Allows media-independent reliable connections between two endpoints
and is supported by all modern Operating Systems in use.
Themes
Image sets for changing the appearance of buttons, folders and other
graphical elements of Claws Mail.
Thread (messages)
A set of messages loosely relating to each other.
Toolbars
Sets of buttons arranged horizontally which provide access to all
commonly used functions. Toolbars in Claws Mail can be customised.
U
UIDL
Unique IDentification Listing. A command
which allows single message handling by asigning a unique identifier
for each message.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. A naming scheme for objects (usually files)
in a multi-protocol networked environment like current Internet.
For example, this is the one of the Claws Mail home page:
http://www.claws-mail.org.
USENET
User's Network. A bulletin board system of discussion groups, often
called .
UTF-8
8-bit Unicode Transformation Format. A variable length character
encoding capable of representing any universal character. An Internet
standard defined in RFC 3629.
V
vCard
File format standard for Personal Data Interchange, it can hold
information such as address, phone numbers, etc., much like the
information usually found in a business card. They are commonly found
attached to mail messages.
W
Wrapping
Restructuring of the message text based on a user-defined maximum
number of characters per line. Wrapping ensures that paragraphs are
justified, which means that they are aligned to the left and right
margins.
WWW
World Wide Web, the hyperlinked network of web pages across the
Internet.
X
X-Face
Specially coded black and white image (48x48 pixels) included in the
message headers. Capable mailers like Claws Mail and others can
decode and show it alongside the message text. Although they are not
unique, they can help to quickly identify the message sender. See also
.