E-Mail Service
E-mail Web Form
You may send E-mail via CIRCA's mail Service to: any Internet E-mail address,
to all Members of your Interest Group, and to any local Newsgroup
of your IG. In addition, you can attach a document to the message. To use the mail
service, follow the steps presented below:
- Select the "EMAIL" button to access the E-mail Form
page.
- Select where to send the e-mail to: User, Group or News. Furthermore
you can select to use To, Cc or Bcc for the specific recipient(s).
- At the recipient field you are presented with three options:
- Insert manually the intended recipient(s). In case you select to send e-mail
to a User, insert any valid SMTP e-mail address or any User ID of this
particular IG. If you select to send e-mail to a Group insert any Interest
Group name of the CIRCA. Finally, if you select to send an e-mail to News
insert any local newsgroup of the IG. [valid values: sequences
of: (sequence of characters @ sequence of characters) separated by ,].
- Press the "Add" button. A new window will open that helps you select the
valid items (IG Members, Profiles or Newsgroups, with respect to the User/Group/News
selection) for the Recipient field. In case you have selected User, the User ID
will appear instead of the User email address.
- Alternatively, you can skip steps 2 and 3 and press All Members to
automatically select all the members of your Interest group.
- Provide a Subject [valid values: all characters]
.
- Set the Delivery Options as follows:
- Select the"Cc User Email" checkbox whether you want to add your email address
on the carbon copy (Cc) recipients of the message.
The checkbox is selected by default.
- Select the "Return Receipt" checkbox whether you want to be notified on the
delivery of the message to the recipients: a delivery receipt from the receiving email
server(s) as well as a read receipt for each one of the recipients will be reported back
to you via email.
The checkbox is selected by default.
- Provide the Message body [valid values: all characters]
.
- Select the "Encryption" checkbox (applicable only if the mail encryption
is enabled for the site) if you want to send your message encrypted to the
recipients. In this case all the recipients should have a valid public key of their
certificates stored in the LDAP directory server. Provide usernames (instead of email
addresses) since only LDAP users may have certificates. Groups, newsgroups or plain
email addresses cannot be associated with certificates, so message delivery to such
categories of recipients will fail.
If the encryption is on, then an email encrypted with the public key of each valid
recipient will be sent to each one of the recipients.
The checkbox is unselected by default.
- Provide an Attach file (if appropriate) as follows:
- Press the "Browse" button to locate and select the file to attach
- Press the "Attach" button to incorporate in your E-mail the selected file.
Note that a new field, Attach, appears in the E-mail form, displaying the directory
path of the attachment. [valid values: all characters except &, (,
), [, ], `, ``].
- Press "Send Message" button to send the message. Finally, press the
"Exit" button to exit the Mail Service without sending the e-mail.
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The recipient's field can contain many recipient E-mail
addresses as long as these are separated by comma (,). The same applies for selected
Members (User Ids). |
E-mail Interface
This service enables users that do not have an Internet browser to access the
information stored in the Library and Newsgroup CIRCA services. Instead, they use their
E-mail application to access the CIRCA server. It must be noted that with the fast growth
of Internet technology, it is becoming less likely to find users with no Internet access
via their browsers. As a consequence, this FTP mail functionality (E-mail access to
the CIRCA) is of limited use and most readers can skip the rest of this chapter.
To access the E-Mail interface follow the steps:
- Launch your E-Mail client application (e.g. Netscape mailer, X.400 UA, Eudora
Mail etc.).
- Provide the following information:
- The address of the target server that handles your query. If you do not know the
address, ask your Interest Group Leader.
- The subject of your request.
- The actual query within the message body. Your query should have a formatted
structure (e.g. query command followed by an argument) so that the receiving
CIRCA server extracts, processes and returns the information requested
by the query. Refer to the General structure of an E-Mail query section
for the various commands (fields) used to compose a query.
General structure of the E-Mail query
Prior to creating the actual query you need to provide the query envelope information
(Interest Group host server address and the subject). In order to do that follow the
steps presented below:
- Insert at the mailing address field, the Internet address of your Interest Group
host server.
- At the subject field provide the textual data xxxxx-circa.request (where xxxxx
is the dgiii or any other name given to the circa in the multi-circa environment,
e.g. dgiii-circa.request in case of a dgiii CIRCA). This instructs the server that
you request assistance through E-Mail.
Make sure that you have provided both fields with correct data.
Now you are ready to create your query within the message body of your E-Mail
form. Its structure should comply with the following general rules:
- Insert the standard commands within the message body of the E-Mail form. Every
command you use must be inserted in a separate line.
- The general format is command_parameter.
The next table contains a summary of the available commands:
COMMAND |
PARAMETER |
FUNCTIONALITY |
Help |
|
CIRCA will return the Help Pages on "How to structure the query";
|
User |
username |
Provide your user name. It is needed for authorisation to the Interest Group |
Group |
interest-group-name |
Provide the Interest Group you want to access. You should have access to that Interest Group |
Search |
keywords |
Search the Library or newsgroups for documents or postings containing specific keywords |
Get |
URL-path |
Provide the URL-path of the document or posting that you want to download via E-Mail. If the URL-path is a section instead of a document, information on the contents of this section is given |
Command Description:
"help". The "help" command returns the Help
Pages on "How to structure your query" and should not be followed by any parameter.
"user". Provide your username as parameter to this command. This
will authorise you to the Interest Group. The syntax of this command is the keyword
"user" followed by a space followed by the parameter username
(different for each user).
"group". Provide the interest-group-name as a parameter to this
command to define the Interest Group that your query is addressed to. You should have
access to the Interest Group. The syntax of this command is the keyword group
followed by a space followed by the parameter interest-group-name.
"search". You can search the Library section and all newsgroups for
documents or contributions that include specific keywords in their summary information.
You will receive an E-Mail containing a list of the URL-paths of the documents or
contributions that match the selected search keywords. Below each returned URL, the line(s)
with the keyword occurrence are provided. You can insert any of the returned URL-paths
to obtain the document's summary information through the info command described above.
The structure of this command is the keyword search followed by a space followed
by the keyword(s), which will be utilised for the search. You may compose complex
queries combining keywords through the AND /OR Boolean operators.
Such queries are processed from left to right. You may even search for multiple
word strings by enclosing the string in double quotes.
"get". You can download any document(s) or contribution(s)
from the library or newsgroups repositories. The structure of this command is the
keyword "get" followed by a space followed by the URL-path of the
document or contribution intended for downloading. If the user requests a URL-path
that ends with a section path instead of a document, then the listing and information of
the documents and the subsections are mailed to the user.
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The user and group service commands are mandatory and must
be provided in the E-Mail interface form. |
All the other commands are optional and define the information requested from
the selected service. These commands can be repeated within the same request form.
For example, if you include the command service library in the message body
of your query, you can do the following:
- Search for documents in the library by supplying keywords at the search command
(e.g. search keyword).
- You can obtain the summary information of any section in the library by supplying
its URL-path at the get command (e.g. get URL-path of section).
- Download any document from the library by supplying the URL-path of that document
at the get command (e.g. get URL-path).
The search and get commands can be applied to both the Library and the Newsgroups
service. In the latter case these commands deal with contributions instead of documents.
The exact structure and the associated functionality with each command are described
below in more detail.
E-Mail Interface - Library Service
With this service you can search (search command), obtain the summary information
of a section (get command) and download (get command) any document from the library.
You can insert a multiplicity of commands within a single mailing form, i.e.
you can obtain information on many sections, download many documents or even obtain
the summary information on many sections through a single mail form. Below you can
find several examples on the functionality of the E-Mail interface related to the
library service (search, get).
The examples presented below are addressed to the DSIS CIRCA, but they could also
be addressed to any other CIRCA within the multi-circa context. This would only change the
URL paths of the returned information from /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/...........
to /xxxxx-irc/interest-group-name/............ where xxxxx is a new CIRCA.
Example 1: Search the library for a document that incorporates the word
"EDIFACT" in its attribute fields.
The query to be introduced into the message body should be as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search EDIFACT
The server will extract and use the information (parameters) inserted in the above
commands for authorisation and searching to return the requested information. The user
and group commands are followed by the username and the interest-group-name respectively.
The search command contains the keyword (EDIFACT) to be searched within the attribute
fields of all the documents within the library.
By supplying this query, the E-mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with
an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
reply-to E-Mail address of the user
search EDIFACT
Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains
all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that contain the world "EDIFACT" in
their attributes. You will receive the following response:
Search Results for: EDIFACT
1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
Description: EDIFACTS
2. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
Description: X12 and EDIFACTS
2 Returned Object(s)
You can download an object using the get command (get the URL path) or get information
on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results provided
that you have web access.
This example illustrates a basic functionality of the E-Mail interface. You can use
the AND/OR boolean operators to form more complex queries.
Example 2: Search the library for documents that contain the words EDIFACT
and X12 as attributes. The query in this example should be as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search EDIFACT AND X12
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received
request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
search EDIFACT AND X12
Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains
all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that incorporate both the words
"EDIFACT" and "X12" in their attributes. The response will be in the following format:
Search Results for: EDIFACT AND X12
1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
Description: X12 and EDIFACTS
1 Returned Object(s)
You can download an object using the get command (get URL path) or get information
on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results,
provided that you have web access.
You can also create queries based on phrases as long as the selected phrase
is enclosed within double quotes.
Example 3: Search the library for documents that incorporate the text
"ANSI standards" at any of its attribute fields. The query in this example should be
as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search "ANSI standards"
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the
received request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
search "ANSI standards"
Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains
all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that incorporate the text "ANSI
standards". The response will be in the following format:
Search Results for: "ANSI standards"
1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI-standards
Description: ANSI standards for EDI
1 Returned Object(s)
You can download an object using the get command (get URL path) or get information
on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results provided
that you have web access.
Through the search command, you will receive the URL-paths of the returned documents.
You may now use these URL's through the get command in order to obtain the summary
information or even download the corresponding documents. This is illustrated with the
following example.
Example 4: Display the summary information of the document entitled
"EDIFACTS" located at the
URL"/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document".
This query should be structured as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
info dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following
acknowledgement:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
info dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
Then the CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail message containing the summary information
of the document in the following format:
"information about dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document"
Owner: administrator
Filename: EDI_document.doc
Title: EDIFACTS
Status: DRAFT
Version: V1
Author: Interest Group Administrator
Issue Date:16/5/97
Keyword: N/A
Abstract: This document incorporates
information about EDI and EDIFACTS
Use the URL-path to download a document from the library with the get command. This is
illustrated in the following example:
Example 5: Download a document located at the URL dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document.
The query should be structured as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
get dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following
acknowledgement:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
get dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
Then, the CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail message containing the requested
document (EDI_document.doc) as an attachment.
You may obtain the summary information, or even download a multiple of documents
through a single mailing form. This presumes that you have already obtained the URL
addressed to those documents through a search query.
Example 6: Obtain the summary information of the documents located at the
URLs "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI" and
"/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12"
respectively, and download the documents located at the URLs
"/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document"
and "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards".
The query should be structured as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following
acknowledgement:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
Then, the CIRCA will send to you four additional E-Mails. Two of these will contain
the documents you have requested from the library as attachments and the other will
contain the summary information of the selected documents.
E-Mail Interface - Newsgroups Service
You can search, download (get command) any contribution or posting within the newsgroups
created in an Interest Group.
You can insert multiple commands within a single mailing form, so you may obtain
information for many postings or download many postings through a single mail form.
Examples on the functionality of the E-Mail interface related to the Newsgroup service
can be found below:
Example 1: Search the Newsgroups for postings that contain the word "EDIFACT".
The query that should be entered at the message body should be as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search EDIFACT
By supplying this query, the E-mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an
acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
reply-to E-Mail address of the user
search EDIFACT
Then CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the
postings within the newsgroups with the world "EDIFACT". The response will be in the
following format:
Search Results for: EDIFACT
1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
Description: EDIFACT recommendations
2. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
Description: EDIFACT and X12
2 Returned Object(s)
You can download an object using the get command (get URL path).
This example illustrates the basic functionality of the E-Mail interface. You may
use the AND/OR boolean operators to form complex queries.
Example 2: Search the newsgroups for postings/contributions that contain the
words EDIFACT AND X12 as attributes. The query in this example should be as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search EDIFACT AND X12
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received
request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
search EDIFACT AND X12
Then, CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the
postings/contributions within the newsgroup service with the word "EDIFACT" and "X12".
The response will be in the following format:
Search Results for: EDIFACT AND X12
1. URL path : /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
Description : Edifact and X12
1 Returned Object(s)
You can get information on the above objects using the info command (info URL
path), and you can download an object using the get command (get URL path).
You can also create queries based on phrases as long as the selected phrase is
enclosed within double quotes.
Example 3: Search the newsgroups for postings that contain the text
"ANSI standards" at any of its attribute fields. The query in this example should
be as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
search "ANSI standards"
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received
request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
search "ANSI standards"
Then, CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the
postings/contributions with the text "ANSI standards". The response will be in the
following format:
Search Results for: "ANSI standards"
1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
Description: ANSI standards
1 Returned Object(s)
You can download an object using the get command (get URL path).
Through the search command, you obtain the URL-paths of the postings/contributions
that contain the supplied keywords. You may now use these URL's through the get command
to download the corresponding postings/contributions. This is illustrated with the
following example.
Example 4: Download the document located at the URL
/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html and titled as
Edifact recommendations.
This query that should be structured as follows:
user username
group interest-group-name
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received
request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
reply-to E-Mail address of the user
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
Then, CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail containing the requested posting in the
message body (EDIFACT.html).
You may download many postings/contributions through a single mailing form. This
implies that you have already obtained the URL address of those documents through a
search query.
Example 5: Download the postings located at the URLs
/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
and /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
The query should be structured as follows.
user username
group interest-group-name
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received
request. The response will be in the following format:
<DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
reply-to E-Mail address of the user
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
Then, CIRCA will forward to you two additional E-Mail messages as attachements
containing the postings you requested from the newsgroups service.
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