WebmailASP: POP3 Webmail Replaces Desktop Clients

All the functions you and your users expect from POP3 webmail

• Retrieve and read the messages from your POP3 server, including those in HTML format.
• Compose, reply, or forward new messages.
• Add signatures to your messages.
• Send, receive, open, or save attachment files. WebmailASP comes with the code that transfers the attachment from the browser to the server; no upload component is required.
  Note: For more information about the Upload code integrated with WebmailASP, visit our Free ASP Upload web site.
• Keep the messages in standard folders - Inbox, Sent, Deleted - or in a folder or subfolder created by you.
• Upon login, Inbox is refreshed automatically in the background.
• Inbox is refreshed automatically every X minutes, behind the scenes. If the user presses the refresh button, a Refresh Inbox dialog is shown and reports details about the communication with the POP3 server.
• Decide when to delete the messages in the POP server (four settings available.)
• Read a message in the main window or in an individual pop-up window. The pop-up message window is useful in many scenarios: to print the message; to be able to have several messages open at the same time; to switch folders and perform other operations while keeping the message open.

• Browse your archived messages with the help of a collapsible folder tree.
• Sort folder listings by column, ascending or descending.
• Do a text search ("all words", "any of the words", "exact phrase") and find matching messages in standard or user-defined folders.
• Decide if and when to delete automatically stored messages (for example: after x days in Deleted folder.)

• Users have their own contact books or books; each book lists many contacts; each contact is defined by a name, street address, etc. and a list of e-mail addresses.
• A book of contacts can be imported from another application (Outlook, etc.) through a .CSV file.
• Contact functions include: create, update, move to another book, delete.
• Do a text search and find, in any of your books, contacts that match the criteria against First Name, Last Name, Street Address, etc.
• Included are the very useful buttons that, with one click, let you send an address from the contacts window to the Compose window.
• Special printable page combines the information in the contact books for convenient printing.

• Rename messages (change the subject) to better label a stored message.

Exceeding the standards for POP3 webmail interfaces

All good desktop e-mail clients have menus, toolbars, pop-up dialogs, etc. However, these powerful and familiar interface bits are very difficult to find in another POP3 webmail sites (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.)

• By having the folders tree, the folder listing and the message contents all in one page (the main window) you avoid all the clicking and page loading required to access the otherwise standalone pages. A similar layout is used for the contact books pop-up window.
• Search results for messages or for contacts are presented just like a regular folder or book listing. This gives you the possibility of doing message- or contact-related operations right there.
• Testing validity of fields before form submission.

• Both the main window and the contact window have a toolbar at the top, giving not only direct and quick access to all the available functions but also occupying very little space in the page. Toolbars are so useful that it is almost impossible to find a desktop application without one. They are, however, often overlooked in web applications.

• When Inbox is refreshing in the background, the refresh button shows an animation.
• When new mail arrives in the Inbox, the title of the window changes. This alerts the user for new mail. If the window is minimized, the user still sees the "new mail" message, in the taskbar.
• The current folder is highlighted in the tree.

• Opening a new dialog on top of the main window to show additional information is common practice in desktop applications because it lets the user see both windows at the same time. For a web application there is also another advantage: it cuts the time spent loading pages; going back to the original page is just a matter of closing the pop-up.
• From the main window these are the pop-ups with additional data and functions: Compose dialog; Print Message/View Message window; Contacts manager dialog; Inbox refresh window.
• Logic was added to the code to make sure that the pop-up windows are closed when the main window is closed or when the user logs out. The only exception is the autonomous Compose window.