Compose

How to select recipient(s)

The Mail Sender includes four different interfaces for recipient selection (for more information on other interfaces, see  Options, Saving Defaults. The default OOTB recipient selection interface is entitled "Users by Role".

Beginning at the top of the "Compose" screen, the From: field will show the email address of the current user. Whether this becomes the "reply-to" address for any response is something controlled within the Options page (again, see Options, Saving Defaults).

The To: section of the interface is where recipient selection occurs through checkboxes, with selections applied to roles, groups, sections, individual recipients, or any combination thereof.

The recipient lists are first arranged by role, and the respective site participants for each role can be listed by clicking on the "Select <role name>" action link, which expands the list and changes to a "Collapse" action link for collapsing the list once again. Recipients are ordered alphabetically by surname. (The Mail Sender will handle every role defined in the site in this way.)

At the bottom of the To: section is a field for adding any optional email addresses, and it is labeled Other Recipient(s). This field will typically be for non-site participant addresses.

Email Subject and Message Body

The Subject: line displays the site title by default. This can be overwritten if desired. Two message body editors are available for use, plain text and WYSIWYG (HTML). Whichever editor is declared in sakai.properties is used by default, however, the other can be selected from the Options page.

How to attach file(s)

Directly beneath the recipient selection view is an action link which enables users to “Attach a file” to the email message. Clicking on this link prompts the user to browse for a file on the desktop. After selecting the file, the Open and then the “Attach” buttons must be clicked to complete the action. Note that attachments are files added from the users computer only, and thus are not handled as resources or other Sakai attachments.

Email Retention

Below the composition pane are two options, the first, “Send me a copy”, is simply to allow the sender to retain a copy of their own outgoing message. The second, “Append to Email Archive”, determines whether a copy of the message will be saved under the Email Archive tool. Note that if appended is checked, the message will be visible to all site participants. Defaults for both these options can be set by the site maintainer (see Options).

Sending Email and the Confirmation Page

The Send Mail button is the trigger; clicking on it distributes the message according to the recipient selections made. Once clicked, a “Message sent to” confirmation page is immediately returned listing the intended recipients.