Reading the list archive online

To read the messages sent to a list, you have two options:

• read the messages you receive in your email inbox;
• read the list archive online (through the mailing list web interface).

To read the list archive online, do as follows:

1. Go to the list environment homepage and log on.
2. Go to the information page of the list of which you want to read the archive.
3. In the left menu, click on the 'Archive' link.
4. The message index of the current month displays.

Presentation of messages

The page always displays the latest messages; thus if the list was idle during the current month, the messages of the latest active month are displayed.

When there are too many messages to be displayed on a single page, only the latest messages display by default. To change page, click on the arrow links around the current page's number:

• The '<' arrow displays older messages.
• The '>' arrow displays newer messages.
• The '<<' link displays the oldest messages.
• The '>>' link displays the latest messages.

Chronological and thread order

By default, messages are displayed as threads: they are gathered according to their subject. This way, all answers to a given message are displayed just below the thread's first message and are indented for better readability.

Be careful: it is possible for two messages to have the same subject without being related; however, they will be displayed as if they belonged to the same thread.

To display messages chronologically, click on the 'Chronological' link.

Be careful: this display setting applies as long as you read the messages of a particular month, but if you change month, the default display setting 'Thread' will apply again.

Browsing through the messages

To read a message, click on its subject. Then you can browse through the messages sent to the list by clicking on the arrows surrounding the words 'Chronological' and 'Thread':

• By clicking on the arrows surrounding the word 'Chronological', you read messages according to their chronological order.
• By clicking on the arrows surrounding the word 'Thread', you read messages as a thread (i.e. gathered according to their subject).
• The left arrows let you browse through older messages.
• The right arrows let you browse through newer messages.

Other messages belonging to the same thread as the message displayed are listed at its bottom. Click on their subject to read them.

To come back to the messages index, click on 'Chronological' or 'Thread' according to whether you want to display the index as a chronological history or as a thread. When there are too many messages to be displayed on a single page, you are brought to the index page displaying the message you just read, and not to the page displaying the latest messages.

To look at another month's archive, click on the number of the month in the calendar at the top left of your screen. Every month during which messages have been sent has a clickable number.

When you are on a message page, the calendar does not display.

Content of the messages: links and attachments

Normally, every link contained in a message is clickable: just click on it and it will bring you to the linked resource.

Be careful: when you click on a link contained in a message, you leave the mailing list environment. If you do not want to do that, open the link in a new window or tab. Leaving the mailing list environment does not mean that you log out: your logout depends on the value you set for the 'Connection expiration period' option on the 'Your preferences' page.

When a file is attached to a message, it is displayed at the bottom of the message. To download it, you only have to click on its name.

Replying to a message from the mailing list web interface

You can reply to a message directly from the mailing list web interface. To do this, click on the 'Reply' button on the top right of the message.

Be careful: after clicking on the 'Reply' button, you will not be able to change the recipient anymore; thus be careful when choosing between the message's sender and the list (i.e. all subscribers)!

This method is not very flexible: from the mailing list web interface, you can not add or change some recipients, add an attachment or format the messages you send. Thus you might prefer to use an email client or a webmail.

Searching in a list archive

If you want to find a particular message or if you look for information on a topic, you can perform a search in the list archive. To do that, you have two options:

• perform a simple search;
• perform a search with the advanced search mode.

Performing a simple search

Before starting to use the simple search mode, you should know that advanced search is much more flexible than simple search and will suit your needs better if you do not know precisely what you are looking for.

To perform a simple search, do as follows:

1. Go to the list environment homepage and log on.
2. Go to the information page of the list of your interest.
   It is impossible to perform a search in the archive of several lists at once. If you want to do it nevertheless, you will need to repeat the search for each list.
3. In the left menu, click on the 'Archive' link. A message index page displays.
   You can perform searches from index pages and from message pages.
4. Go to the message index of the month in which you want to search. To do that, use the calendar displayed at the top left of your screen.
   The search will process the messages of the month you chose and of the previous month during which messages have been sent. If you do not know when the message was sent, use the advanced search mode.
5. Enter your keywords in the search box in the upper right corner of your screen.
   Be careful: the search engine will process your input as a sentence. If you want to search with several non contiguous words, use the advanced search mode.
6. Click on the 'Search' button.

The messages matching your search display. To know more, please refer to the 'Search results' section.

Performing a search with the advanced search mode

As the advanced search mode is much more powerful and flexible than the simple search mode, it is much easier to use. To perform an advanced search, do as follows:

1. Go to the list environment homepage and log on.
2. Go to the information page of the list of your interest.
   It is impossible to perform a search in the archive of several lists at once. If you want to do it nevertheless, you will need to repeat the search for each list.
3. In the left menu, click on the 'Archive' link. A message index page displays.
   You can perform searches from index pages and from message pages.
4. Click on the 'Advanced search' button below the search box.
5. Enter your keywords in the search box.
6. Choose your search options.
   Tip: in the 'Extend search field' list, to select all months for which an archive is available, click on the first month, hold down the SHIFT key and click on the last month of the list. Although it is not indicated in the list, the current month will of course be processed as well.
7. Click on the 'Search' button.

The messages matching your search display. To know more, please refer to the 'Search results' section.

Search results

By default, the messages displayed on the results page are sorted from the latest to the oldest and each page displays up to ten results. With the advanced search mode, you can change these settings to match your preferences.

When there are many results, they are sometimes displayed on several pages. Do not get caught by this: if you can not find the message you are looking for, make sure that there are no other results page before giving up...

When you specify a large search range, sometimes only a part of the messages is processed in a first step of search. In this case, a button labeled 'Continue search' displays below results. Click on it to search in the rest of messages. If messages are very numerous, sometimes you will need to perform this action several times.

For each message, the information displayed on the results page is the following:

• message subject;
• sending date;
• sender;
• a few lines of context containing the searched keywords.

To read one of the messages matching your search, you only need to click on its subject.

Be careful: with Internet Explorer, if you go and read a message from the results page, you will not be able to use the 'Back' button of your browser to come back to that page. We advise you to use a modern browser such as Firefox. If you can not use a browser other than Internet Explorer, we advise you to open messages in a new window (right click on links and choose 'Open in New Window') in order to preserve your search results.

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The Fundamentals

Administration:
If you have an Electric Embers billing account (not just a Groups login) and need help managing groups, please see the Groups Administrator's Guide

Logins:
To create your own groups or access private groups to which you belong, you must first create an account and login, either at npogroups.org, or at lists.yourdomain.org if you have a Custom Groups domain. We require nothing other than your email address, and if you guard that carefully you might be interested in our Privacy Policy. If you have already subscribed to a group, then you already have an account and a password, which you should have been sent when you joined; if you have no idea what it is, just click the Request password box on the login page and it will be sent to you.

Note on address changes: To change the email address that is subscribed to group, go to your Preferences page. This will change your subscribed address on all groups on this server.

Group Creation:
Those who have signed up for a Groups account from Electric Embers will see the Create Group button in the top menu after signing in. If you want to create groups, you need to Sign Up for an account. If you haven't done that, you won't be able to create groups. If you're just looking to test out the system, then you will still need to fill out the Sign Up form, and we will give you an account in the testing domain, where you can create your test groups.

Once you have an account, login and click the Create Group button. That takes you to the group creation page, where you can choose the basic initial settings for the group; everything except the group name (and owner) can be changed later from the Group Settings area. After you submit the form, you will be able to fully configure and customize the group immediately, but the list will not be active until the creation request is approved by us. We generally do this quickly, and you will receive notification.

Notifications for Owners and Moderators:
Sympa can keep you informed about all kinds of activity on the group, depending on the settings you choose. It can inform you of subscribe/unsubscribe requests (with or without requiring approval), list messages requiring moderation, or too many messages bouncing from subscriber addresses. Notifications of subscription requests or list messages that require approval will include embedded links to special email addresses for approving or rejecting the request by email; you can also choose to perform these approval functions through the Web site. A group can be assigned any number of different owners (those who have the ability to change group settings) and different moderators (those who have the ability to approve or reject moderated postings), and they will all receive the proper notifications.

Email Commands:
Most list functions (for users and admins) are available by email as well as through the Web, and a few things are best done or only done via email commands. Please see the Sympa Email Command Guide.

Customization:
Almost everything about a group, including its Web page and automatically generated administrative messages, can be customized through the owner's administration page. On an entirely different level, almost everything about the entire site, from the colors to the layout to the contents of the main page, can be customized if you have us create a custom domain within your organization's domain, like lists.yourdomain.org instead of groups.electricembers.net. Please ask if you want details about running your groups in a custom domain.

Subscriber, moderator and owner documentation

For almost all Groups-related questions, Electric Embers provides:

• Groups Administrators Guide
• Groups Subscribers Guide

And for detailed technical info not found there, the Sympa software developers provide:

• a general introduction to mailing lists;
• a user guide about the use of Sympa;
• an administrator guide about the use of Sympa.

You can also write us for help.