Access to the yahMAIL public interface is primarily intended for the provision of mail archives or similar collections of messages. It requires no authenticaion and provides no access control. Public access URLs look like the following (may vary on a per-site basis):
http://server.host.name/yahmail/archive-name/ http://server.host.name/cgi-bin/yahmail/archive-name/ http://server.host.name/htbin/yahmail/archive-name/
Initial access returns a folder browse page. This lists the subject, sender and date/time of each message, ordered from most recent to least. Messages are listed a group at a time (ten by default). Any page of these may be requested via links to ranges of messages presented immediately above the message listing.
For some messages a related item lists other messages that the facility considers may be a reply, or a replied-to, etc. (by similarities in the subject field). These are generated from the messages on the current page only! To see related messages from the entire folder's contents it is necessary to use the item window selection list (see below) to select all items. As this can produce a very large page it is also recommended to restrict the number of messages selected based on a pick of the subject field.
Each mail message has a four digit number associated with it. Selecting that number returns the individual message for reading. See 2.2 - Message Read. To open in an separate window most browsers allow a right-click on the link. Select Open in New Window from the menu.
The OPEN button requests the folder specified by the current selection in the list immediately adjacent. Some archives do not allow or present a folder selection list. A newly opened folder replaces the current page. This also generates a filtered listing after pick items have been entered.
The pick text entry fields allow messages to be selectively listed based on whether the respective part of the message contains the string entered. When a pick string has been entered select the OPEN button to load a page based on that selection. Entered strings propagate from page to page so an interative refinement of the listing can be undertaken. These fields may be cleared using the adjacent clear button.
Below the pick entry fields is a selection list allowing the specification
of the size of the browse folder window (i.e. the number of items on each
page). Use the OPEN button to use the current selected value.
Browse Page Persistance
Browse pages replace each other as new ranges or folders of messages are
selected. That is, when a message is read the back
button may be used to return to the original folder page but a folder browse
page back always leaves yahMAIL completely.
2.2 - Message Read
When the four digit number of a message item is selected a page containing the message header and body is returned. There are three sections to this page.
Web URLs in message text are presented as links. This allows direct access to these via the browser. Also strings that look like mail addresses (e.g. first.last-name@mail.host.name) are also presented as mailto: links, allowing direct access to the browser's mail interface.
If the message had an RFC822 header and a content-type field with associated charset attribute, that character set is also specified in the response when reading the message.