Working with Archives in the Web Interface

The Archives feature consists of all files other than notebook logs that have been stored on the LISTSERV host for your list.

The Server Archive Index screen displays any list that has been marked for archiving and can be accessed by clicking Email Lists on the Toolbar.

Note: The Server Archive Index can be set as the starting page when logging on to LISTSERV. For more information, see Section 6.6 Setting Your Personal Preferences.

This screen offers you several options and resources:

•	About LISTSERV – Click to open the L-Soft website in your Internet browser. You will be taken directly to LISTSERV's product page.

•	LISTSERV Documentation – Click to open the L-Soft website in your Internet browser. You will be taken directly to the Documentation page.

To view a quick snapshot of what the list is, simply hover your mouse over the list name. A popup of the list will appear.

Note: This setting can be turned on/off on the Archive Preference tab. For details, see Section 6.6.2 Archive Preferences. In addition, this feature requires javascript.

To access the archives for a specific list, simply click on the list name in the table. If the list is not displayed, then use the Access Unlisted Archives field to search for it. The Access Unlisted Archives field allows you to access the archives of confidential lists that are not listed in the archive index. Simply type the name of the list in the text box and click [Submit]. This field will also work for non-confidential lists.

The Confidential list configuration keyword determines whether the list should be hidden from the archive index or not. Confidential= No is the default value and indicates that the list is not confidential. Confidential=Service indicates that the list is to be hidden from users who are not in the list's service area (see the Service keyword for more details) but not from other users. Confidential= Yes means that the list is unconditionally confidential. See the List Keyword Reference document for more information on these keyword.

After clicking on the list you want to view archives for, you are taken to the List Archives screen for that list. See the next section for information.

The List Archive screen displays the archives for a list. Depending on how the list archive was set up, you can access the archives by week, month, or year.

This page also offers you several other options:

•	Subscribe or Unsubscribe – Click to open the Subscribe or Unsubscribe page. For more information, see Section 11.5 Subscribing, Unsubscribing, or Updating a List from the Archives.

In addition, if the option to view the latest messages on the List Archives page is enabled, then a Latest Messages table is shown at the top of the screen. If you have hovering descriptions enabled as well, then you can hover your mouse over the subject line and preview the message. For details on enabling these options, see Section 6.6.2 Archive Preferences.

To access a specific archive, simple click on it. You are taken to the Archive Index. See the next section for information.

The Archive Index screen displays the message archives for a list.

If an RSS abstract has been defined for the message, and hovering descriptions are enabled, then you can view a quick snapshot of the message by hovering your mouse over the subject. A popup of the message will appear.

Note: This setting can be turned on/off on the Archive Preference tab. For details, see Section 6.6.2 Archive Preferences. In addition, this feature requires javascript.

This page offers you several options:

•	Show Author – Click to show who the message is from (the From column will be displayed in the table). If this information is already displayed, then this option is not enabled.

•	Hide Author – Click to hide who the message is from (the From column will not be displayed in the table). If this information is already hidden, then this option is not enabled.

•	Show Table of Contents – Click to show the table of contents. If this information is already displayed, then this option is not enabled.

•	Hide Table of Contents – Click to hide the table of contents. If this information is already hidden, then this option is not enabled.

•	Subscribe or Unsubscribe – Click to open the Subscribe or Unsubscribe page. For more information, see Section 11.5 Subscribing, Unsubscribing, or Updating a List from the Archives.

To sort the table, you can click on one of the column headers (Subject, From, or Date). For example, if you click on Date once, then the messages will be sorted in chronological order – the oldest message is listed first and the most recent message is listed last. If you click on Date again, then the messages will be reversed chronologically – the most recent message is listed first and the oldest message is listed last. The small white triangle will let you know which column header the table is sorted by and in what order.

Notes: The sort order of the table also determines the Table of Contents. If you sort by Subject, then the Table of Contents will be sorted by subject. However, when the table is sorted using the From column, the Table of Contents changes to a List of Contributors that displays who the message is from.

The default sorting for the table is set using the Primary Sorting and Secondary Sorting options on the Archive Preferences tab under Preferences. For more information, see Section 6.6 Setting Your Personal Preferences.

If you are a server administrator or an owner of the list, then a Recycling Bin icon is displayed next to each message. Clicking on this icon allows you to delete the entire message from the archives.

Before the message is deleted, a confirmation page is displayed, giving you a chance to review or cancel your selection. Once deleted, the message is permanently erased and cannot be recovered.

To view a specific message, click on its subject in the Table of Contents (if visible) or in the table. The message is displayed in the Archive Browsing screen. See the next section for more information.

The Archive Browsing screen displays the message viewer, letting you view all of the messages in the current archive.

You can view your messages using several methods:

This page also offers you several other options:

•	Subscribe or Unsubscribe – Click to open the Subscribe or Unsubscribe page. For more information, see Section 11.5 Subscribing, Unsubscribing, or Updating a List from the Archives.

Note: If the message you are viewing contains additional parts or attachments, then the Parts/Attachments row will be displayed after the email header. To view the part or attachment, simply click on it. For multi-part messages, the default view (HTML or Text) is set using the Default View option on the Archive Preferences tab under Preferences. For more information, see Section 6.6 Setting Your Personal Preferences.

The List Archives screen, the Archive Index screen, and the Archive Browsing screen contain the option for subscribing to or unsubscribing from a list. This Subscribe or Unsubscribe option brings you to the Subscribe or Unsubscribe screen, which lets you subscribe or unsubscribe to a mailing list and to change your subscription settings.

To unsubscribe from a list, simply click the [Unsubscribe to List] button.

To update or subscribe to a list, select the settings you want to use for your subscription and then click either [Update Options] or [Subscribe to List]. See the information below for details on the available settings.

The following settings are available in the Subscription Type section:

•	Regular – With a "regular" subscription, you receive individual postings immediately as they are processed by LISTSERV.

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Digest (Traditional), Digest (MIME format), and Digest (HTML format) – With a "digest" subscription, you receive larger messages (called "digests") at regular intervals, usually once per day or once per week. These "digests" are collections of individual list postings. Some lists are so active that they produce several digests per day.

Digests are a good compromise between reading everything as it is posted and feeling like the list is clogging your mailbox with a multitude of individual postings.

There are three digest formats: a "traditional", text-only format; a MIME format, which (with mail clients that understand MIME digests) "bursts" the individual messages out of the digest so that you can read them separately; and an HTML format, which requires an HTML mail clients.

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Index (Traditional) or Index (HTML format) – With an "index" subscription, you receive short "index" messages at regular intervals, usually once per day or once per week. These "indexes" show you what is being discussed on the list, without including the text of the individual postings. For each posting, the date, the author's name and address, the subject of the message, and the number of lines is listed. You can then download messages of interest from the server (the index contains instructions on how to do that).

An index subscription is ideal if you have a slow connection and only read a few hand-picked messages. The indexes are very short and you do not have to worry about long download times. The drawback of course is that you need to reconnect to retrieve messages of interest from the server.

The following settings are available in the Mail Header Style section:

•	Normal LISTSERV-style header – "Full" mail headers (normally the default), containing Internet routing information, MIME headers, and so forth. The ('To:') header contains the address of the list.

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LISTSERV-style, with list name in subject – "Full" mail headers (like the default) except that a "subject tag" is added to the subject line of mail coming from the list. If there is no subject tag defined in the list's configuration, the name of the list will be used. This can be very useful for sorting and filtering mail.

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"Dual" (second header in mail body) – Dual headers are regular short headers followed by a second header inside the message body. This second header shows what list the message is coming from ('Sender:'), the name and address of the person who posted it ('Poster:'), the poster's organization, if present, and the message subject. Dual headers are helpful if your mail client does not preserve the original return email address.

•	sendmail-style (advanced option) – This option selects sendmail-style headers, i.e. an exact copy of the original, incoming mail header with the addition of a ('Received:') line and a ('Sender:') field. Some technical people prefer this type of header.

•	Normal LISTSERV-style (RFC 822 Compliant) – (For Advanced Use Only) "Full" mail headers (like the default) except that the ('To:') header contains the recipient's email address instead of the list address.

The following settings are available in the Acknowledgements section:

•	No acknowledgements – LISTSERV will not send any acknowledgement at all when you post to the list. This is probably not a good setting unless you really do not want any feedback from LISTSERV as to whether or not your posting was received and distributed.

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Short message confirming receipt – Typically, this is the default setting, although it can be overridden by the list owner. If you choose this setting, LISTSERV will send you a short message whenever you post to the list, confirming the distribution of your message and telling you how many people it was sent.

•	Receive copy of own postings – Some people prefer this setting over the short acknowledgement message. It tells LISTSERV to send you a copy of your own postings so that you can see exactly how it appeared on the list (useful if you are behind an unreliable gateway or firewall).

The following settings are available in the Miscellaneous section:

•	Mail delivery disabled temporarily – This option toggles the receipt of mail from the list. You may want to disable mail delivery if you will be away from your mail for an extended period of time.

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Address concealed from REVIEW listing – This option conceals you from the list of subscribers shown by the REVIEW command. Note that the list owner and the LISTSERV administrator can always get the complete list of subscribers, regardless of this setting. Nowadays, most lists are configured so that only the list owner can use the REVIEW command, but some lists still allow subscribers to get a listing of all the other participants.

For lists with topics enabled, then the Topics section is visible (if the topics section is not visible, topics are not enabled). This section allows you to subscribe or unsubscribe to all, some, or none of the available topics.

LISTSERV 16.0 now has UTF-8 archive searches. The new UTF-8 archive indexer is now the default indexer.

Important: All archives will be automatically reindexed the first time LISTSERV 16.0 starts. Please be aware that this process may take awhile.

The new UTF-8 archive indexer works as follows:

•	The message is parsed and all plain-text parts are decoded, converted to UTF-8 and indexed. If there is no plain-text part, the first text part (presumably HTML) is indexed.

•	Data from the mail header is converted to UTF-8 before being indexed. Only the subject and sender address are indexed, so "date" will no longer be found in every message.

•	The SEARCH command knows to convert input parameters to UTF-8 before calling the search engine, when the index is in Unicode. If you search for åäö, you will find it regardless of the charset in which it was typed.

An index must be either entirely in ASCII or entirely in Unicode. When appending to an existing index, the corresponding indexer is chosen regardless of configuration. To switch to Unicode, you have to re-index. There is no way around that - your old ASCII index doesn't have the entries for base64 messages and so on.

When creating a new index, the ASCII format is automatically chosen.

Unicode indexes have a *FLAGS* line in the DBNAMES file. This is the only way to tell them apart because the index format hasn't had significant changes. In addition, do not be surprised if the index is smaller than before. For many lists, this will be the case. Lastly, take note that searches may be faster than they were before these changes.

•	You are searching the subject only, not the message itself (meaning that you are requesting a subject-only search, using the subject input box). If you search for the subject text in the main input box, it will work.

•	Due to having both old and new search engine active in the product and not wanting to duplicate thousands of lines of code, there may be cases where the search engine returns entries that should not have matched. This will only happen with non-ASCII characters.