Mail Archive User Guide
Viewing Topics and Mails
The homepage of the application presents links to main pages, and a display of the topics of registered mailing-lists :
Figure 1 - MailArchive home page
The following features are available from this home page :
- "Switch to [Time-Line/Table] view": change the topics display
- "Mailing-list statistics"
- "Documentation" : the documentation, including this user guide
- "Open Issues" : known issues/improvements
- "Feeds Generator" : to feed filtered content from the archive in other sites / tools
- "Administrate and Configure" and "Operations" are restricted to admins and described in the Admin Guide.
- "Legend": a legend, to give you the list of configured mailing-lists (that have an associated colour) and configured mail "categories" or types (that have an associated icon).
Legend
Table View
The homepage shows the list of all topics :
Figure 2 - MailArchive home page - Table view
To filter a column depending on text values, enter some text in the "Filter..." field above column title, then click on "Filter" button on the right.
To sort a column just click on the column title. Click again to sort in reverse order. By default mails are presented in reversed chronological order.
Note : it is not possible to sort by ratings for now ...
To filter on a specific mailing-list, and / or on a type of topic (if any configured), just click on its name once in the tag cloud, above the table. To remove the filter, just click again on the same tag.
The size of the tag in the tag cloud, gives you an idea of the number of topics related to it.
To show a topic, just click on its title (see in more details later in this document).
Clicking on a user name would bring a specific user page with statistics and lists of topics and emails from this user.
Note : the user statistics are available only if unlocked by the administrator
TimeLine view
As an alternative to the table view, the mailarchive can be viewed as a time-line by clicking on "Swich to Time-Line view" link in the homepage. It's a different way to present and browse the same information :
Figure 3 - MailArchive home page - TimeLine view
Each topic is represented by a colored line, and the topic title just below this line. The colors match each possible Mailing-List (see the legend above the timeline). The line extends from topic beginning to topic last update date (last mail received).
Moving along the time line is done by left-click and drag on the timeline bands. The lower band moves faster than the upper (more detailed) band.
The icons in front of each line indicate different topics types, depending on what is configured.
Clicking on a particular topic will open a "bubble" pop-up on top of the timeline with following info :
Figure 4 - TimeLine - Topic bubble
The bubble presents the topic title, creator, and a list with initial mail and answers about this topic. Common parts of the mail subjects are represented by "...".
Clicking on topic title will show the Topic page (see below).
Clicking on a particular date will move the time-line toward (or backward) this date.
Clicking on a particular mail subject will open the related mail page.
Clicking on a user name will open the user profile in the wiki (if it exists).
Topics
When clicking on a particular topic, a page shows all messages (mails) that compose it. You can view topics using three different views : list, threads or forum.
It can be displayed as a List in a table (columns can be filtered and/or sorted) :
Figure 5 - Topics - Table view
The same kind of sorting and filtering than you can find from homepage can be applied here.
You can also display a topic as a discussion thread :
Figure 6 - Topics - Threads view
The last possibility is to view topics as a forum :
Figure 7 - Topics - Forum view
The forum view is the only one where you can view the content of the different mails in a same view. Panels are adjusted to present last mail information, you have to use scrollbars to visualize the replies history.
The default view is configured by the administrator.
Mail Messages
When clicking on a particular message link from a topic view, its content is displayed.
In this page you can also have access to all attachments of the email, as links, and to mail headers by clicking on "Show details" in top-right corner.
(screenshots to be added)
Ratings
You have the possibility to vote and attribute a rating to Topics and/or Emails.
Note: ratings are available only if unlocked by the administrator
To do so, navigate to the item you want to vote for, then navigate on the symbol in top-right corner of the page to choose appropriate number of 'stars'. Finally, left-click to vote.
Average ratings are displayed for topics (in homepage) and mails inside topics, in table views.
Statistics
Global statistics
Link to statistics page is also available in Mail archive application homepage.
The statistics page show various information about the managed mailing-lists.
View can be filtered to show only information related to one of the mailing-lists, or, as by default, all mailing-lists.
Figure 11 - Statistics linked to specific DL
Mail Distribution gives repartition of topics depending on mails types and mailing-lists:
Figure 12 - Statistics - Mails distribution
Lastly, Posters localization gives an idea of from where people send mails to the mailing-lists 
:
Figure 13 - Statistics - Posters localization
Note: this information might not be accurate if proper information is not available from wiki profiles, or from a bound LDAP.
User-Specific statistics
When clicking on a user name link from homepage (table view) or from a Topic view (table view), you can bring some statistics about this user contribution to the Mail Archive :
Figure 14 - User Statistics
You can also display lists of topics and emails from this user in the same page.
Searching for mails and topics
Using the xwiki search functionality, by default you will be able to search for all pages in wiki, including mails and topics.
To search only inside mails and topics, you can enter your search terms as follow :
For example, to search for all mails from the mailing-lists talking about XWIKI, you would indicate the following search terms :
To search only for topics, you can use this notation :
For example, searching for all topics having Mail in their subject, you would indicate :
Feeding the archive
This feature allows to easily integrate content from the Mail Archive in other tools or websites, including other wikis.
For this browse to the home page, then click on the "Feeds Generator" link.
A sort of wizard is displayed.
View is divided in two columns :
- first column lets you choose what items you want to be displayed, by selecting filters
- second view outputs the result to expect (and the content to copy/paste to obtain it)
- Click on "Generate" to preview the result
In the following example, we generate some HTML that, once copied in a web page, will output a list of filtered emails :
Figure 16 - Feeds Generator - Sample 1
In this second sample, we generate some RSS feed that can be integrated in another XWiki page :
Figure 17 - Feeds Generator - Sample 2
And this is what we obtain when pasting generated output in another XWiki page :
Figure 18 - Sample XWiki RSS
The possible output formats are :
- HTML
- RSS
- JSON
- XML
These formats allow you to integrate filtered information in virtually any other web-centric information system. With XML and a dedicated XSLT, you could produce any kind of formatting.
With RSS you have the opportunity to re-gain control over what items you want to follow.
Have fun !
