To compose new messages, select the menu item ‘Message’ -> ‘New Message ...’ or press Strg + N. You can also click the envelope and paper icon in the toolbar to start the mail editor.

Figure 15.2. Composing a Message

To compose a message, fill in the respective fields in the ‘New Message’ window. To send messages from different e-mail accounts, select one of the identities configured as described in Section “Defining Your User Identity”. The buttons next to ‘To:’ and ‘CC:’ (and possibly ‘blind copy (Bcc):’) open the address book, allowing you to select an address. After entering the first few characters of an address, you can also press Ctrl + T to see a list of possible completions. When the message is completed, click ‘Send’. Under ‘View’ -> ‘Headers’, select various header types with more or fewer entries.

To attach files to your message, click the paper clip icon and select the file to attach. Alternatively, drag a file from the desktop or another folder to the ‘New Message’ window or select one of the options in the ‘Attach’ menu.

Normally, the MIME type (encoding) of a file is recognized correctly. If this is not the case, select the type from a list. Enter a short description in the ‘Description’ field. Then select an encoding from the list of encoding options (the default values usually work). When a file is attached to your message, it appears in the list of attachments in the lower part of the window. Attachments can be saved, removed, or opened by selecting the name of the attachment and subsequently clicking the desired item in the ‘Attach’ menu. You can also attach PGP keys to your messages by means of this menu. PGP keys are treated like file attachments. Their MIME type is application/pgp-keys.