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AfterLogic WebMail Pro ASP.NET FAQ

  1. How to start? Where is Setup.exe?
  2. Synchronization modes. How do they work?
  3. How to connect to gmail.com?
  4. How to change WebMail logo?
  5. I'm getting "Can't connect to POP3 server, check POP3 server settings". How to resolve?
  6. How to translate WebMail interface to another language?
  7. Sort and/or search feature doesn't work. Why?
  8. I'm getting "Server Error in '/' Application". What does this mean?
  9. "Could not find a part of the path '....\settings\adminpanel.xml'" error appears when I try to log in Admin Panel. What to do?
  10. I see "Server Error in '/webmail/AdminPanel' Application" on attempt to log in AdminPanel. How to resolve?
  11. Is WebMail Pro shipped with the full source code? Can I modify it?
 

1.  How to start? Where is Setup.exe?

AfterLogic WebMail Pro ASP.NET is an ASP.NET web application which is often installed on shared hosting which does not allow you to run .exe files. Thus, it's required to manually upload the application files to the server and set the appropriate permissions for files and folders. See "Installation instructions" for details. AfterLogic WebMail .NET is an ASP.NET web application and its installation is a sequence of common for any ASP.NET application steps.
 

2.  Synchronization modes. How do they work?

WebMail Pro can download e-mail messages (or their parts) from mail servers and store the downloaded messages in its storage. This is some kind of cache which reduces number of connections to the mail server and increases performance in most cases. E.g. if the entire message is stored in WebMail Pro storage and you need to view it, WebMail Pro won't connect to the mail server, it'd retrieve message data from its storage instead. Moreover, you can configure WebMail Pro to delete messages from mail servers once they have been placed in the storage and that would increase free space in your mailboxes.

Let's clarify what WebMail storage is. That's a place on the filesystem or in database where WebMail Pro stores messages (or their headers only) downloaded from the mail server. By default, messages are stored on the filesystem, but you can make them get saved into database instead via changing <StoreMailsInDb>0</StoreMailsInDb> to 1 in \DATA\Settings\settings.xml. It's IMPORTANT to change this setting when the storage is empty (i.e. no messages have been yet downloaded into any of existing WebMail Pro accounts). Otherwise, all the messages already downloaded would have become unreadable.

Synchronization modes (sync modes) determine how folders in WebMail storage are synchronized with the appropriate folders on the mail server. Different sync modes can be set for each folder of an IMAP account (Manage Folders screen). However, in case of POP3 account, you can set sync mode for Inbox folder only as POP3 protocol doesn't provide folders other than Inbox, all other folders only exist in WebMail Pro storage, NOT on the mail server. Sync modes are:

Don't synchronize: this folder in WebMail Pro storage doesn't depend on any folder on the mail server, messages will not be downloaded from the mail server into that folder when you click Check Mail. However, if you set up some filters for other folders which make downloaded e-mails transferred into this folder, e-mails may appear in this folder even if its status is set to Don't synchronize.

Direct Mode: WebMail Pro accesses messages directly in the folder on the mail server, neither message headers nor entire messages are stored in WebMail Pro own storage. Some advanced features like search, sorting, filtering are not available in this mode as they cannot work without WebMail Pro storage. This limitation is set by POP3 and IMAP protocols which provide less features than WebMail Pro storage.

Headers Only: WebMail Pro downloads and stores only message headers when you press "Check Mail" button. These headers are used for displaying message list, sorting, filtering and search. However, search works for headers only. When you need to view the message body or its attachments, WebMail Pro downloads the entire message from the mail server and displays it but doesn't place it into the storage.

Entire Messages: entire messages are downloaded and stored in WebMail Pro storage on "Check Mail". This mode provides all the features. Stored messages are used for all the operations including search in entire messages. WebMail Pro never re-downloads messages which have already been downloaded.

For IMAP accounts, Headers Only and Entire Messages modes have two submodes: All Headers/New Headers and All Messages/New Messages. The difference is that New Headers/Messages downloads only new headers/messages while All Headers/Messages modes additionally synchronize flags for messages downloaded in the past. All Headers/Messages mode is useful for IMAP accounts which are accessed not only via WebMail Pro, but also via other e-mail clients (e.g. Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird). If you read a message via another e-mail client, it's marked as "seen" on the IMAP server. To get its "seen" status in WebMail Pro, it's necessary to synchronize the flags.

With sync modes, you can distribute working load and disk space consumption between the mail server and WebMail Pro storage. Direct mode - more load on the mail server, Entire Messages - more load on WebMail storage, Headers Only - the golden mean. We recommend using Headers Only in most cases, but if you need to fully migrate messages to WebMail Pro storage (i.e. delete messages from the mail server after downloading) or/and search in message bodies, you should use Entire Messages mode.

Changing sync mode is not available for XMail accounts type (available if you use AfterLogic MailSuite Pro bundle), All Headers mode is used. Message bodies and attachments are accessed in AfterLogic XMail Server Pro storage directly. This account type provides the best performance due to direct access to mail storage without POP3/IMAP connections.
 

3.  How to connect to gmail.com?

Gmail requires establishing secure connections (SSL/TLS). AfterLogic WebMail supports SSL/TLS and can connect to Gmail.



To connect to servers like gmail.com, you should just specify dedicated SSL ports, SSL/TLS mode will be enabled automatically. The ports are: 465 (SMTP), 995 (POP3), 993 (IMAP).

You also need to enable POP/IMAP access in your Gmail account configuration as shown at:



If you access to your Gmail account through POP3 and use sync mode different from Entire Messages, it's important to set "keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox", otherwise, messages would disappear from your WebMail Pro account or you'd get "Message deleted from server" error.
 

4.  How to change WebMail logo?

You should modify styles.css file of the appropriate skin. Let's take Hotmail_Style for example.

The following class defines the logo height and the logo image source. Actually, the height of the default logo is greater than 58px (it's obvious on the login screen), that's why it's defined in wm_content style, but wm_logo style just limits its height:
.wm_logo
{
    height: 58px;
    border: 0;
    overflow: auto;
}
Remove or change the logo image:
.wm_content
{
    background: url(header.jpg) no-repeat center top;
}
The following class creates a gradient which smoothly blends the logo with the background:
body
{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    width: 100%;
    background: #336699 url(gradient.jpg) repeat-x top;
}
 

5.  I'm getting "Can't connect to POP3 server, check POP3 server settings". How to resolve?

To learn what is mail server and what is necessary to send/receive messages, please refer to this topic.

Typical reasons:
  • the mail host you try to connect to doesn't have POP3 service running;
  • a firewall/antivirus application (installed on the workstation/server WebMail is installed on) doesn't allow WebMail to connect to the POP3 server.
Make sure POP3 server address is specified correctly. You may try to connect to the same POP3 server via another e-mail client like Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird to make sure it works. Also, you should configure your firewall/antivirus to allow WebMail to send/receive messages through SMTP/POP3 (25 and 110 ports). To learn if the issue is caused by the firewall/antivirus, just temporarily disable it for test purpose and try to reproduce the issue.

Also, many smart antiviruses/firewalls have whitelists which contain well known software like Outlook Express. Due to this, such whitelisted software may be allowed to connect to POP3/SMTP servers while WebMail not. If your antivirus/firewall supports such a list, just add MailBee WebMail there.
 

6.  How to translate WebMail interface to another language?

It's easy to translate WebMail interface to any language (let's take Spanish for example):

  1. Make sure the text editor you use supports UTF-8 because all text in WebMail language files is in UTF-8 charset. It's very important to use a text editor in UTF-8 mode because otherwise some characters might be displayed incorrectly for those users which have another language set as default system language. You can use standard Windows Notepad because it supports UTF-8.
  2. Open data\langs\webmail.txt and save this file as webmail.[lang].txt, where [lang]=es is for Spanish destination language (e.g. webmail.es.txt)
  3. Translate webmail.[lang].txt to destination language (e.g. translate webmail.es.txt to Spanish)
  4. In the langs.xml add these lines for destination language (e.g. Spanish):
        <lang>
            <FriendlyName>Spanish</FriendlyName>
            <CultureName>es</CultureName>
        </lang>
    
  5. Compile webmail.[lang].txt into webmail.[lang].resources via ResGen tool which is shipped with .NET Framework or MS Visual Studio distribution (in command line, type resgen webmail.es.txt).
  6. If the webmail.[lang].txt is changed, recompilation (or IIS restart) is required (step 5). If the ".resources" files are blocked, it's necessary to rebuild the whole project. Instead of compiling via ResGen, you may restart your IIS (type iisreset in command line) to build the resources.

    As alternative to the step 5, you may send us webmail.[lang].txt, we'll compile it ourselves and provide you with the compiled webmail.[lang].resources.

    We'd be very grateful to you if you provide us with the translation to be included into the original WebMail package among with other translations provided by our customers.

    To learn how to translate PHP version of WebMail Pro, please refer to WebMail Pro PHP FAQ.
 

7.  Sort and/or search feature doesn't work. Why?

That's because your POP3 account or current IMAP folder is in "Direct Mode" sync mode. In this mode, WebMail Pro accesses messages directly on the mail server without downloading them to database. POP3 protocol doesn't support sort/search on the server-side, IMAP supports that in theory but most implementations don't work reliably. To get sort/search working, select another sync mode:
  • All Headers / New Headers - sort and search work, but you can search in message headers only;
  • All Messages / New Messages - sort and search (in message headers and bodies) work.
 

8.  I'm getting "Server Error in '/' Application". What does this mean?

If you see the following in the error details:
Parser Error Message: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.

This happens because you've not configured WebMail Pro virtual directory as an application in your IIS. To do this, run your IIS Manager (Start / Settings / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Internet Information Services) and open WebMail Pro virtual directory properties, then click Create button in Application Settings section of Virtual Directory tab:



Once you configured the virtual directory as an application, you'll see the following:
  • Windows 2000/XP (IIS5):



  • Windows 2003/2008/Vista (IIS6, IIS7):


Please note, you need to configure AdminPanel virtual directory as an application as well.

If you see the following in the error details:
The WebResource.axd handler must be registered in the configuration to process this request.

That's a well-known problem of IIS 7 if you have ColdFusion installed on your server. To get rid of this error, you need to remove default ColdFusion handler mapping entries from WebMail Pro and AdminPanel application (site) through your IIS 7 Manager. Once that's done, ASP.NET starts working properly.
 

9.  "Could not find a part of the path '....\settings\adminpanel.xml'" error appears when I try to log in Admin Panel. What to do?

You should specify the correct path to data folder as described in the Answer #3.

If you deployed AdminPanel folder into another location (it's in WebMail Pro web folder by default), you should correct WebMailFolderPath path in AdminPanel/Web.config file, it should be a valid path (refer to Answer #3 to learn which paths are allowed) pointing to web folder of your WebMail Pro installation. If you haven't moved AdminPanel from its default location (within the web folder of your current WebMail Pro installation), you don't need to modify this path.
 

10.  I see "Server Error in '/webmail/AdminPanel' Application" on attempt to log in AdminPanel. How to resolve?

If you see the following in the error details:
The path '/webmail/AdminPanel/App_GlobalResources/' maps to a directory outside this application, which is not supported.

You should remove ending slash in the path specified in your WebMail virtual directory properties:



Just remove the slash and press OK button. This issue seems to be a bug of IIS.
 

11.  Is WebMail Pro shipped with the full source code? Can I modify it?

Yes, AfterLogic WebMail Pro ASP.NET is shipped with the full source code and you're free to modify it to implement any feature you need. Note: WebMail Pro package includes MailBee.NET.dll redistributable which is the mailing component used by WebMail Pro. The source code for MailBee.NET.dll is not included.

If you're about to implement a feature in user interface, don't forget that AfterLogic WebMail Pro provides two modes of user interface: AJAX (default mode, but can be disabled) and classic HTML (enabled automatically for old AJAX-incompatible browsers), so you should take care of implementing the feature in both the modes.

Also, AfterLogic WebMail Pro supports skins engine and you can easily create your own skin or modify any of the existing ones.

Please note that we only support the original product functionality. Product modifications are the responsibility of the client, and once the product is modified by the client, we can not support a customized product. All issues that fall outside of answering questions related to our unmodified products must be addressed to our Professional Services team.

Once you modified the source code, you'd need to recompile it to get the changes come into effect. You can do this via MS Visual Studio 2005 or above (Visual Studio 2005 must be with SP1) or compile.bat file shipped in AfterLogic WebMail Pro package (you can find it in WEBMAIL folder). In case if you use Visual Studio, WebMail Pro project must be opened as a web application, not as a web site. Express version of Visual Studio cannot be used as it doesn't support opening web applications.

If you don't have Visual Studio installed, just run compile.bat in web folder of your current WebMail Pro installation.