FirstClass Basics FIRSTCLASS DOCUMENTATION LIST: Find It FC: Click here to look up FirstClass Topics FirstClass Site Map What's New in FirstClass Printable "Getting Started" Basics Mailbox Rules Calendars Messages and Documents Controller's Guide Mobile Devices Frequently Asked Questions and Tips Off-Campus Connection Features Organizing Messages FirstClass on the Web POP Clients Installation - Windows Preferences Installation - Mac

New accounts

FirstClass accounts are available for all Wellesley faculty, staff, and students.

• Students: If you are an entering student, account login information will be emailed to your MyWellesley account the week before you come to campus. FirstClass accounts will be ready for you when you arrive.
• Faculty and Staff: Some new faculty accounts are created during the summer. Accounts for faculty and staff may be requested at the Computing Help Desk (X 3333). The Help Desk will need to know the name of the department head or staff supervisor in order to verify the account. After the new account is created, a paper confirmation will be sent to the on-campus address of the person who owns the new account. This confirmation includes the username and initial password. Call the Computing Help Desk for information and technology training for new users.

All Wellesley faculty, staff and students are also assigned passworded domain accounts so that they can access college resources and computers.

Your Internet email address is in the form: username@wellesley.edu (substituting your assigned username). This is the address people from off-campus should use when sending email to you.

Usernames are a maximum of eight characters. Some usernames end with a number to make them unique.

When you use FirstClass to send email to someone else who has a Wellesley FirstClass account, instead of using their Internet address, you should use their "FirstClass name" which is their first and last name.

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Start FirstClass

• Windows: Either double-click the FirstClass shortcut on your desktop or click the Start Button and choose Programs (or All Programs) > FirstClass > FirstClass.
• Macintosh: Click the FirstClass icon in the Dock or open the Applications folder and double-click FirstClass.

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Log in

Protect your password. It is possible to save your entered user ID and/or password on the computer by clicking Save. We recommend against saving this information because it may leave your account accessible to anyone using that computer. To reset the fields to blank again, delete your username and password and click Save.

If you decide to save your password on a computer that is not accessible to others, you will notice that the Password field has been filled with extra asterisk characters. This is a feature intended to obscure from an observer the number of characters in your password.

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Exit FirstClass

Clicking the Exit button on the desktop toolbar will log you off and close the program. If you close all of the FirstClass windows on your computer, an account statistics message will appear with buttons allowing you to log in again or exit. After 30 minutes of inactivity the system will log you out of FirstClass. Do not leave any passworded account open on a computer unless you are present. Log out of all accounts and the computer when you leave the area.

You can also exit using a menu:

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Password

You should change your assigned password immediately after your first login. You can change your password again at any time.

1. Collaborate > Change Password...
2. In the Old password field, type the password that you used to log in.
3. TAB to the New password field.
4. Type a new password. You can use letters, numbers and/or most symbols. Choose a password that is not easy to guess. Do not share it with anyone or write it in an obvious place.
5. TAB to the Retype password field.
6. Type the new password again.
7. Click OK.

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FirstClass desktop

The FirstClass desktop is the starting place for the program. When you first open your desktop some of your icons will be arranged along the top and left border. There will also be a few Wellesley-specific icons in the middle space. You can drag the icons to arrange them as you like. If you prefer to see these objects in a list, from the View menu choose View by List.

The icons on your desktop allow you to navigate through your account and many Wellesley conferences that contain messages. A red flag will appear near any object when it contains an unread message (a message that you have not opened or that you have marked as unread). One of these icons is your mailbox and is described below. General information about using conferences is also below on this page.

Several of the icons are explained in other parts of this documentation: Bookmarks, Calendar, Contacts, Trash can and Mailbox.

Deleting desktop items

To delete an item, select it then either type the DELETE key on your keyboard or from the File menu choose Delete.

Deleting an alias to a conference has no effect on the original conference or on anyone else's desktop. If you have placed original files, folders or conferences on your desktop, you should be careful about deleting them as they won't be recoverable after the nightly system audit purges the trash from your account. To determine what kind of item is represented by an icon on your desktop, select it and from the File menu choose Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Macintosh) and look near the top of the Info window. The icon may be called a file, a folder or a container and it may be either an alias or an original item. (A "container" is a conference.) If the item will not delete it is either a permanent item (see previous paragraph) or it is protected. You may be able to unprotect it yourself. To unprotect any item, select it then from the menu choose File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Mac) then uncheck the Protected box. If the Protected box is grayed-out so that you can't uncheck it, the alias was probably put on your desktop by the administrator. This is true of course conference aliases that are put on faculty desktops. If you would like the alias unprotected so that you can delete it or move it to a folder, post a request in the Conference Requests conference.

Adding desktop items

If you frequently visit a conference and would like to access it more quickly, you can add an alias to that conference on your desktop. First navigate to the original conference through Wellesley Conferences. Click once on the conference to select it, then from the menu choose Collaborate > Add to Desktop. Course conferences can be found inside Wellesley Conferences in a conference called Courses.

If you have deleted Bookmarks, Contacts or Calendar, you can add them again to your desktop as new empty folders. From the menu choose File > Open then choose what you want to add.

Desktop Backgrounds

You can add a background picture to your desktop. To use a default image provided in FirstClass Client, open your FirstClass desktop, and go to View > Change View Properties. Click the Background tab, and select one of the image files listed in the Image field. Check the box next to Use picture.

If you wish to customize your desktop by using an image not provided by FirstClass, you may use your own .JPG image. There are two ways to do this, depending on whether you wish to see the image on just your own computer or on other computers as well.

Background on your own computer only:

Windows: Open C: > Documents and Settings > All Users > Application Data. (If you do not see the Application Data folder, it may be hidden. Go to Tools > Folder Options and click the View tab. Under the Hidden Files and Folders heading, check Show hidden files and folders to unhide items.) Open Application Data > FirstClass > Images. Place your background image in this folder. The new image should now be listed among the images available under the Background tab in the Change View Properties window. If it is not listed, exit and restart FirstClass.

Macintosh: Open Macintosh HD > Library> Firstclass > Images. Place your background image in this folder. The new image should now be listed among the images available under the Background tab in the Change View Properties window. If it is not listed, exit and restart Firstclass.

Background on all computers:

If you use the following procedure, your image will download to the hard drive of each computer that you use to read your mail.

Click the Preferences button on your desktop. In the Preferences window click the Messaging tab and Mail Rules sub-tab. Click the Mailbox Rules button to open your rules folder. You will see a Rules log and possibly some mailbox rules.

Drag your image file into the rules folder. Close the rules window (and the Rules Log window if this pops up). Open your mailbox, and when the file transfer is complete, close your Mailbox. The new image should now be listed among the image files available under the Background tab in the Change View Properties window. If you don't see it, try restarting FirstClass.

When you open your FirstClass desktop for the first time on a computer that is not your own, your desktop will be blank until you open your Mailbox, which will load the image file onto that computer.

Changing icon view properties

Most people choose icon view for their desktops. If you prefer a list view, follow the instructions on the Organizing page. Although those instructions refer to your mailboxes in list view, desktops can be set up this way as well.

Icon size

The large, higher-resolution icons may not be what you want, especially if you keep a lot of icons on your desktop. You can make all of your icons any uniform size from 16 to 128 pixels by following these steps:

Wrapping icon names

Icon names can be wrapped so that there is a maximum number of characters per line.

1. From the View menu choose Change View Properties.
2. Click the Icons tab and change the Width to wrap titles from No Wrap to the number of characters you choose.
3. Click Apply and OK.

Snapping icons to a grid

Icons that are snapped to a grid are forced to align horizontally and vertically. This will give a more organized look to your desktop.

Locking icons in place

Locking icons will prevent them from being moved to different positions on the desktop or into another folder. When dragged, the icon will simply return to its locked position on the desktop.

To lock an individual icon, right-click the icon and choose Properties (Windows) or CONTROL-click the icon and choose Get Info (Macintosh). Then check Icon position locked.

To lock all of your icons, from the View menu choose Change View Properties. Click the Icons tab and check Lock positions.

 

Trash can

Anything you delete from your account will remain in the trash can until the nightly system audit permanently process purges it from the server. (This procedure begins at 3:00 AM and continues for several hours to work through each account and conference. If the process does not reach each account, it will begin again where it left off on the next night.) Open the trash can to view a list of deleted items. You will be able to see from which folder they were deleted. If you want to undelete anything, select it and click the undelete button. The item will return to the folder where it originated. For more information see the section on Deleting.

 

Navigation pane

The navigation pane on the left side of your screen is meant to give you an alternate way to look at your messages and files and to reduce the number of windows that are open the same time. To show the navigation pane, click the triangle on the vertical separator bar (circled in red). To hide the pane, either click the X to close the window (circled in green at right), or click the triangle on the vertical separator bar. The triangle will remain after you close the pane so that you can click it to reopen whenever you wish.

Another way to close or open the navigation pane is by clicking the Show/Hide Navigation Pane button on the bottom left of the window.

 

 

 

 

 

Reading pane

If you use the navigation pane you can also open a reading pane to display the content of selected messages. This allows you to peruse messages without opening them in separate windows. Click the icon on the bottom right of the window . This causes the window to cycle among three modes: no reading pane, reading pane below message list, reading pane to right of message list.

 

Aliases (shortcuts)

To avoid spending time navigating through levels of conferences, it is useful to add aliases (shortcuts) on your desktop for the conferences that you read frequently. These aliases will be marked with red flags when they contain messages you have not read, however a flag does not apply to any sub-conferences within that conference. Conference controllers may also add an alias to your desktop for you. To determine whether an icon represents an alias or an original item, click it once to select it and from the File menu choose Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Mac). The top right corner will report either original or alias. Unless you are the controller of the original conference, you will not be able to change the name of an alias.

To add a conference alias to your FirstClass desktop:

1. Navigate to the conference icon for which you would like to make an alias. Do not open the conference.
2. Right-click on the conference icon (Windows) or hold down the mouse button (Macintosh) and select Add to Desktop from the menu. A copy of the icon will appear on your FirstClass Desktop as an alias to the original conference.
3. You can delete any alias you have added to your FirstClass desktop. This will have no effect on the original conference. To delete:
4. Click the alias you want to delete.
5. Either click the Delete button on the toolbar or press the DELETE key.

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Toolbars

At the top of each FirstClass window you will see a toolbar of buttons. Different windows have different toolbars because the common commands for each window differ. For example, on a window where you type a message you will find buttons to attach a file to the message and to show a bcc: field. Those toolbar buttons would not be useful on your desktop or mailbox. All functions provided by toolbar buttons can also be found within the menus.

There are several settings changes you can make to toolbars, however some conference toolbar settings may be temporary if the controller has saved specific settings for that conference. To access the settings menu for a toolbar, right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) and choose from the pop-up menu. When applying a change to a particular button, you should click directly on that button.

Buttons can be added or removed from toolbars. If you edit a toolbar you should see a change on any computer that you use, however if you move between platforms (Mac and Windows) the changes may not be consistent.

Most windows have Go Back and Go Forward buttons on the left side of the toolbar. These behave in a similar way to the back and forward buttons on a web browser.

Icon only or Icon and Text

To change the entire toolbar to either icon only or icon and text, right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) on the right side of the row of buttons, past the last button, and choose either Display Icon Only or Display Icon and Text.

To change an individual button, right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) directly on that button.

Toolbar Size

The size change applies to the entire toolbar. For some conferences, this is set by the controller. To change the size, right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) on the toolbar and choose Size > Large, Medium or Small.

Adding a toolbar button

1. Open the window where you would like to add a button. (If you add a button to the toolbar of any received message, the new button should appear on the toolbar of every received message. The same holds true for sent messages etc.)
2. From the View menu choose Toolbars then Customize Toolbars.
3. Choose a category of buttons using the pull-down menu in the field labeled Category.
4. The Buttons section of the Customize Toolbars window shows you icons for all the buttons in the selected category.
5. Arrange windows so that you can see the entire Customize Toolbar window as well as the toolbar of the window that you would like to customize.
6. Drag the button from the Customize Toolbar window to the toolbar at the location where you would like it to appear. You can also drag a spacer to any location on the toolbar.
7. Click Close.

Removing a toolbar button

Right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) on the button and choose Remove Button.

Resetting a toolbar to its default state

Right-click (Windows) or CONTROL-click (Macintosh) on the right side of the toolbar and choose Reset Toolbar.

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Disk usage quotas

Every FirstClass user has a certain amount of disk space available on the server. If you have reached your quota you may find that you are not able to send messages, change your preferences, or edit your resume. The contents of your Mailbox (including items in folders and attachments), files on your desktop, and resume content take up disk space. If you have created a conference on your desktop, all messages it contains count toward your quota, even if they were posted by others.

Most people who exceed their quota find that messages with large attachments are the problem. You can download an attachment to your computer if you need to save it, then delete the message. As soon as you delete a message or file, disk space will be freed in your account. However, deleting an entire folder of messages doesn't give you back your disk space until the system audit procedure reaches your account, which may be 1-3 days. To avoid this problem, first open the folder and delete the contents before deleting the folder. As always when deleting, be sure that you have selected only the item(s) that you intend to delete. Selected items are highlighted in blue.

An indicator of your remaining disk space is located on the summary bar, just below the toolbar. This indicator keeps track of how much of your allotted FirstClass disk space you are using .

Here's a quota quiz to test what you know about your quota - you can check your answers

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Quick Filter search

The toolbar in your mailbox, conferences and folders includes a filter for on-the-fly searches. Type into the filter a subject name, date, or recipient/sender and you mailbox will automatically bring up the messages that have include keyword. Note that if you need to search search for text within messages you should use the Find function.

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Mailbox

The mailbox on your FirstClass desktop contains your personal email. These are messages addressed specifically to you, either from someone using FirstClass or from elsewhere on the Internet. To access a list of the messages in your mailbox, double-click the mailbox icon on your desktop. Messages in your mailbox are set to never expire.

Reading email messages in your mailbox

By default, your email messages appear in list format with the most recently received messages at the top of the list. Your mailbox also contains a copy of each message sent by you. Unread messages are marked with red flags and messages with attached files are marked with paperclips .

To read a message in the list, double-click on that message to open it in a new window. The header section at the top tells who sent the message, to whom it was addressed and the subject. If there are any attachments they will be listed in the header. Either the header or the message text area may have a scroll bar. To change the magnification of the text in any message, use the control at the bottom left of the window. Close the message window when you are done reading it.

For more information about email messages see the Messages and Documents page.

Mailbox view

Messages with the same subject are grouped (threaded) together by default. The hierarchy of replies is indicated by indented messages having subjects that are preceded by "Re:" and followed by a sequential number. If the group is open, all messages are listed individually and the top message is marked with a minus sign (Windows) or down-pointing triangle (Macintosh). If the group is closed, only the top message in the group is listed and it is marked with a plus sign (Windows) or a right-pointing triangle (Macintosh). You can alternate between an open and closed group by clicking on the symbol or triangle next to the message. Click the symbol or triangle at the top of the column to change the entire list.

If you are using the navigation pane you can choose to set your mailbox so that incoming and outgoing mail are in separate views. You will see the Inbox and Sent Items boxes only in the navigation pane, not in your opened mailbox. To set this up, follow the instructions on the FirstClass Settings page for setting mailbox style. If you make this change, unread messages will appear bold in the list.

Your Mailbox can be set up with rules so that a specified action is taken when messages are received or sent. For example you can set up a rule that automatically moves certain messages to a folder. Please see the FirstClass Mailbox Rules instructions.

Be careful when moving messages from your mailbox to a conference. Messages that are in your mailbox or inside folders in your mailbox are set to never expire. Conferences can have different default expiry periods. Although you may have permission to move items into a conference either from your mailbox or another conference, we do not recommend doing so because the object will be subject to the expiry period of the conference where it has been moved. Many conferences are set for a 30-day expiry period. If you move a message that is already 31 days old into a conference with a 30-day expiry period, the message will be considered expired and will disappear. Expired items can not be recovered. As always, be sure to set appropriate default expiry periods on all conferences you control.

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Conferences

Most conferences are found inside Wellesley Conferences on your desktop. Conferences are spaces for sharing messages among members. Many conferences are open to all Wellesley FirstClass users and others are limited to certain groups of individuals such as a class, department or club. Most conferences allow members to send messages to the conference and to read messages, but other types of permissions can be set allowing people specific kinds of access to a conference (e.g., allowing members to send messages but not read them). The controller of each conference is responsible for setting up these permissions. To learn more about conference permissions, read the Controller's Guide for FirstClass.

Many conferences contain other conferences and are organized in a hierarchy that is meant to help FirstClass users find information that is useful to them. For example, Wellesley Conferences contains a conference called Departments. Departments contains two conferences called Academic Departments and Administrative Departments. Academic Departments contains a conference for each academic department, such as Spanish, Mathematics and Music.

Reading conference messages

Double-click the icon of the conference that you would like to read. When you open a conference, you will see messages and/or other conferences. Unread messages and conferences that contain unread messages are marked with red flags . Messages with attached files are marked with a paperclip . When a message or conference is marked as read or unread it refers only to you, not to others using the conference.

To read a message in the list, double-click on that message to open it in a new window. The header section at the top tells who sent the message, to whom it was addressed and the subject. If there are any attachments they will be listed in the header. Either the header or the message text area may have a scroll bar. To change the magnification of the text in any message, use the control at the bottom left of the window. Close the message window when you are done reading it.

For more information about conference messages see the Messages and Documents page.

Conference view

As in your mailbox, conference messages with the same subject are often grouped (threaded) together by subject. If the group is open, all messages are listed individually. The the message is marked with a minus sign (Windows) or down-pointing triangle (Macintosh). If the group is closed, only the top message in the group is listed. A closed group is marked with a plus sign (Windows) or a right-pointing triangle (Macintosh). You can alternate between an open and closed group by clicking on the symbol or triangle. Click the symbol or triangle at the top of the column to change the entire list.

Conference controllers can determine the way sub-conferences and messages are displayed. For example, the controller can set the default size of the window, whether the messages are displayed as a list or as icons, the order of messages and the expiry period of messages. Non-controllers can temporarily change the view properties (e.g. window size, sort order) of a conference that has been formatted by a controller. Some controllers do not set the view for other users. In these cases, the default conference view set on your computer will take hold. To set the default, open any conference that has a controller who is not you (such as System Notices) and set the view the way you like. This will be the default on that computer; it will not hold when you go to a new computer.

If you see one or more user icons on the left of the status bar on an open conference window, click them to see a directory of others who currently have this conference open.

In some conferences you will see one or more icons on the top right of the window. These tell you which changes the conference controller allows you to make. You will see some of these icons in your mailbox and desktop too. The picture at the right describes the meaning of each icon.

 

 

 

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Printing

To print any open message or window, File > Print. The default printer for the computer you are using will be selected, but you can change to an alternate printer.

To print with additional features such as an optional header or footer, File > Print Layout and click the Messages tab. Select the elements you want from the pull-down menus.

To print multiple messages:

1. Select multiple messages that you want to be printed. Selection of a closed thread includes all messages in that thread.
2. Right-click (Windows) or hold down your mouse button (Macintosh) on any of the selected messages.
3. Choose Print from the pop-up menu.

 

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FirstClass help

Context Help:

For help with the window in which you are currently working, click the Help button in the toolbar of any window, or from the Help menu choose Help. For example, clicking the help button while on your FirstClass desktop will open a help pane that describes how to open items and how to access your mailbox. Common topics in Context Help include Where Am I? and What Can I Do Here? Context help is great for quick information without going to the web.

Help Menus:

More detailed help can be accessed through the Help Menus. Choose Contents then Client Help. Help pages are organized by topic, and the appropriate topic can be selected from here. If you use the search/find function in the help files, be aware that these objects are not messages but documents. Set your search criteria to include either Documents or Everything.

 

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• Becky Atwood, ratwood@wellesley.edu
• Information services
• Modified: 6 November, 2009