The Post Office Module

Manhattan’s Post Office Module is a private system open only to members of your virtual classroom.

As always, a red star on a module’s button means there’s one or more unread messages inside.

Click!

When you first enter the Post Office, you are placed in your Inbox. Your Inbox holds messages others have sent to you.

Red Stars mark unread Messages. If you sent the message, click on ‘?’ to see when it was opened by the recipient(s). Paperclips mark messages with attached files. Click on the ‘?’ for info on the Message.

The subject of the message.The sender.When it was sent.

The ‘Attic’ is a place to put the messages you no longer want to see on a daily basis. We’ll visit the Attic later.

The Outbox holds the messages you have sent to others. We’ll take a closer look at the Outbox later.

This button lets you create a new message. We’ll do that later, too.

Messages are sorted from ‘oldest’ to ‘newest’ Notice that your messages are listed in the order in which they were received. This is the default setting in the Post Office.

You can click here to change the order to “Newest First”.

Throughout Manhattan, the ‘Gather’ command lets you read more than one message at a time. Let’s view all of the Post Office messages sent to you by the teacher, Steve Narmontas...

Click!

The dropdown list shows everyone in the class. Other choices include “Unread” and “All messages” Select the teacher, *Steve Narmontas, from the list.

Click! Once you select a name, click the ‘Gather’ button.

All of the messages sent to you by Steve Narmontas are “gathered” on the same page.

Click! Let’s go back to the Inbox. Remember the Blue Arrows always mean “Go Back”.

Notice that the messages from Steven Narmontas no longer have red stars next to them. That’s because we just opened all of them with the ‘Gather’ command!

Let’s read the third message. It’s from Andrew Broadwater. Click!

The message has a list of command buttons at the top. We won’t go over each one in detail here... Here is the contents of the message.

…but let’s reply to Andrew’s message. Click!

When using ‘Reply’, the new message automatically gets addressed to the proper person... …and the original message is included and ‘quoted’ with > symbols.

Type your reply here. You are also free to delete any part of the original message if you wish.

Click! Click the “Send Message” when you’re finished.

Your reply is sent and you are returned to the message to which you were replying.

Click! Let’s go back to the list of messages in the Inbox.

The Outbox contains messages you have sent to others. Let’s take a look. Click!

Now we’re in the Outbox. The Outbox contains all of the Post Office messages you have sent to others.

Remember you sent all of these messages. This column is used to show to whom you sent messages. Notice that the first message is addressed to multiple recipients while the second message is addressed to only one.

Blue Stars are used to mark messages that have yet to be opened by one or more of the recipients.

When Andrew Broadwater reads this message... …this Blue Star will be cleared.

This message was sent to three people. Only when all three recipients have opened the message …. …will the Blue Star will be cleared.

You can also click on the ‘?’ symbol to find out when someone has opened a message you sent. Click!

When Andrew Broadwater opens this message, you’ll see the date and time here. Let’s return to the Outbox listing. Click

In the Outbox, the ‘Gather’ command works with messages you have sent to others. You can, for example, gather all of the Post Office messages you sent to your teacher.

Let’s go back to the Inbox. Click!

Manhattan’s Post Office is designed to give online learners complete confidence that their messages get through...

You’ve already learned that throughout all of Manhattan’s modules, if you sent the message, you can find out when others have read it. Manhattan messages don’t really “go” anywhere. Rather than being transferred from your computer to the recipient’s computer across the vast Internet, all Manhattan messages are stored on a single computer - the Manhattan ‘server’. If YOU can see a Post Office message in your Outbox, then the person it was ‘sent’ to can see it in their Inbox. Period.

The words “I never got your message”, that applied so often to ordinary Internet , simply have no meaning in Manhattan. You’ll also never hear the words “I must have accidentally deleted your message”. That’s because you can’t delete a Manhattan message!

While you cannot delete a Manhattan messages, you can keep your Inbox neat by storing them in the “Attic”.

To store a message in the Attic, you have to first open it. Click!

Next, click on the “Store in Attic” button. Click!

Manhattan stores that message in the Attic, and brings up the next one in your Inbox. Let’s go back to the Inbox. Click!

The message we just stored in the Attic is now gone from the Inbox.

You can always enter the Inbox Attic to work with the messages you stored there. Click!

The Inbox Attic is simply a place to store messages you no longer wish to keep in your Inbox. Messages stored in the Attic can be read, printed, or replied to just like any other message.

Clicking the “Leave Attic” button will return you to the Inbox. Click!

Manhattan’s Post Office actually has four separate areas...

The Inbox: Contains messages others have sent to you. The Outbox: Contains messages you have sent to others. The Inbox Attic: A place to store received messages when you’re finished with them. The Outbox Attic: A place where your outgoing messages are stored. Store in Attic command

To send a new message, click on any “New Memo” button you find while you are in the Post Office. Click!

You address a Post Office message by selecting one or more names from a list. There are two identical lists of names...

The “To:” list is used to select the primary recipients of the message. The “CC:” list is for other people that you’d like to keep informed about your message. CC: stands for “Carbon Copy”. It is redundant and if it’s confusing, then just avoid using it!

These lists contain the names of everybody in your class.

To send a message to one person, click on their name. Click!

To select more than one person, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key as you click. + Click!

On second thought, maybe I won’t send this to Amy Gary...

+ Click!

You can select a range of names by holding down the key as you click with the mouse. For example, to send a message to everyone in the class...

Click on the first name in the list... Click!

…and hold down the key as you click on the last name in the list. + Click!

After selecting the recipients, type the subject of your message here. The Subject field is required. It must contain some text.

Type the actual message in this text box. This is optional since you may attach files instead. You can type as much as you want. The text box will automatically scroll for you. Be careful! If you spend more than 4 hours typing on this screen, you’ll get logged out!

Web addresses (URL’s) typed into a message become live hyperlinks that people can click. Be sure to include the part... …and leave spaces before and after the address. This will direct their browser window to the specified web site… and away from the classroom! The best method is to ‘right click’ on the link and choose to open the web site in a new browser window. This method will preserve your classroom window.

You can attach up to 20 files to any Manhattan message. The attachment area is at the bottom, and may be out of sight on your computer. You may need to use your web browser’s scroll bars to move down.

We won’t cover it in this tutorial. For normal file attachments, just leave the box unchecked! This checkbox and the ‘fine print’ next to it are for an advanced Manhattan feature.

To attach a file to a Manhattan message, click on any one of the 20 ‘Browse’ buttons. Click!

This brings up a standard Windows “Choose file” dialog box. Use it to find and select the file you wish to attach, then click Open.

You can repeat the process to attach up to 20 files to any message. You’ll be brought back to the compose message screen, with the full “path” to your file entered next to the Browse button.

When you’re ready to send the message, click on the “Send Message” button. Actually, there are two “Send Message” buttons. One is here, at the bottom...

… the other “Send Message” button is here, at the top, next to the Subject: text box. Click!

When the upload is complete you are automatically returned to your Inbox listing. This indicates that the process was successful. Remember, you’ll always find a copy of messages you sent to others in your Outbox. You can also go there to see when they are actually opened.

The amount of time it takes to send the message after you click the Send Message button depends on a lot of things... …the size of the files attached, for for example, which for Microsoft products can be very large... … and the speed of your Internet connection, which is always slower for UPLOADS (which is what you are doing when you send a message) than it is for DOWNLOADS (which is what you usually do). Don’t use your back buttons. Be patient and wait until you are returned to the Inbox listing. It always works!

Click here to exit the Post Office and return to the Main Menu.

Click here to exit the your classroom.

We’ve covered a lot of material in this tour of the Post Office. The good news is that most of what you’ve learned here you can apply elsewhere in Manhattan. Sending a message, for example, is pretty much the same everywhere in Manhattan.

Remember: The Post Office is a private system open only to people in your class. Post Office messages cannot be deleted, but they can be stored in the “Attic”. To find out if someone read your message, find it in the Outbox, and click on the ‘?’ symbol. If you can read the message, then it was “sent”!

End of Post Office Tutorial