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Sympa Mailing lists service on lists.cam.ac.uk

Reading the list archive online

To read the messages sent to a list, you have two options:

To read the list archive online, do as follows:

  1. Go to the list environment homepage and log on.
  2. Go to the information page of the list of which you want to read the archive.
  3. In the left menu, click on the 'Archive' link.
  4. The message index of the current month displays.

Presentation of messages

The page always displays the latest messages; thus if the list was idle during the current month, the messages of the latest active month are displayed.

When there are too many messages to be displayed on a single page, only the latest messages display by default. To change page, click on the arrow links around the current page's number:

Chronological and thread order

By default, messages are displayed as threads: they are gathered according to their subject. This way, all answers to a given message are displayed just below the thread's first message and are indented for better readability.

Be careful: it is possible for two messages to have the same subject without being related; however, they will be displayed as if they belonged to the same thread.

To display messages chronologically, click on the 'Chronological' link.

Be careful: this display setting applies as long as you read the messages of a particular month, but if you change month, the default display setting 'Thread' will apply again.

Browsing through the messages

To read a message, click on its subject. Then you can browse through the messages sent to the list by clicking on the arrows surrounding the words 'Chronological' and 'Thread':

Other messages belonging to the same thread as the message displayed are listed at its bottom. Click on their subject to read them.

To come back to the messages index, click on 'Chronological' or 'Thread' according to whether you want to display the index as a chronological history or as a thread. When there are too many messages to be displayed on a single page, you are brought to the index page displaying the message you just read, and not to the page displaying the latest messages.

To look at another month's archive, click on the number of the month in the calendar at the top left of your screen. Every month during which messages have been sent has a clickable number.

When you are on a message page, the calendar does not display.

Content of the messages: links and attachments

Normally, every link contained in a message is clickable: just click on it and it will bring you to the linked resource.

Be careful: when you click on a link contained in a message, you leave the mailing list environment. If you do not want to do that, open the link in a new window or tab. Leaving the mailing list environment does not mean that you log out: your logout depends on the value you set for the 'Connection expiration period' option on the 'Your preferences' page.

When a file is attached to a message, it is displayed at the bottom of the message. To download it, you only have to click on its name.


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