Message services

A service is a useful abstraction that collects settings information — usually to set up communication protocols, such as ISP settings—and specific folders for a given single instance of an MTM. What this means in concrete terms, and the implied behaviour, can be quite different in different MTMs. For example,

• For fax, a service would provide a group of settings, such as preferred modem connection speeds. It is not possible to create folders within a fax service, as folders are not a meaningful concept for a remote fax machine. To send a fax, the user simply copies the message on to the service.

• For SMTP, a service would relate to a single mail account.

If a service can contain entries, opening the service from within a message client application should display these entries.

Editing a service should allow the user to change the settings through a suitable dialog. It is up to the MTM to provide a dialog for entering and editing suitable settings, and to store them in a suitable stream. In order that settings can be easily accessed both by server-side and client-side MTM components, the code to store and access settings is normally implemented in a separate library.

Deleting a service removes the service entry, and the settings associated with it. The usual meaning of this is that the user no longer wishes to send or retrieve messages with that service.