Next to the annotations mechanism and the discussion facility (which was not implemented in the first prototype due to time constraints), the Mail client also facilitates intragroup communication.
Via the Mail program, a group member may send personal messages to one or more group members of his choice. Of course, the mail messages can contain multiple data modalities. A mail message is, like a group document, a compound document. A message is constructed in an editor that is a subclass of the document facility. Thus, this editor inherits most of his features from his more comprehensive ancestor. Thus, object orientation ensures consistency.
A special kind of mail messages are author annotations. Though these are created within the environment of the document facility, they are sent as mail messages to the author, who will come across them in his incoming mailbox. This mailbox is created automatically for each member of the group, and cannot be destroyed.
A student can create as many mailboxes as he likes. Each mailbox represents a subset of the directed, connected graph that represents a group's shared environment. Mail messages may be moved between mailboxes for archival purposes. This action is done by selecting a mail message from the list (the list at the bottom), by pushing the 'move' button on the toolbar or , alternatively, by selecting the equivalent action from the menu, and by choosing the target mailbox in the popup dialogue. This type of interaction is called object-action interaction.
The sender of a mail message can force the receiver to reply to it. If a reply is expected by the sender, the mail client application puts an exclamation mark in front of the characteristics of the message in the list box. As long as the receiver does not reply, the mail message may not be moved and cannot be discarded.
In the following screen-shot, the dialogue is shown from which characteristics for a mail message are set by the sender.
It is not sure if the Mail application will return in the renewed prototype that is now under development at the Infolab. According to research by Tuk [1995], the general opinion at Tilburg University is that The COOPerator should be integrated with other, often used programs. Grudin [1994] agrees with the interviewees; he also suggests that groupware applications should be intregrated with more heavily used features.
This remark especially concerns the mail facility; at Tilburg University, Pegasus Mail is the main e-mail package. However, to incorporate 'P-mail messages' into the work process of a collaborative writing group, would require a different manner of storage and transportation of these messages. To work seamlessly with The COOPerator, the P-mail infrastructure would have to be adapted so that students still need to connect to a host computer only once for a complete update of their data, mail inclusive! By incorporating the mail messages into the graph, this problem cannot occur in the present design of The COOPerator.
Sjoerd Michels, Tilburg, The Netherlands