In Reply To:
Are you saying that switching that off and then clicking on the check mail will work and that having set to check mail automatically on log-in won't ?
Yes, that should be the case. It's because most popup blockers will block window.open()'s that aren't a direct result of a page click. That means clicking on a link that calls javascript functions to open a popup is okay, but login and on window load, open up a popup is not okay.
In Reply To:
Another thing I don't quite get is about the floating div. Are you saying that it is not possible to have the content/function displayed in the pop-up displayed in a floating div that wouldn't require reloading of the page either ?
It would be possible to do, just that the status of the mail checking is lost when you clicked on any links on the page since those result in page loads. If we had a fully dynamic system like Google mail does (using AJAX, etc), then it would be possible to do it properly since nothing on the page actually loads a new page (it's just modified dynamically).
Adrian