Re: New Eudora
- From: Mac-Unitarian
- Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:54:40 +1000
On 2007-10-11 05:16:24 +1000, tvanriet@xxxxxxxxxx (Theo van Riet) said:
Just read in Versiontracker that there is a new Eudora...any experience
yet ?????
Theo
Hello everyone. Yesterday evening I downloaded the much-anticipated first beta of Eudora 8 for Macintosh, and I wanted to offer my initial impressions, along with some suggestions for improvement.
Appearance-wise, Eudora 8 is obviously more pleasant to the eyes, and has a more modern feel to it, compared to Eudora 6.2.4 and earlier versions, which basically maintained the same general appearance for many years. I can't even remember when I first began using Eudora, but I know that it was in the mid to late 90's.
At any rate, while appearance is important, as a long-time Eudora user, what is even more important to me is functionality and ease of use. Upon first opening the application, I must say that I was quite surprised by the large paned window. I wasn't expecting it, and it will take me some time to get fully used to having everything together. I do prefer separate windows for everything, so that I can move things around on my screen as I see fit.
I had no problem redirecting the app to a new location on my hard drive for the "Local Folders" setup. Likewise, importing all of my mail and addresses from Eudora 6.2.4 went flawlessly without any errors.
However, trying to import my 300+ filters from Eudora 6.2.4 resulted in quite a few errors in the console window, and in the end, absolutely none of them were imported. Please don't ask me what the errors were, because I don't remember now, and they are no longer there.
I operate a small private mailing list, and it was in this area that I discovered that Eudora 8 has a way to go before it will fully meet my needs. For one thing, with 6.2.4, I created a stationary file with our mailing list banner at the top. Each time I send a new message to our list, all I have to do is click on the button on the Eudora 6.2.4 dock that I mapped for that particular stationary, and a new editor window would pop up with the banner already there.
In addition to having our list banner at the top of each message, I also had set up a signature which was automatically appended to each outgoing message, unless I told Eudora not to.
Well, I searched high and low all over the place, and unless I am missing something, Eudora 8 for Macintosh doesn't seem to have either of these two functions yet; i.e., no stationary, and no signatures. If I have somehow simply missed finding these two functions in the various menus and windows, I'd appreciate some help.
Another annoyance: With 6.2.4, whenever I write to our mailing list using BCC, all I have to do is open the address book, grab the little book icon for the list, and drag it over to the BCC field, and all of the names and addresses are automatically entered into the field. This obviously doesn't work with Eudora 8. I repeatedly tried to do it, but the little book icon just doesn't drag.
At this stage, Eudora 8 for Mac is just not as user-friendly as 6.2.4. Compare:
With 6.2.4:
1. I click on the new message button on my Eudora button dock, and a new message window opens with the banner already there.
2. I click on the address book button in the dock, and the address book opens in a separate window, and I push it to the side.
3. I drag the mailing list icon from the address book to the BCC field of my message, and all addresses are automatically entered for me in the BCC field.
With Eudora 8 it requires more steps to do the same thing:
1. I click on the new message button on the Eudora menu bar, and a new message window opens, but with no mailing list banner, because there is no stationary yet to make one, as far as I know.
2. I have to manually create a BCC field using the pull-down menu, because there is none there by default, as occurs with Eudora 6.2.4. Why this extra step?
3. I have to click in the address book pane to activate it, and then I have to shift-select all of the names in the mailing list, and drag them to the BCC field. Again, I should be able to just grab the list icon, and drag that to the BCC field.
Another Annoyance: As some other users have mentioned, aside from the filters I have created in Eudora 6.2.4, I rely heavily upon SpamSieve to keep my in-box 99% spam-free. At this point, it appears that SpamSieve will not work with Eudora 8. Whether the author needs to update SpamSieve, or there is a problem with Eudora 8's internal architecture being incompatible with SpamSieve, I don't know.
Another Annoyance: While incoming mail filters can be made in Eudora 8, it appears that there is currently no way to make filters for outgoing mail. In my 6.2.4 setup, I have different message filters set up to send messages to different folders after they are emailed out. With Eudora 8, it seems that I am forced to have all out-going messages sent to the "Sent" folder, whether I like it or not.
I will probably discover other things, but that is it for now.
On a final note, I realize that this is just an early beta, so I am hopeful that Steve Dorner and the crew will listen to the end users, and ensure that the new Eudora fully retains, and improves upon, the feature set found in Eudora 6.2.4. I think it is great that Eudora has gone open source. While that presents its own unique set of potential problems, at the same time, having so many new minds and new ideas feeding its development can only be a good thing for Eudora, I hope. :)
Finally, I also agree with others who have stated that many of us just want Eudora to be a good email client, as it has been. We don't want it to be a newsgroup reader, RSS reader, web browser, or anything else. We already have good apps for that. I feel that if any new features are considered which do not relate directly to receiving, composing and sending email, then they are probably unnecessary, and will only bloat the product. Let's keep Eudora for email, and nothing else.
I look forward to the next beta release. Thanks to the developers who are giving their time to keep Eudora for Macintosh alive! ;)
.
- References:
- New Eudora
- From: Theo van Riet
- New Eudora
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