Greetings,
Thank you for your on-going interest in PowerMail. With the help of the
numerous testers who wrote in their comments and opinions, we are pleased
to release the 2.0b3 seed just two (hard) weeks after our initial public
beta; it is available now from:
http://powermail.simplenet.com/PowerMail_2.0_public_beta_3.hqx
Please try this version out and send your comments and impressions to
feedback(_at_)ctmdev(_dot_)com(_dot_) For those who kindly pre-ordered (see our
special
20% discount offer below), we thank you and apologize for not having
answered each one of you *yet* - we'll be contacting you soon you soon.
This release is mostly feature complete, and will expire on April 18th,
1998. Although CTM has made all due efforts in order to make your
evaluation of this program a pleasure, as with any pre-release version of
software we encourage you to use common sense with respect to the
integrity of your files (see the section below "Upgrading from a previous
version of PowerMail")
NEW FEATURES:
- New address book design - initially planned for 2.1 - partially
included by popular demand. It features groups, comments, sorting,
editing and type-finding. Import/Export is currently done by drag and drop
- Multiple signatures are now in place. As is customary, new signatures
are created with a"-- " [CR] line at the beginning of each signature
- Hierarchical folders are now in ! - read the "known issues" below
- Colored priority labels for either subject or entire message entry that
can be assigned manually or using a mail action
- A "redirect" button makes messages look as if they came from the
original sender
- A "Connect Again" button lets you check your mail without going through
a dialog; also added optional mail checking/sending on startup/quit
- Support for APOP
- If the "Systematically retrieve all messages" checkbox is on, we can
speak to POP3 servers which do not know the "UIDL" command
- New IMAP Options dialog offers a proper "Root path" dialog to filter
out all unwanted hierarchies.
- IMAP folders starting with "." are omitted
- IMAP passwords containing spaces or slashes are now accepted
- Selected text gets entered as a default search string
- If an IMAP server takes too much time to disconnect, holding the Option
key when clicking on Quit will ignore the server's response
- When the cursor is in the message body, the Enter key now acts as "Send"
BUG FIXES:
- Accelerated over 800% the importing and VTwin indexing of large Eudora
mailbox files
- Both installer and application are fully supported on 68k Macintosh models
- Fixed "-8739" error in some instances of Japanese text
- Date and time of sent and received messages are no longer 8 hours ahead
or behind
- Replying, redirecting or forwarding a Roman message written in Kanji is
correctly handled
- Fixed behavior and appearance on 1 bit black/white screens
- One can no longer deduce the length of a password by looking at the
account setup dialog
- Sending a message during another SMTP operation is supported;
- Eliminated the "Send now" option; the "Send" icon now applies to
selected messages
- Got rid of not-yet-implemented search options
- If an incorrect IMAP password is specified, the connection is not left
hanging
- When sending messages "when next connected", waiting messages were sent
even if they were trashed! - and if the trash was been emptied while
containing waiting messages, there was a crash
- When the application is in the foreground, the alert that notifies of a
new message allows background processing
KNOWN ISSUES IN 2.0B3:
- Do not attempt to drop a hierarchical folder onto a daughter sub-folder
*SINCE YOU WOULD LOSE ACCESS TO MESSAGES IN BOTH FOLDERS*
- The right border of a message window is not painted correctly
- Address book: Deleting groups does not work, cosmetic problems in
updating the list when moving items in and out of groups, speed issue
when finding, sorting, etc...
- Issue with updating the window list when application has been in
background Issue with updating the message list when changing the Labels
to apply to entiere line or subject (refresh problem)
- Addresses are either in or out of a group, so entries need to be
duplicated if you want them to appear in several containers
you can have the same address more than once now
- There may be a problem with enclosures in messages from Exchange
clients/Outlook for Windows
- The speed at which large enclosures get sent needs much optimization,
especially on fast connections (10BaseT or higher)
- Be cautious when using the Disconnect menu item
MORE TO DO FOR 2.0:
- Properly insert "by way of" when redirecting
- Import/Export of address book as text files
- Screen update issue when drag-selecting 2-byte text in mail browser content
- Implement function keys (F1-F4, help, etc...) as well as command-arrow
text editing shortcuts
- The "Trash" button will apply to the current message
- Improve other SMTP-related items
- Tabbing from the "mailer" fields to the text body of outgoing message
will no longer require command-tab as it does now (tab will do)
... and a few dozens other points
LEFT OVER FOR OUR 2.1 RELEASE:
- Suggest email recipients as addresses are being typed in
- Collapse the text body/opening the folder list as a separate window.
- sort through over 200 suggestions from users...
- ...and a offer peek at our Rhapsody/fully native Yellow box version !
UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION OF POWERMAIL (Public Beta 1)
As some file formats have changed, we strongly advise that you start over
a new set of PowerMail files after installing PowerMail 2.0b3. If you
wish to save addresses before deleting the public beta,drag them from the
address book to a Finder Folder, and later drag the clipping files back
into the new address book in beta 3.
If you wish to save a previously created Message Database, back it up and
after installing PowerMail b3 replace the newly installed "Message
Database" by your old copy.
In either case you should probably reenter your account information.
//What's next ?:
Would you like to be automatically notified about significant future
milestones in the life of PowerMail? Then send an e-mail to
"requests(_at_)ctmdev(_dot_)com" with the subject "subscribe
powermail-announce". We
promise not to flood you with mail or give your address to anyone else.
Of course, you can stop receiving notifications at any time by sending a
message to the same address with the subject "unsubscribe powermail-announce"
Thank you for taking the time to try out PowerMail. We hope that you will
enjoy using our program and we welcome your feedback.
The CTM PowerMail team
feedback(_at_)ctmdev(_dot_)com
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Limited offer: save over 20% on the final version of PowerMail 2.0 ! //
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
If you decide, after trying out this public beta, that PowerMail is on
the right track and might over time become your choice in e-mail clients,
you can pre-order your copy or site-license during *until March
31st,1998* starting at US$ 39 per copy, decreasing with volume (instead
of US$ 49 per user). Drop us a line at special(_at_)ctmdev(_dot_)com and let us
know
you care !
//Reminder: What is PowerMail:
PowerMail is an e-mail client for MacOS that combines powerful features
with a clear, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface. PowerMail supports
multiple e-mail accounts, both POP and IMAP, has advanced indexing and
searching capabilities, and supports multiple languages and script systems.
PowerMail 2.0 is being developed by a dedicated team of five Macintosh
software developers who are determined to meet the needs of demanding
users of electronic mail. We think that an e-mail client can be powerful
and full-featured and still have an elegant interface and be easy to use.
We have implemented the features commonly found in leading e-mail
applications (multiple accounts, filtering, encoding, enclosure
management) while offering a unique focus on the following areas:
Mobile usage:
* PowerMail's IMAP4 functionality lets users display and manipulate the
contents of server-based mailboxes without having to download all
messages. It is a convenient, standards-based successor to LAN e-mail
systems such as QuickMail or Microsoft/Quarterdeck/StarNine mail.
* For users of the widespread POP3 services, we have added the ability to
minimize PPP connection durations by converting and indexing messages
once off line, in addition to deferring periodic mail checking until a
PPP connection is active.
Find by content:
* By including support for Apple's Information Access Toolkit, PowerMail
offers unparalleled speed in searching archived mail message content as
well as relevance-ranked searches.
* PowerMail's ability to import and export messages--notably from Eudora
mailboxes--makes it easy to start enjoying the benefits of find-by-content
using your existing mail archives. If you use Claris Emailer, we
recommend the Export-Eudora script available from
ftp://ftp.fogcity.com/pub/Emailer/2.0/ImportExport3.1.hqx to create files
which PowerMail can import.
World-ready:
* Because the Internet connects users of many languages, we have focused
on meeting the needs of simple and complex languages alike, and allow for
messages to be written and read in Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplified
and traditional), Arabic, Persian, Cyrillic (Bulgarian, Russian, and
Ukrainian), Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, and Nepali text
(using any of three Indian writing systems: Devanagari, Gujarati, and
Gurmukhi) in addition to all accented Western languages (English, French,
German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese,
Danish and others).
WHAT YOU NEED TO RUN POWERMAIL 2.0
PowerMail 2.0 requires a PowerMacintosh or 68K Macintosh running System
7.5.5 or later with OpenTransport. PowerMail requires the Text Encoding
Converter version 1.3. or later and Internet Config (these are installed
by PowerMail).
In addition, you need either a network or dial-up TCP/IP connection to
the internet and an internet e-mail account, either POP3 (Post Office
Protocol) or IMAP4 (Internet Mail Access Protocol). You will also need
the account information from your network administrator or Internet
Service Provider in order to configure PowerMail.