Hawk Wings » thunderbird

Eudora lives! First OSE release candidate is out

Tim Gaden — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:02:19 +0000

The first release candidate for Eudora OSE (“Open Source Edition”) has been released , after a gap of several months since the last beta.

Described as “an email client that combines Mozilla’s Thunderbird with code, features, and GUI elements from Qualcomm’s Eudora”, Eudora OSE is the end result of Qualcomm’s decision in October 2006 (Remember that?) to get out of the email market and to open source the code for its email client, once the most popular email app on the Mac platform.

Firing it up for a quick look-see is very nostalgic. First the freestanding mailbox pane appears, and then that unforgettable “bob-bob-a-bob-a-bob” sound of new mail arriving.

Old hands might still cherish a secret flame for Eudora, and find this release an interesting thing to play around with.

It’s not the old Eudora, that’s for sure; feels more like a skinned version of Thunderbird to me.Similar Posts:

Script to Show/Hide Preview Pane in Mail

Tim Gaden — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:00:57 +0000

After switching to mail.app from Thunderbird, the blogger at 48-Hour Days found that that she (or he) couldn’t live without Thunderbird’s F8 keyboard shortcut for showing and hiding the Preview Pane.

As everyone knows, you can show or hide it in Apple Mail by double-clicking the small dot in the separator between the Mail Viewer and the Preview Pane — Apple’s Technote shows you how.

But if that is not quick enough for you, 48-Hour Days provides an applescript that will automate the process and which can be bound to a Quicksilver trigger or FastScript’s shortcut.

Only hardcore keyboard fanatics will want to use this, but there are people like that out there, and this post is for them. mail.app, apple mail, thunderbird, keyboard shortcuts, applescript, preview pane, tipsSimilar Posts:

Leopard Mail-like skin for Thunderbird

Tim Gaden — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:18:14 +0000

Reo-2007 has written a theme to give Thunderbird the “leopard Mail look”. This is the first Leopard Mail skin I’ve seen for Thunderbird, although others exist to give Mail.app the Tiger Mail and Panther Mail look.

If, for some reason, you have to use Thunderbird, it might as well look as much like Apple Mail as possible.

Reo-2007′s skin is a mixture of theme, extensions and customised CSS which combine to give the look of Leopard Mail as well as some of Leopard Mail’s new functionality, like Notes.

The overall effect is well done:

One extension provides the option to add Notes to emails, just like you can in Leopard Mail. When the Notes toolbar icon is clicked, a pop-up window appears:

The skin will only work on Thunderbird 2.0+. You can get it from Reo-2007′s page on DeviantART.thunderbird, mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, skins, themes, email in general, notes Similar Posts:

Get nicer looking Thunderbird labels

Tim Gaden — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:12:44 +0000

Thomas McMahon has knocked out some styles for the “Stylish” CSS-extension that produce brighter, better looking labels in Thunderbird.

The Stylish extension is a user style manager: “Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript, and unlike other methods of using user styles, most styles take effect immediately.”

When you have installed Stylish, you can follow the instructions on Thomas’s web site to download some pre-made label styles that will turn your Thunderbird labels from this in to this:

And it’s not just a Mac-only solution as Thomas notes:

The new labels code has been tested in Thunderbird 1.5 and 2.0 on Mac and works great. It should work fine under Windows and Linux too.

thunderbird, mozilla, stylish, labels, CSS, hack, extension, not apple mail, not mail.app, emailSimilar Posts:

Correo 0.2: Camino-flavoured email client advances

Tim Gaden — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:59:10 +0000

Four months ago, Nick Kreeger announced the first release of Correo, a new open source email client for Mac — “Mac essence, Gecko powered” — that “blends technology from two popular Mozilla projects, Camino and Thunderbird, to create a polished native Macintosh application”.

The second public beta has just been released. Correo 0.2 adds several nice new features: Keychain support, Address Book integration, the ability to open messages in a separate window, attachment support, better message list support for IMAP accounts and a collapsable message header and attachment view.

Although Nick readily admits it is a work in progress, the interface already shows Camino’s good looks:

Address Book integration is the big leap forward for usability:

Also nice is the “auto-complete feature” in the To: and Cc: fields:

Underneath the polished exterior, it’s all Thunderbird. The account manager and new account dialogs will be instantly familiar to Thunderbird users.

And the rendering is all Gecko too, as the following ironic screenshot of the new “single window” mode illustrates:

Nick hopes to implement features as the app’s development unfolds, including, plugin capability (to allow development of extensions such as PDA synchronization) and a tabbed window interface.

You can download Correo 0.2 from Nick’s web site and keep up-to-date with new builds through his blog .thunderbird, not apple mail, not mail.app, camino, mozilla, gecko, email, address bookSimilar Posts:

SpamSieve gets Thunderbird support

Tim Gaden — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:33:31 +0000

Michael Tsai has released an updated version of his spam-catching utility, SpamSieve, which adds support for Thunderbird and many other improvements.

Each update brings improvements to the way SpamSieve detects junk mail, and 2.6 is no exception, promising better detection of image spam, phishing scams and more accurate operation of the app’s Bayesian filter.

In addition, it now enables Growl notifications by default, has “improved compatibility with pre-release versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard” and features a “more robust” Apple Mail plugin.

Michael lists many other improvements in the full changelog.

SpamSieve is shareware (USD 30) and is available from Michael’s web site .

[via MacNN ]mail.app. apple mail, junk, spam, thunderbird, email, leopardSimilar Posts:

One thing Thunderbird and Mail.app can’t do

Tim Gaden — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:23:55 +0000

Chris Landon emails with a reasonable request, something you don’t miss or even think about until someone else mentions it.

He points out one thing that Thunderbird and Mail.app can’t do, and that’s coloured mailboxes.

He writes:

Do you know if there’s such a plug-in, etc, for color coding a folder? I have over a hundred folders an it makes it difficult to get to a specific folder, quickly. I could have created more sub-folders than the bunch I already have, but this does not help my situation either.

Here’s an example (I was using Thunderbird at the time and it does not have it either)…

Would it also be difficult to write a plug-in for this?

I don’t know of a plugin that does this, nor do I know how difficult it would be to code, but my hunch is a lot of people would use it. mail.app, apple mail, thunderbird, mozilla, mailboxes, colours, labels, pluginSimilar Posts:

Another Apple Mail skin for Thunderbird

Tim Gaden — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:48:39 +0000

The next best thing to Mail.app is a copy of Thunderbird skinned to look like Mail. At least, that was clearly the case until GyazMail got IMAP support.

Another Apple Mail skin has appeared for Thunderbird, bringing the total to three.

This one, called “Apple Mail”, offers the Tiger Mail look.

The developer says it “makes your TB look and feel like the native Apple Mail software, that comes along wiht your shiny and flashy new Mac.”

Things start to fall apart a bit in the Compose window though:

The “Tiger Mail” theme offers Thunderbird users the same look.

CrossOver provides a Panther Mail look.

Take a look at both of them in an earlier Hawk Wings post and/or go grab Apple Mail from the Thunderbird Add-ons site.thunderbird, Mail.app, apple mail, skins, themes, panther mail, tiger mail, the sincerest form of flatterySimilar Posts:

Using Mail on a portable drive or iPod

Tim Gaden — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:48:21 +0000

Doug Lerner wants to take Mail.app and his messages with him and plug it into any Mac he can find.

He posts in the Apple Discussions:

Apparently Thunderbird supports a “portable mailbox” feature. In other words, you can keep your mail on a USB RAM drive, and just plug it in to whatever computer you are using – Mac or Windows – and Thunderbird just uses that mailbox instead of one on your HD.

My friend’s USB RAM was only 2GB and he was getting worried about reaching capacity, so he started using his 20GB iPod instead, which works just as well.

I wonder if such a thing is possible with Apple’s Mail app.

Naturally, the idea that Thunderbird can do anything better than Mail.app sends me into a frenzy.

Clever people have developed a couple of ways to use Mail.app on memory sticks or iPods.

Portable Mail is a clever hack that opens a local copy of Mail.app on whatever Mac you are using with preferences stored on a USB stick. If the stick is big enough to cal also store your Mail folder and everything else on it as well.

Developer Carlo Gandolfi has recently released SyncPAppsX , a helper app that syncs the local and portable settings for a range of his portable iApps including Portable Mail, making it even easier not to miss a beat. Nice.

Jeffrey Glover has worked out a way to store his Mail and Mail Downloads on an iPod. By creating some symbolic links, he shows you how to force Mail to use the messages on the iPod, regardles of which Mac it is plugged into.

Obviously, by creating different symbolic links, you could move the Mail folder to any remote volume, a network drive perhaps, and so share the same messages between two or more Macs on the one network. It’s an interesting way to share POP messages between multiple Macs, although I wouldn’t want to guess what would happen if more than one Mac was writing to the Mail folder at the same time.mail.app, apple mail, portable apps, usb stick, memory stick, ipod, mobility, productivity, thunderbirdSimilar Posts:

The campaign to end HTML email

Tim Gaden — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:38:21 +0000

Washington Post blogger Brian Krebs uses the recent release of a Windows security patch to fire up the campaign to end HTML email.

He reminds his readers that “viewing your e-mail in anything other than plain text mode is asking for trouble on a Windows computer.”

He then proceeds to list some of the reasons why HTML should be avoided, including better protection against phishing attacks, avoiding “spam touting graphic images from adult Web sites” and not seeing your own HTML emails end up in someone else’s spam folder. (See a much more comprehensive list of reasons on the Free Anti Spam web site.)

Instructions are provided on using plain text in Outlook 2003, Outlook Express, Thunderbird and Opera. These might be useful for Hawk Wings readers in a distressing work environment.

Mail.app users have at least three ways to deal with incoming HTML emails—see an earlier Hawk Wings post, “Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail“).

I am a fan of the first, most brutal option myself, but I am also a realist. See further King Canute (Wikipedia ).

UPDATE: Nicholas takes a different view . “Arguing that email users should not have access to different fonts or colours is much like arguing that they should still be using the word processors of 1987 as well,” he suggests.

[Thanks, Michael]mail.app, apple mail, windows, outlook, html, plain text, thunderbird, opera, outlook expressSimilar Posts: