This Story Posted:
June 22nd, 1999
 
 

[3:04 PM]
PowerMail E-mail Client Updated With Lots Of Fixes And New Features
CTM Development has released a major upgrade to their mail client Power Mail. The new update is officially only an incremental upgrade that brings the app to version 2.4, but it is packed with new features and lots of bug fixes. According to CTM Development:

We are pleased to announce that PowerMail version 2.4 is now available.

NEW FEATURES IN POWERMAIL 2.4

  1. [NEW] By popular demand, we have added an option to list unread messages in bold; for existing users of PowerMail, this option is disabled by default but can be turned on from the "Display" pane in the Preferences dialog. Obviously, bold text uses more space, so you will have to resize your columns slightly afterwards
  2. [NEW] 2.4 is now fully qualified and compatible with Mac OS 8.6 - we made adjustments to the Text Encoding Converter code to enable compatibility with the new script variants present in Mac OS 8.6
  3. [NEW] PowerMail now implements conversion of rich text into plain text for messages coming from Mac OS X server's Apple Mail Viewer as well as Eudora, using the RFC-specified algorithm; this means that folks inside Apple using PowerMail can fearlessly correspond with NeXTHeads without seeing or replying meaningless <bold><underline> junk<bigger><bigger><bigger>this </bigger></bigger></bigger><fontfamily><param>Helvetica</param>is</fontfamily><bold>rich </bold>text
  4. [NEW] Introduced new parsing for HTML messages: we now try to strip HTML text out of the visible part of properly formatted HTML messages, while retaining the ability to click on the "globe" icon at the bottom of a message to view it in its entirety in your Web browser
  5. [NEW] Added support for virtual mail domains (as implemented in the Eudora Internet Mail Server)
  6. [NEW] For users of Arabic and Hebrew scripts, we now support the switching of text drawing direction: when switching scripts, the message body will become right-aligned whereas the rest of the application's user interface (dialogs and lists) remain correctly in place
  7. [NEW] Certified for IMAP use with AppleShare IP version 6.2: Starting with version 2.4, PowerMail is systematically qualified to run over IMAP in conjunction with the AppleShare IP server. Due to the nature of the IMAP protocol and differences between server implementations, we have chosen to focus our qualification efforts on a high quality server from Apple that Mac users are likely to connect to. Of course, we have not deviated from the standard IMAP version 4 and 4.1 specifications (RFC 1730 and 2060) but we feel that server-specific qualification is the only way to guarantee a smooth user experience
  8. [NEW] If you hold the option key when compacting the mail database (from the File menu) then the list of already downloaded messages (known as the list of UIDLs) will no longer be taken across
  9. [NEW] PowerMail now has an online unlocking scheme which can transform the 30-day, limited demonstration version into a full single or multi-user commercial release without requiring a new download

BUG FIXES AND SUNDRY CHANGES IN POWERMAIL 2.4

  1. [fixed] There was a hidden disclosure triangle underneath the number of members in a group, so you could click on the number and the group was expanded. This must have been the case for a LONG time !
  2. [changed] The truncation of text in Japanese and other non-roman scripts is no longer necessarily "...", since this character may be inexistent in Japanese scripts for instance
  3. [changed] To be consistent with the Finder, the "Clear" menu item no longer equates to moving an item to the trash
  4. [fixed] Attempting to paste text in an outgoing message and hitting "Escape" on the subsequent dialog would crash
  5. [changed] PowerMail used to be shipped as a fat version - we now have rebuilt the installer using Installer VISE instead of InstallerMaker and have separate installers for PPC and 68k in order to save on download size and time
  6. [fixed] A few strings could only be shown as roman text, which could cause garbage to be displayed in Japanese; now, the following will show in the script for which PowerMail was registered as:
    1. 2nd column of the address book window (which shows "address" or "addresses"
    2. header fields when displayed in the body of a message in the Browser (when enabled under "Display":(From, to, Subject,...)
    3. Same fields in a printout
    4. The strings "---------------- Begin Forwarded Message----------------" and "----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------"
  7. [changed] in the body of a message, the header fields which only contain US ASCII are displayed in the script in which the application is registered as, in order to speed up the application and minimized conversions
  8. [changed] Importing address book files assumes that the imported text file is in the System's script
  9. [changed] The French version now uses the same index files as the english version; for users of the french version, this means you will need to reindex once but you will be able to switch application languages at will afterwards
  10. [changed] PowerMail uses the same utility files as Sherlock inside the "Find" folder instead of the PowerMail addition
  11. [changed] Changed creator of the intermediate "mail.htm" to that of a maker of browsers which doesn't supply operating systems (hint, hint)
  12. [changed] We now strip white spaces when calculating color quotes
  13. [fixed] There was a nasty decoding bug which could cause a base64 decode or AppleDouble decode to fail.
  14. [fixed] Scroll bug when deleting part of a previously saved message (scroll bars would be out of sync and/or a blank rectangle would show).
  15. [fixed] We have noticed that importing from Emailer could, in some cases, be accelerated by a factor of five if Emailer becomes the frontmost application during PowerMail's import process, so we now bring it to the front. One side effect is that PowerMail doesn't bother to update its progress indicator when in the background, and the other is that your mileage may vary in terms of speed increase.
  16. [fixed] The error "Netscape could not be launched because it could not be found" could occur under certain circumstances if PowerMail was the originator of the "Open Application" AppleEvent.

The update is free to registered owners of PowerMail and can be downloaded at the company's web site. The full version is priced at US$49.

CTM Development