Closed Bug 209160 Opened 21 years ago Closed 21 years ago

[RFE] Great mail client, but I miss these Outlook features

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

x86
Windows 2000
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: manojd, Assigned: sspitzer)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030529
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030529

I switched to Mozilla/1.4RC1 Mail client two days back - after years with MS
Outlook. Am now going back to Outlook - after an accident that Outlook has
routinely been preventing. This is essentially some feedback - may be useful
when someone plans Mail upgrade. Forgive me for comparing Mozilla Mail with
Outlook - but that is what I have always used.

Three things where Mozilla is much better than Outlook:
a)  POP mail downloads MUCH faster - I think 3 or 4 times faster, at least.
Minutes cut down to seconds.
b)  Incoming HTML mail can be rendered as just plain text. I have never
appreciated people sending me HTML mail. It's really cool.
c)  Incoming message filters UI. The ability to put many rules in a single
filter is great. During last two days I was using Mozilla Mail, I needed just
two filters - "Kill spam" & "Move mailers I have subscribed to" to a low
priority folder - as opposed to over 50 filters I need to keep in Outlook.
d)  Address autocompletion in Mozilla is much smarter. I don't normally need to
open address book, something I need to do all the time in Outlook.

Now the bad part - where Outlook wins:
e) The reason I am going back to Outlook: I can tell Outlook to never
automatically download or send messages; I will do it manually. Mozilla lets me
receive mails manually rather than automatically; but this option is not
available for sending mails. I just accidentally pressed SEND on a half cooked
mail, & Mozilla was only too happy to send it before I could do anything!
Outlook would have simply put it in Outbox - I could go there & fix after
realizing my mistake. I normally do actual mail server communications only 2 or
3 times a day even when I am continuously online - gives me time to go back &
edit or kill messages if I realize something amiss a while after actually
pressing SEND.

Some other things Outlook has that I have missed in Mozilla Mail:
f) Mozilla insists on changing the font of mail title as soon as I select a
message - marking the message as "read". I NEVER want it. There is no way it can
determine if I have read a message. While this auto-marking comes default with
Outlook, I can tell it I don't want. But not to Mozilla. It's an irritant.
g) Mozilla is wasteful of screen real estate when displaying the message header
in split window. Compare with corresponding Outlook header - just two lines
worth of space so well utilized. While Mozilla header can be compressed to 1
line interactively, it doesn't contain enough info.
h) A weird minor bug. I am composing a message. I drag a file from Windows
Explorer into this message window - to attach it to message. If I drop it in the
little "attachments window", Mozilla takes it properly as an attachment. If I
drag it onto message area, Mozilla basically puts its filename into message area
rather than attachment; when will I ever want this behavior? It's rather
counter-intuitive.
i) A MAJOR Outlook feature I miss. A customer insists that I should send weekly
reports on Monday rather than Friday. My Friday evening in India is his Friday
morning in US - so sending late Friday evening is not an option. But I like to
close the week on a clean slate. So while sending the report in Outlook Friday
evening, I go to message options & say "don't send it before <day/time>".
Outlook will keep it in Outbox till that time; will actually send it first time
I talk to mail server after the set time. Very handy.

Something that will make Mozilla Mail more useful - though it did not pinch
during my 2 day experiment:
j) Mozilla filters apply only to incoming mail - and are meant primarily to
classify mail for moving to different folders. I have a couple of customers who
never write to support address; they insist on private communications with
support guy they talked to last. And this support guy sometimes "forgets" to
forward mail to support alias - an internal process requirement. I can configure
his Outlook so when mail arrives from specific addresses, Outlook will
automatically forward it to support group.
k) I can also have filters on outgoing mail - when sending mail to this one
individual, I want a copy automatically sent to a group. But this is much lower
on my priority list.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
See "Details" above.
It would be impossible to deal with this report as it is.
Please, always submit ONLY ONE issue per bug report, search first bugzilla to
make sure that it hasn't been reported before and then resubmit each one of your
points in one bug for each one as probably they involve different people and
surely different code patched.

Invalid.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
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