355777 - Updated FAQ to accurately answer Hotmail question

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Eric Powell]

Below is .diff file (I wasn't sure how to attach the file)  If you need the actual file it is at: http://www.uploading.com/files/ZDQ8H8GV/faq.html.diff.html

*****start.diff
--- mozilla-org/html/support/thunderbird/faq.html
+++ mozilla-org/html/support/thunderbird/faq.html
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@
 	<ul>
 		<li><a href="#q2.2">How do I migrate my Mozilla mail and settings to Thunderbird?</a></li>
 	 	<li><a href="#aol">Can I read and send AOL e-mail using Thunderbird?</a></li>
-		<li><a href="#q2.3">Can I access my Netscape WebMail or Hotmail accounts through Thunderbird?</a></li>
+		<li><a href="#q2.3">Can I access my Netscape WebMail account through Thunderbird?</a></li>
+                <li><a href="#q2.3.1">Can I access my Hotmail account through Thunderbird?</a></li>
 		<li><a href="#kmail">How do I import e-mail messages from kmail (Linux)?</a></li>
 		<li><a href="#mail.app">How do I import e-mail messages from mail.app (MacOS X)?</a></li>
 		<li><a href="#mac_ab">How do I import the address book (MacOS X)?</a></li>
@@ -164,10 +165,14 @@
 <p>For more information, read the <a href="http://help.channels.aol.com/article.adp?catId=1&amp;sCId=416&amp;sSCId=4093&amp;articleId=217449" title="AOL Help : Can I read and send AOL e-mail using other e-mail applications?">article on AOL Help</a>.</p>
   </dd>
 
-<dt><a name="q2.3">Can I access my Netscape WebMail or Hotmail accounts through Thunderbird?</a></dt>
-<dd><p>No. Netscape WebMail and Hotmail use proprietary protocols. To access WebMail directly through an e-mail client requires you to use Netscape 6+ with AIM; to do so with Hotmail requires either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. Of course, you can access your WebMail account on the Web at <a href="http://webmail.netscape.com/">http://webmail.netscape.com/</a>, or Hotmail at <a href="http://www.hotmail.com/">http://www.hotmail.com/</a>.</p>
+<dt><a name="q2.3">Can I access my Netscape WebMail account through Thunderbird?</a></dt>
+<dd><p>No. Netscape WebMail uses a proprietary protocol. To access WebMail directly through an e-mail client requires you to use Netscape 6+ with AIM. Of course, you can still access your WebMail account on the Web at <a href="http://webmail.netscape.com/">http://webmail.netscape.com/</a>.</p>
 </dd>
 
+<dt><a name="q2.3.1">Can I access my Hotmail account through Thunderbird?</a></dt>
+<dd><p>Probably not.  Most "free" Hotmail accounts can ONLY be accessed through the webmail interface.  Some older "grandfathered" free Hotmail accounts and most paid Hotmail accounts do have access through Outlook/Outlook Express and Hotmail's <i>proprietary protocol</i>.  There are however, some external programs that emulate the way Outlook accesses Hotmail and can interface to a standard email application with the POP3 protocol.  Some Thunderbird users have reported using these external programs successfully.   You may find these external programs by searching on the web for "Hotmail POP access."   You can check the status of your free Hotmail account and see if it has the POP access capability by testing it in Outlook or Outlook Express.  Unless you were using Outlook or Outlook Express prior to 2005 to access your free Hotmail account, it is very unlikely that you will have this capability.  Of course, you can access your Hotmail account on the Web at Hotmail at <a href="http://www.hotmail.com/">http://www.hotmail.com/</a>.</p>
+</dd>
+
 <dt id="kmail">How do I import e-mail messages from kmail (Linux)?</dt>
 <dd><p>Make a new folder in kmail and name it inboxmbox. You'll see a dialogue in which you can save it as an mbox folder. Copy all posts in your kmail inbox folder to the new inboxmbox folder, then copy or move inboxmbox to the subfolder <span class="file">Mail/Local Folders</span> in your <a href="edit.html#profile">profile folder</a>. When you open Thunderbird you'll see the inboxmbox folder under Local Folders. Copy the messages into your Inbox folder if you like.</p>
 </dd>
@@ -301,6 +306,7 @@
 <p class="toplink"><a href="#top">Back to Top</a></p>
 
 <address class="copy">&copy; 2002-2006 <a href="contact">David Tenser</a>.</address>
+<i>     Modified by <a href="mailto:[e-mail]">Eric Powell</a> 2006-10-06 (Hotmail) </i>
 
 </div>
 

*****end.diff

Comment 1

[Eric Powell]

Attachment: .diff file for proposed FAQ change

Comment 2

[Eric Powell]

Please note I changed my email login address from [e-mail] to [e-mail].

Comment 3

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I'll have a look at this in a bit.

Comment 4

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I don't know if I have authority to fail a review, so I won't flag it; but I wouldn't check in this patch.

- we should stay away from q numbers for anchors. It makes adding, removing, and rearranging items a pain. Use word names, like #hotmail and #netscape

- we should put hotmail above netscape, because of its larger user-base (ie. answer the more popular questions first.)

- the answer seems a little long winded to me. Let's get to the point, and leave the technicalities for the knowledge base. Something like:
"Hotmail is only designed to work on Microsoft email programs, but you can use the WebMail extension to access your Hotmail account with Thunderbird."

(for a separate bug, we should also update the Netscape answer. AIUI, they've switched to IMAP)

Thanks for contributing. :-)

Comment 5

[Eric Powell]

Attachment: .diff Thbrd FAQ Update with suggested changes

Chris you were correct on all points.  
I redid the changes as follows:
1. AOL + Netscape have the same IMAP access now.  Clarified and updated the broken link to AOL help pages.
2. WebMail is a better choice to direct a user to and listed current services from the WebMail page.  Also put it before the AOL answer because Hotmail+Yahoo covers more people than AOL would ever dream
3. Fixed all the old q# links to word names.
4. Cleaned up some of the code in the Usage section.
5. Tested all the internal page links
Hope this looks good.
--eric powell

Comment 6

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I don't know if I have authority to fail a review, so I won't flag it; but I
> wouldn't check in this patch.

For future reference, feel free to flag a review as such. Thanks! :)

Comment 7

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Comment on attachment 241569 [details] [diff] [review]
.diff Thbrd FAQ Update with suggested changes

- people may already have links to current anchors, so let's not change the ones that aren't affected by the addition/subtraction/rearranging of others.

- let's cut some of the redundancy in the webmail answer.
The question is "Can I access my Yahoo!, Hotmail, Lycos (Europe), MailDotCom, Gmail, and Libero WebMail account through Thunderbird?", so you don't have to say "At this writing, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Lycos (Europe), MailDotCom, Gmail, and Libero WebMail accounts are supported." Instead of spending an entire sentence on "Current information on the Webmail extension and other add-ons for web based email can be found at the WebMail development site", just link "Webmail extension" to http://webmail.mozdev.org/ in the opening sentence.

- Netscape answer looks good.

- do not add a "modified by" line at the bottom

Comment 8

[Eric Powell]

Attachment: .diff with TBird FAQ changes v3

Ok.  

I changed the Webmail description to eliminate the multiple lists of services, and also added a disclaimer about subscriptions (see below.)

("Yes. The Webmail extension integrates web site based email accounts into Thunderbird, allowing Thunderbird to download and to send emails using the web site.  Some services may require a subscription for this type of access.  Current information on the Webmail extension, supported services, and other add-ons for web based email can be found at the WebMail development site.")

Removed the "edited by" 

I changed the anchor-links back to the q#'s BUT... I disagree with you on this point.  If we are going to standardize code then we should do it consistently.  Also, if a user has a bookmark to a link within the page, they will be taken to the page, but just not to the question.  This page is so short, it should make no difference, and most users wouldn't notice.

Addtl note: Could you make a quick note (or direct to resource) of the process/procedure of installing this ultimately?  I haven't been able to find that or figure it out.  I realize someone else will do that, but it would be nice to know.

cheers,
--eric powell

Comment 9

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Comment on attachment 241755 [details] [diff] [review]
.diff with TBird FAQ changes v3

Please do not grant review yourself. Just select '?' and enter the bugmail address of the reviewer you would like to request review from. If you do not know who to request review from, just choose '?' and leave the requestee field blank.

Thanks!

Comment 10

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I changed the anchor-links back to the q#'s BUT... I disagree with you on this
> point.  If we are going to standardize code then we should do it consistently. 
> Also, if a user has a bookmark to a link within the page, they will be taken to
> the page, but just not to the question.  This page is so short, it should make
> no difference, and most users wouldn't notice.

I have to agree with Eric here. I think the good outweighs the bad in changing to a more readable format for anchor-links. Looking at the page, it's currently a mess of q#s and plain words. It would be nice to standardize it to be completely word-based.

Comment 11

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-5, no longer working on Mozilla)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> I have to agree with Eric here. I think the good outweighs the bad in changing
> to a more readable format for anchor-links. Looking at the page, it's currently
> a mess of q#s and plain words. It would be nice to standardize it to be
> completely word-based.

You can have both (by having the ids on different elements), and have the advantages of names and not break links.

Comment 12

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Comment on attachment 241755 [details] [diff] [review]
.diff with TBird FAQ changes v3

Looks good!

Comment 13

[David Tenser [:djst]]

As for the inconsistent use of #q2.3 and #word, I agree that we should fix this, while keeping the #qx.y links to avoid breaking links from other sites. But it's not critical for this patch.

If someone would like to file a separate bug for that, I'd appreciate it.

Comment 14

[Eric Powell]

Added bug 356079 to change the links to #word, leaving the existing #qx.x as an alternate/secondary.

What's the next step?

--eric

Comment 15

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Checking in html/support/thunderbird/faq.html;
/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/support/thunderbird/faq.html,v  <--  faq.html
new revision: 1.17; previous revision: 1.16
done

Please verify once this change reaches stage/production.

Comment 16

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I have a small request. The approved patch still contains anchor changes of the previous one:
- changing #q1.7 to #relsdiff
- changing #keyboard to #kbshortcut

Also, line 146 (<dt id="webmail">Can I access my Yahoo!...) contains an end tag for a non-existent <a> tag.

For some reason, there was a <br> added at line 223.

Could we clean the patch up a bit; so it only contains the fixes for this bug?

Comment 17

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Could we clean the patch up a bit; so it only contains the fixes for this bug?

Since this bug is already fixed, could you take any new work and incorporate it into the fix for bug 356079?

Comment 18

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I just checked it in myself.
Checking in mozilla-org/html/support/thunderbird/faq.html;
/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/support/thunderbird/faq.html,v  <--  faq.html
new revision: 1.18; previous revision: 1.17
done

With the exception of line 184 [target=_blank], the page is valid HTML.

Comment 19

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

*** Bug 304546 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***