Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Internet Tools
You're in Charge: What would you change about Apple Mail?
I'm sure from time to time we all get our gripes about a piece of software we use every day. Lately I've been having mine about Mail, and I started thinking of a few ways I'd really like to see some improvements. I know there are plugins and add-ons and widgets and gidgets, but in my opinion, enhancements usually seem to work better when they're done by the guys who originally made the app.So in the name of good ol' fashioned coffee talk, I'm bringing the question to you: let's say you're in charge of Apple Mail's development. What would you change, fix or enhance? Is there a bug in need of squashing, or does a plugin need assimilating? Perhaps there's a missing feature you dream of at night? Feel free to share. You never know, someone more important than even TUAW might be listening. I ran a piece like this over on The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog back in September and Adobe's Product Manger of Photoshop stopped by to respond to readers' comments. That was awesome, but I'm not making any guarantees. Just grab a good cup of coffee and let's hear it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Berko said 12:37PM on 11-01-2005
Re: Space Bar Behaviour
In NetNewsWire, using the space bar to move to the next new article is priceless. But, Mail cannot use this behaviour because it already has designated behaviour for the space bar. Highlight the first message in a conversation (i.e., a message that has replies, etc.) and space through to the bottom of the message. When you press space at the bottom of the message it indeed does go to a different message, but it's the next message in the conversation. And, just like using tab, shift+space goes backward. I just figured this out on accident, and now I will never have need for the "Group messages by conversation" option.
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John said 3:43PM on 11-01-2005
Very boring and corporate I know, but Proper IMAP Public Folder Subscriptions management to Exchange please...
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Koen said 10:08AM on 11-16-2005
I would like it if Mail has the possibility to handle newsgroups. In outlook you have that option integrated into the program.
That is the most I can wish for in my Mail application.
Cheers from belgium,
Koen.
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Dag said 7:44AM on 11-17-2005
Support for e-mail addresses with international characters both before and after the @-sign in the address. Support for IDN domain names in e-mail addresses, both sending to and viewing.
Better spam filtering. Spam filtering can never be good enough.
Better handling of IMAP mailboxes with 15000+ emails inside.
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Evgeny Kazakov said 2:09PM on 11-16-2005
I would like that hitting the Zoom button of the message window would smart resize the window rather then just expand it to a full screen.
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Jim Scott said 10:48PM on 11-16-2005
When the 10.4.3 updated killed the newsreader client in Office v.X Entourage, I spent a good bit of energy trying to find another OS X newsreader. Right now I'm using Firefox, but I'm not liking it very much. Why doesn't Mail have a newsreader client? What's Apple got against newsreaders? And why doesn't .Mac include a newsgroup server? That certainly would make it worth the annual fee for me, and would make my online experience more user-friendly as an iMac owner.
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manie said 7:19AM on 11-29-2005
have had those options in the past (very distant past with CE Software's Inbox), but this should be possible without a server based mail center.
http://www.referaty10.com/referat/Zivotopisy/2/Zivotopisy3.php
http://www.referaty10.com/referat/Zivotopisy/1/Zivotopisy3.php
http://www.referaty10.com/referat/Zivotopisy/2/Zivotopisy2.php
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masterw00tfoo said 8:34PM on 11-30-2005
It would be really nice to have some default text formatting for emails apart from how mail handles replies and forwarding. I have a couple people I support that ask me for this all the time. It is a hassle to manually select a profile for every email sent.
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Ben Campbell said 11:30AM on 12-02-2005
Better control over S/MIME certificates. In particular, the ability to inspect the certificate with which a received message was signed, and the ability to select which certificate you sign with or encrypt to when more than one candidate exists in the keychain. (Or, if these things are currently possible, the method should be more obvious.)
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Thorn said 12:37PM on 10-25-2005
I request a fix.
In Mail, I have my Inbox + folders sorted by date so that the *newest* emails are on top. Unconventional, I know, but ...
My gripe is that when I delete an email, Mail moves UP (instead of down) to select the next email. This is unlike any other mail program I've used, and even after a few months of using it, I still accidently end up having to rescue emails from the trash can becuase when I press DELETE 3x, I expect the email I've currently highlighted, plus the two BELOW it, to get deleted -- not the two ABOVE it.
Le Sigh
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mediaburn said 12:39PM on 10-25-2005
I want to see it ported to the pc. Outlook sucks :-)
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Philipp said 12:44PM on 10-25-2005
It would be great to have full control over html/plain-text formatting and displaying of emails.
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systemsboy said 12:44PM on 10-25-2005
My major beef with Mail in Tiger is that inserting tabs into a message doesn't work properly. After entering a tab, it becomes a series of spaces. Try it: open a new message, type test, hit tab, type test again. Now arrow back through the characters. Instead of jumping back the full tab length when you reach the spot where you typed the tab, it goes back one space at a time. Tabs are used for making evenly spaced tables, which I do all the time, but it's broken in Tiger's Mail. It worked in Panther, and I want it fixed.
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burton hollifield said 12:47PM on 10-25-2005
I would make it deal better with systems with bulletin boards. We use 'cyrus' where I work. I cannot use mail at work; I have to use Thunderbird, because mail seems to want to subscribe to every possible board on our system. Fix that, Apple.
Nothing worse that starting up mail (so I can use spotlight to search emails) and then waiting 1/2 hour for it to refresh to all the thousands of boards on our system.
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Philipp said 12:47PM on 10-25-2005
And, what I forgot, is what happens to me every time I try to empty my trash: Mail only deletes emails I deleted locally but none of them I deleted in my IMAP-mailbox, i.e. I have to use "apple + a & backspace" two times. It's nothing serious but should be concerned as a bug. :-)
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mark roberts said 3:02PM on 10-25-2005
Additional rules to add/remove senders to/from the address book, and to allow a pre-configured reply to be sent so I can manage my mailing lists. Basic stuff like tat that is in Entourage but which I've been waiting to be added to Mail for ever. And while they are at it they can improve the Address Book so I don't have to look at mailing list members' emails anywhere except in the group they belong to.
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AK said 12:50PM on 10-25-2005
Support for Mail.app in an office environment is needed to even think about using Mac's for business.
Specifically, native support for MS Exchange is needed - for both Mail and iCal is badly needed. Snerdware's Groupcal (http://www.snerdware.com/) does not yet work with Tiger.
Ximian and the Ximian Connector are now open source, but only run using Fink - but most users won't bother with that (plus the current version is unstable).
See more on my related /. thread here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156738&cid=13139017
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Rob Nolen said 12:57PM on 10-25-2005
I love keyboard shortcuts. What genius decided to make the Send Message shortcut Shift-Open Apple-D, instead of Open Apple-S? Outlook is Alt-S. And the first comment is dead on, that is really annoying as well. Also, why don't the Home and End keys go to the beginning and end of the line like they are supposed to when editing a message? That bugs the crap out of me.
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Ian G. Canino said 1:03PM on 10-25-2005
How about better integration with iCal? Link mail messages to events and being able to set up appointments from within mail?
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Scott said 12:56PM on 10-25-2005
Anyone else have this problem?
If I am reading a mail, say a long one like from the cocoa development mailing list, and I scroll to the bottom of that e-mail, clicking to the next e-mail in the sequence will put my cursor at the bottom of that e-mail too rather than putting it at the beginning of the message.
Drives me nuts.
I filed a bug report way back when but we'll see if it ever gets any attention.
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