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[glynor]

The only real advantage I've found in win 8 is the fact that the universally "hated" metro screen can be fully navigated using an mce remote.
Very useful in a proper htpc setup if you have a few remote controllable apps to use besides MC.

The Start Screen itself is quite navigable (if you ignore that it is a pain to access the All Apps section).  Metro Apps are another story entirely, unfortunately.  Mail, for example, is useless.

Frustrating, because it is VERY CLOSE to perfect.  But the devil is in the details.

[JimH]

Do you know a good mail program for Win8?

[phytio]

Jim (and Glynor perhaps?),

Windows Essentials has a reasonable mail thing I think. I use the web interface for Outlook.com, but when my Dad upgraded to W8 he was spitting feathers over the Mail app until he found Windows Essentials.

phytio

[glynor]

Jim (and Glynor perhaps?),

Windows Essentials has a reasonable mail thing I think. I use the web interface for Outlook.com, but when my Dad upgraded to W8 he was spitting feathers over the Mail app until he found Windows Essentials.

I meant, and I think Jim meant, for Metro.

I use Gmail, so I don't care about a desktop application at all.  I wanted something I could browse and read a message with from my couch with my remote.  The included Metro Mail app could work beautifully, but keyboard-only navigation doesn't work right.  Once you open a message, there's no way to get back to the messages list without picking up a Mouse.  You can get down "in" that far easily, but you can't go back.  Worse, a bunch of the keys you could easily use for this do absolutely nothing (ESC, Left Arrow, etc).

The Weather app is similar.  You can slide the view to the right and left with the arrow keys, but when you "focus on" the center radar/maps pane, it seems like you can't select any of them.  Actually, you can, you just can't directly control (or see) what you are selecting.  It is all messed up.  It is clear that there is a "cursor" somewhere in there (a focus point), but since it is designed to be touch-only, you can't see it, and it isn't easy to control it.  So, focus on those Weather maps and hit enter.  Sometimes, one of them will open.  You can switch which one opens by both positioning the application in the window (using left/right), and maybe by hitting up/down, but you can't really "control" it.

This is common in Metro apps if you're trying to use them with a remote.  They could work perfectly (based on UI and design concepts) but the keyboard controls just aren't there (or, more often, are half-way there).

[JimH]

I had to switch from Eudora last fall (sniff) and I use gmail now.  It's amazing in many respects, but it's lacking in some others.  Maybe I haven't found some things.

1.  There is no "bounce" that I can find, so if I want to give an e-mail to someone else to answer, I have to forward it, so they have to change the reply to.

2.  It's slow and I lose characters sometimes.  A lot of waiting.  The responsiveness in general is just like you'd expect from a browser application.

3.  For a few months, until last week or so, my machine was crashing.  It began when I started using Gmail, so I'm only guessing that it was related.  The crashes stopped last week.

4.  I'm used to using "stationery", a set of stock replies I've prepared.  There isn't anything equivalent that I can find, so I use copy and paste a lot more.

5.  I can't find a way to make an "alias" that includes several people.  So now I either do it on our server, or I type the addresses in each time.

6.  Ads

7.  Snooping

And so on.

So about once a month, I walk upstairs and say to the guys, "Why don't we write an e-mail program?"  Eyes roll.  They go back to work.

I think there is no world class e-mail program now because e-mail is free.  Sniff.

[zxsix]

1.  There is no "bounce" that I can find, so if I want to give an e-mail to someone else to answer, I have to forward it, so they have to change the reply to.

Thunderbird email client may be a decent substitute for Eudora.
If you like that, there is an extension you can install that will do the bounce feature.
Thunderbird Mail Redirect Extension

4.  I'm used to using "stationery", a set of stock replies I've prepared.  There isn't anything equivalent that I can find, so I use copy and paste a lot more.

Gear icon > Settings > Labs > Canned Responses
Set to enable and save.
Compose a new message, filling in your stock reply.
Look right below the subject line and click on canned responses.
Click on New Canned Response.
Give it a name.
Click discard button to close the compose message window.

Now for new emails just drop down the list of canned responses to use them.

5.  I can't find a way to make an "alias" that includes several people.  So now I either do it on our server, or I type the addresses in each time.

Underneath the google logo, click on the word MAIL, you get dropdown choices, click on CONTACTS.
Select a contact to edit.
On the toolbar is a groups button, click that and create a new group and assign this contact to it.
Add other contacts into the same group.

Now, compose a new message and in the TO box, start typing in the group name until it auto-fills.

[zxsix]

The included Metro Mail app could work beautifully, but keyboard-only navigation doesn't work right.  Once you open a message, there's no way to get back to the messages list without picking up a Mouse.  You can get down "in" that far easily, but you can't go back.  Worse, a bunch of the keys you could easily use for this do absolutely nothing (ESC, Left Arrow, etc)

TAB key switches active navigation between the 3 panes (folder list, messages list, message preview).
I arrow down to a specific message, read it, ctrl-R to compose a reply, send message.
Now I'm returned to the main 3-pane screen and the messages list is active so arrow down allows me to select different messages.
Tab and shift-tab move between the 3 panes again.
Do you have tab or shift-tab programmed to remote buttons?

[JimH]

Thank you.

[rjm]

I quite like Outlook 2010. It has every conceivable feature you could ever want and more. I particularly like it's clean data file design with only one PST file to backup everything or synchronize everything between a desktop and a laptop. The iCloud add-in for synchronizing email with iOS devices works very well.

[InflatableMouse]

Outlook 2010/2013.

I moved to 2013 recently and I like that just as good if not better, for one because I can one-click mark read/unread.

If I didn't have a Technet subscription I would buy Office just to get Outlook.

[glynor]

TAB key switches active navigation between the 3 panes (folder list, messages list, message preview).
...
Do you have tab or shift-tab programmed to remote buttons?

Thanks!

I do, actually, but it is a "shifted" button (I have to hit another button to enable shift mode and then hit the keys that do Tab/Shift-Tab).

Too bad they chose that, though it does make some kind of sense, I suppose.  I'll have to see if I can figure out how to make Girder detect the "in front" app when it is a Metro app (and then I can remap the buttons for just Mail).  I suspect it won't work.  Anyone know if I can do that with AutoHotKey+EventGhost?

[glynor]

Thunderbird email client may be a decent substitute for Eudora.
If you like that, there is an extension you can install that will do the bounce feature.
Thunderbird Mail Redirect Extension

That was what I originally thought, but didn't Mozilla quasi-discontinue Thunderbird?

I used to use T-Bird back in the day, and used to install it on my home Windows boxes, but I've stopped since that.  I know the community is still working on it, but  figure it is probably a hop-skip-and-a-jump before abandonware once Mozilla pulled out.

[6233638]

It still amazes me that Apple ships a terrific mail client standard with the OS, and yet there are no great email clients available for Windows.

I use Thunderbird because it's free and the one that I hate the least so far. But it's not great.


It's a similar situation with RSS readers when you have clients like Reeder and Flipboard on OS X/iOS, and nothing remotely comparable for Windows/Metro. Not that it will probably matter in a few years time - just like desktop email clients have largely died out due to the advances that webmail has made, RSS has been disappearing from browsers over the last few years, and Google is now discontinuing Reader. (which many clients use for syncing data)

[rjm]

It's a similar situation with RSS readers when you have clients like Reeder and Flipboard on OS X/iOS, and nothing remotely comparable for Windows/Metro. Not that it will probably matter in a few years time - just like desktop email clients have largely died out due to the advances that webmail has made, RSS has been disappearing from browsers over the last few years, and Google is now discontinuing Reader. (which many clients use for syncing data)

I am a heavy user of the Firefox Brief add-on for for monitoring RSS feeds. Where do you see RSS going in the future?

[glynor]

It still amazes me that Apple ships a terrific mail client standard with the OS, and yet there are no great email clients available for Windows.

Because Outlook.

Outlook itself is ok.  I use it at the office, of course (I actually now slightly prefer the OSX version, now that the steaming pile of fail that was Entourage is gone).

My main issues with it are:

1. It is dog-slow, especially if you have a lot of email in that single, monolithic PST file (I have email going back to 1993).

2. It is quite fragile.  The PST corruption issues seem much better since 2010/2011 versions, but I still get vague errors sending/receiving with relative frequency.

3. The UI is hopelessly crammed with crud I'll never need or use.  I think Outlook is THE example of Feeping Creatures.

[6233638]

I am a heavy user of the Firefox Brief add-on for for monitoring RSS feeds. Where do you see RSS going in the future?

Everyone seems to be moving towards twitter rather than RSS, which seems short-sighted to me - and I want full content feeds rather than links.

Because Outlook.
...

4. It's ridiculously expensive for personal use and still isn't nearly as good as the programs Apple ships with its OS for free. (Mail/iCal etc.)

[JimH]

Everyone seems to be moving towards twitter rather than RSS ...

Entropy.  Information is trending toward chaos.

[glynor]

4. It's ridiculously expensive for personal use and still isn't nearly as good as the programs Apple ships with its OS for free. (Mail/iCal etc.)

Totally agree.

The problem is, from a developer perspective, that your target market is small because on one hand you have corporate Outlook usage, and on the other hand you have free webmail.  There's just very little "space" to build a desktop email client, and no one wants to pay for one anymore (or not enough people for it to be worth it).

Plus, building a good email client is hard.

[rjm]

Everyone seems to be moving towards twitter rather than RSS, which seems short-sighted to me - and I want full content feeds rather than links.

Thanks. I tried twitter a while ago and really don't get it. Seems to be for morons who cannot grasp concepts longer than 128 characters.