New Mailbox Structure

[paleolith]

When Eudora is opening a message with an attachment, no display update is involved.

Deleting files is slow even when no display update is involved (as in PSE) or when the folder only contains one or two files.

robocopy comes from Microsoft for goodness sake, and it chokes on large folders, and it's a command line tool and I was running it from a script.

Bringing display update into the discussion is just silly. I'm talking about the timing differences: Eudora opening a message without an attachment vs Eudora opening a message with an attachment, PSE going to the next image in full-screen view vs deleting the current image and going to the next. When things happen so fast that I can't time them by eye normally, and take seconds under certain conditions, clearly the difference is related to the certain conditions and not to the normal conditions.

Your argument is that because you often see good performance from the file system, that I can count on good performance from the file system. This is bad logic.

And even if Odysseus can get good performance from the file system, it isn't doing the backups. I'm far from the only one to note here that backups under Windows often choke on large folders and/or large numbers of files.

Why my experience with Eudora's attachment folder differs from yours, I don't know. I'd love to get rid of this annoyance. But clearly you don't know either, since none of your explanations applies. This leaves me still not trusting the file system.

Edward

[davidmarcus]

The fact that Robocopy was written by Microsoft doesn't prove much. Some Microsoft products are good and some are not. However, I just tried Robocopy on a directory with 50,000 files. If none of the files had changed, it took Robocopy less than a second to figure out it didn't need to copy any files.

Your argument is that because you often see good performance from the file system, that I can count on good performance from the file system.

No. My argument is that the file system is not the cause of any problems you are having. Perhaps some popular backup apps do have problems with directories with lots of files and this should be considered when designing Odysseus.

Have you tried turning off your virus checker?

[Mike Meade]

I'm a lamba Eudora user and not at all knowlegeable about programming. BUt I need a simple efficient emailing application and the old Eudora was (and still is) exactly that.

I’ve tried every which way to stay as close as possible to the original Eudora which I’ve been using for years. Have tried some “replacements” but nothing has come close and most even wouldn’t properly import my Eudora mailboxes of which I have hundreds. So I’ve stuck with Eudora 6.2.4 (Mac OS 10.4.11) and haven’t even dared update my system to 10.5 for fear of losing the use of my coveted Eudora. For my use, it's as close to perfect as any email application I’ve ever seen.

For me, the main thing is that the original Eudora mailbox structure be respected by Odysseus, or at least importable without glitches into Odysseus. This structure is extremely easy to back up every day which is a vital consideration. It also allows me to use Eudora on different machines at home and office and just transfer the office mailboxes over to home and vice-versa on a USB key. Never seen an email program that permits that with as much ease as the old Eudora does.

My only serious criticisms of the old Eudora were (in order):

-the sorting of the mailbox menu. I would have liked the option of having mailboxes sorted by alphabetical order rather than putting mailboxes at the top and folders underneath in the menu

- inadequate treatment of URLS sent in emails. They weren’t always clickable by my PC equipped colleagues.

- inadequate HTML support

But even if Odysseus doesn’t correct those things, count me in if it can use or at least efficiently import old Eudora mailboxes, some of which I started more than a decade ago (or so it seems).

One other feature I hope Odysseus will allow—the ability to keep my Mail folder anywhere I choose on my HD, whether it be in the same folder as the application, or in the Documents folder or anywhere else.

[Matt Milano]

My only serious criticisms of the old Eudora were (in order):

-the sorting of the mailbox menu. I would have liked the option of having mailboxes sorted by alphabetical order rather than putting mailboxes at the top and folders underneath in the menu

- inadequate treatment of URLS sent in emails. They weren’t always clickable by my PC equipped colleagues.

- inadequate HTML support

But even if Odysseus doesn’t correct those things, count me in if it can use or at least efficiently import old Eudora mailboxes, some of which I started more than a decade ago (or so it seems).

One other feature I hope Odysseus will allow—the ability to keep my Mail folder anywhere I choose on my HD, whether it be in the same folder as the application, or in the Documents folder or anywhere else.

All of this will be addressed by 1.0 Final.

[paleolith]

haven’t even dared update my system to 10.5 for fear of losing the use of my coveted Eudora

Mike,

While you're waiting for Odysseus, you can upgrade to 10.5. If you allow Eudora to make sounds, there are certain sounds you must disable, and otherwise it works fine. See http://tidbits.com. I can't remember, there may be a regular article there, and if not there have been discussions on this in the tidbits-talk forum. Lots of Mac users feel the same as you.

Edward

[Clothears]

For me, the main thing is that the original Eudora mailbox structure be respected by Odysseus, or at least importable without glitches into Odysseus. This structure is extremely easy to back up every day which is a vital consideration. It also allows me to use Eudora on different machines at home and office and just transfer the office mailboxes over to home and vice-versa on a USB key.

Part of the problem (as I understand it) with Eudora mailboxes, and which makes it harder to import them, is that Eudora throws away a lot of the info that comes with the original mail item.

Also: at present the Odysseus folder is stuck in your Documents folder. Presumably making this moveable should be easy.

[paleolith]

Part of the problem (as I understand it) with Eudora mailboxes, and which makes it harder to import them, is that Eudora throws away a lot of the info that comes with the original mail item.

Attachments are separated, but otherwise Eudora keeps absolutely everything. The main problem with the format (mbx) from a programmer's point of view is that it isn't a database, and so complex forms of access are difficult. The explanation given for using modified formats fits: that they had a choice of modifying the format or spending a lot more programming time.

Edward

[Mike Meade]

The explanation given for using modified formats fits: that they had a choice of modifying the format or spending a lot more programming time.

I'm OK with a different format as long as there is some way (translator, converter, importer or whatever) that will allow me to bring my current Eudora mailbox content (or at least the principle headers, even if the rest of the bla-bla is lost) into Oddysseus, and a way to easily move a mailbox from one computer to another.

[Matt Milano]

Actually, Eudora does strip parts of the emails it downloads. These days, most email clients send both Plain Text and HTML copies of a message. If a message has an HTML part however, Eudora will strip out the Plain Text part, leaving only the HTML part... and then add a bunch of tags to the HTML part.

Needless to say, this makes importing a bit of a challenge since you never truly have the "original" message to start with. Odysseus, on the other hand, truly saves the message completely in its raw form.

[Clothears]

Actually, Eudora does strip parts of the emails it downloads. These days, most email clients send both Plain Text and HTML copies of a message. If a message has an HTML part however, Eudora will strip out the Plain Text part, leaving only the HTML part... and then add a bunch of tags to the HTML part.

Needless to say, this makes importing a bit of a challenge since you never truly have the "original" message to start with. Odysseus, on the other hand, truly saves the message completely in its raw form.

And, FYI, I amused myself during late June / early July in learning about SQLite, unpicking the Odysseus mailbox format, and writing a PHP script to export an Odysseus mailbox back to mbox format, with attachments (one thing my script does "wrong" is to flatten the parts structure). So I don't think IDS will have any trouble making an exporter facility at some point.