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As a longtime Eudora user I've been keenly interested in Eudora 8's progress, especially since upgrading (finally) to a MacIntel unibody Macbook recently, so I wasted no time downloading Eudora 8.0b6 for a looksee at the latest developments (see Appendix below). The Eudora 8 betas are of course of particular interest to those seeking a satisfactory email client replacement for classic Eudora 6.
The other great white hope for Eudora junkies is MailForge (formerly Odysseus), a new email client that Infinity Data Systems has been developing since late 2007, designed to be a more faithful successor to the classic Eudora application we know and love than the Thunderbird-based version. MailForge is still in public beta stages, shows much promise, has a reassuringly Eudora-esque user interface, and follows Eudora configuration conventions very closely, but unfortunately hasn't been developing much faster than the Penelope project's slow-gestationg Eudora replacement.
Compared to Eudora, Odysseus has the advantage of being a universal binary that works on both Intel and Power PC Macs, and is under active development by a software company that saws it's dedicated to making Odysseus the best email client in existence. That includes improving on areas where classic Eudora had started to lag behind... such as integration with the individual operating systems that it runs on.
Odysseus is commercial software (as Qualcomm's Eudora was) and not open source, and will sell for $39.95, about the same price point as classic Eudora.
Back to Eudora 8, I've been using Thunderbird 2 (currently 2.0.0.21) as my default email client since switching to the MacBook three months ago, and I've warmed to it considerably, but still have an affinity for the Eudora tradition. After checking out Eudora 8.0b6 for the past several days, I'm provisionally ready to pronounce it ready for routine workaday service. It's been stable and reliable so far, and if it maintains that performance I will probably switch from Thunderbird.
Eudora 8.0 is able to import your Classic Eudora account settings and Address Book information, a process you can initiate under the Tools menu, and I found it quite quick and slick. You also have the option of downloading only the configuration files from Eudora Classic, and are not obliged to bring in your email message archives if you're just exploring, although there is an option to just import everything in one fell swoop.
A particularly important function for me is wanted to check was how efficiently support for multiple email accounts works. I had 22 email accounts configured in Eudora Classic, some with different SMTP server configs. Happily, Thunderbird/Eudora 8 handles individual account checks gracefully, although I find its task progress monitoring less to my taste than Eudora Classic's excellent and informative Task Progress window.
Eudora 8.0.b6 is is the first release since 8.0.0b5, and based on Thunderbird 3.0b2 source code, so add-ons that don't work with Thunderbird 3.0b2 likely don't work with this beta version of Eudora either. The Penelope extension is version 0.5a2. What's Penelope? Well, while Eudora 8 is a branded version of Thunderbird with some extra features added by the Eudora developers, Penelope is an extension that can be used with either Eudora or Thunderbird. The Eudora installer includes the corresponding version of Penelope along with it so there is no need to install Penelope if you are installing Eudora. Most features in Penelope can be accessed when used with Thunderbird, but there are a few that require Eudora in order to work correctly and it's not something that gets tested.
Incidentally, Eudora 8.0 transparently accesses the Thunderbird user profiles in the Thunderbird folder loacted in your Home folder's Library directory with no user action needed in switching back and forth between the two email applications, which is convenient.
Mac system requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.4.x and later
• Macintosh computer with an Intel x86 or PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor - 128 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)
• 200 MB hard drive space
For more information and to download, visit:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Eudora_Releases
See: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope_Extensions for Penelope version notes.
Appendix
CHANGES IN 8.0.0b6
------------------
- Includes Penelope version 0.5a3.
- Using Thunderbird 3.0b2 source code.
See for details:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Thunderbird_3.0b2:BuildNotes
MAILBOX WINDOW
--------------
- Better way to remember the states of the folder and thread panes when switching between message and mailbox tabs.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476343
- Added the pref "penelope.attachments.detachOnDblClick" which controls whether double-clicking on attachments detaches them from the message or just opens them. It is on (true) by default. There's UI for it in the Penelope preferences panel.
- When pref for opening mailboxes in tabs is turned on, auto-open of mailboxes will detect if the mailbox is already open in a tab and not open a new copy.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480051
- Fixed bug where messages opened in tabs would not show the correct content if the message pane was hidden in the folder view.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481855
- Fixed the "important" tag from randomly appearing. This bug may still occur to messages downloaded with Eudora 8 beta 5 or earlier. All messages downloaded with Eudora 8 beta 6 or later should not see this problem.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471399
- The Layout submenu in the View menu is now shown.
- Default pref to not show the about:rights notification bar.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486602
- Changed the Archive menu item to use Ctrl/Cmd+forward slashas a shortcut
instead of the plain "A" that Thunderbird uses.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486601
- Now preventing auto-marked-as-read behavior when a message gets auto-selected
when switching tabs.
TOOLBARS
--------
- Incorporated Add New Toolbar functionality in Formatting tab of the
Customize Toolbar dialog.
- Removed special toolbar items (separators, spaces, springs/flexible spaces)
from the Extras panel.
- Fixed bug where in a new installation you customize the toolbar and then hit
Cancel and the text on the toolbar buttons shows up.
- Customize Toolbar dialog now repositions when the toolbar changes.
FILTERS
-------
- Fixed the auto-name filter feature when matching against tags.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457745
IMPORTING
---------
- Fixed bug where attachments were not getting imported from Classic Mac Eudora.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486338
IMAP
----
- IMAP messages were getting expunged when they should not have.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=484445
- Longer line length for IMAP logging.
MISCELLANEOUS
-------------
- Use of cmd+M to do a mail check improved.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382826
- The pref directory for auto-saving attachments is now working.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480899
- By default attachments are saved to the pref directory rather than asking for
a directory each time.
- Fixed some menu item conflicts which caused the Paste As Quotation menu item
to disappear from the Edit menu of composition windows. May also be the cause
of this bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=410145
- Removed phantom menu item in the Tools menu caused by id change.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=473936
Charles W. Moore
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