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email client. Opera's M2 vs. the Bat

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urlwolf:
Hi All,

I'm transitioning from being a full-time M2 user to trying the bat!. I know that
this forum has plenty of users of both so I thought it'd be one of the best
places to ask.  I didn't like much what I saw first with the bat. It had
problems retrieving gmail mail, but it seems to be due to opera sucking the mail
first. So I disabled the mail checking in opera and now it seems to be doing ok.

I have several old acc., both POP and IMAP. Following advice (that I probably
got from here too :) ) I plan to just forward everything to one gmail acct. and
them access it using POP. That way there are always a local (HD) copy of my mail
and another one in the gmail servers (that will be there forever, as it seems
solid enough).

My problems
(1) SPAM. Is there any way to tell the bat not to download the messages that
have being marked as spam by gmail? Is there any way I can mark mail as spam
locally on the bat, and have it update gmail's markup as well? Is the spam
filtering easy to configure?

(2) Searches. M2 has the fastest search I have seen ever. Pity it doesn't keep
different inboxes for different accounts, otherwise it'd be ideal. Is the search
in the bat up to par?

(3) keyboard shortcuts. I'm used to ctrl + e to open a new mail. I redefined
that shortcut in the bat, but it was assigned to a default action (edit email)
and I don't see how to deactivate it. Is there any way.

Finally, any M2 defenders wanting to say a piece here before I completely switch away from it?

Thanks

mouser:
i can only say that i tried M2 during the initial thebat review and i didn't think it could hold a candle to thebat!
allen is a huge fan of Opera and he still prefers thebat! of the Opera email client :)

allen:
This is going to be really brief as I need to get my son to sleep -- but the bottom line is: It depends. :)

The Bat! is without question the most powerful mail client you'll get your hands on.  It is not, however, without its weaknesses -- there's a steep learning curve if you really want to take advantage of it and its search, while powerful, is nowhere near the speed of M2.  It really depends on what you need.  With huge mail bases, M2 runs into some issues -- namely the entire Opera application slows to a crawl when sending/receiving mail if the panel is open -- while TB handles large bases effortlessly.  What I like about M2 is that it's like gmail, in that it's one big flat database that you can quickly search and/or apply labels.

TB is more organized -- For power users who want to take complete control of their mail, TB! is -the- way to go -- but for simply casually checking your mail throughout the day, I'd go with M2 -- it's free, lightweight, fast and the search makes of for the awkward folder structure.  The Bat, on the other hand, is ideal for organizational freaks who like everything in a folder based hierarchy -- with its powerful filters, folders, virtual folders -- if you're willing to dedicate a lot of time, you can automate virtually everything but the actual converting letters into words, sentences and paragraphs :)

I also find Opera's keyboard editor more succinct -- and its documentation is unarguably more reliable.

But the bottom line--Opera is great for casual users, The Bat is ideal for those who want total control from the groundup.

urlwolf:
Thanks Allen,

That was really, really helpful.
After wasting 1.5 days mocking around with the bat, I still haven't being able
to import my mail from opera (!). So I'm going to be the one that defends M2
here :)

First, advantages
   the contact completion is a lot faster in M2
   The search is far better than any other mail system
   the keyboard shortcuts are obvious
   Having the mailer integrated in the browser helps a lot (less app. switching)
   much better HTML suppor while being secure.
   Separate files for individual mails, so no risk of losing a month's worth of
   email if a smart antivirus program decides to delete a mailbox to 'clean'
Disadvantages (w.r.t. the bat)
   No spelling built in
   No templates
   No separate accounts

Here is how I solved the disadvantages and will stick to M2
   Spelling: I have a shortcut that brings up VIM 7 (bestest editor ever). That
   gives me Spelling AND word completion with tab (and parentheis balancing,
   etc. Do you know how often yo repeat a word in a mail? save keystrokes!)

   Templates: using tSkeleton (vim plugin) or AHK, that should not be an issue:)

   No separate accounts. This sounds like a big show stopper, but it's not.
   since the search is immediate, just search for as many accounts as you have
   (e.g., [email protected], [email protected], etc), they will show up as a virtual
   folder. You can see

The only problem is now to create different shortcuts to answer mails with your
different 'personas'   (e.g., [email protected], [email protected], etc). That, I haven't
solved yet.

Cheers.

urlwolf:
Ok, I forgot that M2 reads RSS and newsgroups wonderfully.
You have also tags, although reduced.
It's like all the advatages of gmail (fast search, tags) combined with all the advantages of a standalone program (more options, no delay due to server communication, reload page, etc)

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