Do you mean you see TB!'s forum online, as per DC? I take it as a mailing list. My main problem with it is the sheer volume: not surprising, I suppose, for a program of TB!'s power and complexity.Yeah, I was talking about their online forum. I didn't know they had a mailing list. I hate mailing lists. but they also have the option to read it through a newsreader.-rjbull (March 13, 2009, 07:14 AM)
Wow - posted the above and then noted your latest post about being banned from the Bat! forums - how do you know/what makes you think you've been banned? The two posts you linked to are very innocuous :huh:I've been banned because now I can't create a new thread, reply to any threads, or even modify my own threads...with a message in red saying I don't have enough permission to do so. I've been banned.-Darwin (March 13, 2009, 03:03 PM)
Wow - posted the above and then noted your latest post about being banned from the Bat! forums - how do you know/what makes you think you've been banned? The two posts you linked to are very innocuous :huh:I've been banned because now I can't create a new thread, reply to any threads, or even modify my own threads...with a message in red saying I don't have enough permission to do so. I've been banned.-Darwin (March 13, 2009, 03:03 PM)
Then i saw their forum "rules":
http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forum/read.php?FID=4&TID=6975
Which are really stupid rules to have for a support forum. Don't talk about bugs?! That's just a dumb rule.
As far as Dopus, yes, it is rather intimidating. But with them, at least they have a really nice forum where you can find answers relatively quickly.-superboyac (March 13, 2009, 03:47 PM)
That's totally ridiculous if they banned you from the forum.. maybe you just triggered something that prevents one user from posting too many posts on the day they sign up, to prevent spammers?That shouldn't be the case, since I signed up two years ago. But maybe I posted twice in a few minutes and that triggered it. But that still leaves me to wonder why no one responded.-mouser (March 14, 2009, 06:52 AM)
In this forum, the users of The Bat! can communicate with each other to spread their positive attitude toward The Bat!, to share the experience in attaining different goals using The Bat!
On a related note, I was able to access their newsgroup/mailing list and it is VERY active. Seems like all the important discussions happen in there. A bit antiquated in my opinion, but it is a poweruser email program so i can understand why they gravitate towards using mailing lists and newsgroups.-superboyac (March 14, 2009, 02:53 PM)
?????! I don't see the correlation at all. Poweruser programs use usenet and mailing lists? ;D ;D ;D I think not! Has nothing to do with whether a program is for, (Ahem!) "powerusers". To me it just indiciates that the developer of the program has probably been around computers for a long time and is accustomed to/more familiar and comfortable with such media.Yeah, I know...I've used all the different kinds of support methods over the years like mailing lists, forums, simple emails to the author. The best BY FAR is an active forum as far as quickly finding information and resolving issues. And for that matter, this DC forum is the best as far as interface and searching options and organization. But I also know mouser has put in a lot of custom tweaks and effort to make it that way.
Jim-J-Mac (March 15, 2009, 01:44 PM)
Mailing lists are a pain in the butt. Sure, there's a lot of information in there, but it's hard to find something when you need it. And because of that, it forces you to read a whole bunch of stuff you don't really care about.-superboyac (March 15, 2009, 08:25 PM)
But Jim, seriously, the Bat as a program is excellent. I don't know what client I would use if it did not exist. I used to use pegasus for years which is still pretty good. but DC made me change.
Usenet can actually be a terrific support method if it is used properly and well-covered by the developer. Of course that goes for regular software forums also. As for having to search for information on Usenet I have Agent Forte (though admittedly it is not currently installed - though I do have a current license). Agent is built specifically for Usenet groups - and nothing else. It has a built-in email program too but I never used it much. But for searching, building watches, filters, and marking posts for later reference, it is the best available. And with it Usenet can be pretty decent. :)yeah, back before forums became mainstream, I used Forte Agent a lot. it was great for that. But now, it doesn't make sense with all the conveniences available with regular forums. Just look at this forum here, it's amazing...the way you can present content, search, and the interface is just amazing. people come here and they don't have any frustrations mechanically, which is not the case in other forums. newsgroups are horrible compared to forums. I'm not saying they are bad in every way, but once you've tasted the forums, it's hard to go back to that.
Jim-J-Mac (January 30, 2011, 11:06 PM)
......But now, it doesn't make sense with all the conveniences available with regular forums.-superboyac (January 30, 2011, 11:19 PM)
Well, if the question is "how do I get support for the Bat?", then yes, you are correct.......But now, it doesn't make sense with all the conveniences available with regular forums.-superboyac (January 30, 2011, 11:19 PM)
Unless, that is, the software you use and love is using Usenet only for their main support vehicle. Then it makes sense by necessity!
Jim-J-Mac (January 31, 2011, 12:08 AM)
I'm going to guess that auto-wrap and auto-format are not designed to work with pasted blocks of text. My email client is the same way but it doesn't bother me. I just highlight, hit one hotkey and it's formatted. No big deal.yes, but why can't they just fix it? Why add an auto-wrapping feature and do a half-ass job of it. So by adding an auto-wrap feature, they are basically saying, "well, it auto-wraps for some things, and not for others". They should call it "automatic wrapping sometimes".-skwire (January 31, 2011, 10:41 AM)
yes, but why can't they just fix it?-superboyac (January 31, 2011, 10:45 AM)
RITLabs had proven its supremacy once againSupremacy in what exactly? Yes, it's a great email program. But it's hardly popular or even recognizable by most people. I'm sure making it a little easier to use with a manual and good support would make that statement a little more true.
Early 2010 for RITLabs is rich in innovations. Freshly launched The Bat! 4.2.23 brings quite a number of improvements and fixes.Oh yeah? What could they be? let's take a look:
01/26/2010Great.
- "Do nothing" option for the "Watch and send files" Scheduler's action to control execution of other actions
- Improved speed of handling folder names. This may be noticeable on very large folder trees
- Changed DEP detection algorithm for the operating systems prior to Windows Vista (e.g. for Windows XP with SP3 and Windows Server 2003)
- If there were an invalid birthday date stored in the address book, The Bat! did only report error "invalid argument to date encode", without further clarification for the user what might have caused the error. Now more detailed information is given.
[-] Clicking the "How to register" menu item have caused the "File not found" error message
[-] (#0007845) Error Message when exiting "save as" in Graphic Viewer
[-] (#0007852) An error after dropping a dragged attachment to a Windows desktop
[-] The Certificate Selection window and Certificate Search Results windows did save the coordinates to a wrong location in Registry
[-] (#0007844) Font family not set in HTML mail
[-] (#0007859) After renaming an account, folder structure is not saved
I understand your preference. I'm not saying one is better than the other. But to refuse to make the editor behave like any normal Windows text editor seems odd. Look, they've already added the automatic wrapping feature. Obviously it's something they considered and decided to implement. So why not just finish the job? Why leave it half finished? The questions is not "Is wrapping a good thing?". The question is "If we're going to have automatic wrapping, shouldn't it work even when text is pasted in? Or should it only work as you type?"yes, but why can't they just fix it?-superboyac (January 31, 2011, 10:45 AM)
In my case, I like that my client doesn't auto-format pasted blocks because there are plenty of times I don't want the pasted block formatted.-skwire (January 31, 2011, 10:55 AM)
The actual Ritlabs forum:
This is the one on their website. According to the rules, you can only say "positive" things about the Bat there. Nothing else. no bug reports, no support questions, nothing about beta. Only "positive" remarks.-superboyac (January 30, 2011, 10:51 PM)
If we're going to have automatic wrapping, shouldn't it work even when text is pasted in? Or should it only work as you type?"-superboyac (January 31, 2011, 11:06 AM)
I am sorry to say, but this is not a bug, it's a feature of MicroEd. Auto-Format works that way for years and we do not intend to change that...
Some time ago, I decided to get a Mac and lose all those expensive Windows apps.I hear you. A lot of PC developers don't care to make life easy for the end user. They want to add features features and more features, and often ignore the little things that just make life a little easier. I still often wonder what significant improvements/fixes the Bat has done in the last 5 years, and it's not much. They still refuse to have a true forum, they don't fix any of the issues with MicroED that have been there for years. They still don't have ANY documentation for anything. It's funny; they have a Quick Templates feature that is very powerful, and it has its own syntax, it's basically a programming language. Is there any documentation for this language? Nope. You just have to figure it out.
It took a while to migrate 50,000 email messages from a whole load of folders in TheBat, Outlook, ThunderBird and Outlook Express to Mac Mail. I'd say I lost maybe 5,000 emails or maybe 10,000 emails when I used Outlook Express and ThunderBird :(
Ever since I used MacMail:
- I got a working address-book that syncs with my iPad, iPhone, Google, Yahoo and LAN here. No more Windows Address book problems!
- I never lost a sync or contact for past 6 months
- Email backup: almost automatic...
- There's a script to do remove duplicates, remove attachments, tag folders
- Automatic syncing between iPhone, iPad
- never had to bother with those WinMail.dat or HTML spam or EXE attachments ever
- There's tagging, color tagging,
- Working to-do lists,
- Calendar that syncs with Google, Yahoo.
- automatic filing with intelligence
- brilliant search feature
- IMAP compatibility. I can use Exchange with MacMail too
I especially like Mail, To-do list, Reminders and Calendar API integration system-wide. :-*-vizacc (February 24, 2011, 02:54 AM)
I hear you. A lot of PC developers don't care to make life easy for the end user.
40hz's historical explanation today is very revealing and thought provoking.-superboyac (February 24, 2011, 01:11 PM)
40hz's historical explanation today is very revealing and thought provoking.-superboyac (February 24, 2011, 01:11 PM)
where's that ? :)-tomos (February 24, 2011, 02:24 PM)
vizacc, firstly, is that the Terminator 3 chick? She was bad ass.
The MicroEd editor is famous at making your text break or add annoying spaces in-between. I don't know why they think this is a good feature Sadexactly. They think it's a good feature because the only people they pay attention to are the beta testers on usenet, who are not exactly representative of people who like to make things easy. Also, they just don't seem to care about really developing the software. It seems like the code has remained pretty much the same for years, and very very minimal effort has been put in between versions. I bet the programmers spend a few hours a year here and there doing stuff. All the feature requests go unanswered. The list bugfixes and new features that I have to assume is just the simplest, easiest things to add.
Did anyone think about export to Android or Nokia phone?They will NEVER do this. Waaay too much work for them. they have difficulty adding a checkbox in the options menu, there's no way there going to do something like that. only minor things will be modified.
Take a look at the iPad or iPhone email client. It has much, much fewer features but makes an amazing email client.yup. Surprisingly, Apple tries to give an experience that a NORMAL person will enjoy. The Bat tries to give an experience that will only be enjoyed by those who consider usenet as their preferred forum-type communication. People who get really mad when you top-post. People who get really really really mad if you don't do the proper dash-dash-space-enter delimiter for signatures. That's who the Bat developers listen to. If you want, say, the editor to work well...meaning the place where you write emails and spend 90% of your time while you're in the program...you will be ignored.
Then go back to TheBat and wonder why the developers cannot focus their time on the features everyone wants instead of adding new features without much reasoning or thought and new versions every two or so years...
The Mac image editor is simply elegantYup, that's my new favorite word. I hate sounding like a fanboy, because I am SO not. But when it comes to interface, Apple beats pc software most of the time, and it's not even close. Now, windows users will say "But we can do more, and windows stuff is more powerful" which is true. But from a business perspective, interface is what sells, not powerful features. Powerful features sell to people like us who are hardcore software powerusers, and have a lifetime of experience with computers, but we only represent a very small number of sales. But if you want to sell the maximum number of programs, you HAVE to make sure the interface is easy and is giving people what they want...i.e. what Apple does. Now, if you don't want to sell a lot but just want a powerful program, then you don't need to worry about it, which seems to be the attitude of most pc developers. But if I hear that developers are wondering why their stuff doesn't sell more, all I can do is smirk and think "Look, if you want to sell more, you have to give people what they want. Not what you think they should want."-vizacc (February 24, 2011, 10:36 PM)
It makes you re-think how to write software...True. I actually don't blame Microsoft as much as the developers. The way I see it, we need Microsoft to do their OS the way they do. In fact I think Windows OS is brilliant and don't have a lot of complaints about it. Windows provides an environment where developers can pretty much do anything (unlike Apple). The problem is the developers don't know how to wrangle in that complete freedom. They need to take all that development freedom and present it to the user in an easy way. That' why I get totally turned off by programs that like to use a lot of command line features to do their functions (i.e. The Bat's quick templates). Instead, they should spend a little extra time and create some buttons, windows, and visual elements that turn that programming language into something that is easy to grasp and work with. I mean, how far do we go? If people were comfortable using command line stuff, they'd be comfortable just coding things themselves. So if you truly want to help the average user accomplish a task, you take your expertise (programming) and convert that into something that is general and universal...buttons, icons, etc.
For instance,
- are all those toolbars really necessary?
- are all those fancy buttons really necessary?
- does the customer need this feature? should it be designed in a better way? ...
Windows is going in complete opposite direction than Mac. There are so many technologies and UI interfaces for Windows - MFC, NET, WPF, Silverlight, Flash, RIA, Restful interfaces, browser interface, SOAP, Ajax and probably a dozen more UI toolkits for Windows...
Then look at the way how iPad and Mac OSX apps are developed. Then you say,
WTF were you doing all that time writing software without thinking about the user??-vizacc (February 25, 2011, 10:21 AM)
annoying
Can this Bat of yours be customised, plug-in'd or otherwise extended? If so there may be a way to shoehorn in a better editor while retaining all the other fine features of the program.You can write plugins, but very very few people have. One of the best ones is AntiSpamSniper, which I love. Great example of how to properly program something. I doubt you can easily write something to replace the editor without it being klunky. I mean, to the Bat's credit, they offer the plain Windows editor as an option, which I use. But I miss some of the coloring features in Microed if you do that. but I stick to it because the wordwrapping works.-timns (February 25, 2011, 11:50 AM)
I understand too the need to have all data locally. I do exactly the same.
But what do you need to do with your email, apart from classifying, sorting, filtering, searching and finding info in it?-Armando (February 26, 2011, 12:52 PM)
There are ways to backup Gmail. Other than the "local storage" issue, it answers all the other concerns as far as I can see. *shrug*
- Oshyan-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 05:04 PM)
Companies all over the place are using Google Apps/Gmail, so either they don't care about security, or they've had assurances that it's secure somehow. All your email passes through multiple mail servers to get to you (and to get to your recipients) anyway so security with email is somewhat a moot point IMHO.
I wouldn't backup the full mail store every time, just do an "incremental" of sorts. The easiest way to do mail backup on Gmail for me is to run a POP or IMAP message sync. It will only update what is new. Then you just backup the resulting file (incrementally, ideally). Speed is not really an issue.
So what are these "weird things" that you do with email that Gmail can't do? Honestly I've still yet to hear a specific, concrete example, much less one that makes me think "Ohh, yeah, that makes total sense.". :D
- Oshyan-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 05:25 PM)
I understand too the need to have all data locally. I do exactly the same.
But what do you need to do with your email, apart from classifying, sorting, filtering, searching and finding info in it?-Armando (February 26, 2011, 12:52 PM)
Classify, sort, filter, search and find info in it - all the way back to 1995. I don't use Outlook, and if I only want to search my email, I find Thunderbird's searching ideal. I would not be happy having all of my email archive anywhere but on my local drive. It's over 4gb.-timns (February 26, 2011, 01:31 PM)
--managing multiple email accounts in just the right way
--locally stored files. easily shared between applications. Even Outlook is not as easy to share as people seem to think, but I don't want to get into those details
--quick templates; they let me automate a lot of things.
--layout control. most other programs don't allow you to modify the layout as much as the Bat.
--powerful filtering. gmail doesn't have it, nor does outlook. Gmail's is way too simple. Outlook is just odd and stupid.-superboyac (February 27, 2011, 01:07 AM)
MacMail is straight forward.
When you have a mail where you last moved it in 3 or 4 different folders, it gives you a choice to move it to the last 3 or 4 locations where you last moved it to.
For example, those PayPal emails... you file it under [ISP], [Rent], [Mac Programs], [Windows Programs], the next time the same email comes, it gives you a choice to file it under any of those last 4 folders you want.
If it's from that user, click [File] or [Thread] to file all the threads under that folder.
Click on To-Do, if you have WiFi, it flows to your iPhone or iPad
Top notch. :Thmbsup:
I still remember the time spending many hours filing my emails with TheBat-vizacc (March 02, 2011, 06:24 AM)
I totally understand where you're all coming from. What I love about Gmail is... it stopped me really caring about filtering, for the most part.-JavaJones (March 05, 2011, 02:13 AM)
Edit: I say this about The Bat as a purchaser and former user of it who successfully converted to Gmail and hasn't looked back. I thought I needed massive power and flexibility too. Turned out all I needed was to find the right system that worked for me, despite its many limitations (and yes there are things I miss in Gmail or that bug me, but less than The Bat by far; I find GMail at least a pleasure to use on a day-to-day basis). In a way I kind of found my own Apple-style app in Gmail, with a focus in fast, easy to use, intuitive, but with fewer compromises and more creativity (e.g. labels, labs).-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 01:29 AM)
Speaking for myself, I suspect that part of the reason many of us are no longer seduced by expensive, feature-rich e-mail clients (says he who uses Outlook!), is that e-mail seems to have SERIOUSLY declined in use over the past five or so years. The decline may well have started before then, but I don't receive or send anything near the volume of e-mail that I did in the past. This is a general trend, not just my experience, I *think*, non?-Darwin (March 09, 2011, 08:22 AM)
Speaking for myself, I suspect that part of the reason many of us are no longer seduced by expensive, feature-rich e-mail clients (says he who uses Outlook!), is that e-mail seems to have SERIOUSLY declined in use over the past five or so years. The decline may well have started before then, but I don't receive or send anything near the volume of e-mail that I did in the past. This is a general trend, not just my experience, I *think*, non?-Darwin (March 09, 2011, 08:22 AM)
Yeah, fair enough, timns. I'm out of the business/academic world now (underemployed since 2008) and should have specified "social" use of e-mail. The only people that seem to use it are those who are over 60 OR who started using it in the early 90's when it started to become mainstream. Kids use Facebook. I loathe Facebook... (we fear change).-Darwin (March 09, 2011, 11:26 AM)
Seems to me that these email applications are not being very customer friendly because there just probably aren't that many customers. Hardly anyone uses email clients anymore, other than Outlook. So for me to ask for a lot of feature requests, it's probably a futile effort. Their profits are probably not very high, so they just sustain the program minimally for existing users. I'm sure if all the people using the webmail were also using clients, we would notice much better customer support.
But nobody uses email clients anymore. Just look around. People use Outlook, probably because they have to for work, but the very large majority of people are using the webmail: gmail, hotmail, yahoo.-superboyac (March 10, 2011, 08:52 AM)
What I don't understand is the "no opposing view will be tolerated" attitude.-Darwin (March 09, 2011, 02:12 PM)
whenen a mail is sent you will find it in Sent subfolder. if it FAILS to send it will still be in Outbox. I dont think there are exceptions to this.Whoops!
you can also select an email account and hit ctrl+shift+A to bring up log which should show you any mail sent or received.-mouser (December 12, 2011, 09:49 PM)
I'm beginning to think the Bat folk will never improve their editor features....
....Let me tell you, over the past several years, the developers have done very very little to improve the program. It's not as bad as I make it seem; the program still works and everything. But you would like to see it "catch up" just a little bit with the times. And I'm sure they have their own economic troubles, etc. But the program really hasn't made many changes over even 5 years, hardly anything. Changes for the Bat that took them 3 years to do, I've seen coding snack developers on these forums do in a matter of hours or days. That's how slow they are.-superboyac (December 22, 2011, 02:13 PM)
I don’t think that any developer is going to pour much in the way of resources into an email client, so The Bat and Pocomail will go the way of Eudora.So too Mulberry, alas. I've used it for more than a decade, and I still love it, but it hasn't had any noticeable development in about five or six years, and it certainly needs some. But every time I try a different email client, I'm reminded why I stay with Mulberry. :(-J-Mac (December 22, 2011, 09:42 PM)