email client. Opera's M2 vs. the Bat

[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., foo@fmail.com, bar@fmail.com, 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., foo@fmail.com, bar@fmail.com, 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)

[allen]

The honest truth, is at the moment I use M2 more than The Bat! myself -- I still proclaim, without question, that TB is -the- most powerful mail client out there, but I've become rather enamoured with gmail's search rather than organization based approach -- which M2 was doing before Gmail There are a lot of benefits to both, the bottom line is chosing the client that fits your personal needs.

After having spent a few years away from it, and now playing with TB again -- the power is there, but it's starting to show its age.  Somewhere, I swear it was here but I can't find it, I made a post about the fact that I think organization based mail clients are on the out, replaced by M2/Gmail type search-based clients.  Organizing things is just too much work -- I wish I had a search button in my house.

Edit: Here it is!
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2411.msg21340#msg21340

[Harrie]

What I like about Opera mail is the built-in mail notifier.  I am trying The Bat now (also tried it several years ago), and the mail ticker is nice, but I don't like to keep the mail app open.  I've used MailWasher and PopTray in the past.  Was just wondering what mail notifier anyone might recommend for use with The Bat? 

[nontroppo]

I had a paid licence for the Bat, and was the biggest fan of it for a long time (helping beta testing). It was, and is, an excellent piece of software.

I would spend time crafting complex filters to organise my folders.

However, then I tried M2, and at first hated the disorder (compared to the baroque control of the bat). But then I "got" it, use access-points and let it do the hard work. Mailing lists automatically fell into place, discussions with people all ordered without me having to lift a finger. Not having to maintain folders and decide where content had to go. Read RSS and allow access points to aggregate information into dynamic tagged collections no matter what its source (i.e. whether it is a mailing list, forwarded mail or a feed doesn't matter if it is about the same topic). Being a tweaker and lover of CSS - the fact I can style my mail display is great.

Opera has a fully configurable UI, so I can tweak if I want to (build my own mail buttons etc, change key bindings and use mouse gestures to perform actions on mails).

M2 is not perfect, there are areas where more spit and polish wouldn't go a miss. IMAP is getting a big overhaul for Opera 9, and the storage format has changed to make it more robust.


urlwolf: did you try the accounts selector? right click in mail panel toolbar and "Customize" > Buttons > Mail and drag the account selector to your toolbar. That filters views to specific accounts. And when you switch the account - the compose button composes from the active account. I think this solves your issue?

[urlwolf]

Fantastic tip, non-troppo. It goes a long way to solve the problem. However, I don't want to be distracted by notifications to all the acc. I have, so I found an alternative (better than switching off the notifications at all):

I use M2 as standalone (mugin) to check all the acc. that are not urgent, and leave my primary account active in my main copy of opera. That works for me. Ideally, one should be able to activate notifications independently for each account (posted that on the wish list)

Guys, opera is THE application to look at in terms of GUI. As non-troppo demostrated, anything is ultra-configurable. It is very keyboard friendly too.

Problem solved. I think M2 is the best client out there, even though it still has issues.

Thanks a lot, non-troppo.

[allen]

Opera is definitely powerful/configurable -- The Bat!'s new keyboard shortcut configuration system seems to be stepping backwards in intuitive application while Opera's would be difficult to further streamline than it is.

My biggest complaints with M2, is it has a tendency to drag down Opera when downloading a bunch of messages to an already large mailbase and the lack of ability to create aliases/additional senders without resorting to adding additional mail accounts.

What amazes me most is the speed of MW's search, though -- blink and I'll miss it, with 50k+ messages.

My experience was similar to nontroppo's -- I used TB from basically the beginning; 97 or 98 beta testing all along but have strayed from it in recent years.  Great application, but to really take advantage of it you sort of need to be willing to marry it

[urlwolf]

So it seems that with two previous bat! super-users converted, opera's M2 should receive a better review, or at least a mention, in the mail app comparison page... don't you think? Mouser?

I ditched the bat for Opera as well, but I have to admit I didn't put much effort into learning the ins and outs of the bat.

[allen]

Yes, but EditPad Pro should have won the text editor shootout, too

I'd probably still be using TB, but it's the ins and outs that really make it valuable -- I'd put years into it, lost it with a hard drive and just don't have the drive/need to try to get back to where I was -- and with M2's search being so effective these days, it's growing on me.