PocoMail Future?

[Larry]

I'm afraid I must be more negative. It's been years (2009 when beta closed?) since Slaven posted anything and it appears the last time he even logged in was Nov 2010 with no post as far as I can find. Combine that with no hint on this forum or his web site that there is an further development planned (let alone a v5) leads me to the conclusion that he's done developing Pocomail/Barca.

Yes, PM does work, mostly. I still haven't been able to get the mailto suggestions to work on Vista and would have thought that with the number of people reporting the problem he would have worked on at least that fix.

I have used a number of shareware programs over the years and the one thing that has been consistent is when the chief developer stops communicating then the program is dead. And since there have been a number of posts questioning PM future I would have thought Slaven would put the concerns to rest by just a quick post. Alas, no.

Now the decision is to continue using until some major problem or change. I'll stay with PM for awhile but I must admit that although it works I prefer to use a program that's in active development. YMMV.

Larry

[finding_mcflappy]

I'm afraid I must be more negative.

Yes I'm afraid I agree. As a (very) long time Poco user, I've posted my thoughts on this demise previously. Can't say I'm placated by a shiny new forum either.

Yes, PM does work, mostly. I still haven't been able to get the mailto suggestions to work on Vista and would have thought that with the number of people reporting the problem he would have worked on at least that fix.

Mailto still doesn't play for me either not to mention the still lousy HTML support - I could forgive it when I though it might get worked on. Problem is I just don't have time at the moment to import a pile of mail from Poco into Outlook - would be interested to know if anyone has managed it smoothly though.

[Gleason Pace]

Actually, I think this quote from Eric's original answer to this question says it all

>IMHO I don't believe everything which is posted here.
>For now no news about a new version, but Slaven is working on it.
>It takes time, but we might be surprised with the outcome.

He says, don't believe it, and then tells you what you want to hear.

There has been a lot of bitterness around here, including mine when I got kicked off the beta test forum (a couple of versions before 4..
Slaven's neglect of this product is legendary. At least to me. And really disappointing.

There are a lot of reasonably competent pop email clients around, of which PM might be one, but if you are looking for new ideas in handling large amounts of stored email and a good Imap implementation (and ongoing development), look at Postbox. It just works.

Please don't ask for a web mail implementation of Barca. Webmail is the reason most email clients are going away. Pegasus, The Bat, Eudora, Mulberry etc. But so far, Postbox seems good enough to survive anyway. But please no more webmail clients. The world doesn't need another one. If you want portability, use Imap. You get the benefits of an email client, and access from anywhere on any computer.

[Gleason Pace]

By the way, that wasn't a smiley at the end of "a couple of versions before 4" That was an attempt to close the parens, which the forum software got carried away with.

[finding_mcflappy]

look at Postbox. It just works.

Yes I saw Postbox recently but have not investigated it yet - how is the import from Poco?

[Gleason Pace]

Probably will need to go the long way around. Postbox imports from NS Communicator 4.x, Outlook, Eudora, and Outlook Express. So if you could find a way to export Poco to one of them...

[chrisretusn]

By the way, that wasn't a smiley at the end of "a couple of versions before 4" That was an attempt to close the parens, which the forum software got carried away with.

That is what the "Disable smilies" check box is for. ;)

(a couple of versions before 4.8).

[finding_mcflappy]

Probably will need to go the long way around.

Thought so, more reason to choose carefully - I don't want to have to make changing clients a regular thing. Postbox looks like a revamped version of Thunderbird, which does beg the question - would I be better off just using Thunderbird and save some money?

[chrisretusn]

Postbox looks like a revamped version of Thunderbird, which does beg the question - would I be better off just using Thunderbird and save some money?

I was thinking the same thing as I looked over their web page. I have Thunderbird installed, not to fond of it.

I have been looking at Claws Mail.

[Gleason Pace]

Postbox goes far beyond TB.

[finding_mcflappy]

I have Thunderbird installed, not to fond of it.

Hmmmm, can't say it blew me away when I had a play with it, but on reflection my needs are simple so it may prove to be a better (and cheaper!) option.

I have been looking at Claws Mail.

Never heard of it, some Googling shows it to look quite nice, did remind me of Thunderbird if I'm honest, but I haven't tried it for real. I found one or two hopefuls but closer inspection showed they had not been updated for ages - a situation I'm trying to escape from!

[chrisretusn]

Postbox goes far beyond TB.

Maybe, but how does it stand up to PocoMail?

That is my biggest hurdle. I am really set in my ways and also with things that PocoMail does with my messages. I have yet to find a single client that works for me. There is always something missing or not to my liking. Be it filtering, scripting, the way signatures are handled, etc.; so far PocoMail is the only client to fit my needs.

[Gleason Pace]

Maybe, but how does it stand up to PocoMail?

That is my biggest hurdle. I am really set in my ways and also with things that PocoMail does with my messages. I have yet to find a single client that works for me. There is always something missing or not to my liking. Be it filtering, scripting, the way signatures are handled, etc.; so far PocoMail is the only client to fit my needs.

And it definitely doesn't fit mine. It sounds like you are a pop user, in which case, Poco could be fine. Poco is the only client that I know of that does scripting, so if that is what you need... On the other hand, many clients make provision for plugins. Postbox doesn't do outbound filters. But it does allow you to choose a folder to save a copy in, which turns out to be more useful than filters for me.

Then if you use Imap, Poco is crippled, and Postbox soars, with truly trouble free operation, and very good new idea tools for handling large email storage.

[finding_mcflappy]

I have yet to find a single client that works for me.

My sentiments exactly and this has been the main reason I have stayed with Poco. But I have to draw the line somewhere and ask what is it that Poco does for me that I couldn't get somewhere else? In the end I realised that there was nothing.

Postbox goes far beyond TB.

Looks like it does do much more and I'm tempted, but in a dying (if not dead) desktop mail client market how sustainable is it going to be? I've already caught myself accessing and organising Gmail via the web rather than retrieve it in Poco. The important stuff I fetch to the desktop. Not that I want to abandon a desktop client, but I'm not so sure I want to pay for it any more if there is an alternative.

After a successful mail import into Thunderbird I'm checking for errors and checking out functionality, if I find that it's not enough I'll look at Postbox, which I understand can just pick up Thunderbird's mail directly.

[Gleason Pace]

Looks like it does do much more and I'm tempted, but in a dying (if not dead) desktop mail client market how sustainable is it going to be?

There will always be a market for a really well done email client, as I tried to tell Slaven and some others.

I've already caught myself accessing and organising Gmail via the web rather than retrieve it in Poco. The important stuff I fetch to the desktop. Not that I want to abandon a desktop client, but I'm not so sure I want to pay for it any more if there is an alternative.

On the other hand, the preference of people for the free alternative is part of the reason it has been so hard for Slaven and others to hear my message. And the attraction of webmail is that somebody else has to configure it and make it work. All you need to do is plug it in. Most people will sacrifice all manner of features for that.

After a successful mail import into Thunderbird I'm checking for errors and checking out functionality, if I find that it's not enough I'll look at Postbox, which I understand can just pick up Thunderbird's mail directly.

Yes, the import from TB is very well done. As are other things in Postbox.