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I know it's been mentioned before... OmniMail, anyone??? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hello everyone!

Please add my voice to the others who have made the suggestion that Omni make an email client, something that could be as unique and truly useful as Omniweb is, for instance.

I have used Apple's Mail and Thunderbird, but neither of them really do anything for me; they are generic and as bland as, well, Safari and Firefox.

There's a reason I choose to use (and pay for) OmniWeb. It has features that are really outstanding (Workspaces is genius, preferences for individual web sites is fantastic), renders webpages more beautifully than anything out there by far, and makes visiting the same old web sites enjoyable.

Surely, an email client, ahem, "OmniMail" would make a great companion for OmniWeb (ala T'bird and Firefox), and have features that no one else can match. I am sure it would provide a broad range of options no one else offers, render email messages beautifully, and make answering email, well, as enjoyable as surfing the web with OmniWeb.

OmniWeb - the best browser, paired with OmniMail - the best email client.

How about it, Omni? :)
 
While waiting, have a look at GyazMail. What it has which the others don't and which I can't live without is the ability to check the server and delete mails without downloading them. Very useful when you get a mail that causes downloading to fail all the time.
 
well - my two cents and my interest in this thread is a tight integration of OmniMail and OmniFocus would certainly be a breakthrough in discussion-driven task management!

such a system would have a bit of Groove Desktop for agenda-management, email->project transformations of the original GTD plug-in, and of course, full-integration with blogs and forums ;-)
 
But this is a topic that needs to be adressed more fully. The frustrations with Apple's mail.app are bubbling all over.

I've had it with mail.app

Migrating to gmail having used mail

and then salient commentary from Mac Blogdom.

Quote:
Originally Posted by John Gruber
This is the real shame of certain app categories on the Mac where, for whatever reason, competition no longer exists. There are so many different ways one could design an email app (to take but one example), but the only two serious IMAP clients in active development are Apple Mail and Entourage. ↩
I don't think that people are requesting the world from an email program just basic stability and features that allow us to many the daily deluge of incoming communicatons.

It appears that many email mavens want a certain group of features.

In no particular order:

1. Widescreen- 3-pane support (like the Widemail mail.app plugin) for getting the overall view of your inbox, folders and messages.

2. Excellent iMap support. - IMAP is king.

3. Integrated Webkit- Sometimes you want to surf and build your links and a web browser is key for that. Sometimes you want to just bounce to a page and then get back to managing your inbox.

4. Calendar - Calendar Store and CalDav support enable iCal and Google Calendar synchronization.

5. Folder Actions- In addition to smart folders I want to be able to process data that hits folders to append metadata and other automated tasks.

6. Simplicity- I don't want the email client doing To Dos as Omnifocus is better for that. I don't want it handling RSS because NetNewswire handles that. An understanding of what people want in an email client is essential.

7. MobileMe- for push technology.

8. Account Management- Receiving and sending from all live accounts should be easy

9. Auxilliary features- Integrated Chat (Adium), Blogging support, Social Network access etc via stable plug-ins.

10. Media Playback- Click on a video or audio file the file plays. Quick Look doesn't work well inside email save for photos.

I don't know if Apple prevents the access of necessary resources for making an email client but there doesn't appear to be any attempts by them to improve mail.app other than adding exchange support. Omni has the experience with Webkit, the UI chops and supporting applications in Omniplan, OO and name recognition to leverage their talent in this area.

Email is one of those areas there the incumbent bundled program doesn't necessarily kill the chance for success.
 
Here's another vote in support of GyazMail. I switched to it (from Eudora... after 18 years of using it!) a few months ago and could not be happier. Great little app with lots of flexibility!

--chuck
 
I recently spent a long time researching Mail alternatives ... and I'm back to using Mail. (Tiger version) Here's why:

- Rules! No other mail program can do something as simple (?) as beep me when I get mail from my spouse creature. With Mail, I've set up things so I get beeped (with a distinctive sound), bounce the Dock icon, and the message shows in red.

I use rules for many other things too, but this example shows one of the simple things Mail does that no other mail reader can do.

- Smart folders. I have 5 mail accounts, and like reading them all in one window. I also have a (very) few messages I want to see even after they have been read. I've set up a smart folder to show me everything in my In Boxes, AND everything I have flagged. This feature is even more powerful with ...

- plug-ins. I have MailTags and Mail Act-on. With these and my Smart in box, I have a great zero in-box routine:
1. assign a due date to a message
2. use act-on to send the message to my Deferred folder
3. add a condition to my Smart in box to pull in all messages with a due date of today or earlier.

Now I can store a message I can't do anything with, knowing it will show up again when I need it.

- it's easy to work in plain text. I'm surprised at how many e-mail readers don't even have this option any more.

Though these things are great, Mail has some big flaws, IMO:

- poor interface with Address Book. Why, oh why, can't I highlight a phone number in a message and tell Mail to "put this on the sender's address book page"? Mail/AddressBook also needs to check if a card exists before making a new one for each e-mail.

- Smart Boxes have a lot of rough edges. The message count is *never* right. They are slow to load. They don't maintain my column settings.

- I can't speak to IMAP issues, or iCal integration, because I don't use those features. And I'm stuck on Tiger (I still use Classic programs occasionally), so I don't know the details of Leopard Mail — but from what I've seen, it hasn't been improved *my* way.

A friend talks about "least worst" education options ... Apple Mail is the least worst mail reader out there.

--Liz
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by LizPf View Post
Though these things are great, Mail has some big flaws, IMO:

- poor interface with Address Book. Why, oh why, can't I highlight a phone number in a message and tell Mail to "put this on the sender's address book page"?
It looks like that wouldn't be too tough to do with Applescript...but I don't have a working script to give you, either :-)
 
 


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