I just did a test install of Imail 2006 as an
upgrade of an 8.22 server. I use ODBC to SQL server for my user database as I
have Imail integrated with my portal. I made a second copy of my database on a
test server, copied all the Imail 8.22 files and data to a test server and got
it running, then installed 2006 over it essentially upgrading it. It all went
very smooth and worked without problems.
My immediate comment is "Wow". It is so much
better than the 8.x webmail I can't even describe. It adds much better folder
management, an HTML message composer, spell check that actually works, and a
nice modern looking interface. In Imail 8.x the webmail would mess up long
URLs by linking only half of the URL, and it would screw up display of HTML
messages more often than not (and forget forwarding HTML messages). Now that
is all resolved. I love that the version 8.x mailbox files work in 2006.
Here are the things I noted to be problems for
me:
- There is no PDA mail. There wasn't before but I
had written one using the old template system. I hope there is one coming as
the new templates do not seem to change friendly.
- Webmail does not have a page title. It simply
says the
http://myip.com/IClient/default.aspx.
The default.aspx page is generated via .net code and I could not find a way to
add a simple title tag to it.
- There is no way for users to see how much of
their disk quota they have used. What is the point of setting a quota and not
showing users how they are doing?Screenshots of my mail templates are
here:
- There is no way to show how many unread messages
there are from outside the mail program. (Similar to the You've Got Imail
addin). I want to have an envelope icon in my portal and have it indicate if
there are unread messages in their mailbox. I can do this now in 8.x using
something like You've Got Imail did. This is not possible in the 2006. I may
have to resort to a 3rd party asp based imap component.
- There is a user preference to change the "reply
to" address. This actually changes the persons email address in the Imail
database. Problem is if you change your reply to address you LOSE all of your
contacts. Change it, log out, log in and see for your self.
- Certain features in Web Admin pop an
authentication box. Probably for good reason but it seems like it is a broken
product when it does that from a clean install.
- Contacts are saved in an Access database. Just
seems stupid since my user database is in an SQL Server. One more thing to get
corrupt :)
Anyone using this in production for >1000 users
and having success? Once I find a way to deal with the above issues I would
love to upgrade.
Eric
