MailMate has been one of my best software experiences in more than a
decade of using a Mac (Devonthink and Ulysses are also up there. The
only connection I can see is that they are all based in Europe).
If I want to do something, I find that MailMate usually already does it.
On the rare occasions when it doesn't, Benny has made it happen.
Spotlight integration, for example, which I haven't yet used, but which
is on the way.
MailMate has a few quirks, but nothing that qualifies as more than an
occasional minor annoyance. The OP has found more pain in MailMate in
the trial period than I've discovered in months of heavy-duty daily
usage.
On 19 May 2015, at 17:53, Benny Kjær Nielsen wrote:
On 19 May 2015, at 6:36, Andreas Jung wrote:
I have been using Mailmate for three weeks now - with very mixed
feelings.
Thanks for trying out MailMate and providing feedback in the process.
I know it may feel like feedback is some times going into a black
hole, but it really doesn't. (I know I haven't replied to all tickets
you have created.) I hope you might return to MailMate some day and
find that it lives up to your requirements.
As a longtime Postbox user I've been pissed lately by the bad support
of Postbox
Inc and some painful bugs in the stability of Postbox - so I came to
Mailmate.
To be fair, I think Postbox is pretty clear about support only being
provided when explicitly paying for it.
However Mailmate also has tons of minor and major issues. Ok, no
software is
bugfree. But the density of minor flaws in Mailmate (that I would not
expect
from a 1.9 version) is annoying.
Fair enough. The trial period exists to make sure that show stoppers
can be found before buying.
Some of my highlight bugs:
- invalid counters for unread mails for *some* folders
Yes, that one annoys me too, but it was my impression that there was
no longer a debug opportunity:
https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1119
- "default columns" do not work as expect, reverting the default
columns
for a folder is not persisted properly
Yes, this does not work well for certain standard folder types (sent,
junk, ...). Unfortunately, improving this most likely requires a
fundamental redesign of how it works and I cannot promise that'll
happen soon.
- being unable to remove an imap folder containing message without
prior
removing all mails manually (major usability pain in the ass)
As I stated in [the
ticket](https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1157-unable-to-delete-imap-folders#ticket-1157-1)
I am willing to prioritize this if it's very important to you. I don't
see this as a “major usability pain in the ass” since I don't
think a lot of users frequently delete IMAP mailboxes containing
emails. As also stated in the ticket, it's not a quick fix, because
MailMate has multiple checks to ensure that non-empty IMAP mailboxes
are never deleted.
There is a hidden preference to enable the “Empty Mailbox” menu
item for all IMAP mailboxes. That might reduce some of the pain:
defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmEmptyMailboxMenuItemEnabled
-bool YES
(I think it only works in the latest test release though.)
- incomplete and half-baked implementation of the "mailboxes"
tree...being
unable to arrange mailboxes as needed using drag & drop
There is certainly potential for improvement in this area.
- fragile rule engine...hard to debug why email rules work sometimes
and sometimes
not
For debugging, I recommend creating a smart mailbox with the same
conditions as used by the rule. That should make it easy to see what
is matched and what is not matched.
- usability issues with the signing and encryption UI where the
signing/lock icons
are set or enabled when it does not make sense (e.g. no key available
for a recipient)
Yes, this could be more flexible. Currently, it simply errs on the
safe side. It would be worse if it silently did not sign/encrypt when
the user expected to be warned if it was not possible.
Most of the issues have been reported as feedback or as bugreports.
And thanks for that.
What is my point?
Mailmate is not a bad application and I appreciate that the
maintainer
cares more about productivity and power-user features than
implementing
useless features that nobody needs. However Mailmate has a serious
quality assurance problem. A lot of features are only half
implemented
and not stable or usable. What is the point? Mailmate costs 45 EURO
compared to 15 EUR for Postbox compared to nothing for Mail.app.
Well, you already stated what your problem with Postbox is. I wrote
this (and many other replies) for free. Getting the same number of
responses from Postbox support would have cost you a fortune ;-) As an
added bonus, I've spent time ignoring the use of words such as
“ass”, “stupid”, and “suck”. That's not as easy as one
might think.
(Oh, and good luck getting feedback replies from Apple.)
I guess feedback should be a two-way street: I don't know about other
developers, but I think you would get both more and better responses
by toning down your language a bit. I'm certainly not motivated by
being told how much this or that suck. I'm perfectly aware of all the
bugs and short-comings of MailMate. I am, by far, its worst critic and
I have no idea why *anyone* would want to use MailMate. That is also
why I continue to work on MailMate. I want it to be good enough to
deserve *my own* praise.
The conclusion is: all mail applications for Mac suck in their own
special
way - only the price differs.
I really don't know how to respond to that. If you are in a situation
where you need a discount then let me know. I'm not going to lower the
price in general. And don't get me wrong. If I was working on MailMate
for the money then I would be more stupid than the shortcomings of
MailMate are.
Again, thanks for sharing your trial experience with MailMate.
--
Benny
_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate
_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate
