Dear list members and developers,
I am new to the list. Please forgive me if the wishes written below have
already been addressed in previous inquiries.
To explain the background of my requests, let me mention that I migrated
to PowerMail last year after switching to Mac OS X. The main reason was
that it provides more flexibility for mixing languages. My main working
languages being Japanese, French, English, and occasionally Chinese, I
was tired of having to switch manually from one language to the other.
The email application that I was using, Arena (<http://www.arena-p.co.jp/
>), had the option of choosing between the "roman" (alphabetical) and
"kanji" (Japanese) mode, but it is tedious, and its ability to cope with
Unicode was still lacking. Nevertheless, Arena had some useful features
that I cannot find in PowerMail. Or course, much of these things are
related to the force of habit, which in some cases should be overcome.
The requested features might also just reflect my ignorance...
1. Ability to print in a size different from the size of the fonts displayed
To spare my eyes a little, I am used to set the size of the screen fonts
to 18 points. This is obviously too big for printing, and it would be
nice to have the choice of reducing the size of the fonts to be printed.
For instance, an option "-6 points" (minus six points) in the printing
preferences would be nice (Arena has it).
2. Background color
In same range of eye-care measures, I would appreciate if it would be
possible to choose the background color of the mail window (Arena allows
it). White is just too tiring, and I prefer a light-gray.
3. Full Unicode compliance
I am sure that within a few years all OS and applications will be fully
Unicode-compatible. However, in the present situation the "evil empire"
unfortunately has taken the lead. For instance, on Mac OS X (10.2.3) the
use of Sanskrit diacritical characters (Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-
B, and Latin Extended Additional) is still restricted to TextEdit, at
least until the next release of NisusWriter. This limitation sometimes
forces me to launch VirtualPC with Windows XP, to exchange rtf files with
publishers. If you haven't experienced the heaviness of editing a long
text in Word 2002 running under VirtualPC on a PowerBook G4 (550 Mhz),
please use your compassionate imagination. Anyway, although the exchange
of information can be done through attachments, being able to include
diacritical marks in the main body of the email appears like the next
natural step in the Unicode implementation. I beg developers to take also
into account these specific needs.
4. Filter sorting
Needless to say that the use of filters is one of the keys to the
efficient use of an email application. PowerMail filters are very
efficient, and I appreciate the smoothness when creating a new filter.
Two small additional details could spare some time. First, it would be
nice if filters could automatically be sorted, for instance in the
alphabetical order. I am presently doing this manually by dragging the
filter names. Second, after creating a new filter, it would be easier if
one could use a command like "run all filters" (with the appropriate
shortcut) rather than to have to choose the adequate filter from the menu.
5. Ability to put the outgoing mail into a specific folder
For the moment, all outgoing mails are automatically sent to the same
folder. It means that one periodically has to fetch them from there, then
to drag them to the appropriate folder if one wants to keep messages in a
specific location. For the people with whom I exchange valuable
information, I always create two folders, one called "Correspondent XX
received from" and the other one "Correspondent XX sent to." It would be
good if one could choose the appropriate folder *before* sending the
message, with a small popup window on the email (Arena allows it).
Well, I know this is already too much. Sorry for this new burden on your
shoulders!
Gratefully yours,
Michel
