On Sun, 9 Jul 2000 09:47:11 -0700, Ming-Li wrote:
ML> I like Agent, too, though I think it's a shame that after all these
ML> years, no one has managed to challenged it in terms of sheer power.
Microplanet Gravity does a good job of that. In fact it's
superior in quite a few respects to Forte' Agent and I was using it
instead of Agent for some time. Forte' Agent's superior basic usability
features won out in the end. It's just so nice and *comfortable* to use.
ML> Then again, it might not be that strange, since Agent has been
ML> recognized as the newsreader of choice for serious Usenet users for
ML> years and I guess many of their staff use it as well.
Gravity seems to have the edge now in the mainstream circles.
Agent seems to have the edge in the hardcore, savvy user circles
although other clients like X-News come into the picture.
ML> The "unfriendliness" of Agent might seem less obvious for them.
ML> (Personally, I found Agent quite easy to use, but I've to admit it's
ML> probably I've used it for too many years.)
I vividly remembering getting frustrated in how to to setup
Agent for e-mail and to create a few folders. Unbelievably unintuitive
at the time. :-)
ML> No major argument with that, though I doubt how much TB could
ML> accomplish by releasing a "simple" version. Let's face it, those
ML> free email clients by the big two and some others are, well, simple.
ML> It's hard to get simpler than that and ask people to pay for it.
You do have a point there although TB!'s method of dealing with
multiple accounts is quite uncommon. The interface is also elegant and
very clear in design.
ML> For TB to survive, IMHO, the key still lies in its power, not
ML> simplicity. It's for this extra power that people pay. Agent, as you
ML> point out, is a good example. I agree, however, that if somehow
ML> RITLabs could find a way to smooth the learning curve of TB, it
ML> could be more easily recommended to casual users.
Funny, what attracts me to TB! is how much you can do with it
with relative ease and not having to learn too much to do so. We tend to
confuse a poor help system with difficulty in learning. Take the
templates and filtering for instance. Very powerful and easy to learn.
Poorly documented however. If you're not willing to experiment and learn
through simple trial and error, you're pretty much in the cold. :-(
ML> By casual users, I mean users who might not know much at present,
ML> but are willing to learn to upgrade their knowledge in exchange for
ML> greater productivity from their computers. TB can lure these people
ML> to try with its powerful feature set. If the learning curve isn't
ML> too steep, people will stay.
TB! needs a good help file. This would take it a long way. A
help file that doesn't give a terse, point by point account of how to do
things but one that really explains things, with examples and even
philosophical introductions to some of the feature sets.
ML> There're some other users who don't want to learn anything new, and
ML> I think they would be better served by OE or its peers.
True. But without even going into TB!'s more powerful features,
it's default, very basic, design philosophy of control over what one is
sending to the recipient is a great one. What you see before you hit the
send button being what the recipient will get, combined with effective
means to optimize this are distressingly rare qualities among the
clients out there including the leading ones. In fact the leading ones,
ie, OE, Outlook and Eudora fall flat on their faces in this regard and
hence I avoid them like the plague.
--
ALLIE ... [ TB! v1.45 Beta/5 | Win2k Pro ]
PGP Key: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=SendAlliePGPKey
________________________________________________________
"I'm not tense, just terribly A*L*E*R*T!! "
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