I know this is a late reply, but I feel I have to defend folder templates, lest the TB developers take the "danger" too much to heart.
M> <stock lecture> M> I have a pet hate in TB. That pet hate is named "Folder Templates". In M> 150 folders I have two and only two that have folder templates. They M> are for two specific lists which don't set the reply address properly. Folder templates are what I like most about TB and my primary reason for using it. Since I would much prefer to consolidate email and newsgroups in a single client, I doubt I would be using the TB if not for its folder templates. I don't have a single Address Book (AB) template and feel absolutely no need for any. M> There is nothing else for which folder templates can be used that M> can't be covered and even improved upon using Address Book templates. I beg to differ. I use folder templates extensively to automate tasks, especially the management of a Listserv mailing list. For example, the list is subscription by owner, meaning I must manually send a subscribe command to Listserv for each subscription request. I filter the subscription to a folder. The reply template for the folder is set up to create a message with the subscribe command, capturing the requestor's name and email address from the subscription request. I can plough through dozens of subscription requests in a matter of minutes by simply hitting Ctrl-Enter, F2. I have similar folders set up for other list management tasks. Since all the messages handled by these folders go to the same Listserv address, I don't see how AB templates could begin to provide the same functionality as folder templates without creating many duplicate, dummy addresses. Moreover, I find the whole business of managing my huge volume of email and greatly diverse uses of email much simpler with folder templates than messing with address groups, AB templates, and Quick Templates. My folders, generally, reflect tasks rather than addressees. When such an approach is taken to dealing with email, folder templates are a far simpler and more direct tool than AB templates. Another example from my management of a Web site: I have a variety of stock replies I send to email to the site's admin address. The emails come from people not in my AB and which I have no reason to put in my AB, so obviously an AB template is not applicable. I have tried Quick Templates for such purposes, but I find it difficult to recall the handles and annoying to create, edit and manage the templates. Instead, I pop the email into a folder with a custom reply template - Ctrl-enter, F2 - done. M> It works exactly as designed and that design has a fundamental flaw. M> The flaw is that it places too much responsibility on the user to M> make sure that the addresses given on a new message are those M> intended. Software that dumbs down to the least common denominator ends up being something Microsoft would produce - software without the flexibility to truly serve the diverse the needs of users. M> With address book templates, there is never a mistake of this kind. M> Replies are perfectly directed. If you need or want to use several different reply templates for a single address, the only way I can see this would be accomplished with AB templates would be to set up a duplicate, dummy address for each template. In my case, this would give me dozens, if not hundreds, of silly addresses to manage in the AB. Much simpler, I think, to use folder templates. Then, there is the problem with having addressees assigned to different groups, but I won't go there. M> New messages are "a bit trickier". Instead of clicking to the folder M> then clicking for a new message, you have to click to the right of M> the new message button and select the list address from the M> favourites (having denoted that the address *is* a favourite in the M> address book). An annoying step you don't need to go through with folder templates, not to mention not having to have a gazillion not-really-favorites set as favorites simply to get at a template. Long live folder templates. -- Paula The Bat! 1.61 (reg) Windows 98 4.10 Build 2222 ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.61 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
