Hello Allie, Saturday, September 4, 2004, 1:44:44 PM, you wrote:
> Tony, [T] wrote: >> Add fat graphics, animated stuff, and useless gadgets. IMO TB! made >> it's 1st step in that direction with the new icons and promise of >> skins. > <soapbox> > You know, I find this interesting. > The very common negative commentary about new icons and smilies with > improved XP look support is just testimony to how these things are > noticed, whether it be positively or negatively. > The applications appearance is the first thing that greets the user. > Putting reliability and robust functionality aside as being a must, an > attractive interface adds a lot to an application that requires day to > day user interaction. IOW's, if I had two applications with equal > functionality, reliability and ease of use, I'd personally go for the > one that I found more pleasant to look at. It's not a waste of time > and development to spend a while focusing on improving the > applications appearance. Furthermore, it's not usually the cause of > unreliability creeping in, neither does it contribute much to bloating > the software. > What has made TB! difficult to tame in terms of reliability and bugs > are not the introduction of smilies and the efforts at improving the > applications appearance as is so commonly mentioned, since it seems to > be popular to do so like promoting Linux. ;) > - A completely reworked view column modes setup/interface introduced a > lot of bugs for a while. > - The continuing effort at offering Full IMAP support in what > originally was a sophisticated POP3 client has offered serious > challenges in maintaining reliability and keeping the bugs out. Not to > mention the overall size of the application. There are clients like > ThunderBird and Mulberry who focus only on IMAP since it's work enough > in itself to fully implement. > - A completely reworked filtering system has added its own problems > while being ironed out. > - A scheduler was added > - Chat support was added > - The plug-in interfaces were added. > But please, I'm personally really getting tired of the comments about > smilies and new icons as if they comprise a HUGE coding effort that > could have been channeled elsewhere, or that they comprise a > significant source of buggy behaviour and bloat in TB!. The only issue I have with smilies is that it's impossible to ignore the ):( type characters in the text - and that's just as annoying for me as seeing the actual graphic (but maybe I am a grumpy old s*d as my wife says). I'd be ecstatic if the next version of TB could filter these characters out of my received messages. -- regards, Clive T ________________________________________________ Current version is 3.00.00 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
