> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Laing [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 14:06
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [users] OOo needs an email client, Pegasus needs a
sponsor
> anda text editing component
>
> McLauchlan, Kevin wrote:
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: William Case [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:06
> >> To: [email protected]
> >> Subject: Re: [users] OOo needs an email client, Pegasus needs a
> > sponsor
> >> anda text editing component
> >>
> >> Hi;
> >>
> >> I am asking this sincerely, not to start a flame war.
> >>
> >> I use Outlook about once a week in WinowsXP. The rest of the time
I
> > am
> >> in Linux. I really don't understand why people feel they need an
> > email
> >> client as part of the OOo suite. In my experience Outlook does
> > nothing
> >> extra to what is available in any Linux distribution.
> >>
> >> What are they looking for that I have missed?
> >
> > Home users are often looking for their e-mails incoming and outgoing
to
> > have childish or old-maiden-ish "stationery", and also to directly
> > include photos, animated emoticons and other junk. They don't want
it
> > wrapped up as an attachment. They don't want to see their incoming
mail
> > split into two or three separate files that need extra clicking and
> > poking.
> >
> > Office users want seamless integration with the same calendar,
address
> > lists, resource-booking (meeting rooms, projectors, etc.) and so on
that
> > all their fellow employees are using in Outlook.
> >
> > They also want to cut'n'paste from Word and Excel and Powerpoint
> > directly inline in their e-mails (again, not as attachments).
>
> Hum, I don't want either of these. I want images to be blocked unless
I
> want to see them. I don't want rich text, I want clear plain text
that
> is easy to read. No BOLD or italic messages. If someone sends me a
> *.doc file, I want it to be saved as a doc. Same with a spreadsheet.
I
> don't use email for spreadsheets or documents.
>
> But this is the point, I can use the client that meets my needs, not
> some application that is forced on me and opens up another issue for
> virus or spyware infection.
>
> I set my preferences to plain text in my email programs and always
have.
> One of the reasons that I didn't like Evolution, there was no way to
> control what parts of the messages I could or couldn't see when I
wanted
> to. It was to much of an Outlook clone and I was never comfortable
with
> it.
>
> One really good reason not to load images inline is spam that uses the
> single pixel tracking method. I know what messages have attached
images
> and I see a nice large square where the image would be. Now I know
what
> are good or bad images to view. But this is getting off topic.
I think we'd already established that OOo is already perfect for you and
(like 99.9% of Linux users and maybe 30% of Windows users) you not only
have no problem downloading a mail reader and setting it up and using it
and repeating until you find one that's to your taste, it's your
preference to do so.
Fine.
The discussion had moved to the huge honkin' chunk of market-share that
OOo can't touch right now, which is Windows users - most of them - for
whom the computer is an appliance. They use MS Office, because that's
what's mandated and installed (and therefore required no thinking from
them) at their workplace, and/or because it was installed and configured
on their home PC that they bought at <big-box-store>.
Some of these people have two hundred icons on their desktops - not,
like geeks, for whom those icons would be tools and games and 11
different versions of each app - because that's where they store ALL
documents, ALL downloaded files, ALL pictures...
I know more than one person who has used a Windows computer for ten
years and has never run Windows Explorer, and only opened "My Computer"
when being talked through something by tech support (or by me...)
These are the people who send each other cutesy pictures of their cats
and their babies, and that Photoshopped shark eating the helicopter, on
multi-color e-mail stationery with the flowery or cartoon border.
They use bold and italic and color change, and when they type a smiley,
they bloody well expect it to change instantly into a graphical
emoticon, and they know that the person receiving their mail will see it
just as they send it... because that's how e-mail works.
When I'm working at my place of employment, I still don't use
wall-paper/stationery, and my occasional smiley is three characters
representing a face on its side, but all the rest of the
stuff-you-despise, I use:
- bold and italic text for emphasis
- color and font changes to set off sections of text, or to show
comments from different contributors in threads that can get as
l-o-o-o-o-ong as some of these OOo [Users] threads but with no editing,
so the final e-mail might be twenty screens long
- inset (not attached) snippets from excel sheets, screenshots, photos
of hardware (ours)
Why do I do that? Because I'm some sort of ignorant a**hole? Well
probably, but mostly because:
a) that's how it comes to me and
b) that's how the next person expects to receive it and pass it on.
In other words, we make use of a lot of the icky productivity features
that Microsoft has stuffed into Outlook, and kept there because business
users... gasp! actually use them. That includes - here, you'll cringe -
using Word as the default editor for messages in Outlook. Elsewhere, I
mentioned the calendar and scheduling capability, too.
Those same people, when they get a computer at home, expect the same
comforting interface and functionality. Anything "less" is defective (as
far as they are concerned, and in their limited-but-so-what experience).
Have you caught on that in all that verbiage I've never once said that
you should do any of that? What other people have already suggested is
that OOo could win additional converts by finding a way to either
"incorporate" Outlook as the OOo mailer app, if it's found on the
computer where OOo is installed, or otherwise make an easy connection to
an existing or downloadable mail program that fakes a good Outlook
experience.
If you are of the camp of Linux users from the old UNIX tradition ("User
friendly? Sure, UNIX is user friendly - it's just choosy about who its
friends are!"), then you might think that "dumbing down" the interface
or the experience - even though the power or geek users can continue
just as they always have - is a bad thing and that a certain level of
difficulty or forced thinking is necessary to keep the club exclusive.
Does that resonate? If not, then why are we having this discussion? If
so, then appreciate that some OOo users and contributors want to expand
the user-base as far and wide as possible, even to the people for who
the "For Dummies" books are heavy reading.
In other words, nobody is trying to force you to use any particular mail
reader or other app, especially not the dumbed-down standards-averse
one.
I agree that resources shouldn't be taken from core development, but if
somebody wanted to start making OOo connect more smoothly with some
e-mail apps, I would support that.
Kevin
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