making entourage better

[Raul Gutierrez]

Title: making entourage better

Making entourage better (at least for me!):

-Instant or near instant index searches of the database.

-Searches in which I can type “Bi Ga” or “B Gat” as a search term instead of forcing me to type “Bill G”... ie to recognize spaces as separating search terms.

-I would like an “all” category added to search field to search all fields. This would be my default.

-I should be able to drag 800 emails from folder to folder as easily as I drag 5. Right now the more emails I select the slower drags become. Eventually drags take 20 or 30 seconds to process... I believe at the very least the HI for the drag should always be speedy even if the actual copying takes place in the background.

-Attachments that are images should show up as thumbnails in the attachments pane.

-I want to edit the icon palette as I never use many of the options. I would get rid of reply all, flag, print, delete, junk, categories & projects as well as tasks notes and project center. I like a minimalist icon palette.

-folder icon options (I hate the default folder)

-If I am arranging a folder by "To" or "From" or "subject" (and shown in a group) I should be able to drag the heading to another folder (I know I can use the contextual menu, but sometimes dragging is more natural).

-If a folder is arranged by a particular field and shown in as a group there should be some easy way to navigate from group to group. (maybe command or option arrow up/down)

-It would be nice to have the option to drag folders to the desktop and get individual textfiles. I still would normally want mbox, but individual files would often be handy. Additionally it would be nice if the text files had creation dates set to the date the email was sent and modification dates set to the date the email was received (maybe this would be nice if someone option dragged to the desktop).

-entourage should respect my font smoothing prefs! (right now folder names are smoothed seeminly at random as is email info (from, subject, sent) seemingly without regard to my preference that fonts smaller than 10 points not be smoothed.

-Apple’s built in faxing should be supported (right now the fax dialog box is really screwed up in Entourage and faxing often fails. The problem is worse in Word, but bad in Entourage.

-I would like the option of a menu indicator to show new mail.

-I would like the option to have persistent announcement windowlets instead of windowlets that fade away after x seconds as the current ones do.

-More/better soundset options

-A service to email any text anywhere.

That’s my list for now.

raul