On Saturday, September 23, 2000, 3:18:59 PM, Andrzej wrote:
>> ML> I tried out Becky v2 betas (up until beta 20) and TB at the same
>> ML> time, when I was looking for a new email program. I have to say
>> ML> Becky also impressed me and had some features I like that TB
>> ML> didn't (and doesn't) supply.
>> If you don't mind my asking, what features?
Many, and Andrzej has listed one of them.
> Hi All! As you will recall I posted only once to the list, but I
> am watching and learning a lot from you, guys. As for today, I am
> about to change over to Becky, although I like and appreciate TB
> very much. The reasons and ... answers are:
Well, then please keep us updated about the development over there,
or please keep me updated if you're going to unsubscribe TBUDL.
> 1. Direct Edit Mode [!!!!!!!]
Yup, this is one of the features I missed most.
> 2.Eexternal editor of your choice [!!!!}
While it's a nice feature to have, and probably high on many TB
users' wish list, I personally are quite content with TB's editor.
For me, the ability to reflow quoted paragraphs while retaining the
quotation marks is something I can't live without after switching to
TB.
TB also provides the convenience of opening several editing windows
at the same time, something I couldn't do in Becky.
> 3. Proportional fonts. [???!!!!!!]
Well, it's another feature I personally don't have much use. The
only moment I would like to have proportional fonts is when the
message (preview) pane isn't large enough to hold a line so the
message is wrapped in a staggering way (one long line alternating
with a short one).
In Becky, it's a necessity for me, for it didn't provide something
similar to TB's "Full-width preview pane" view, only "Full-height
account tree". As a result, the preview pane was always too narrow
on my screen. To my dismay, however, using proportional fonts didn't
solved the problem, for Becky still used fixed-width font algorithm
to calculate wrapping in the preview pane. So I got a shorter line
alright (with, say, Arial font), but the message was still wrapped
in a staggering way, leaving plenty of empty space at the right
side. <sigh> I hope they have solved this by now.
As a side note, I don't like the gray "<" marks at the right hand
side indicating wrapped lines in Becky, either.
> 4. Better interface [more practical icons] [!!!]
I would say it's something highly related to personal taste and
habits. Personally I like TB's interface much better. Becky's
interface, to me, is one of the inferior among many email programs.
>From the points you raise, it's easy to see why you prefer Becky
while I like TB more. :)
That being said, there're a few other Becky's features I like (in no
particular order):
1. Current account on top: well, it's a little hard to explain
unless you try it. Simply speaking, Becky can (optionally)
automatically move the account you click on to the top of the
account tree, expand it (I forgot it's only to the first level or
all the folders). Other accounts would be collapsed at the bottom.
2. The ability to hide some accounts (or folders, or both, I'm not
sure): by hiding less used (e.g., archive) accounts/folders the
account tree can be much neater.
3. The ability to zoom preview window to full window.
4. A threading utility: for you to fix (break, or link, or reorder)
a thread manually.
5. Multi personality (profiles) for one account: so you can collect
mail from several servers within one account (hence one set of
filters), and you can choose from several identities when writing
mail. Nothing we can't accomplish in TB, but in much simpler way.
6. Backup log: you may ask Becky to keep nn days' mail in backup
log, which can later be imported into the program if needed. Again,
nothing can't be achieved (at least to similar effect) in TB, but
simpler.
7. Sliced message base: Becky divides the message base of a folder
into several files of the same size (default: 640KB). The benefits?
For one, it's generally faster when a folder is very large (with
thousands of messages), because one generally needs to access the
most recent messages only, which are in the newest chunk. It saves
some memory for it doesn't need to load the whole message base into
the memory. Third, and most important to me, it makes incremental
backup very easy and efficient (a daily incremental backup would
archive the newest chunk only for others are already in the backup
set).
8. Plug-ins.
8. Near perfect DBCS (for CJK languages) support: I know, it's not
fair, for Becky's author is a Japanese. :) But it's important to me.
That's what I could think of for now.
--
Best regards,
Ming-Li
The Bat! 1.47 Beta/5 | Win2k SP1
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