[kennedy]

I've been switching from Eudora for Windows to Mail for the last couple days. So far I've been very pleased. Mail's rules work better/easier for me than Eudora's filters; and the junk mail mechanism seems to be working great. The speed is damned impressive (once it gets through colorizing and indexing the first time). And the Mail interface is easier to use. And I love having some emacs keybindings.

Just two things hanging me up a bit... wanted to see if I am just missing something...

1) The auto-thread-colorizing is slick, but that's just eye-candy. How do you select a whole thread?? For example a thread wraps up (or gets inane) and you want to delete it. In Eudora, alt-click pulls the thread together and selects it. Anything similar in Mail?

2) In Eudora, you can tell it to hold off making changes to your folders if you are actively working in them. This prevents things like... I am cruising through a folder identifying missed junk... after working up 10 or so screens, new mail is polled and something is added to the folder causing my cursor to move back down to the bottom. ARRRGH! Now I have to try to re-find my place... essentially doing most of what I did before over again (scanning through the headers).

3) What is the significance of the "flag"? A few things have been flagged, but I am not sure why. And I am not sure if it means anything specific, so not sure if I can use it for a limited alternative to Eudora's labels. Pointers?

4) If you move or rename a mail folder that was the target of a rule, it seems that Apple does not auto-update the rules to point to the new location. Is that right? If so, that's hideous... but here's my question: Is there any way to ask "What rules have broken targets?" or "What rules have this folder?"

Any tips on the above will be greatly appreciated!

[NeXTLoop]

Kennedy, I'll try to answer your questions...

1. You'll have to wait for the Panther version of Mail, as its the first to have support for thread sorting.

2. To my knowledge, there's no way of doing this.

3. A flag is a lame attempt to mimic the standard priority settings that most email clients use. In Eudora for instance, you can increase a message's priority. Mail's "Flag" option serves the same purpose.

4. To my knowledge, there's no way of doing this.

My recommendation would be to stick with the Mac version of Eudora. You'll maintain the same level of functionality you're used to. Also, version 6.0 includes Junk Mail capabilities that, in my experience, are superior to Mail's. As a long time Eudora user that switched to Mail about a year and half ago, I'm thinking of going back to Eudora. Unless the Panther version brings Mail up to where it should be, Eudora's feature list is just far more valuable.

[kennedy]

Thanks for all the answers, and on your recommendation...

Originally posted by NeXTLoop:
My recommendation would be to stick with the Mac version of Eudora. You'll maintain the same level of functionality you're used to. Also, version 6.0 includes Junk Mail capabilities that, in my experience, are superior to Mail's. As a long time Eudora user that switched to Mail about a year and half ago, I'm thinking of going back to Eudora. Unless the Panther version brings Mail up to where it should be, Eudora's feature list is just far more valuable.

Well, too late... I made the switch to Apple Mail. However, I am assuming big things from Panther in the not too distant future. Like you, if Panther doesn't bring it up to speed, I may have to switch back. Apple Mail has a lot of crispness in look and feel compared to Eudora... makes the experience *feel* a bit faster and smoother. But in reality, its not much of a gain (things like having to double-click mailboxes to open them and then click to close them as opposed to just clicking once on whichever mailbox you feel like viewing now). However, things like being unable to reorganize your mail folders because you'll break all your rules... that's a huge problem and major time-loser (though not daily)... And being unable to select a thread with Alt-click (or similar) is a moderate time-loser, but it happens a dozen times a day!!

C'mon Panther...

[JLL]

Originally posted by kennedy:
But in reality, its not much of a gain (things like having to double-click mailboxes to open them and then click to close them as opposed to just clicking once on whichever mailbox you feel like viewing now).

Eh what? You just click on a mailbox and you can see the contents.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by JLL:
Eh what? You just click on a mailbox and you can see the contents.

You're talking about the tab-thingys on the bottom... not the mailbox list on the side. When you have 10 mailboxes, yes it works as good/same as Mail... just leave them all open and use the tabs.

When you have 300, then you end up with little specs down at the bottom that are useless. So, you double-click the readable ones on the left... and you end up with this build-up of windows, which makes you (me at least) compelled to close them periodically.