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Developer · Apr 5, 2003, 09:20 PM

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/minotaur/

Evan DiBiase · Apr 5, 2003, 10:27 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/minotaur/

It looks like Mozilla's Mail and Newsgroups component separated from the monolithic Mozilla package, and I think it's rather likely to be exactly that, at this stage. While I'm all for the new direction of the Mozilla project, I'm not ditching Mail quite yet, and suspect that I won't be any time soon.

JB72 · Apr 5, 2003, 11:08 PM

looks crappy.

sushiism · Apr 5, 2003, 11:16 PM

like how mozilla has ripped off osx with its toolbars now

Superchicken · Apr 6, 2003, 02:11 AM

Chimera got renamed Camino... what'll this get named?

moki · Apr 6, 2003, 06:51 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/minotaur/

Well, "released" is relative. The Mac OS X version is listed as .1, and has no OS X-style icon. These are both minor quibbles, but the fact that I launched it 15 minutes ago and is chewing CPU time and still hasn't shown its menu bar yet is not exactly minor.

I mucked around in gdb for a bit to see where it was hung, and it also appears that it is using the old-style WaitNextEvent() calls instead of Carbon Events, and appears to be in an infinite loop in its XML parser.

Granted, I haven't even gotten to play with it yet, but this doesn't exactly look promising.

Ah well, chalk me up as someone who is happily using Mail.app with my IMAP account and tens of thousands of eMails... i don't know why Mail.app takes so much criticism; it works well for me.

Peter · Apr 6, 2003, 06:58 AM

Thats a uhm, very nice mail client. looks like somthing from windows.

blackbird_1.0 · Apr 6, 2003, 07:11 AM

I almost threw up when Isaw that screenshot!
I'm stickin' with Mail.

Jerommeke · Apr 6, 2003, 08:36 AM

Heh. Great screenshot. Mail.app for me please !

Peter · Apr 6, 2003, 08:38 AM

I'll keep mail thanks, at least it looks nice

Developer · Apr 6, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by moki:
The fact that I launched it 15 minutes ago and is chewing CPU time and still hasn't shown its menu bar yet is not exactly minor.

It works fine for me.

I mucked around in gdb for a bit to see where it was hung, and it also appears that it is using the old-style WaitNextEvent() calls instead of Carbon Events, and appears to be in an infinite loop in its XML parser.

I just looked at Deimos Rising, and guess what - it also appears to be using WaitNextEvent.
But WNE is fine actually. If you pass a very long sleep time, there's practically no CPU load difference.

Ah well, chalk me up as someone who is happily using Mail.app with my IMAP account and tens of thousands of eMails... i don't know why Mail.app takes so much criticism; it works well for me.

Mail.app is slow with thousands of messages. It takes ages to switch mail boxes.

Developer · Apr 6, 2003, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by sushiism:
like how mozilla has ripped off osx with its toolbars now

And OS X ripped off the Internet Explorer toolbar. So what?

Jerommeke · Apr 6, 2003, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
Mail.app is slow with thousands of messages. It takes ages to switch mail boxes.

Define "ages" please

Developer · Apr 6, 2003, 09:23 AM

Originally posted by Jerommeke:
Define "ages" please

> 500 ms.

Mail.app needs about 30 seconds to switch mail boxes for me (with ca. 15000 messages per mail box).

sushiism · Apr 6, 2003, 09:25 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
And OS X ripped off the Internet Explorer toolbar. So what?

not the windows one
and this looks quite **** really, mail is lovely in my oppinion

Jerommeke · Apr 6, 2003, 09:42 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
> 500 ms.

Mail.app needs about 30 seconds to switch mail boxes for me (with ca. 15000 messages per mail box).

Would you yourself do any faster? *j/k*

step · Apr 6, 2003, 10:42 AM

it's not a looker, but i'd be VERYinterested in seeing how this works out.
netscape/mozilla's email client has always been the most reliable way to send attachments to windows/aol users, and yeah mail.app does seem to grind switching mailboxes, although yo can just open a few new windows and keep all yer boxes open at once

CatOne · Apr 6, 2003, 11:33 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/minotaur/

Yecch. I'm not even running that in Windoze :-P

I use Entourage. It works very well for me. Shrug. If I went with something else I'd use the product from Bare Bones, it's quite pretty (though expensive, and a bit limited compared to Entourage).

Only thing Entourage is missing that I want is true mailbox threading. Their existing "threaded" view isn't threaded at all :-/

OptimusG4 · Apr 6, 2003, 11:41 AM

30MB for an email app?

MacGorilla · Apr 6, 2003, 11:55 AM

Its slow, it has a horrible UI and its not as full featured as Mail.app. I know its a .1 so I'll cut it some slack. Still. its bad.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2003, 12:12 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/minotaur/

Horrible.

What would compel you to make a thread title like that?

ambush · Apr 6, 2003, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
30MB for an email app?

Gecko Inside (TM)

ambush · Apr 6, 2003, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by sushiism:
like how mozilla has ripped off osx with its toolbars now

Oh I'm going to start crying.
OH NO! NOW, PC/LINUX USERS HAVE SOMETHING SIMILAR TO A NSTOOLBAR IN AN EMAIL CLIENT AND IN PHEONIX!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2003, 12:57 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Gecko Inside (TM)

Ha ha good one. This is the same gecko they were bragging that would fit on a floppy and remove the bloat.

Zimphire · Apr 6, 2003, 01:41 PM

Same gecko that Safari is built on also right? Not sure, anyhow Mail provides all I need for a mail app. Anything else more would be bloat to me.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2003, 01:53 PM

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Same gecko that Safari is built on also right?

Where have you been?

Vanquish · Apr 6, 2003, 02:09 PM

Where have you been?

In heaven.

FYI Zimphire: Safari is not based on gecko but on KHTML (not sure about the name on this).

coolmacdude · Apr 6, 2003, 02:13 PM

What?! What kind of moron would suggest using this over Mail.app?

Zimphire · Apr 6, 2003, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by Vanquish:
FYI Zimphire: Safari is not based on gecko but on KHTML (not sure about the name on this).

Ah, thats what I get for listening to some MacNN posters

ambush · Apr 6, 2003, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Same gecko that Safari is built on also right? Not sure, anyhow Mail provides all I need for a mail app. Anything else more would be bloat to me.

No. saf uses webcore which is based on khtml.
and mail uses the old HTMLDisplay.framework If I can remember

Grrr · Apr 6, 2003, 03:18 PM

After seeing that monstrisity, Give me ONE good reason why I should ditch the Apple OS X Mail app...
You cant? Thought not..
Apple Mail it is then.

ambush · Apr 6, 2003, 04:55 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
It works fine for me.I just looked at Deimos Rising, and guess what - it also appears to be using WaitNextEvent.
But WNE is fine actually. If you pass a very long sleep time, there's practically no CPU load difference.Mail.app is slow with thousands of messages. It takes ages to switch mail boxes.

Have you...

Did...

OMG

Developer won the owniij war

AKcrab · Apr 6, 2003, 05:42 PM

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Ah, thats what I get for listening to some MacNN posters

Who let you out of the lounge?

Developer · Apr 6, 2003, 06:31 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Developer won the owniij war

The what?

Millennium · Apr 6, 2003, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Ha ha good one. This is the same gecko they were bragging that would fit on a floppy and remove the bloat.

Actually, Gecko itself still does fit on a floppy. Can't do very much with it, unfortunately, but it does work. Most of the bloat in Mozilla and such can be traced straight back to XUL, which -although it's an interesting toolkit and some intriguing possibilities- is still the biggest mistake the Mozilla team ever made.

However, Phoenix has proved that when done well, XUL can be just as fast as native widgets, and even more flexible (if uglier, relative to OSX). However, you pay for that in size on disk. The old size-versus-speed tradeoff and all that. Phoenix itself is getting smaller with every release; in fact, last I checked it was on par with Camino's size, and the last time I checked was two milestones ago; I know it's gotten smaller since then. So perhaps it's not a total loss.

Superchicken · Apr 6, 2003, 10:55 PM

I've never gotten why Mozilla did the whole ugly UGLY theam thing, I mean... that's the one thing on windows that is more ugly than Luna!

thePurpleGiant · Apr 6, 2003, 11:22 PM

Originally posted by moki:
i don't know why Mail.app takes so much criticism; it works well for me.

Not sure about you, but I used Mail first when OS X 10.0 came out, and Mail was terrible (for me anyway).

It lost my mail twice, somehow listed nmail out of order and then one day I couldn't open it because I had a broken mailbox.

I was extremely freaked and went back to Entourage, my 'safe haven' where I had also been downloading my mail to.

When Apple started integrating the Address Book system wide, I decided to try mail again. Despite it having the same features (mostly) and interface, it actually works now!

Perhaps many people haven't tried it again recently

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 7, 2003, 03:14 AM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
What?! What kind of moron would suggest using this over Mail.app?

Obviously... "Developer" would.

moki · Apr 7, 2003, 04:36 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
It works fine for me.I just looked at Deimos Rising, and guess what - it also appears to be using WaitNextEvent.

Touche!

However, Deimos Rising was converted by me to run OS X native in 3 days, using someone else's code, which wasn't designed at all to handle carbon events (and didn't do so well with CarbonDater either).

Perhaps there is a lot of legacy code in there, if it is meant to run on "classic" Mac OS X as well, but it just seemed like an inauspicious start for an app meant to dethrone an OS-savvy application like Mail.app

In any event, hopefully it will improve, but for now I'm going to have to give it a pass (considering that it won't even launch here).

Zimphire · Apr 7, 2003, 07:25 AM

Originally posted by AKcrab:
Who let you out of the lounge?

I started posting in here a long time ago sugar thighs.

pliny · Apr 7, 2003, 07:40 AM

Originally posted by step:
it's not a looker, but i'd be VERYinterested in seeing how this works out.

Yes, it has to start somewhere. It's only .1 after all.

The Windowsy interface won't win many Mac fans over I bet.

The latest Phoenix port is interesting too, it's small and fast. The interface is Windowsy.

Oh here's an animal theme for Mozilla:

GENERAL_SMILEY · Apr 7, 2003, 07:58 AM

What about Kontact via X11 - good or bad experiences?

I'd like to stop using Entourage - but at present I regularly move 3-4mb e-mails around (attached JPEGs), and I just don't trust Mail to deal with it. I need something which can switch boxes and search very quickly, as well as having options like turning off web bugs etc... Although I would like some clever e-mail, contact, conversation tracking type stuff.

Sven G · Apr 7, 2003, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by GENERAL_SMILEY:
What about Kontact via X11 - good or bad experiences?

Probably, regarding Kontact, you'll have to wait a little, at least until it's available with Fink (if you don't want to try to compile it yourself, of course); AFAIK, it's still a rather recent project (compared, for example, to Evolution).

Developer · Apr 7, 2003, 10:16 AM

Originally posted by moki:
Perhaps there is a lot of legacy code in there, if it is meant to run on "classic" Mac OS X as well, but it just seemed like an inauspicious start for an app meant to dethrone an OS-savvy application like Mail.app.

I assume Minotaur is written against the Mozilla framework, and that isn't a "start", but originally written for Classic Mac OS. To be honest WNE bugs me less than the crappy appearance.

Anyway, competition is good, so it's good that we are seeing a competitor for Mail.app for OS X (which Mozilla wasn't since the Mail component tied you to the Mozilla browser).

Anomalous · Apr 7, 2003, 03:47 PM

It seems like a viable alternative to me, but I'll stick with Mail.app.