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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > Mail app: behaving any more civilly in Leopard?

Mail app: behaving any more civilly in Leopard?
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Love Calm Quiet
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Feb 23, 2008, 11:09 AM
 
In Panther & Tiger the Mail app has narcissistic tendencies: it thinks it knows what is best for me - without attending to my past actions (or even my settings).
Like for lots of folks, Mail is a huge part of my work and personal life. So... not finding anything with a search, can anyone testify about any improvements in following (they alone might get me to upgrade to Leopard):

1) Mail ignores "hide" instruction in the "log-in items*. It insists on keeping all its windows displayed whenever I log out/in.
2) As a result of #1, I generally keep Mail out of my log-in items. But once I do start it up, I can't get it to stay quietly in the background - but have to tolerate it displaying the "urgent" (sender's opinion) mail items that are slowly loading. [ Using *hide* from dock won't even be obeyed while Mail is doing its awakening ]
3) Mail does *not* display as top-most among *its* windows the one that was most recently top-most when I last worked in Mail (usually the Viewer window). Instead it brings all the flippin items of mail that I keep open only because I *do* need to reply to them some time today - but not immediately (excuse me, but my priority is usually to see which mail box has newest mail).

4) I haven't heard of any other substantial improvements in Mail that would enhance my daily life - so I'm up for hearing about them if you'll share.

Gracias!

Apple: Mail is a primary app. Please make it respect my preferences regarding its behavior.
[/rant]
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analogika
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Feb 23, 2008, 01:13 PM
 
1) and 2): I *believe* Mail now respects this, but since all my office stuff is assigned to its own Space (Mail, iCal, Address Book, and Stickies), I no longer hide it, at all. Since I hardly ever restart, it was never more than a very minor nuisance for me that it wouldn't stay hidden.

Spaces immediately became *extremely* useful to me due to the ability to automatically separate different aspects of my computing life into separate desktops.
I no longer need to hide any applications just to remove that distraction from the background or from Exposé.

3) It comes to the front in the same state you last left it - windows are stacked as they were.

4) The fact that it now no longer has a monolithic database, but single messages, means a) Time Machine compatibility, and b) better data recovery should anything go wrong (just had a client with a damaged Tiger Mail database - bad blocks on the hard drive - that was *not* fun, but she was extremely lucky). Address Book and Spotlight integration are nice features, too, but those were great arguments for Mail in 10.4, already.
     
Love Calm Quiet  (op)
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Feb 23, 2008, 05:35 PM
 
Whoa! Thank you...

I haven't paid that much attention to Spaces... just didn't grok how much it might change the way my whole computing experience went.
Gonna *have* to take the chances and upgrade this AL Powerbook.
( Last edited by Love Calm Quiet; Feb 23, 2008 at 05:42 PM. Reason: grammar)
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turtle777
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Feb 23, 2008, 09:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogika View Post
1) and 2): I *believe* Mail now respects this, but since all my office stuff is assigned to its own Space (Mail, iCal, Address Book, and Stickies), I no longer hide it, at all. Since I hardly ever restart, it was never more than a very minor nuisance for me that it wouldn't stay hidden.

Spaces immediately became *extremely* useful to me due to the ability to automatically separate different aspects of my computing life into separate desktops.
I no longer need to hide any applications just to remove that distraction from the background or from Exposé..
Yep, I do the same.

I did not think that Spaces would become such a killer feature. I LOVE it in conjunction with mail and all IM apps.

Originally Posted by analogika View Post
4) The fact that it now no longer has a monolithic database, but single messages, means a) Time Machine compatibility, and b) better data recovery should anything go wrong (just had a client with a damaged Tiger Mail database - bad blocks on the hard drive - that was *not* fun, but she was extremely lucky). Address Book and Spotlight integration are nice features, too, but those were great arguments for Mail in 10.4, already.
I'm not sure when Mail changed from monolithic database to single messages, but it was definitely BEFORE Leopard. Mail already had messages organized in IMAP format in 10.4.

-t
     
Chuckit
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Feb 23, 2008, 11:12 PM
 
The database changed from an mbox to individual files in 10.4 so that it would work with Spotlight. (If you ask me, it would have been much cooler if Spotlight had been made to be able to recognize many logical "items" within a flat file. Especially since Apple's own Core Data framework stores things in monolithic databases.)
Chuck
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