PowerMail 5.5.2 change list (from 5.5.1)

What's new in PowerMail 5.5.2 Univeral Binary

• New search feature and performance increase
• It is now possible to search words ending with a given pattern (by putting a "*" wildcard at the beginning of the string, i.e: *pattern ) or
  words containing a pattern (by adding "*" wildcards around the pattern i.e.: *pattern*
  
• Includes a new version of the FoxTrot core search engine, with greatly accelerated wildcard (partial words terminated with a * star character) searches, including multiple partial words
• Leopard compatibility
• PowerMail is now compatible with developer builds of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on Intel Macs, and uses the latest version of SSL contained in the OS (also Leopard-compatible on PowerPC)
• "Switch user environment" did not work correctly with developer builds of Mac OS X 10.5
  
• Fixes and enhancements
• Improved mouse wheel support in HTML messages
  
• Mail filters with the condition "includes at least one of the words" could behave unexpectedly when the search string starts with a punctuation character
• PowerMail should no longer crash when Mac OS X's spell checker is broken
• When a connexion error occured, PowerMail was sometimes creating an empty, partial message
  
• the [other field...] [does not contain] filter criterion was erroneously evaluated to false when the specified field is not present in the message

PowerMail 5.5.1 change list (from 5.5)

new in PowerMail 5.5.1

• Worked around a bug in Apple's Mail.app, which could make PowerMail to truncate the name of attachments sent using Mail
• Attachments sent using the AppleDouble encoding (which can be chosen automatically when using the Smart encoding and sending files with "Mac-only" attributes) were incorrectly encoded in PowerMail 5.5
• A crash could occur when importing an empty mailbox file
• A crash could occur in some rare circumstances when PowerMail is connected to a mail server
• A crash could occur when changing the character set of a received message
• The PowerMail 5.5 disk image now includes the most recent Universal-binary version of SpamSieve (2.5)

PowerMail 5.5 change list (from 5.2.3)

What's new in PowerMail 5.5

• Further performance increase, with full completion of Universal-binary deliverables:
  
  • PowerMail is now a Universal application running natively on Intel and PowerPC Macs, working on Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 10.4.x (10.4.8 or greater recommended).
    
  • This project turned out to be a large-scale, 6-month undertaking, which underscores our commitment to PowerMail's future.
  • As a token of appreciation to our customers, we have decided to make this upgrade free of charge to current PowerMail 5 users.
  • On Intel-based Macs especially, you will notice much improvement in stability as a result of the necessary rewrites, plus an overall doubling of speed.
    
  • Core searching includes the latest optimizations shared with version 1.1 of FoxTrot Personal Search
    

• Also, the PowerMail 5.5 disk image includes the most recent Universal-binary version of SpamSieve (2.4.4).

• A couple of new features as well as reliability enhancements for all users:

• Implemented Zip compression/decompression, which replaces the prior requirement to have a 3rd-party product installed in order to stuff files.

• Applications - as well as other file packages - can now be attached to a message from the "add attachment" button or menu.

• Copying an e-mail address from an address book contact window could fail
  
• If a message contains an incorrectly encoded attachment (which appears encoded in the message body), the message is no longer indexed, as it could hang the indexer for a bit of time.
• A crash could occur when scrolling certain HTML messages using the mouse wheel.
• The connection to a POP server could previously hang in some circumstances, especially with many simultaneous networking threads.
  
• An error could occur when importing some PowerMail Exchange files containing garbled attachment names.
• Changing the character set encoding of a received message being displayed produced unamiable results
  
• Fixed a 5.5b2 bug in the license displayed in the about box.
• Copying text and pasting it in Tex-Edit Plus did not work correctly on an Intel-based Mac

PowerMail 5.2.3 change list (from 5.2.2)

What's new in PowerMail 5.2.3

• Reliability enhancements for all users:

  Rolled back the 5.2.2-introduced feature of indexing HTML parts, as an occasional crash in Mac OS X code we were calling caused instability for our users - leading to unfortunate and lengthy rebuilds of sort indices. The reliability of 5.2.3 is therefore greater than that of version 5.2.1.

• 10.4.4 compatibility on Intel and PowerPC:

  As the first deliverables in our long march towards a full Universal version of PowerMail, we are have qualified PowerMail 5.2.3 on Mac OS 10.4.4 on both Intel and PowerPC; the measured performance on an Intel dual-core iMac is actually perceivably faster than on the equivalent G5 iMac. Throughout the migration process, we will continue to ensure smooth and efficient operation on Intel-based Macs.

• Performance with first phase of Universal-binary deliverables:

  Our Intel priorities are focused on the areas promising the most acceleration potential first. To that effect, PowerMail 5.2.3 includes a Universal binary version of the PowerMail Spotlight plugin. This release is also coordinated with the 1.0.6 Universal version of FoxTrot Personal Search optimized for indexing PowerMail messages using both Intel cores cooperatively.

  Finally, the PowerMail 5.2.3 disk image includes the first Universal binary version of SpamSieve (2.4.1).

PowerMail 5.2.2 change list (from 5.2.1)

Features

• Enhanced integration with FoxTrot Personal Search: PowerMail now makes its active and archived databases as well as its attachments indexable by FoxTrot Personal Search: for each of your User environments, set the "Enable external indexing" PowerMail preference, then just add the PowerMail Files folder (and your attachments folder, if it is stored outside the PowerMail Files folder) to the "Index files in these locations" FoxTrot Personal Search preference.

  This works on Mac OS X 10.4, 10.3 and 10.2, and continues to be compatible with Spotlight on Mac OS X 10.4

• PowerMail 5.2.2 registered users are now backed under the new "80/3" technical support plan: 80% of technical support e-mails (exclusively sent via PowerMail's Help menu) are to be answered under 3 working days, and not just by an automated filter.

  After December 31st, 2005, PowerMail 5.2.2 and later versions will be the only versions eligible for support, we strongly recommend updating or upgrading now. If any reproducible technical problem mentioned earlier is encountered in PowerMail 5.2.2, we kindly request our users to file them again into our new system using the Help menu option.

• PowerMail 5.2.2 contains the latest optimizations to the internal FoxTrot search engine, including performance and footprint improvements.
• HTML messages with no "plain text" part now are displayed as text without HTML tags if HTML display is disabled (Mac OS X 10.3 or later).
• Newly received or reindexed HTML messages with no "plain text" part are now indexed by content.
• Disk image contains the latest build of SpamSieve (2.4)
• In the Extras folder, now includes Alexander Clauss's MisFox utility, which lets users set PowerMail as their default system-level e-mail application without needing to ever launch and configure Apple's Mail application.

Fixes

• PowerMail 5.2.1 could hang on startup in rare cases
• Some Applescripts could be missing in the scripts menu (when they had a null file type)
• Some items (signatures, accounts...) could be missing from menus or popup menus when their name started with a dash ("-")
• Updated the Help menu links to our new website's PowerMail FAQ

PowerMail 5.2.1 change list (from 5.2)

Fixes

• PowerMail 5.2 could hang for about a minute when accessing the network under certain circumstances
• The load images button (when displaying an HTML message, and image display is turned off in the preferences) did not work with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or Tiger
• When creating a new PowerMail database on Mac OS X 10.4, Spotlight indexing is now turned on by default
• Dates in PowerMail 5.2 were displayed as specified by the system preferences on Mac OS X 10.2 or 10.4, but not on 10.3. Additionnally, dates in non roman character sets (japanese etc) were partially displayed on Mac OS X 10.3 or 10.4

PowerMail 5.2 change list (from 5.1)

Features

• PowerMail now supports the searching of its database using SpotLight (requires Mac OS X 10.4 build 8A25 or later) in addition to its built-in, enhanced FoxTrot search engine:
  • If you double-click on a found item in Spotlight, it will not just open it as an orphaned document window in PowerMail but actually open the corresponding message in the database itself.
  • For users who have one or more inactive (archive) databases, open them with PowerMail 5.2 and reindex them; you will see that all of your current and archived mail can be searched in one go using Spotlight, whether or not the message is contained in your current mail database.
• Support for secure transport on SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4 using the StartTLS command (connection on the same port) in addition to specific SSL port connections
  • For STMP, this can now be configured both on a per-account basis as well as for all accounts in the Mail Schedulings…: Location setup pane
• Added the ability to import mail from Apple's Mail 2.0 (Tiger)
• Added the ability to export tabulated text in Unicode UTF-8 format, i.e. for exporting international text to recent versions of FileMaker Pro
• The Spam filtering architecture adds integration with Intego Personal Antispam

Improvements and tweaks

• Times are now displayed relatively to the current time zone, but using the daylight saving time in effect at that time. This means that a message sent at 12:00 when Daylight Savings Time (DST) was not active will continue to be displayed as sent at 12:00 when you look at it days or months later when DST is active; if you however travel and change time zones, the message will no longer appear as sent at 12:00
• Upon marking a spam message as good, its attachments are nowmoved out of the trash.
• When creating multiple mail filters with a "spam rating" condition, you can now adjust a slider to have different actions for messages with different spam levels. Note that when using SpamSieve, it is highly recommended that you treat messages with a spam rating greater than or equal to 50 as spam, and the other as good, and that you use the mark as good/mark as spam commands when SpamSieve makes mistakes, so it can learn from them. Additionally, note that having multiple filters with a "spam rating" condition can make the spam filter assistant to not behave as expected, that's why a warning dialog will be displayed in such cases
• When evaluating the "From/Sender/Reply To is not in address book" (or "is not in previous recipients") filter, a message whose sender is your own address (the one set in the account of the message) is now treated as if the address were not in the address book (or the previous recipients) gien than some spammers send messages using your own address for the "From" field.
• The message list can now be scrolled horizontally using mice or trackpads with horizontal scroll control (two-finger scrolling with the appropriate extension installed)
• A new method is used to determine when the computer is connected to the network; this may fix some difficultes when PowerMail tried to connect immediately after wake-up
• We now allow a fresh 30-day evaluation period for those who had let an earlier PowerMail evaluation period expire
• When creating the "Mail" folder in the user's home folder, we now set its permissions as readable by the owner only (it was previously set to be writable by the user only, but readable by the group). The permission is not changed if the "Mail" folder already exists, or if your database already exists in another location
• Updated the version of SpamSieve on the disk image to 2.3.1
• Includes English, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Swedish language localizations

Fixes

• AppleScripts that were previously stored inside the application package are now stored in the user's Application Support folder; this should prevent access privilege problems:
  • when the user has no write access to the application
  • for scripts that need to save persistent variables
  • for scripts that need to save aliases to other applications (such as SpamSieve integration scripts)
• An error of type "Class='file'; what=100; when=4; err=-47" could occur when receiving or sending attachments, when certain antivirus software (notably from Symantec) were installed
• PowerMail sometimes pretended that there is not enough free space on the disk to compact the database
• A crash could sometimes happen when importing a message whose size was an exact multiple of 4096 bytes
• An error could occur when exporting the database with the attachments included, and some attachments are not found.
• Fixed a drawing problem for messages contains end of lines in the subject; it was also possible to send such messages when pasting text in the subject field
• Some received messages could be marked as addressed "To" when in fact they were really of "BCC"
• When the notifications preferences are set to open the Recent Mail window without bringing it to the front, the front window no longer looses the keyboard focus
• A crash could occur when quitting PowerMail if no mail browser, folder list or message window was opened.
• It was not possible to export the database unless the mail browser window was opened
• When replying to a message, the header "references" is now properly set according to the latest RFC specifications.
• The message-ID header was not correctly generated when using a SMTP port other than 25
• PowerMail now accurately decodes MIME attachments with a uuencode, uue, or x-uue encoding (in addition to the more standard x-uuencode). It can also decode non-conformant uuencoded attachments missing the "begin" line
• Upon exporting, read messages were ignored in folders in "View unread" mode
• When forwarding or redirecting a draft message, the message would its draft status
• When an HTML message was displayed, the mouse wheel did not work in other panes or windows, notable overlying windows
• An SMTP connection could hang when the SMTP server rejected a message after having received the DATA command (for example, if it rejects it because of a virus)
• When a sent attachment is on a disconnected network volume or an offline disk, PowerMail no longer tries to mount the volume when displaying the message, nor when compacting or checking the database
• When a folder is viewed using the "view unread" mode, the status bar more clearly indicates this fact by showing both the number of messages displayed, and the total number of messages in the folder
• Copying the subject of a message from the message list, and pasting it to the view only field, did not work
• When performing "retrieve completely now" on a partial message opened in its own window, the window was left empty.
• A crash could occur when upload a message to an IMAP server
• It was impossible to export the database unless the mail browser window was opened
• When the notifications preferences are set to open the recent mail window without bringing it to the front, the front window no longer looses the keyboard focus
• PowerMail could erroneously pretend that there is not enough free space on the disk to compact the database - especially when approaching the 2-gigabyte limit for databases
• An error could occur when exporting the database with the attachments included if some attachments could not be found.
• Some exceptions and errors were reported as unknown errors, instead of giving the more detailed information that we are accustomed to reporting
• Updated the display of dates to a more modern method known to be compatible with X 10.4, 10.3 and 10.2

PowerMail 5.1 change list (from 5.0.2)

New features

• PowerMail 5.1 contains all of the improvements found in version 5.0.2 with the addition of WebKit integration for displaying HTML messages. This means that all of the rendering code found in Safari is now part of PowerMail's display, instead of Apple's old HTML rendering library that they have stopped supporting. When viewing HTML messages, benefits include:
  • Vastly improved rendering quality and reliability
  • Supports modern HTML (HTML 4, CSS…)
  • The HTML text is now selectable, copiable, and quotable
  • No more freezing on oddly-formatted or partially retried messages
  • Support for the mouse scroll wheel as well as the usual PowerMail navigation keys (space bar, etc…)
  • Java, Javascript, and plugins are disabled for security and privacy reasons
  • items
  • The zoom buttons can now be also used on HTML messages
• The default action of the HTML button is now to download images (if the message is identified as spam, or if automatic image download is deactivated), or to toggle between plain text and HTML display.
• An AppleScript property has been added to access the HTML part of a message
• Outgoing attachments can now be dragged from the message, and dropped in an application icon to open them, or to a Finder folder to move them to a different location.

  Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug when exporting attachments in Unix mailbox format
  • Accelerated the processing of unread POP3 message lists
  • PowerMail could hang for a long time when dealing with a message with an attchment that has been deleted, if the attachments (or the whole database) are stored on a file server.
  • Pressing the enter or escape keys in the preference window could hilite some items
  • When pasting text containing non Mac OS line endings (LF, CR-LF, unicode EOL or EOP), they are now converted.
  • The "copy outgoing attachments" no longer loses changes, when executed on a modified but not saved message.
  • PowerMail no longer refuses to compact the database when its size is over and 2043 MB.
  • The view short header, and view full header menus are now enabled when viewing an HTML message.
  • Background indexing is now temporarily disabled when the free disk space is low, in order to avoid possible index corruption.

  Known bugs (related to HTML messages only)

  • Printing does not honor the page setup options and does not display the print dialog
  • Some URLs in HTML messages need to be clicked a second time in order to open

5.0.2

Bug fixes

• A crash could occur when retrieving a message whose size is an exact multiple of 4096 bytes
• The "URLs in header" popup did not show https URLs
• Any AppleScript called by PowerMail that contained its script in the data fork but whose file also had a resource fork would result in potential changes not being saved upon quitting.
• When attempting to save a script upon quitting without access rights (i.e. using a non-administrator account) PowerMail could crash upon quitting.
• If the location or version of SpamSieve has changed, PowerMail was repeatedly asking the user to locate it. Now, PowerMail should ask only once and remember.
• The disk image now contains the most recent version of SpamSieve, 2.2
• Fixed three minor glitches in the German-language plug-in
• Fixed a crash when launching PowerMail with the command and option keys pressed, when using DragThing 5.3.1.

5.0.1

Bug fixes

• Fixed several problems (missing icons, menus displayed in English instead of the preferred language...) when running PowerMail from a non-adminstrator account, if it has been installed from an administrator account.
• The toolbars could sometimes be hidden by default in version 5.0. In 5.0.1 we reset all of them to visible first, then remember their status afterwards.
• An error could occur when importing Apple Mail database.
• IMAP would not work if one specified another port than 143.
• When redirecting multiple messages from the mail browser, the signature was erroneously inserted in the redirected messages.
• The spam filter occasionally did not work properly in a couple of very specific circumstances too long to explain here.
• When changing a message's character set from the mail menu, it was necessary to reselect (or reopen) the message to see it re-decoded.
• When a window's default size already used the entire screen, clicking the zoom button could move its title bar under the menu bar.
• When zooming a mail browser whose preview pane was hidden, the window was not drawn correctly.
• A crash could occur when switching user environment (by opening a PowerMail database from the Finder or from the Dock) during an operation that displays a progress window (such as emptying the Mail Trash).
• When performing an auto-reply, forwarding or redirecting using an Applescript called from an incoming mail filter, the unread messages counter could be wrong (could be set to -1 unread), and the status of the received message was not set to replied.
• When creating or modifying a message from AppleScript, LF, CRLF, and Unicode paragraph separators are now correctly converted.
• Fixed a Carbon-event handling problem which could cause exceptions to be caught in silence without user notification; ths would impact the export assistant, amongst other windows, whenever running into an error.
• Updated the manual to include registration tips regarding PowerMail and SpamSieve.
• When exporting the database with the attachments included, and some attachments were StuffIt files that have been decompressed during the reception, an error or crash would occur if:
  • the attachment had been deleted
  • the StuffIt framework was no longer installed
• Fixed a small bug reply-quote string that occured in the German version only
• If an AppleScript called from an outgoing filter sets the status of the message to draft, this now cancels the sending of the message.
• Fixed the URL used to upgrade or order PowerMail from the application itself
• Fixed the FAQ page accessed from the Help menu.

  New features

• Now includes an Italian-language user interface, courtesy of Piero Melideo
• All icons found in the application package can now be customized, by putting an icon file (.icns) with the same name in a folder called "Custom Icons" in the PowerMail user folder.
• We now verify that the version numbers of language plug-ins effectively match the version number of the application ; this opens the possibility of new language plugins being made available without the need for a simultaneous application release.
• Added a build number in addition to the version number - this appears in the about box, in the X-headers and in messages sent to PowerMail support using the Help menu.

5.0 release

Bug fixes

• The preference to select next message after moving to trash was broken in b26
• Removed a limit to 255 recipients per message

5.0b26/ final public beta

New features

• During a drag and drop operation, hitting the space bar will do an immediate spring loading of the folder under the mouse, or will bring the window under the mouse to the front
• Attachment references can now be deleted from AppleScript
• Added a new built-in AppleScript allows to reattach attachments that have been lost

  Bug fixes

• Fixes SMTP AUTH login issues with several servers including AOL
• When hiding the toolbar from the view menu (instead of the window's title bar), the setting is now persistent
• Corrupted messages that do not have an empty line to delimit the end of the message header were not saved in the database, and thus were re-downloaded at each connection
• The actions defined in the "Mark as good" preference are now also applied when marking as good a message located in the Mail Trash
• Clicking in the scrollbar of an HTML message did not work correctly in 5.0b12
• SpamSieve integration did not work properly when executing the filters manually
• When forwarding a message, or when saving it as a text file, the "reply-to" field was labeled as "from" (when reply-to is configured in the short header preferences)
• The message status can now be changed between incoming status (read, unread, replied...) and outgoing status (draft, sent...) via AppleScript. Usefull to change the status to sent, for messages that have been imported
• When modifying a waiting message by changing it's account, it would be sent twice
• The command and option keys are no longer used when running a script from the scripts menu, so it is now possible to use Mac OS 10.3's keyboard shortcuts
• In the export assistant, the "include attachments" checkbox could be enabled when exporting to tabulated text format
• Some erroneous drawing could occur on the menubar when using the contextual menu
• When performing long operations that show a progress window, the message list was updated in real time. It is now updated only when the action is terminated, and this should be faster (example: when you empty the mail trash, while the trash is selected in the mail browser)

5.0b18/ public beta

New features

• The reply popup menu, in the toolbar, now enables replying to any of the from/sender/reply-to/to/cc address
• When replying to a message, or clicking on a mailto URL, you can now close the message with no confirmation dialog if you didn't type anything in it
• Reply single message is now available also in the reply button popup within the toolbar
• A new popup menu appears at the bottom of the message when the header contains some usefull URLs (to manage mailing lists for example)
• When clicking a mailto URL in a message, the message is now created with the same account as the message containing the URL
• The "perform mail filters again" option, in the "mark as good" preference, automatically resets the label to none before filtering the message again
• The attachment folder is now primarily identified using a path relative to the database, then an alias is used if it has been renamed or moved.
• The toolbar settings are now saved in the PowerMail database, in addition to the user's library folder; consequently, using the database from another user or another machine will keep the toolbar settings
• Now inclused the German-language resources in addition to French and English
• Compacting the database now automatically performs a verification of the database consistency
• When verifying the consistency of the database, the attachment references are now updated, in case they have been moved or renamed; it is recommended to go through this step of compacting before you copy your database and your attachment folder to another machine, disk or volume, or before making a backup or archive.
• A dot is now drawn in the close box of windows that needs to be saved

  Bug fixes

• Clicking a mailto URL that specify a BCC recipient now works properly
• Some square characters were displayed in particular incorrectly encoded messages (when line-feed characters were quote-printable encoded)
• When displaying a message whose attachments have been renamed or moved, the internal attachment reference is updated, which makes resolution more reliable
• Increased the size of the text pane margin
• Messages that were in the trash prior the upgrade to PowerMail version 5 could be deleted at a random time when using the "Delete from trash after n days" option
• Rebuilding the search index from the PowerMail First Aid did not work if background indexing was turned off
• Some problems could occur when sending a message using an SMTP server which required authentication
• Some filter conditions did not work: label is, folder is, number of recipients is more than
• The status bar was not drawn correctly in 2 panes mode
• The tab key did not work properly when the keyboard system preference was set to "full keyboard access"
• Reply, forward and redirect did not work from a script called from an incoming filter
• The AppleScript "move message to message container" did not work in 5.0b12
• Improved the way exceptions are handled upon compacting
  • Formerly, we would try to delete the .tmp file when it was not yet closed, which caused a -47 secondary exception within the exception itself (file is busy)
  • Now, the .tmp file gets closed before deletion and primary-cause errors get displayed properly
• When an attachment has no filename (or when a message contains multple HTML parts), the attachment is now created using the message subject as filename, instead of "Enclosure" or "Enclosure.html".

5.0b12/ public beta

• When marking a message as spam, if the preferences are set to move it to the trash or spam folder, the next messages is now selected (or hitting the up or down arrow key will select it, if the "select next message after moving to trash" preference is not checked)
• When manually marking a message as good, it is now moved to the in tray, marked as unread, and refilter (if the preferences are set this way) only if the message was in the spam folder
• The settings windows (mail accounts etc) could be moved 48 pixels up, and the title bar could disappear under the menu bar
• A crash could occur in previous 5.0 alpha/beta builds when changing some options in the "Mark as spam" preference pane

5.0b8

• Some actions are now undoable: moving messages to the trash or to another folder, setting the label, marking as read/unread/spam/good

5.0b7

• "Connect again" command added to the dock menu
• When a connection error occurs during a scheduled connexion, it is now possible to "snooze" the error notification for one hour, from the error dialog, or from the dock menu.
• The search index can now be rebuilt from the PowerMail First Aid dialog (when launching PowerMail with the command and option keys pressed), instead of the mail/database menu. Additionaly, if the index is corrupted when PowerMail is launched, it is automatically rebuilt.

5.0b6

• Got rid of "add attachment" bevel button which is replaced by same button in toolbar
• Added toolbars to settings dialogs and to contacts
• Made sure that upon disabling spam filtering in the assistant, SpamSieve no longer gets invoked upon marking a message as spam
• When running the application on a database that has filters containing the word SpamSieve, we now offer to delete them on startup since they are no longer needed
• Removed the "default internet settings" type of account on Mac OS X 10.3 since Apple has deleted the system-wide user interface to define this; former default accounts configured on an earlier version of Mac OS get turned into an ordinary PowerMail account
• Fixed QIE error 9 in 2, which would happen on startup in case the Foxtrot search index file was corrupt; this could also cause a subsequent inability to quit
• Moved the "Rebuild Index" option from the menu bar to the PowerMail First Aid dialog, where is should have been in the first place
• Wrote a primer named "Fighting back spam with PowerMail 5" which gives more detailed info on how spam filtering works

5.0b4

• When exporting the database, you can now include the attachments in the exported mailbox file.
• Next/previous message arrow buttons were sometimes visible when creating a new message
• Small bug fixed in the spam filter assistant
• When receiving a spam message with no To nor CC recipient, the spam filter did not catch it if you selected the "except messages addressed using your full name" option
• Changed the default order in the mail browser toolbar

5.0b1

• Added a new spam preference pane (to determine what happens when you manually mark messages as spam/good)
• Added mark as spam/mark as good buttons available in the toolbar (you may need to customize the toolbar or reset the default set of buttons to see this
• The "View only" field is now part of the toolbar (on Mac OS 10.3 only)
• It was possible that mark as good/mark as spam did not train SpamSieve correctly

5.0a17

• Moved the progress indicator from a separate floating window into the main browser
• Recent mail buttons have been moved from the bottom of the window to the toolbar, in order to make way for the progress indicateors
• Fixed the Spam assistant, and made a set of other fixes

5.0a13

• When replying to a message whose sender is in the address book, the @ icon was used in the recipient window, instead of the address book contact icon
• The scroll bar did not work on HTML messages in previous 5.0a builds
• The status floating window is now incorporated in the mail browser window
• Replaced the spam preference pane by a spam filter assistant
• The spam filtering mechanism is now made of two separate parts, a condition and an action:
  • the condition evaluates a message's spam rating, based on one of several methods (including SpamSieve)
  • the action actually does what the user defines is relevant for messages that have been rated as spam
• Toolbar icons are now final
• After quitting PowerMail while it was hidden, the mail browser would not be shown the next time PowerMail is launched
• The historical "stamp" sound should no longer make PowerMail crash when sending messages on certain configurations (thanks to a subtle conversion at A-No-Ne music, kudos).
• When moving an entire folder to the mail trash, the content of the folder could be deleted prematurely if "only messages older than" was checked in the "empty mail trash on quit" preference
• When opening the spam folder in its own window, it could appear as if you opened the folder list window (you may need to reset the window related preferences in the PowerMail first aid dialog to fix the problem).

5.0a8

• No longer crashes when the system language is Japanese, German, French or Dutch
• Now compatible with Mac OS X 10.2
• A crash would occur after performing a low level rebuild
• Retrieving messages from a POP server that contains thousands of already downloaded message could hang PowerMail for a few seconds (spinning cursor).
• IMAP authentication with the "plain" method did not work with some IMAP
• servers
• The multi-pane divider is now refreshed in real time
• A -50 error could happen when displaying some messages encoded in UTF8 or other charset
• The browser's toolbar could disappear when opening a new window

PowerMail 4.2.1 release notes - October 5^th 2003

Changes since 4.2

• The counter that shows the number of message sand unread messages (as well as the bold status of a folder) could be wrong after one of the following events:
  • a filter auto-replied, forwarded a redirected a received message
  • the user clicked the cancel button when emptying the mail trash
  • the mail trash contained some corrupted messages
  • PowerMail had crashed for any reason, or has been forced quit
• Message counters are now also recalculated systematically after a crash, or when compacting or rebuilding the database
• The trash could fail to empty when it contains corrupted messages
• Reindexing the database (especially when upgrading from a version earlier than 4.2) could fail if some messages were corrupted
• A crash could occur when calling PowerMail from Spamfire (or some AppleScripts) when PowerMail was not launched yet
• Powermail would hang when executing multiple Apple Scripts recursively (for example if one executes a script that run a filter that execute another script)
• Made cosmetic fixes in the german localization
• Now includes a Japanese-language plug-in again

PowerMail 4.2 release notes - September 4^th 2003

Changes since 4.1.3

Searching

Now includes entirely new CTM FoxTrot™ high-speed search technology; benefits over previous PowerMail releases include:

• Ultra-fast indexing and searching: benchmarks show performance gains ranging from 300% to over 500%
• Instant on-the-fly indexing upon fetching messages
• New extensible search user interface with combinable fields - similar to Panther's Finder searches
  

   

  
  • 
    
  • Supports the following search criteriae:
    • Entire message content
    • Subject
    • Body
    • From
    • To
    • From or To
    • other message attributes:
      • Date sent [range]
      • Date received [range]
      • Label
      • Account
        
  • Supports the following combinable search operators:
    • - Ability to restrict searches to subject, to, from or body
    • Includes all of the words
    • Includes exact phrase
    • Includes at least one of the words
    • Does not include the words
    • matches the search pattern (advanced mode):
    • Search literal (ie: "the quick brown fox")
    • Search words starting with (ie: quick brown f* )
  • Offers colored hiliting of search results in a message's body
  • IMAP SEARCHES now possible and very fast due to indexing of the local IMAP cache (once connected, the search dialog allows restricting searches to the selected IMAP mailboxes)
  • Other improvements over previous searching in PowerMail 3 and 4:
    • Gets rid of all former "Lady" errors
    • Background indexing now fully reliable on Mac OS X
    • Numbers are now indexed
    • Supports Japanese, Chinese and Korean properly (entirely based on Unicode)
    • Most of the re-indexing process occurs in a background thread, allowing simultaneous work in the application (this used to only be true for updating the index)

    Increased responsiveness

  • Shortened the launch time
  • Accelerated the selection of a message within a folder or list view that would contain thousands of messages
  • Removes an earlier limitation in PowerMail whereby a folder or list view would only properly display its first 65535 or 32767 messages

    Filtering

  • FILTERING can now also occur based on a message's content (notably useful for creating customizeable built-in spam filters)

    Improved error handling and data recovery

  • Enhanced the display of high-level explanation text for typical OS Errors (i.e. disk full, etc...)
  • Added two more repair cases inside the "Verify consistency of database records" option of PowerMail First Aid, for the following potential problems:
    • when the number of messages / unread messages displayed (or the bold status of the folder) for a given folder is wrong
    • when there is an error "DB error 7 in 9" when opening the mail browser, or if some mail folders seem to have disappeared
  • Under Classic and Mac OS 9 / 8.6, we now warn when there is less than 1Mb of memory available instead of a mere 256k; this would be an advance warning sign that searching might fail unless given more memory
  • Increased the default memory allocation under Mac OS 9-8, In the case of large databases and trouble accessing indexes, one may wish to increase this allocation even more.
  • Rebuilding the sort indices in PowerMail First Aid no longer messes up the order of settings lists such as accounts, signatures and text clippings

    Other usability and reliability enhancements

  • AppleScripts saved by Script Editor 2.0b2 can now be placed in in the Scripts folder and will display in the AppleScripts menu
  • APOP login only worked when the "Always use APOP" was checked; what we inteded to do initially, and now do properly, is try APOP in all cases and only try USER/PASS in case of failure unless the user explicitely requires it.
  • Replied IMAP messages were not marked as such
  • Updated the command-key shortcuts for mark read/unread and show simple header; this way, Mac OS X's Hide Others command key now works again in PowerMail
  • Added a command-key shortcut for view unread
  • PowerMail no longer imports contacts from the Apple address book which contain no e-mail addresses
  • PowerMail no longer requires Mac OS X spell-checking to be fully initialized and therefore can be auto-launched on startup by Mac OS X login items
  • Replying to messages with addresses longer than 78 characters now works
  • Fixes an incompatibility while Norton Antivirus was scanning the attachments folder
  • Also runs on Mac OS X (10.2.6 to 10.1.5), Mac OS 9 and even 8.6

  Now compatible with Panther (Mac OS X 10.3)

PowerMail 4.1.3 release notes - May 20^th 2003

Changes since 4.1.2

Searching

• When rebuilding the search indexes on a large database, some messages were skipped. If you previously experienced trouble with searching, we recommend that you delete the folder named "Indexes" inside your "PowerMail Files" folder and then launch PowerMail and select the "Rebuild Indexes" command ("File" menu: "Database" submenu).

  Documentation

• Now includes an updated manual, which is much more in sync with the current PowerMail feature-set.

  AppleScript

• A "mailto" URL (from a web browser or a contact manager) has been enhanced to allow the specification of multiple recipients (To or CC ) (requested by Now Contact users).
• Setting the user id, incoming server, incoming port, outgoing server or SMTP port of an account by AppleScript did not work

  International text

• Upon pasting Unicode text that contains a Byte Order Mark, this control character is now handled correctly.
• Large outgoing messages (> 32 kb) encoded in base 64 (i.e. Japanese or UTF8 character sets) could be garbled.
• Text copied from a non-multiscript application and pasted to PowerMail could be garbled if the user's preferred language is not a roman language.

  Robustness

• Fixed a bug which could prevent the content of a folder to be displayed (with error message: "MAS Error 1 (MAS feature error) in 100 ().") when a folder was sorted by "online status".
• If a subject, sender's name, or recipient's name of an outgoing message contains a return character, the header could be invalid
• When leaving the account's SMTP server field empty (because the SMTP server can be defined in the schedulings and locations), the message-id of sent messages was incorrect.
• If the default account has been deleted, clicking on a mailto URL in a web browser was not working (PowerMail was brought to front, but no message was created).
• Upon displaying an IMAP message with a not yet downloaded attachment, the button for partially fetched POP messages was erroneously displayed.

PowerMail 4.1.2 release notes - February 3^rd 2003

Changes since 4.1.1

1. [General] One can now import tab delimited or LDIF address files even if they do not have a 'TEXT' file type.
2. [General] Rebuilding search indexes could skip certain messages if a former rebuild had failed. If you have some messages which can never be found, i.e. within a given range of dates, then try rebuilding the search indexes with 4.1.2
3. [General] The "Tile Windows" menu did not work.
4. [General] The "delete from server after n days" and "delete from server when deleting locally" POP options are no longer disabled when the "leave copies of retrieved messages on server" and "partially retrieve messages over" options are not checked in the account setup, since partial download can be enabled in the locations and scheduling dialog, or can occur when a connection is interrupted during the download.
5. [General] The "remove read messages" button of the recent mail window could behave incorrectly if some read messages had been marked manually as unread.
6. [General] When clicking on the globe icon to view an HTML message in your web browser, PowerMail could use a different browser than the one set in the internet system preference.
7. [General] When opening a very large number of messages simultaneously, message windows are no longer stacked past the bottom of the screen
8. [AppleScript] It is no longer possible to delete the in tray, out tray, or mail trash from AppleScript (yikes !)
9. [AppleScript / Mac OS X] PowerMail can now use scripts saved by ScriptEditor 2.0
10. [Mac OS X] A "Record not found in DB" database error could occur when creating a new contact, if the "open contacts by default in Apple address book" option was checked, and synchronization of Apple Address Book was disabled
11. [Mac OS X] Added "minimize" and "zoom" items in the "window" menu on OS X
12. [Mac OS X] Changed the command key for preferences to Command-, (comma) in accordance with Aqua Guidelines and the recently-released iLife applications
13. [Mac OS X] Removed Command-M equivalent to Sending mail, since this conflicted with Aqua conventions. FYI, Command-M had been recommended by Apple as the recommended key to send mail (admittedly in the PowerTalk days, but PowerMail has been shipping since 1995 !)
14. [Mac OS X] Shared menus (used by URL Manager Pro for example) did not work on Mac OS X
15. [Mac OS X] The "Find files" button has been removed on Mac OS X since the Finder's find window is not accessible from third party applications on jaguar
16. [Mac OS X] When enabling the address book synchronization, the synchronization (deletion) of deleted items is now disabled by default. This could be a little dangerous, and it can slow down the synchronization process significantly for large address books
17. [Mac OS X] When invoking a service that modified the text of a message (PGP, for instance) the message was not marked as modified so one could send the unmodified message
18. [Mac OS X] When pasting Japanese text copied from a Cocoa application, the text could be garbled if the language preference was not set to Japanese.

PowerMail 4.1.1 release notes - January 11^th 2003

Changes since 4.1

1. Converting version 3 databases to PowerMail 4.1 (without having run 4.0 first) could result in a -43 error, which is now corrected.
2. Fixed the AppleScript access to text clippings
3. Fixed the saving of custom words in the inline spell checker
4. The import/export panes in the German Mac OS 9 version were displaying oddly, as well as some small interface details.
5. On Mac OS 8.6, the low-level database rebuild option (in the PowerMail first aid dialog) would fail with an error -2847
6. In one case on Mac OS 8.6 there could be a crash upon launching

PowerMail 4.1 release notes - December 18^th 2002

New features since 4.0.1

1. Integration of Apple's Mac OS X 10.2 address book. Because PowerMail's address book offers a different functionality than Apple's (storage folders in additions to groups, resolution of recipients based on a unique e-mail address, encoding preferences per recipient and so on), simple substitution of the Apple address book to PowerMail's would have resulted in several negative consequences:
   • diminished functionality as part of the upgrade
   • user interface issues either with context-switching when viewing addresses, inability to open a given record via AppleEvent from PowerMail or imperfect mimicking of Apple's address book user interface
   • lack of ability to use PowerMail files folder alternatively on Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier versions of Mac OS 9 or X

   Our approach has therefore aimed to deliver a "best-of-both worlds" experience; this requires the export of your PowerMail address book into Apple's address book or import from the Apple address book into PowerMail. Susbsequent to this first migration (performed either the Import/Export assistants or the new Synchronization preference panel) changes to either address book (System or PowerMail) get automatically updated withing the other. This also applies whenever another application such as iSync or Palm Desktop modifies your system address book.

   In addition, a preference has been added in the address book synchronization pane to open contacts in Apple's Address Book by default. One can open a contact while pressing the option key (or use the contextual menus) to change this behavior temporarily.

2. Integration of Apple's OS X 10.2 inline spell checker now brings both the ability to have spelling checked as-you-type or in one go, in all of the languages supported by Mac OS X. In addition, PowerMail maintains support for previous spell checking applications based on Word Services AppleEvents (i.e. Excalibur, Grammarian et. al.)
   
3. Implemented multiple-level "Undo" for both text body and text utility fields

Other changes since 4.0.1

1. First-time launches of PowerMail 4 could sometimes can display a "this volume is not writeable" alert.
2. "New message to" contextual menu did not work when performed on the recipient of an opened message window.
3. The import and export assistants now remember the last setting used.
4. Text could get garbled when quickly typing accented characters (using a key sequence for typing the accent, then the character) or Japanese text.
5. The length of the comment field, in the address book, has been extended over 255 characters.
6. Unicode 1.1 and UTF7 were improperly supported on Mac OS X; this has been fixed
7. A crash could occur when sending a messaged by clicking the "send" button in the message window, instead of using a keyboard shortcut.
8. When exiting an ASCII only field in a setup dialog (email address or password, for example), the keyboard menu is reset to it's previous state, instead of being switched to the system script.
9. When deleting a message via Applescript, the attachments are moved to the Finder trash only if the message was a received message, not a sent one (and still only if the attachment has not been moved outside of the attachments folder)

PowerMail 4.0.1 release notes - September 1^st 2002

New features since 4.0

1. Added the Apple Mail format to export options
2. Added a button to the bottom of the message window to retrieve partially-fetched POP3 messages completely
3. When sending a message containing a single HTML attachment and a totally empty body, the attachment is now smart-encoded as an HTML message.
4. [AppleScript] Properties have been added for partial status, online status, and "retrieve again completely" flags.
   • Please note that changing the online status or "retrieve again completely" flags will not work when a POP connection is pending or active; as a result, these properties cannot be set from a script executed via a filter.

Bug fixes since 4.0

1. Accelerated the import process for message databases in all text formats by up to 500%; when importing messages, sorting is now performed at the end instead of while importing. As a result, the entire process (import+sort) can be much less time consuming, especially with large databases.
2. Updated the AppleScript implementation to include all of PowerMail 4's Account properties
3. When replying to a message, the reply window would sometimes be empty.
4. On French Mac OS 8/9, PowerMail was being displayed in the English language instead of French.
5. In attachments preferences, the default attachment encoding and compression were not saved.
6. [Cosmetic] There was a 1-pixel white line in the header of recipients panes.
7. [Mac OS X] Fixed a conflict between PowerMail 4.0 and the latest version of the WindowShade utility program
8. [Mac OS X] Improved the error explanation when the user has no write access privilege to her database or attachments folder

PowerMail 4.0 release notes - July 30^th 2002

New features since PowerMail 3.1.2

"Recent Mail" interactive log window

1. Provided as an alternative view to the mail browser, this window shows a "flat" view of all mail retrieved since the application launch with a column indicating in which folder each message might have been filed by a filter; this is also useful to weed out junk mail that has either arrived in the In tray or been filtered away.
2. Contains "remove read messages" and "remove all messages" buttons, and a count of unread messages

Partial POP3 download of messages

1. This offers the ability to limit the size of downloaded attachments on a per-account and/or per-location basis. Partially-retrieved messages will show as a half-envelope in the mail browser, and can be marked for full retrieval upon next connection using a contextual menu item.

Full rewrite of how messages are managed on the server side, with options to:

1. Delete messages from server after n days
2. Delete messages when deleting locally
3. Purge all retrieved message from the server on next connection
4. Force the download of all messages on the server even if they have already been "seen"

Enhanced address book and addressing of mail

1. Now supports editing of groups and folders in separate "daughter" windows
2. Added a button in the recipient editor to switch around the first name and last name fields
3. Added an Address History feature which offers recent addresses (sent to or received from) as possible recipients in type-select after address book entries; this is designed to resemble the URL cache type-selection found in browsers. There is a setting in preferences to determine whether one wants this feature enabled or not, as well as the number of days to keep addresses in the cache for.
4. Type-selection of recipients can now search on additional fields than just the recipient name. The selection on fields includes first name, last name, display name, e-mail address or comments, and up to five simultaneous search keys (in the order you select) may be chosen.
5. Added an option to determine in which order first name and last name are to be entered and shown in the display name
6. Added an option to automatically edit addresses being added to the address book, notably when using the "Add to address book" contextual menu option
7. When adding an entry to the address book, we now try to create a display name based on the contents of the e-mail address, ie if the address is "john.doe@mydomain.com" then we assume that the User name is John Doe.
8. Smart auto-resizing of the recipient list; if you resize it manually, it will never be auto-resized smaller than the size you have set
9. When typing a recipient address, a new shortcut has been added to change recipient mode (To, CC or BCC): type command-up arrow, or command-down arrow.

General user interface overhaul and specific OS X Aqua redesigns

1. Although PowerMail 3.1.2 already worked under Aqua, all dialogs for the Mac OS X version of PowerMail 4 have been redesigned to use 13-point Lucida instead of Geneva, with full conformance to Aqua spacing and interface guidelines. Under Mac OS 9, the classic Macintosh user interface guidelines and spacings remain
2. Updated the interface of all dialogs, including filters and text signatures, to be orthogonal to the general PowerMail 4 interface
3. Buttons are now systematically labeled with tooltips instead of sometimes having captions
4. Improved the interface of settings dialogs: action buttons are now above the list instead of below. This means less wasted space and better legibility when deleting or adding items (this will be especially evident in filters)
5. New layout with more space in toolbar buttons on Mac OS X; likewise for the View Only floating window.
6. On Mac OS X, the Services menu is now active; this allows integration of PowerMail with PGP for Mac OS X, Summarize and other services (caveat: there seems to be an Apple bug whereby Carbon applications have trouble using Cocoa services such as GPG under Mac OS X 10.1.5; to be reproduced).
7. Quartz text smoothing available for all editable and selectable text fields under Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later
8. Now compatible with Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2)

Added mail account settings (SSL) and capabilities

1. To accomodate the new features, we now have three panes (Identity, Receiving and Sending) which each have a set of simpler required settings and optional advanced settings
2. Each individual mail account can now have its own SMTP AUTH authentication settings
3. A different reply-to mail address can now be specified
4. Implemented SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) v3 / TLS 1.0 (Transport-Level Security) support for IMAP4, SMTP and POP3
5. A different connection port than the default can be specified

New "Text clippings" feature

1. This allows the insertion of pre-fabricated bits of text into a message body. Text clippings are created much like signatures in the Setup menu, and are available for insertion from the outgoing messages window.

New Mail Schedulings and Locations dialog, with additional options

1. Ability to connect to two different sets of accounts with different schedules
2. Partial retrieving of messages now also avaible as a scheduling-dependent option, in addition to per-account settings.
3. The ability to retrieve accounts simultaneously or sequentially is now scheduling-dependent instead of a global preference setting
4. Connect to IMAP server on startup
5. Added flexibility in choosing when to attempt a transaction or not, depending on the availability of a network connection.

Other changes

1. Added support for ISO 8859-15 encoding (Latin 9, Western Europe and Euro currency symbol encoding) on Mac OS 9 and X or later and disabled on Mac OS 8.5-8.6 (since it is not supported by these versions of the System)
2. When saving a message to a text file, a short header is added with the subject, from, to... (according to the short header preferences). The full header is also apended if it is displayed in the message window.
3. For users who intermittently connect an external monitor (i.e. PowerBook users), we now save and restore a window position for each monitor

Fixes, changes and other improvements since PowerMail 3.1.2

1. A warning is displayed before compacting the database if there is not enough space available on disk
2. A warning is displayed when the database size exceeds 1.9 GB, since our physical database limit is 2GB
3. When receiving a message with an incorrectly-encoded subject, an error could occur upon filtering this message
4. Receiving a message with an attachments encoded in quoted printable in some rare occasions, the attachment could be corrupted.
5. Fixed an old bug that would incorrectly encode the filename of attachments containing a space character in the content-type, in cases where the filename did not contain a period (!)
6. When sending a message containing only ASCII characters plus some ellipsis (...), the message was encoded in ISO-8859-15 (or ISO-8859-1, depending of the preferences), althought it could be sent in US ASCII, since the ellipsis are not available in ISO-8859-15, and are converted to 3 dots.
7. When clicking a mailto: URL in a web browser, the URL was truncated to 255 characters.
8. Retrieving a POP message containing an attachment with an incorrectly encoded name no longer interrupts the POP connection.
9. [OS X] On Mac OS X, new "PowerMail files" folders are created inside a newly created folder in the user folder named "Mail", as per a standardisation proposal made by Adam Engst of Tidbits (this was done but not documented in PowerMail 4.0 public beta 3)
10. [OS X] Corrected a Mac OS X problem in the about box
11. [OS X] Fixed a crash when sending large attachments under Mac OS X using dual-processor Macs [this had already been fixed in a silent upgrade of 3.1.2]
12. [OS X] When moving multiple attachments to trash, on Mac OS X, the Finder no longer displays an error
13. [OS X] Fixed cosmetic scroll bug when editing text on Mac OS X
14. [UI] Extending the current multiple selection by shift clicking (or command shift on Mac OS 9) an unselected item now works as expected
15. [UI] When typing a return at the end of a long message, the text would not scroll before you type the next character.
16. [UI] Fixed an occasional condition which could cause odd (garbage) characters in a reply
17. [UI] Made geo-political changes to the groupings of languages and regions in the Encodings menu, in order to simplify the user interface.
18. [UI] When modifying a received, waiting, or sent message, pressing the cancel button leaves the message unmodified; pressing duplicate or change as draft keeps the modifications already done, and no longer moves the insertion point.
19. [UI] When opening a received message in its own window, then replying to it and sending the reply, the original message window should not be refreshed (resetting the scroll position and "file in" popupenu)
20. [UI] Changing the signature of message always replace the old signature (instead of appending a new one, after using random signatures or editing a saved draft message).
21. [Address book] Fixed a problem when exporting as LDIF
22. [Address book] The address book now gets properly sorted by comments
23. [IMAP] On some IMAP servers, a couple of commands were case-sensitive which could result in attachments losing their filenames
24. [IMAP] Viewing an HTML message (without plain text alternative) in IMAP did not work when HTML display is enabled, but with preference for plain text.
25. [IMAP] Sometimes, when modifying a setup dialog and saving it by pressing command S, a dialog asked to save it again when closing the window.
26. [IMAP] Fixed an IMAP bug which could result in listing blank folders
27. [Import/Export] Fixed a bug which prevented exporting of some messages in PowerMail Exchange format; if you have an old PowerMail database that you wish to export in PowerMail Exchange format, open a copy of this database in PowerMail 4 and export it from there
28. Fine-tuned the mechanism by which PowerMail warns about a possible access of a database by two instances of the application; this dialog will show less often, as we now resort to checking the process manager first, and is more assertive.

• PowerMail 3.1.2 would refuse to run under Mac OS 8.6 [this has been fixed in a silent upgrade of 3.1.2]