OT - Re: To Matthias Saou

[Clinton MacDonald]

Mallard-snake:

mascarasnake wrote:
> Using Thunderbird on OS X, have you noticed any quirks,
> things suddenly not working?

Things not working? I haven't noticed any more than the usual number of 
minor interface bugs (I am using Thunderbird version 0.6, by the way). 
If Thunderbird has ever crashed or stalled, I don't remember it 
happening. A cute feature of Thunderbird in Mac OS X 10.3.x is that the 
Dock icon will have a star if there is unread mail (this feature is 
slightly buggy -- the star does not always disappear after mail is read, 
you can clear it by checking mail manually).

> I'd love an OS X client that gave good thread ;-) but 
> Thunderbird keeps stalling on me. Mail.app shows threads,
> but clusters them in one group so I can't see the
> hierarchy (for that I keep a mirror on evolution)

Things I like about Thunderbird on Mac OS X:

[1] works with the Yellow Dog mailing list servers!!!!!! (unlike Mail.app)
[2] can set a preference always to check spelling before sending
[3] can set a preference always to send mail as plain text
[4] threads are "hierarchical"; a response to a response within a thread 
is indented further, making clear the relationships
[5] good message filtering
[6] what seems to be junk mail filter training (though I cannot figure 
out what to do with it)
[7] *very* cross platform -- I know how to use it on Mac, Linux, and 
<spit> Windows

Things I do not like about Thunderbird on Mac OS X:

[1] no *inline* spell checking (my favorite crutch)
[2] limited ability to customize the toolbar (only a few commands are 
available)
[3] clumsy handling of wrapping of quoted text
[4] no (obvious) signature feature
[5] text editor wonkiness: lack of drag-and-drop, poor selection of 
whitespace on double-click, quirky navigation (option-arrow for 
previous/next word, command-arrow for beginning/end of line, etc.)
[6] no redirect feature, only forwarding

Overall, I like Thunderbird. I especially like that it is gleefully 
cross platform, but does not shy away from including a few Mac-only 
goodies. A thumbs-up from Clint!

Best wishes,
Clint

-- 
Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal DOT net>