Version 4 Webmail Demo

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rockinthesixstring
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Version 4 Webmail Demo

Post by rockinthesixstring »

Is there a functional V4 webmail demo? The webmail demo on the main website is still V3
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rockinthesixstring
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Post by rockinthesixstring »

Ok, so upon further examination, it looks as though the demo webmail IS the v4 webmail... just hasn't changed enough to be noticable.

I was really excited about the v4 release because somewhere in my search for the addition of the Telerik RadEditor, someone from MailEnable said that it was in fact coming in the next release.

In my examination of the new Webmail, I see that the Signature Editor is using the RadEditor but the Compose Editor is still using the CRAPPY old editor. WTH MailEnable?


Here is some of my pushing for the telerik rad editor

http://forum.mailenable.com/viewtopic.p ... ht=telerik
http://forum.mailenable.com/viewtopic.p ... ht=telerik
http://forum.mailenable.com/viewtopic.p ... ht=telerik
http://forum.mailenable.com/viewtopic.p ... ht=telerik
http://forum.mailenable.com/viewtopic.p ... k&start=30


And here is the email reply I received from Peter Fregon from MailEnable on January 31st 2009.
Hi,

Just a quick update to this. It seems we will be using the Telerik HTML
editor in the upcoming version 4 of MailEnable (we've evaluated the various
editors available and it does seem the most appropriate). Version 4 is not
too far off, we are just about finished with the big new items and will have
a more definite timeframe for release shortly.

Thanks
Peter Fregon
MailEnable Pty. Ltd.
Thanks Peter for setting your customers up for disappointment. Not only did you NOT fully deliver on the statement of including the Telerik RadEditor, but you ALSO said that "Version 4 is not too far off". 8 Months is a little more than "not too far".
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Admin
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Post by Admin »

Sorry, we did evaluate the other editor - and at the time of my email it did seem like we were going to use it - but it was decided to continue with the current one.

rockinthesixstring
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Post by rockinthesixstring »

In my humblest opinion, that is an aweful idea. Without an enhanced editor, v4 will be as big of a webmail flop as v3.

I'm not trying to offend you with compairing you to your competition (ST), but they have a far superior web ui in version 3, and they are now sitting on versoin 6.

MailEnable has some good features, and I still choose it over ST, but without some DRASTIC revamping, our business will not be upgrading to the latest version... it's just not worth it for the small enhances.

MailEnable completely overhauled the V3 webmail, and although it boasted an "ajax" interface, it still sucked in all other aspects. I would compair it to the Outlook Web Access 2003, which by the way was out dated in 2003.

I firmly believe that the MailEnable webmail could benefit from a whole slew of the telerik products... RadPanelbar, RadSplitter, RadTreeview, RadWindow, and most importantly RadEditor. I believe this not because I think that Telerik is the be all and end all, but simply because they have a lot of features out of the box, great skinning abilities, and incredible power. The current webmail almost feels like a hack IMHO.
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rockinthesixstring
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Post by rockinthesixstring »

Also, would you be willing to tell us why you choose to stick with the old editor over a new one?
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MailEnable
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Post by MailEnable »

I disagree with some of the assertions in this thread. I dont think the fact that we did not use the Telerik controls can justify such a critcal assesment of version 4 (webmail or otherwise).

Version 4, provides a significant array of features and extensions to Version 3 (webmail extensions and significant others). See: www.mailenable.com/version4 .

We did try to accomodate some of the suggestions (on the forum and those e-mailed). We did even explore using the RadControls, however (at least with respect to the HTML editor) any improvement was relatively minor (by comparison to other features and improvements that were required/requested).
The HTML editor we use has the majority of features needed for a web client. While we could improve this further, but appropriated effort to signficant speed improvements and functional extensions (forgotten password, answered flags, immediate notifications to imap/mapi, server file storage/publishing).

BTW - MailEnable indeed uses the same editor for Signature Editing (it does not use a different editor for this)

Thanks again for the feeback- we do aim to please, and we will explore reviewing the editor used in the webmail and indeed continuing to improve the webmail module of MailEnable.
Regards, Andrew

MartynK
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Post by MartynK »

How about a way were people can plug in their own choice of editor ?

There are a number of commercial editors that I have used over time including InnovaStudio and CuteEditor

rockinthesixstring
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Post by rockinthesixstring »

As I said before, I don't think that Telerik is the Be ALL and End ALL, but I do believe that it would seriously benefit the MailEnable Webmail. The existing editor is old and tired, whereas the RadEdtior is new and vibrant. Inline Spell Checking is one of the best features in that project, but even the graphical look of the editor is far superior to to many of the other ones out there.

I agree with Martyn too. If I could add my own editor similar to the way I can add it to Sharepoint would be a great feature. I too have used InnovaStudio's editor and CuteEditor, and both of them will far outperform ME's existing one.

It's not good enough to have a good feature set anymore. Anything done now must have all the features but ALSO look and feel good. It has to be quick, slick, visually appealing... it has to have it all. It is my opinion that the v4 Webmail falls short of most of these. I realize that there are some decent features included... but upon my review of the SM V6 demo, ME falls far short in this area. Just look at the MS Outlook 2 way sync as a small example... that's a "Slick" feature that goes above and beyond... delivering a feature that is practical to many business users.

This is just one mans opinion. I'd like to hear others.
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dafacct
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Post by dafacct »

I agree that the ME webmail editor in vs 3 is not very good, and was hoping that it would be updated to improve functionality. If it hasn;t been significently improved then why spend the money to upgrade?

fredski
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Post by fredski »

The webmail client still sux!

A simple thing as to select all messages still only selects the screen visible messages, not the whole page, and i was expecting a news skin and visible improvements as well.

We offer hosting, and our customers are still using mailenable, but our company have started to use SM because of a 1000 times better webmail client. How difficult could it be? Do we have to migrate all our customers as well? This does not look or feel like a new major version.

The webmail client is important, if this isnt fixed soon we are gone.

rockinthesixstring
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Post by rockinthesixstring »

Agreed, this is definately NOT a MAJOR VERSION. It could be labeled MailEnable 3.7 but a 4.0 is WAY WAY WAY off.
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