[MlMt] Evaluation results

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

On 19 May 2015, at 6:36, Andreas Jung wrote:

> I have been using Mailmate for three weeks now - with very mixed 
> feelings.

Thanks for trying out MailMate and providing feedback in the process. I 
know it may feel like feedback is some times going into a black hole, 
but it really doesn't. (I know I haven't replied to all tickets you have 
created.) I hope you might return to MailMate some day and find that it 
lives up to your requirements.

> As a longtime Postbox user I've been pissed lately by the bad support 
> of Postbox
> Inc and some painful bugs in the stability of Postbox - so I came to 
> Mailmate.

To be fair, I think Postbox is pretty clear about support only being 
provided when explicitly paying for it.

> However Mailmate also has tons of minor and major issues. Ok, no 
> software is
> bugfree. But the density of minor flaws in Mailmate (that I would not 
> expect
> from a 1.9 version) is annoying.

Fair enough. The trial period exists to make sure that show stoppers can 
be found before buying.

> Some of my highlight bugs:
>
> - invalid counters for unread mails for *some* folders

Yes, that one annoys me too, but it was my impression that there was no 
longer a debug opportunity: 
https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1119

> - "default columns" do not work as expect, reverting the default 
> columns
> for a folder is not persisted properly

Yes, this does not work well for certain standard folder types (sent, 
junk, ...). Unfortunately, improving this most likely requires a 
fundamental redesign of how it works and I cannot promise that'll happen 
soon.

> - being unable to remove an imap folder containing message without 
> prior
> removing all mails manually (major usability pain in the ass)

As I stated in [the 
ticket](https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1157-unable-to-delete-imap-folders#ticket-1157-1) 
I am willing to prioritize this if it's very important to you. I don't 
see this as a “major usability pain in the ass” since I don't think 
a lot of users frequently delete IMAP mailboxes containing emails. As 
also stated in the ticket, it's not a quick fix, because MailMate has 
multiple checks to ensure that non-empty IMAP mailboxes are never 
deleted.

There is a hidden preference to enable the “Empty Mailbox” menu item 
for all IMAP mailboxes. That might reduce some of the pain:

	defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmEmptyMailboxMenuItemEnabled -bool 
YES

(I think it only works in the latest test release though.)

> - incomplete and half-baked implementation of the "mailboxes" 
> tree...being
> unable to arrange mailboxes as needed using drag & drop

There is certainly potential for improvement in this area.

> - fragile rule engine...hard to debug why email rules work sometimes 
> and sometimes
> not

For debugging, I recommend creating a smart mailbox with the same 
conditions as used by the rule. That should make it easy to see what is 
matched and what is not matched.

> - usability issues with the signing and encryption UI where the 
> signing/lock icons
> are set or enabled when it does not make sense (e.g. no key available 
> for a recipient)

Yes, this could be more flexible. Currently, it simply errs on the safe 
side. It would be worse if it silently did not sign/encrypt when the 
user expected to be warned if it was not possible.

> Most of the issues have been reported as feedback or as bugreports.

And thanks for that.

> What is my point?
>
> Mailmate is not a bad application and I appreciate that the maintainer
> cares more about productivity and power-user features than 
> implementing
> useless features that nobody needs. However Mailmate has a serious
> quality assurance problem. A lot of features are only half implemented
> and not stable or usable. What is the point? Mailmate costs 45 EURO
> compared to 15 EUR for Postbox compared to nothing for Mail.app.

Well, you already stated what your problem with Postbox is. I wrote this 
(and many other replies) for free. Getting the same number of responses 
from Postbox support would have cost you a fortune ;-) As an added 
bonus, I've spent time ignoring the use of words such as “ass”, 
“stupid”, and “suck”. That's not as easy as one might think.

(Oh, and good luck getting feedback replies from Apple.)

I guess feedback should be a two-way street: I don't know about other 
developers, but I think you would get both more and better responses by 
toning down your language a bit. I'm certainly not motivated by being 
told how much this or that suck. I'm perfectly aware of all the bugs and 
short-comings of MailMate. I am, by far, its worst critic and I have no 
idea why *anyone* would want to use MailMate. That is also why I 
continue to work on MailMate. I want it to be good enough to deserve *my 
own* praise.

> The conclusion is: all mail applications for Mac suck in their own 
> special
> way - only the price differs.

I really don't know how to respond to that. If you are in a situation 
where you need a discount then let me know. I'm not going to lower the 
price in general. And don't get me wrong. If I was working on MailMate 
for the money then I would be more stupid than the shortcomings of 
MailMate are.

Again, thanks for sharing your trial experience with MailMate.

-- 
Benny
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