Suggestions for FastMail features

[David May]

I'm a new member and I just went through the initial setup, preferences, etc. I have some suggestions for more features in FastMail and thought I would list my initial wish list so that everyone could comment. Here they are:

1) Each sending email alias should have a separate "Full Name" entry. The reason: I use aliases to separate my email from various sources and I don't necessarily want every source to know my real name if I respond back to them. At the moment, since FastMail only allows one real name, I have blanked it out so that no one will have my real name on the email unless I type it manually. I would prefer, however, to have the name I choose for each alias to appear in the email.

2) English spell checker (please!)!

3) Mark as read/unread

4) Folder list view should list the number of unread messages and read messages in each folder.

Any other suggestions out there?

Dave May

[arpit]

Originally posted by David May
I'm a new member and I just went through the initial setup, preferences, etc. I have some suggestions for more features in FastMail and thought I would list my initial wish list so that everyone could comment. Here they are:

1) Each sending email alias should have a separate "Full Name" entry. The reason: I use aliases to separate my email from various sources and I don't necessarily want every source to know my real name if I respond back to them. At the moment, since FastMail only allows one real name, I have blanked it out so that no one will have my real name on the email unless I type it manually. I would prefer, however, to have the name I choose for each alias to appear in the email.

2) English spell checker (please!)!

1 can already be done. In the preferences screen, when you add a new send from address, add it as follows: "fake name" <user@domain> This will achieve the desired effect.

2 is already working. FastMail has one of the best and easy to use spell checkers I have ever seen. In the compose screen there is a drop down list near the right hand bottom corner of the screen, just above the send button. Select the action "Spelling" and click "Do Action".

4 is already on the To-Do list I believe.

Hope that helps.

[jhs]

1) Search this message boards for "personalities". They will cover what you want (and more).

2) English spell check is there, bottom right on compose screen in the drop-down box. Personally I would like other languages, e.g. Danish

3) & 4) I believe both are planned.

[nic76]

3) you can mark a mail read or unread by using the action pull-down list left under in the folder window

[circuit]

another couple of ideas...

1. make the various mailboxes accessible from every screen. e.g. if you want to hop from viewing a trashed email to viewing your inbox, you can do it in one step (rather than going back to the "trash" folder, then switching to "inbox"). i know this sounds very minor, but as someone who re-reads saved emails often, it would make navigation a lot quicker. i heard that there are some interface improvements in the pipeline - obviously the fastmail interface is ever evolving, which is great, but it has caused some important features to be rather tucked away in preference screens etc, and i guess this is a good example of that. maybe the new interface will fix things.

2. a tag of some sort to show which mails have been replied to; perhaps an option to turn them off if not required. another very small thing, but it's something i found really helpful in outlook express (and before you say it, yes i know fastmail works through outlook, but i can't use it because of the way my proxy server is set up )

[arpit]

Originally posted by circuit
a tag of some sort to show which mails have been replied to; perhaps an option to turn them off if not required. another very small thing, but it's something i found really helpful in outlook express (and before you say it, yes i know fastmail works through outlook, but i can't use it because of the way my proxy server is set up )

Unrelated to your suggestions, have you had a look at this thread? It lists a couple of firewall avoidance measures you might find useful if you ever feel like accessing fastmail through a mail client from behind a firewall.

[nic76]

1. make the various mailboxes accessible from every screen. e.g. if you want to hop from viewing a trashed email to viewing your inbox, you can do it in one step (rather than going back to the "trash" folder, then switching to "inbox"). i know this sounds very minor, but as someone who re-reads saved emails often, it would make navigation a lot quicker. i heard that there are some interface improvements in the pipeline - obviously the fastmail interface is ever evolving, which is great, but it has caused some important features to be rather tucked away in preference screens etc, and i guess this is a good example of that. maybe the new interface will fix things.

the interface will be completely redisigned in the near future, if i'm not mistaken their planning on having a list of all the folders on the left side all the time

2. a tag of some sort to show which mails have been replied to; perhaps an option to turn them off if not required. another very small thing, but it's something i found really helpful in outlook express (and before you say it, yes i know fastmail works through outlook, but i can't use it because of the way my proxy server is set up )

that would be a good thing

[circuit]

off topic: the reason i can't use outlook isn't to do with the firewall. it's to do with proxy settings. our proxy software is picky about what it will and won't allow - 1, you have to be using POP, and 2, certain types of usernames aren't allowed. so i can't retrieve IMAP mail through it, and i can't use my web host's POP account because there's an "@" in the username. just so you know

[Jeremy Howard]

Circuit: you should find that the 'firewall avoidance' threads will fix your problem. Using these you should be able to bypass your proxy altogether.

[Jeremy Howard]

David May: I just replied to your email but your reply-to address was one you'd apparently made up while testing it out. So I can't reply to you because I don't know your address.

Anyway, as others have said 1-3 already exist, and 4 is coming. And please don't use non-working From addresses when you send email!

[noelos]

I think what was meant in number 2. by an English sell checker was a British/Australian English spell checker. I think the spellchecking feature is great, but would prefer if it were configurable to not say that "colour" or "centre" was spelled wrongly.

So I too put in a vote for a non-US English spell-checker.

How's this for another improvement, though. Many people use web-based email not because they prefer it to Outlook (Express)/Pine/Netscape/Mulberry/etc. and proper IMAP, but rather because their corporate firewall forbids them access by IMAP.

The fastmail interface is a great demonstration of how a good web-interface can be made to exist. However, I dislike the poll-for-email feature from the point-of-view of aesthetics. I don't want a browser window open just for this feature. So I would suggest that a very simple (posibly SOAP-based) XML interface is made to Fastmail which supports the following operations:

• Logon
• GetNewMessageCount
• GetNewMessageSummary
• Logout

The Logon message would send back the session key used in the current web interface.
The GetNewMessageCount would pass this as a parameter and would get in return a count of all/unread messages. If this changes between polls, then GetNewMessageSummary would get back a list of subject headings/received times/sender names for the unread mail.
Logoff would invalidate the session

This would mean that a nice polling gadget could be written that could sit in the system tray (on Windows) or hidden (on Unix) and just pop up a warning window with a summary when new mail arrives (optionally including a summary). This could then have a button that would start the web-browser and go to the URL of your inbox (just as the current polling window does).

Advantages:

• Aesthetically pleasing.
• More value-add for Fastmail.
• Works through corporate firewalls.
• Because no HTML formatting code is included the traffic would be less than for the current polling window.
• Because it uses a SOAP potocol, clients could be very easily implemented for whatever operating system as long as the WSDL is published at Fastmail.
• If the fastmail guys were willing to do the XML messaging pieces (very little work involved considering they can already render all the information into HTML), I'd be willing to have a stab at building the polling client.

Disadvantages:

• Potentially ties up fastmail URLs so as to ensure that the gadget continues to work over time (loses you freedom over rearranging the site in groteque ways). This could be alleviated by including a URL pattern for INBOX in the response to the logon message - or even the whole URL including session id.
• There may already be a standard way of doing this which I don't know about. But are there currently any that work through HTTP proxies?

[Jeremy Howard]

Sounds splendid. Are you volunteering? If you're interested in trying this project (or anyone else!), you'll need to write a Perl daemon that queries an IMAP server for key stats and sends them using SOAP or XML-RPC or whatever, and a client (preferably in Delphi/Kylix or in Java so that it's cross platform) that talks to the Perl daemon. A couple of points:

• The server daemon will be a CGI script
• The client and server will need to authenticate using a challenge/response protocol
• The server daemon needs to be written in Perl to be compatible with our system, but the client can implemented in any language. Rob and I know Delphi, C++, and Perl (and quite a few others!) very well, but Java less well, so if it's Java we won't be able to help so much.

A potentially more interesting extension: keep a connection open using HTTP/1.1, and rather than have the client poll every now and again, have the server push to the client when new email arrives.

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally posted by noelos
Potentially ties up fastmail URLs so as to ensure that the gadget continues to work over time (loses you freedom over rearranging the site in groteque ways).

Ick. The gadget wouldn't query the web-server. It would query a server daemon that queries the IMAP server. So there's no problem.

[erimess]

Originally posted by David May


3) Mark as read/unread

It does highlight/unhighlight read/unread messages.

4) Folder list view should list the number of unread messages and read messages in each folder.

Any other suggestions out there?

Yeah, expanding on your 4). I'd like the number of messages to show up in the drop-down box and not just the folder list. I think this was mentioned elsewhere, and I think it's also in the list for future projects. But this is another vote for that option and a hope that it will be implemented quickly.

Dave May [/b]

[erimess]

Originally posted by arpit


1 can already be done. In the preferences screen, when you add a new send from address, add it as follows: "fake name" <user@domain> This will achieve the desired effect.


Hope that helps.

As far as I can see, this isn't available in Guest (is that the right name?) mode. This is a really wonderful idea though, cause I like to sometimes use my real name and sometimes not. I'm new to fastmail and if I decide to go with as my regular account, I'll probably up my level one just to get that feature. It's a feature I've rarely seen in web-based emails.