Ultimate Eudora Plugin 2.2
Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Developer: Stanton McCandlish http://www.well.com/~mech/Software/ Support: mech@well.com Shareware Price: Donorware Requirements: Mac OS 8, 9, X (any version), Partial Intel Mac compatibility. Eudora Pro or Lite, versions 4, 5 or 6 and perhaps 3. Released: 20 May, 2006 Download Size: 106 KB Audience: All Eudora users Strengths: Takes a few minutes to install, bit I love the power it gives me in controlling Eudora, especially be able to change the from field to my macC email address. Weaknesses: Nothing serious so far. |
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The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.8. I am using Eudora 6.2.l4 in paid mode. It is the last Qualcomm update. |
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Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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Disclaimer: When briefly reviewing share-freeware I will often use the developer’s product, functions and features descriptions. All other comments are strictly my own and based on testing. Why need I rewrite the developer’s narratives, if they are clearly written? |
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Introduction:
I know that very few of you out there are Eudora users; perhaps that will change when the open-source version of Eudora gets released. [See http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope]
The Penelope project's intention is to join the Eudora® user experience with the Mozilla platform. We intend to produce a version of Eudora that is open source and based on Mozilla and Thunderbird. It's *not* our intention to compete with Thunderbird; rather, we want to complement it. We are committed to both preserving the Eudora user experience and to maintaining maximum compatibility, for both developers and users, with Thunderbird. It is our goal to build a single development community around Thunderbird and Eudora, so that both mailers advance faster than they previously have. |
The product’s major, to me benefit, aside from enhancing my control over the Eudora interface was I could get rid of several other plugins (as listed in the product’s readme file). These are items I’d previously installed —Over the years; I already had been tweaking Eudora. Thus it appears I should be able to avoid a few of the occasional conflicts that have been plaguing me and many other Eudora users for years.
Publisher’s Summary Plus:
For the Mac version of Eudora ONLY, this plug-in replaces virtually all third-party plug-ins that I’m aware of except rap text. It gives you ten additional panes under Settings (Preferences), with many, many options from should've-been-obvious to really, really geeky. The plug-in totally replaces all of the various conflicting third-party plug-ins that used to try to provide such features. See the included ReadMe file for install instructions.
This is a Mac OS 8, 9 and X Eudora plug-in that enables many hidden features of Eudora Pro (and Eudora Lite, to a lesser extent), from version 3 onward, though many of them will only do anything useful in version 4, 5, 6 and (presumably) onward. It replaces up to 14 other (often conflicting) plug-ins listed in the product’s readme file. All of the new features are accessible from Eudora’s preferences pane. The plug-in adds 10 new panels to Eudora giving you addition control over its features and capabilities.
Installing and Using the Software:
Installing this application is simple. Open its readme file and follow instructions. The go and take you pick of the preferences you want to tweak to make Eudora interface truly yours. And continue to use your email client. I didn’t even have to reboot the computer. I’m not now sure whether I had to quit Eudora before installing the new plug-in and deleting the old.
Not all the features provided by Stanton McCandlish either make sense to me, or appear immediately useful. I’ve listed those that provided me instant gratification at the top of the features list.
Features:
Some of its Most Useful Features Sez doc:
· Edit the "From" field when composing a message – Yeah!
· Edit the reply subject prefix ("Re: " default) — Isn’t Reply: nicer?
· Add your own custom headers to a message or to your stationary — I’m still playing with this since I’m not sure it will be useful. After all I do use shadow Clipboard for such things.
· Change address format from "user@site (Firstname Lastname)" to "Firstname Lastname" which is more standard. — Hmm, something to try after the 20th when all my macC articles are submitted.
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Extra Headers — Eudora Preferences |
From Options — Eudora Preferences |
Other Features:
· Change format of date & time display in mailbox windows
· Change text file creator code for saved files (e.g. to BBEdit) — So far I’ve no need for this feature.
· Adjust disk usage — With lots of disk space and memory, the older message compression feature is something I don’t need.
· Edit lots of default strings such as the quoting character (">" default) — Help, why would I want to do that?”
· Force Eudora to use RFC-standard forwarding markers – Okay, but why?
· Change attribution strings — Why?
· Allows internationalization of a few things, and more.
Minor Discomforts:
A Need to Still Wrap — I still have to use Selznick Scientific’s SmartWrap Plugin for Eudora to Eudora analyze the text of my hard-to-read email messages and re-wrap them perfectly by removing all unnecessary line breaks, quote characters, and excess formatting with just one click. [http://www.selznick.com/products/smartwrap/mac/index.htm].
Limitations in Using Some of the Preferences — I could not completely understand what was needed in several of the preferences (e.g., Attributions, From) so I made only limited use of them. The good news is that I can now change my email address in the From: Box when sending macCompanion related email. The bad news that were things about changing formats that would probably make sense if I had either the time or desire to study them [I’ve provided two examples that illustrate my confusion A few examples in the readme file would have been nice, but it’s a free world, so one shouldn’t make unreasonable demands.
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Date/Time Format — Preferences |
Attribution — Eudora Preferences |
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None of these discomforts (e.g., software limitations) are very serious and you folks smarter than I am will likely have no trouble using the features I’ve neglected. With all due respect to Stanton McCandlish, I did follow his advice.
The features themselves are either a) self-explanatory, or b) so geeky that if you don't know what they mean already you shouldn't mess with them. Please be aware that some of these features are "dangerous". If you don't understand them, don't change them, or you may not be able to send or receive mail properly! |
Conclusions:
For those who still are comfortable with Eudora despite its long stretches of neglect, and lack of features found in newer email clients, this is a must addition. Other than my lack of time, patience and alas understanding, all the features I needed to enhance my Eudora experience worked, flawlessly.
