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I agree with almost all of these comments about the webmail interface. Just yesterday we were discussing in my office the difficulty of navigating through your mailbox using this interface, including the awkward way of sorting your mail. A related flaw is that there is no way to go directly to the first message in the mailbox, the last message in the mailbox, or a specific numbered message in the mailbox. These are steps backward from the features of the TWIG and telnet interfaces to Pilot. In addition, as far as I can tell, there is no way to search your mail. These flaws in mail management seem especially odd when combined with the increase in mailbox size to 64 megs. It's inevitable that people will be keeping more mail in their mailboxes. This makes easy mail management even more important than it was with a smaller mailbox. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I was a beta tester on this, but focused almost entirely on documenting the Eudora IMAP problems, and only logged in to webmail a couple of times. At 11:36 PM 3/25/2003, you wrote: >Oh, get off it. > >The webmail UI is 1997 quality, at best. Yeah, I really enjoy how I have >to go to preferences to change my message sorting (as opposed to the de >facto standard of clicking on the column name), and that I can't choose >to sort by different columns in different folders. Or that hitting the >refresh button on my browser logs me out of the webmail, and yet there >is no 'refresh' or 'check for new mail' link anywhere to be found. So if >I want to check to see if I have new messages in my inbox I have to >click to the folder view and then click back to the inbox-- ridiculous. > >And Jason's comment about the icons is dead-on. Since when did (badly >drawn) images trump text in both usability and load time? (and alt text >hardly counts-- no one wants to mouseover half a dozen cryptic icons >when all they want to do is reply) > >Now I'm not going to dump on the backend-- that seems to work >beautifully. SSL, authenticated SMTP, etc. Very nice. But don't try to >pass off this webmail UI as quality in any form. TWIG was better on >every front except speed, and we all know those speed gains have nothing >to do with the webmail interface. > >Now, in truth, this only indirectly affects me-- I never really used the >pilot system and I don't plan on using this one either, except to >forward my mail on. But I do have to support users who will use it, and >many of them do use webmail. So I suggest you fix it. > > > >Another dissatisfied Jason. > >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >Jason Hicks >Computing Services Helpdesk > >Department of Physics and Astronomy >Michigan State University >1209 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building >East Lansing, MI 48824-2320 >(517) 355-9200, x2561 > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Steve Devine [mailto:[log in to unmask]] >Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 10:03 PM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Release date for mail.msu.edu - Upgrade URL > > >Jason >You forgot to send us the url for your work. That way we could learn >from your example. BTW your spell checker seems to be on the blink. >Steve Devine. > >Jason David Justman said: > > i can't believe that cl things mail.msu.edu is 'release ready'. > > > > first off, ui for viewing a message needs a better interface. > > rolloing over and finding out operations by alt tags is not very > > intuitive. > > > > second, deleted items sit in your folder with a greyd out checkbox > > until you refresh the folder. was it deleted or not? > > > > third - the mail display algorithm randomly decides if a message is > > html by looking at the content, instead of checking the headers. > > > > take a look at <textarea> this annoying functionality...</texarea> > > > > fourth - random display of column widths when viewing messages shows > > that the html designer lacks basic skills. > > > > Rich Wiggins writes: > > > >> You can point your browser to mail.msu.edu/upgrade/ (without the http > >> or https prefix) and you'll land on the URL Steve gave. > >> > >> After you've converted you can get into the system by pointing your > >> browser to mail.msu.edu. Similarly, you'll land on the secured Web > >> page. > >> > >> If you or one of your users hasn't upgraded but tries to log in at > >> mail.msu.edu, you see a note telling them they need to upgrade to use > > >> the system. > >> > >> The bottom line is that thanks to redirects, customers don't have to > >> remember the https prefix. > >> > >> The help.msu.edu/mail page does list the upgrade URL but it's not a > >> hyperlink. We'll add one at the bottom of the page. We want folks > >> to read the page before they upgrade. > >> > >> /rich > >> > >>>https://mail.msu.edu/upgrade > >>> > >>> > >>>Thanks Steve. That does it. > >>>Cheryl > >>> > >>>Cheryl Akers, MS, CNA - [log in to unmask] > >>>Microcomputer Support - Microbiology and Molecular Genetics 2228C > >>>Biomedical Physical Sciences Michigan State University > >>>East Lansing, MI 48824 > >>> > >>>517-355-6463 X1514 > > >Steve Devine >Core Systems >Michigan State University --Chris ============================================== Chris Wolf Computer Service Manager Agricultural Economics [log in to unmask] Michigan State University 517 353-5017