[Opera Mail] Future of M2
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Deleted User last edited by
I agree with burnout426. Take a look at Mozilla and how they cut loose development on Thunderbird. It's now in the hands of the open source community but all further development by a team has ceased. Email clients are not as popular as they were several years ago. Yes, they're still useful and for many they are absolutely necessary but their popularity is decreasing rather than increasing. Many young people today don't even bother with email, preferring other means of communication. I'm not arguing in favor of this but simply making an observation. I don't believe Opera will develop the standalone client any further. It seems to me they stripped it out of the browser suite as a temporary offering to an already shocked user base. My advice would be to take a look at Thunderbird as an alternative. Whereas I no longer use an email client myself but prefer webmail accounts, I think you would find what you need in T-bird.
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blackbird71 last edited bySince I've used a different stand-alone eMail client essentially since forever, I've never employed M2 in Opera. But I do have to ask: what's wrong for current users to simply leave things as they are for eMail with 12.xx, even if they eventually cease using the browser section per se? That way, the "missing things" (like mouse gestures) in the Opera Mail stand-alone client would not be missing in the native browser 'original' of the same thing. If Opera Mail will never really be updated, a user simply using 12.16's built-in mail feature would be no worse off... or so it seems to me.
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A Former User last edited by
Still happily using Opera's built in email client here. Probably will until the day I die. I only use Gmail to block Spam and site registrations.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
But I do have to ask: what's wrong for current users to simply leave things as they are for eMail with 12.xx, even if they eventually cease using the browser section per se? That way, the "missing things" (like mouse gestures) in the Opera Mail stand-alone client would not be missing in the native browser 'original' of the same thing. If Opera Mail will never really be updated, a user simply using 12.16's built-in mail feature would be no worse off... or so it seems to me.
With Opera Mail, clicking a link opens the default browser. You can do the same in Opera 12.16 by editing the http and https protocols. But, there are 2 problems with that. One is that each time Opera passes a link to the browser, it opens a new tab and leaves it there. Seems like a tiny problem, but it's really annoying. The other problem is that Opera then tries to load framed pages in feed messages in the default browser too, which is really annoying and pretty much breaks things, which means that you will be unhappy if you're not using Opera 12.16 for a browser too.
I prefer the standalone Opera Mail because it doesn't have those problems, even though there are no gestures (and no opera:config by default).
I also don't like that when using Opera 12.16 just for mail that it uses "Opera" registry keys, but that's probably just me.
At least in Opera 12.16 though, you can browse to a feed page and subscribe. You can't do that in Opera Mail. Neither one though can set themselves as the default feed client so that launching a feed URL in your browser launches Opera Mail's Subscribe dialog. That's one of the reasons why I use Thunderbird now.
Despite the problems with Opera 12.16, I usually tell users to use it instead of the standalone Opera Mail. But, those are some reasons why one might prefer the latter.
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arkanoiz last edited by
Yep, the feed thing is a bit annoying, but you can add them manually so to me isn't a big deal.
About Opera Mail, I feel really annoyed about it. I'm using Opera Next and I'm happy with it for now. For mail and I followed what I meant to be the "standard" path of a transition, just to discover that it's going all down the river.
I have mails in Opera Mail from 2006, and I love to have them all there, so when I want to scan for old communication I can do it with my 3 mail accounts, plus the older accounts that I imported. Now I'd just like to know how I can export all this and this time I think I'll go with the most obvious tool for this, Microsoft Outlook Express (or it's descendent). Or do you guys know some valid alternative? An offline mail client (better if with some basic CRM tools).But for what business concerns, with all those CRM online and offline software out there, I think the Opear guys are wrong thinking that Opera Mail hasn't potential. Just with a few addons it could be the perfect supercompact easy to use offline CRM/mail client. Add a premium service for professional cloud sync (leaving basic free) and you're go. (Opera Link? I remember that silly thing. That silly thing that made me stay here for years).
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crash71 last edited by admin
Since I've used a different stand-alone eMail client essentially since forever, I've never employed M2 in Opera. But I do have to ask: what's wrong for current users to simply leave things as they are for eMail with 12.xx, even if they eventually cease using the browser section per se? That way, the "missing things" (like mouse gestures) in the Opera Mail stand-alone client would not be missing in the native browser 'original' of the same thing. If Opera Mail will never really be updated, a user simply using 12.16's built-in mail feature would be no worse off... or so it seems to me.
M2 has had quirks and buggy-behaviour (esp. with filtering) for years. When it was split off into a stand-alone app none of those issues got fixed and we all pretty much knew then that no new features would ever be added either.
Even when M2 was included with Opera it was the ugly step-child that rarely got any attention.
I had given up trying to find an M2 replacement, and was back on a combined GMail account for quite a while (at least 6+ months). Recently I tried 4 or 5 different mail clients again and found PostBox (as I noted in the other Opera Mail thread).
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loxiw last edited by
I can't understand why Opera doesn't say absolutely nothing about this. And why did they even care about splitting the mail client if it was gonna be discontinued anyway?
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
I can't understand why Opera doesn't say absolutely nothing about this.
Anything they say comes with a "No Guarantees" clause. When things don't work out, despite the "No Guarantees" clause, users still complain and give Opera a bunch of crap. Because of that, Opera doesn't say anything at all anymore. That way, there's no expectations and disappointment. Of course, the downside of that is it leaves everyone in the dark and pisses users off in another way. But, it is what it is.
But, whether Opera works on mail more in the future or not doesn't matter now. It's pretty much "public release or it didn't happen" that everyone is going by.
And why did they even care about splitting the mail client if it was gonna be discontinued anyway?
Only my opinion, but I think they felt a lot of users would be bugged by using a browser suite only for mail. And, they probably thought it wasn't straight-forward/simple to configure the suite to open up links in the default browser (there are bugs with doing that anyway). Given that, they probably just decided to throw something together that works as a standalone mail client.
Another reason could be that while they were pretty much done with Opera (presto Opera) as a browser, they wanted to split it up into just a mail client so they could (if they ever decided to) tweak/improve on it without messing with the original now-frozen-almost codebase.
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elimicol last edited by
I was reading the comments on this topic since I want a real good Desktop client to use with Google Apps. Yes, that's right, the Gmail UI is terrible for people who user the mail for work purposes. It can be "nice" if you use it for your personal email but for me it's a mess.
I've used Opera Mail client when my company used it's own mail server and it was PERFECT, slick, fast and powerful. EXACTLY wat I've been looking for. Of course I would've liked some addons but it was good as it is.
Migrating to Google emphesized the limits of this software: the first thing is the lack of Identities tha I must use in Google - this is a huge problem. Second the conversation view of Opera is not as powerful as for instance Postbox mail, and of course the fact that it SI a DEAD software dowsn'y help much....
Well, I discovered a new project called Vivaldi (from the former CEO of Opera) anc they think of making a browser and a mail client bundled togather (as was Opera in the first place).
So....as soon as they're ready I'll test the product hoping for something as good as Opera Mail.
Elio
