UCS-Care-Group/mailcraft v0.11.0

MailCraft v0.11.0

on GitHub

MailCraft 0.11.0 in short: the public beta, for Microsoft accounts (testers welcome; sign up in #11)

• Import a .pst file: its mail and contacts come onto this computer, as a preview (#815).
• Rules kept on a Microsoft account's server, where they run with MailCraft closed (#566).
• Each account's contacts and tasks apart, with a list to pick All accounts, one account or this computer (#631, #632).
• Mail shown in the fonts its sender chose, when you have them installed (#600).
• Attach several files at once, a ▾ menu on every attachment, and your accounts in the order you drag them (#729, #785, #702).
• Sturdier: a large .pst import no longer fills memory, and emoji are drawn again.
• Safer: an agent can't remove mail through Undo or Redo without the Delete permission.
• And more fixes, listed below.

What's new

• Attach several files at once. Attach File's dialog lets you pick more than one file (Ctrl or Shift and click; the browser's picker too), and each is attached in the order the dialog lists them. One that can't be attached, say a file too large, is said in the status bar and doesn't keep the others out; at most 100 files and 256 MB go in from one pick, and the rest are said to be left out, with nothing past that read. Every other dialog still picks one file (#729).
• Sign in with Google on the desktop. New Gmail and Google Workspace accounts offer Google sign-in first when MailCraft's Desktop registration is configured, with Use an app password instead as a separate alternative. Existing accounts are not changed automatically: Switch to Google sign-in requires successful sign-in to the same primary Google address (Workspace aliases are not supported as OAuth account identities), and canceled conversion leaves the old credential in use. Conversion and Reconnect with Google keep downloaded messages and folders. Access tokens stay in memory; remembered refresh grants use the operating system's credential store. A build without a registration explains the limitation and retains app-password setup. The official registration and applicable public Google verification remain release requirements; browser Gmail is separate. See the account guide (#232).
• Import a .pst file (preview). File › Open & Export › Import a .pst File brings the mail and the contacts of a .pst file onto this computer. Mail goes into a new folder named after the file, or under a folder on this computer you pick; contacts go into your contacts, each marked "Imported from" the file (and found by searching is:imported), and a distribution list becomes a contact whose notes list its members. Contacts in Deleted Items are left out. A file with a password asks for it. Calendar items, tasks and notes are counted and left for a later version. You see what came in, what was already there and what was left out, and a report is written beside your mailbox. Cancel keeps what came in, and importing the file again brings only the rest. Not in the browser yet (#815).
• Mail in the fonts its sender chose. A message written in a font you have installed (Georgia, say, or any other on your computer) is now shown in it instead of in MailCraft's own font. Of the fonts a message names, the first you have is used; one that asks for a serif font is shown in your computer's serif font and one that asks for a typewriter font in MailCraft's, and when you have none of them the message is shown as before. No font is ever downloaded: a message that brings its own fonts or asks for one from the web is shown in the fonts you already have. Bold text uses the font's bold face, or MailCraft's bold when the font has none. In the browser, MailCraft can't see your fonts and shows messages as before (#600).
• A ▾ on each attachment. In the reading pane and in a message's own window, every attachment has a ▾ at its right end that opens the menu a right-click opens: Open, Save As, Save All Attachments and Remove Attachment. It can be reached with Tab and opened with Enter or Space, and a screen reader names it Attachment options for the file (#785).
• Each account's contacts apart. With a Microsoft account, People has a list under its heading: All accounts, one account, or On this computer. With All accounts each contact says where it is, and the card of a contact from an account's server says it is read-only here (#631).
• A contact you make, import or pick in People always shows in the list: a search that would hide it is cleared, and Undo puts the list back on the account it showed (#631).
• Update switches in File › About. File › About now has the Check for new versions and Install updates automatically switches; File › Options no longer has an Updates section (#488).
• Drag an account up or down the folder pane to put your accounts in the order you want; the order stays after a restart, and the account new mail is written from doesn't change (#702).
• Move Up and Move Down on an account's right-click menu in the folder pane do the same as a drag, and the pane scrolls while you drag an account near its top or bottom (#702).
• Each account's tasks apart. With a Microsoft account, Tasks has a list under My Tasks: All accounts, one account, or On this computer; with All accounts each task says where it is. The task window has an Account list, and the field above the tasks says where a new task will go. Add to Tasks uses the message's account. Send Your Local Tasks to To Do? now asks only about the tasks already on this computer, and a task you keep on this computer stays there. Tasks made earlier that were waiting for an earlier answer go there once (#632).
• Rules kept on a Microsoft account's server. A rule you make for a Microsoft account can be kept on its server, where it runs whether MailCraft is open or not and shows in Outlook on the web and on your phone: Keep on the server is ticked when you start a rule, and you can untick it to keep the rule on this computer. The rules made there show in MailCraft too. The Rules window shows one account's rules at a time, the server's apart from this computer's, says where each is kept and why, and has arrows to move a rule up or down and a button that moves a rule from this computer to the server. The first time a rule is to go there, MailCraft asks before Microsoft's page asks for permission to change your mailbox settings; until you allow it, your rules stay on this computer and nothing of them is sent. On a Microsoft account, "From contains" and "Sent to" look in the sender's and recipients' addresses alone, as the server does. When the server can't do a rule (flagging, a move to a folder of another account, a person's name rather than an address), the box is greyed and says why, and the rule stays on this computer. Always Move Messages From This Sender opens the new rule filled in, so you see it and where it is kept before you add it, and then runs that rule alone over the folder. A rule made in Outlook with parts MailCraft doesn't know can be switched on or off, moved or deleted, and is never rewritten (#566).

Fixes

• An agent without the Delete permission can no longer remove mail through Undo or Redo (undoing a copy or an import, redoing a permanent delete): such a step now asks for Delete, or is refused before anything moves. A step that also puts back the accounts, or a change that writes to people, is asked about once, the question names the messages, drafts or contacts it takes away, and the owner's yes covers both (#473).
• A message's own window names Mark as Read and Mark as Unread as the main window does, and in your language (#808).
• Importing a large .pst file no longer fills the computer's memory: attachments are written to the mailbox's content folder as they are read, each distinct file once, instead of being held until the import is saved (#815).
• Importing a .pst file no longer stalls while MailCraft's window is hidden, minimised or on another desktop: the mail keeps coming in, and the window shows the result when you come back (#815).
• Names in People, the meeting dialogs, desktop alerts and the search box's suggestions, and other labels in the window, now drop characters that show nothing (right-to-left marks, zero-width spaces, hidden tags) and run their spaces together; before, only alerts removed some of them (#454).
• Emoji are drawn again, where they were empty boxes since 0.8.0: in colour from the system's emoji font (Segoe UI Emoji on Windows, Noto Color Emoji on Linux), else in black and white (#832).
• Sender images come for colleagues in a Microsoft 365 organisation, whose mail Exchange Online stamps as sent inside the organisation but gives no DMARC verdict; "Always download pictures from" a colleague or the organisation's domain works for it too, for mail downloaded from this version on (#781).
• An Exchange server account's own folders (Conversation History, Sync Issues, Conflicts, Local Failures, Server Failures) can no longer be deleted, moved or renamed: Delete, Move and Rename are greyed out for them, as for a Microsoft account; one an earlier version changed or deleted is put back where the server has it (#779).
• Add Account says plainly when it doesn't know the settings for an address and the servers it shows are only a guess made from its domain, and offers Microsoft 365 (work or school mail) and an Exchange server on the same page, instead of only behind manual setup. "The server doesn't take a password on this connection" is now said in the interface's language (#761).
• A Microsoft To Do task's start and due dates are no longer shown a day early east of UTC (10 November came as the 9th), and a date set here is no longer a day early in To Do west of UTC; tasks already brought down are put right by the next Send/Receive (#809).
• In German, File › Options › Signatures no longer shows two buttons both named „Bild einfügen“: Paste Picture is now „Bild aus Zwischenablage einfügen“ (#783).
• A mail password is remembered as soon as the server has accepted it, and only then: a problem in one folder, or MailCraft closed during the first download, no longer means typing it again at the next Send/Receive, and a password typed in Account Settings while one runs, or one for a Send/Receive stopped before it signed in, is no longer remembered untried (#802).
• Two unrelated messages with the same subject are no longer one conversation, so Delete or Move on a conversation takes only the messages of that thread; mail without its server's conversation id gets it over the next Send/Receives (#795).
• A message deleted permanently while offline, whose delete the server then refused, no longer comes back with no text and empty attachments after MailCraft was closed and opened again; it is fetched again from the server, which still has it. Moving such a message to another account no longer leaves an empty copy there while the server deletes the original, and mail an earlier version put back empty is fetched again once (#793).
• An agent's Undo or Redo that was refused after it ran (it would have put mail in the Outbox, or taken away an appointment the owner is changing) no longer leaves the step it refused moved from Undo to Redo: the owner's next Undo undoes what it would have before (#767).
• Reply and Reply All go to a message's Reply-To even when it is sent from your own address, as a website's contact form often is, instead of back to you; a message you sent with only your own address in Reply-To still replies to the people you sent it to; and a message from someone else whose Reply-To names only you replies to its sender (#736).
• A picture wider than the message body, such as a pasted screenshot, now starts at the body's left margin and is shown smaller to fit; before, it was drawn mostly left of the body until the window was made wider than the picture. A picture that goes down to a row of its own after text starts at the margin too, and the caret after a picture stands at its right edge (#792).
• For a new install, a meeting request you accept, tentatively accept or decline now goes from the Inbox to Deleted Items, as in Outlook; File › Options › Calendar › "Delete meeting requests from the Inbox after responding" switches it off, and a choice you already made is kept. Only the Inbox is cleared: a request in another folder stays where it is (#755).
• Undo no longer brings back a task in a Microsoft account for a moment after its delete has gone to To Do, only for it to vanish again (#706).
• A new category an agent puts on an event, contact or to-do, or gives one when making or editing it, joins All Categories, and an item takes the list's spelling of a category that is already there (#705).
• A Microsoft account's own folders (Conversation History, Sync Issues, Conflicts and the like) can no longer be deleted, moved or renamed (Delete, Move and Rename are greyed out for them), which made every Send/Receive fail afterwards; one already moved is put back where the server has it (#756).
• Clicking, Shift+clicking, read marks, flags and Undo stay quick over a large mailbox: with 326,000 messages in a few accounts, clicking a message took 65–90 ms a frame and takes 1–4 ms, a Shift+click over ten rows took 40 ms and takes under 1 ms, a read mark took 10 ms and takes under 1 ms, and undoing the delete of 1,000 messages took 450 ms and takes under 50 ms; and a sender warning stops counting the people mail moved out of Sent Items was sent to as soon as it is moved (#745).
• HTML mail shows side by side the tables a message sets at the left and at the right of a line, as browsers do: a bill's label at the left with its value at the right, a greeting beside a notice; before, each stood on a line of its own (#757).
• A box framed with the lines of table cells keeps its heading inside the frame; before, the heading could stand outside it (#757).
• Tables laid out as boxes with display: inline-block stand in one line, as other boxes do; before, each stood on a line of its own (#757).
• The text of a table inside a cell that a message centres with align="center" or <center> starts at the left, as in browsers: a bill's greeting and the heading of its notice are no longer centred (#757).
• An agent that asks to forward or delete a calendar item and also names a message no longer has your question show that message: it names the item that will be forwarded or deleted (#553).
• An Exchange server account shows one Outbox, not two: the server's own is listed only while it holds mail (#747).
• Send/Receive Progress and Help › Copy Diagnostics say how long an Exchange server account's run took and how many requests it made (#748).
• A Microsoft account no longer shows two Outboxes in the folder pane: the server's own Outbox, which MailCraft never sends from, is left out while it is empty (an Exchange mailbox read over IMAP always leaves it out), and an Outbox from 0.8.0 or before that was tied to it keeps what waits in it. When the server's Outbox does hold mail, it is still shown, as a folder like any other.
• A message sent from a Microsoft account without first being saved as a draft no longer shows in Sent Items with the red draft text: its server files the copy as a draft, and the copy is now taken for what it is, sent. Mail sent that way before is put right when the mailbox opens (#611).
• Always Move Messages From This Sender, switching a rule on or off and Run Rules Now refuse a message, rule or folder named wrongly too, and a switch that isn't true or false, instead of taking the selection, the folder in view or the other setting (#553).
• Always Move Messages From This Sender now runs only the new rule over the folder; before, it ran every rule there (#667).
• Holding Space on a rule's Delete button in the Rules window now deletes that rule alone; before, it went on to delete the rules below it (#666).
• With several Microsoft accounts, each now has its own list of categories, in its own colours, and Categorize offers the list of the item's account; before, one list served them all, so a category from one account showed without its colour on another and a rename reached every account (#633).
• Undo no longer puts back a category's old colour when the server changed it in the meantime (#633).
• A task you made in a Microsoft account is no longer sent to To Do a second time after a restart when the first answer was lost (#663).

Public beta. For Microsoft accounts (personal, or work or school) MailCraft is a working mail, calendar and contacts program, kept in step with Outlook on the web; keep Outlook to hand while you try it, and tell us in an issue if anything is lost or out of step. Much of what a daily mail program needs is still to come, and other kinds of account are welcome but not part of the beta. What works is in the README.

MailCraft for Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and the web. Every file is listed with its SHA-256 in SHA256SUMS.txt.

MailCraft keeps your mailbox in its settings folder and saves as you go; one window per mailbox. With a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com account you sign in on Microsoft's page, and the sign-in is kept by the system's credential store (Windows, macOS, and the Secret Service of GNOME Keyring or KWallet on Linux). What works, and how far each part is from Outlook, is in the README and in docs/gaps.md.

The builds are not signed with a publisher certificate yet: Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper will ask before running them.