UCS-Care-Group/mailcraft v0.13.0

MailCraft v0.13.0

on GitHub

MailCraft 0.13.0 in short: new features and fixes for the public beta (testers welcome; sign up in #11)

• New mail on an IMAP account shows within moments where the server supports IDLE, and Send/Receive passes over folders that haven't changed (#276).
• Add Account finds the servers of a domain it doesn't know from the domain's DNS, its autoconfig document or Exchange's Autodiscover (#1063, #1112, #1103).
• Gmail labels show on messages, and label: finds them (#1153).
• Close to system tray, names of your own for accounts and shared mailboxes, and the Mail, Calendar, People and Tasks switch at the foot of the folder pane (#544, #1017, #1385, #1174).
• A neutral grey dark theme, with the blue grey one still a choice (#1384); Romanian and Simplified Chinese as preview languages (#1135, #1031).
• The browser build starts again, and a JMAP account sends mail and takes your changes up to its server (#1337, #1074).
• Sturdier: a virus scanner taking part of a message no longer stops every save, and a large mailbox takes far less memory (#1311, #1340).
• And more fixes, listed below.

What's new

• Gmail labels on messages (#1153). A Gmail message shows its labels as tags in the message list and the reading pane, read only; label: finds them in search. To change a label, move or copy the message between label folders, as before.
• Blue grey dark theme back as a choice. File › Options › General › Dark theme offers Neutral grey (the default) or Blue grey, the blue-tinted dark theme from before. Your accent colour and high contrast work with both (#1384).
• New mail on a mail-server (IMAP) account shows within moments when the server supports IDLE: MailCraft keeps one extra connection to your own mail server open on the Inbox while automatic Send/Receive is on, and runs a quick Send/Receive when the server says there is more mail. Turning automatic Send/Receive off, working offline or removing the account closes it. Servers without IDLE keep to the timer. (#276)
• Courier New in the font list of the message and signature editors, for text art and columns lined up with spaces: it is sent with a fixed-width fallback, so the columns hold for a recipient without it, and it is drawn fixed width while you write where it isn't installed (#969).
• #544: File › Options › General has Close to system tray, off by default. While enabled, MailCraft’s icon offers Show, Send/Receive All Folders and Quit. The first close explains where the icon is, including Windows’ hidden-icons arrow; on macOS, clicking the Dock icon restores the window too. Quit saves and protects unsaved work. On Wayland, restart after enabling: MailCraft chooses X11/XWayland only if reachable; without a working tray or window hiding, closing exits normally.
• Agents, scripts and mailcraft-cli --folder can name a standard folder by its kind, such as sent or inbox, and it works whatever the mailbox's language calls the folder (#1200).
• The switch between Mail, Calendar, People and Tasks can sit at the foot of the pane on the left, where older mail programs had it, instead of the bar down the window's edge, which gives its column back to the window: View › Layout › Navigation Bar. Where the module in view has no pane for the row, with the folder pane hidden, the bar stays (#1174).
• Turn the window's animations off in File › Options › General › Animations, or let MailCraft follow Windows' Animation effects setting (#1183).
• Name an account in Account Settings, so the folder pane shows a name such as Work or Home instead of its address (#1017).
• A neutral dark theme. The dark theme is now neutral greys, as in the other Craft programs, instead of blue-tinted ones; only the accent colour you chose, and what it marks, is coloured. High contrast in the dark changed the same way.
• Snooze, first part. Mail can be snoozed by command (mail.snooze with a Return time, mail.unsnooze for Return now, mail.returnDue for the return step): the message waits in a Snoozed folder on its account's server, or on this computer, and comes back at its Return time to the folder it came from, unread. A new message in the same conversation brings it back at once, and one moved out of the Snoozed folder by hand is not brought back later. The Return time stays on this computer. The window's Snooze button and menu follow in the next release (#949).
• Add Account also reads what a domain publishes for mail programs (the autoconfig document at autoconfig.<domain> or <domain>/.well-known/autoconfig/…), and then Mozilla's ISP database, when its DNS names no mail servers; an unencrypted server is never taken, and a server outside your address's own domain is named to you before your password goes there (#1112).
• Simplified Chinese. MailCraft now offers 简体中文（预览） in File › Options. The initial catalogue was reviewed by its contributor and remains a preview on desktop; the browser build awaits a CJK font; dates and times use Chinese conventions (#1031).
• Add Account finds an Exchange server from the address's domain: when a domain MailCraft doesn't know publishes Exchange's automatic setup (Autodiscover) in its DNS, you are asked whether it is an Exchange server (a hosted one or the organisation's own) or IMAP, since some hosting providers publish it for their IMAP mail too, and a domain whose automatic setup is Microsoft's goes to Microsoft 365 sign-in even when another server takes its mail in first. The search for the server also follows the domain's public autodiscover.<domain> alias to its hoster, so a domain whose SRV record is only in its own network's DNS is found too. Server settings show where automatic setup was found, with Search again. Only the domain is looked up, and nothing is sent to the servers named before you press Connect with your password and agree to each server outside your domain. #1103
• Romanian. MailCraft's window now comes in Romanian as a preview language: every text is translated, not yet reviewed line by line by a native speaker, and File › Options names it Română (previzualizare). Dates read day first with a 24-hour clock and weeks from Monday, and counts take Romanian's three plural forms (#1135).
• Add Account finds the mail servers of a domain MailCraft doesn't know from the domain's own DNS records (RFC 6186 SRV records: implicit TLS first, STARTTLS otherwise, never an unencrypted server), and shows them in Server settings for you to check; a server outside your address's own domain is named to you before your password goes there (#1063).
• A JMAP account sends mail, and what you do to its mail here goes up to its server: read and flagged marks, moves between the server's folders and deleting for good (#1074).

Fixes

• On Linux, a desktop alert for new mail or a reminder now asks the desktop for its own sound for it, so alerts on GNOME, which plays one only when asked, are no longer silent; the desktop's notification settings still decide whether it plays (#1309).
• Importing mail that is already there no longer duplicates it (#1401): Import and Import a Folder of Mailboxes leave out a message the folder already holds whole (same Message-ID, date, sender, subject and recipients) and say how many were already there. Mail imported into another folder, such as an archive on this computer, still comes in whole. An .mbox or .eml file dropped on the window, or opened from the file manager, now asks first how many messages it would import and where. Mail imported into a folder of an IMAP, JMAP or Exchange server account goes to the local folder Imported, as it already did for a Microsoft account, so it is never mistaken for the server's mail. Export Folder and Save Message As say what they saved. Folder › Remove Imported Duplicates removes the copies earlier imports left beside the server's mail: it asks first with the count, keeps any copy you flagged, categorised, read or made a to-do from, never touches the server's copy, sends nothing to the server, and can be undone until the next Send/Receive.
• Give the conversation buttons in the reading pane more padding and spacing (#1403). Thanks to @ferivoq for reporting it.
• Show the category color on calendar events marked Free, with their hollow edge preserved (#1398).
• A shared mailbox can be given a name of its own, as an account can: Settings on its card in File › Info, and the folder pane shows that name instead of its address. The name stays on this computer (#1385).
• Pictures bar: when your mail server did not confirm who a message is from, "Always download pictures from" is now shown greyed out with the reason beside it, instead of being missing, and pointing at either shows the whole reason (#1347, #1386).
• The mark at the top left of the window is now the MailCraft app icon itself, the same picture the system shows for the program, instead of a flat drawing that looked like another program's (#1377).
• The browser build starts again: since 0.12.0 it stopped at start-up with "time not implemented on this platform" (#1337).
• An organisation's own Exchange 2010 server can be added as an Exchange server account, and its mail is read and marked: MailCraft asks for the newest version of the service the server knows, leaves out the preview and the follow-up flag that Exchange 2010 doesn't have, asks for each message's recipients separately, and names a message with its change key when it changes it (#1349).
• An IONOS account now offers "Always download pictures from" a sender or a domain, and sender images, for mail its servers confirm came from that sender (#1311): MailCraft didn't recognise the name IONOS signs its checks with, so it never counted any IONOS mail as confirmed.
• A repeating meeting in a time zone whose clocks jump over midnight (for example America/Nuuk on the last Saturday of March, or Santiago and Havana on the night summer time begins), with the occurrence on that day skipped, no longer comes back with the following day's occurrence skipped instead when it is exported or sent as an invitation and read again. A time in such a jump in an invitation that defines its own time zone is no longer reported as a time zone defined otherwise than its name.
• A large mailbox takes far less memory and disk: the header lines of a message that nothing in MailCraft reads by name (the trace, spam filters' reports and signatures Microsoft 365 writes on every message, often several kilobytes) are kept beside the mailbox file and read only by View Source and what writes a message whole. On a copy of one real mailbox of 66,000 messages, the mailbox file went from 738 MB to 208 MB, the memory held after opening from 1.45 GB to 0.6 GB, and opening from 2.8 s to 0.8 s. The first time this version opens your mailbox it writes the mailbox file anew and keeps the old one beside it as <file>.before-<version>, as large as the old file was (hundreds of megabytes for a large mailbox); earlier versions of MailCraft don't open the new file, only that kept one. Once this version has opened your mail and you don't mean to go back to an earlier one, the kept file can be deleted.
• Opening and changing many messages no longer keeps their bodies and attachments in memory through the steps Undo can take back, for Microsoft, Exchange and JMAP accounts too: what the memory budget lets go of, the Undo and Redo steps let go of too, and Undo reads it from disk again when it is wanted (#1340).
• MailCraft keeps less in memory for showing things again quickly: at most 96 MB of picture textures (was 160 MB), 48 MB and 150 of the pictures downloaded from the web (was 96 MB and 300), 300 senders' pictures (was 1,000) and 64 MB of content read from disk (was 128 MB). What is on screen is always kept (#1340).
• MailCraft lets go of memory once its window has been minimised, or wholly covered, for three minutes: the pictures, the laid-out messages, the message fonts and the bodies and attachments read from disk (except those of messages open in a window, selected or being written) go, and come back from disk when they are shown again. Nothing goes while a Send/Receive, a save, an import or a sending is under way (#1340).
• #1271: Turning Close to system tray off also removes an icon whose startup finishes while the tray is being removed.
• New mail on a mail-server (IMAP) account shows sooner in Send/Receive: the Inbox is read first, before the folder list and the other folders. (#276)
• Send/Receive on a mail-server (IMAP) account no longer opens and lists every folder each time: a folder whose message count, unread count and next UID are what they were when it was last read is passed over, so an account with dozens of folders (Gmail labels) finishes sooner. Every folder is read in full once an hour, so a change that no count shows (a star set in another program) arrives within the hour. (#276)
• When a virus scanner takes away part of a message as it is saved (#1311), the rest of the mailbox is still saved and mail can still be sent; that part shows as unavailable. Before, every save failed from then on.
• When a virus scanner such as Bitdefender refuses part of a message on Windows with "access denied" (#1311), MailCraft waits a few seconds in case it lets go, then saves the rest of the mailbox without that part, so mail can still be sent. Before, every save failed and nothing was sent.
• Keep Mail quick actions clear of the floating scrollbar and match its overlay style in People and Tasks on macOS (#1272).
• Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac) and Ctrl+Shift+Y ask which folder in Move Items and Copy Items, instead of saying that a folder is required (#1176).
• The row with the search box at the top of the window is lower (except in macOS' integrated title bar), so the message list and the reading pane get more room (#1158).
• Italian: the whole interface is translated; 1,063 of its texts were shown in English (#1251).
• In Flatpak, mailcraft-cli mcp --connect could not find the running app's control key because the key file was named after each Flatpak instance; it is now named after the control port, so the bridge finds it. (#1199)
• In the Flatpak under Wayland, pasting a picture (a screenshot, "Copy Image") or formatted text into a message being written did nothing or came in as plain text; they are now read through the window's own Wayland clipboard, with no extra permission for the sandbox. (#1217)
• A message window an agent opened (ui.openWindow) while the main window was minimized could close MailCraft when the main window was restored (macOS); the window now waits, still open, until the main window is on screen. (#1224)
• On any computer where MailCraft draws without the graphics card (Linux, or Windows when only the software renderer is there), MailCraft now tells you once, above the status bar, and redraws less often (its own animations, progress indicators and spinners about four times a second at most), so it keeps the processor less busy; typing and clicking still redraw at once. (#1229)
• Phone app packages (.apk, .apks, .xapk, .aab, .ipa) attached to a message are now saved and never opened from mail, on every platform (#1228).
• Align folder pane labels and highlights, keep compose and reading headers usable in narrow panes, and show event titles first in compact Month view (#1213).
• Help › Copy Diagnostics now shows why IMAP and SMTP problems happened (the server's refusal, with names and addresses hidden); problems of other kinds (Microsoft 365, calendar, tasks, rules) are only counted in the log. (#1205)
• On an IMAP server that doesn't say where it put a moved message (no UIDPLUS), moving it on again or deleting it for good right after the first move could leave a second copy in the first folder, with the second move or deletion never reaching the server; it now goes there once the server's copy is found, and an undo of it keeps the server's copy. If the copy can't be found for certain, the message is shown again. (#1206)
• An Exchange server account that signs in with NTLM now syncs with servers that keep a sign-in for one request only (IIS sending Persistent-Auth: false), instead of stopping every Send/Receive with "The server turned down the sign-in" although the user name and password were right (#1085).
• A draft you send from a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com account, a shared mailbox's too, no longer turns up in Drafts again for a while as if it hadn't gone, where it could be sent a second time: it is in Sent Items as soon as Microsoft has taken it, and stays the one message there (#1160).
• A name that ends in a quote, such as Ada "Countess", keeps its closing quote when the address is read back, instead of losing it (#1045).
• A group whose name holds an unclosed [, such as [EXT Team: ada@example.org;, again gives its members instead of one address made of the whole text; a [ now starts a domain literal only right after @.
• On Debian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint, whose authorities are for web sites only, S/MIME signers from public authorities are verified now: where the system has no bundle of authorities for mail, MailCraft reads the roots Mozilla trusts for mail from NSS's own list (libnssckbi.so, part of libnss3), leaving out any root Mozilla distrusts for mail (#1121).
• An Exchange server account shows its folders inside the folders they are in, as the server has them, rather than all at the top in one list; an account set up before reads its folder list once afresh at the next Send/Receive of all folders, and its folders move into place (#1108).
• Check Calendar Connection and Remove MailCraft's Data show their whole report, up to 60% of the window's height before it scrolls, with Copy and Close right under its last line instead of below an empty band (#1079).
• Italian: Add Account is in Italian throughout, its Google sign-in pages and the Exchange server setup with its certificate questions included; 107 of its texts were shown in English (#1060).
• The note on the ribbon's Help tab is shown in your language when it has a translation (#1003).

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.