QuickMail v0.8.41 Release Notes

Changed: hearing "unread" without also hearing "read"

Arrowing through the message list used to say read on every message you had already read. Plenty
of people want to know which messages are unread and have no use at all for being told, once per row,
about the ones they have finished with — and there was no way to switch the one off and keep the
other.

The reason was buried in View → Message List Fields. The field doing the talking was called
Status (combined), and it says exactly one word per message — replied, forwarded, unread or
read, whichever fits first. Being a single word, it has no "only when true" choice, so read came
with unread whether you wanted it or not. There was a separate Unread field that does have that
choice, but it arrived switched off — so anyone hunting for the unread setting found a switched-off
box named Unread while the list was plainly saying "unread", switched it off and on again, and heard
nothing change.

QuickMail now uses Unread, Replied and Forwarded as three separate fields, each set to
speak only when it applies. In practice:

• An unread message says unread, in the same place in the row as before.
• A message you have read says nothing at all about read state.
• A message that is unread and replied to now says both. The old single word could only ever
  say replied, so the fact that it was still unread went unsaid.

The combined field is still there, renamed Read status (combined) so its name mentions the thing
it speaks. If you preferred the one-word version, switch it back on and switch the three separate
fields off.

If you have opened Message List Fields before, please read this

Your existing setup is kept exactly as it is, which means this change does not reach you
automatically — QuickMail will not overwrite choices you have made. If you have ever opened
View → Message List Fields, even just to look, your arrangement was saved at that moment.

To pick up the new behaviour: open View → Message List Fields, leave Row type on Messages,
and press Reset to Defaults. That is the whole job. If you had arranged other fields the way you
like them, note that Reset restores everything on that row type, so you may want to set those back
afterwards — or simply switch Read status (combined) off and Unread on by hand, which gets you
the same result without disturbing anything else.

(#558)

Changed: the Rules manager says how the account's rules run

The Rules manager lists an account's QuickMail rules and its server rules together, but an account
with no rules yet said nothing about which kind it can even have — the distinction only showed up on
the rules themselves, once there were some.

Landing on an account now says one of two things, and says it again whenever you switch accounts:

• Rules for this account run in QuickMail while it's open.
• This account also supports server-side rules that run in the cloud.

It is spoken as a hint, so it follows your Announce hints setting, and it waits its turn rather
than cutting off the account name. Adding, deleting or switching a rule off does not repeat it — only
arriving at an account does. (#545)

Fixed: the calendar opened weeks in the past

Opening the calendar in Agenda view put you on the oldest appointment in the list — which, if you
had appointments from last month, meant arrowing down past all of them to reach anything current.

Agenda now opens on the first appointment that starts today or later, so the calendar lands where you
are rather than where you have been. Nothing is hidden: past appointments are still in the list, one
Up arrow away. If everything on the calendar is already past, it opens on the most recent one. The
same applies when you press A to return to Agenda from Day, Week or Month view.
(#567)

Fixed: server rules offered to personal Microsoft accounts that could never have them

A personal Microsoft account — outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com — was offered server-side rules in
the Rules manager, and saving one failed with "your organization hasn't granted it permission. Ask
your administrator". A personal account has no organization and no administrator, so that was a dead
end: server rules are a work and school Microsoft 365 feature and were never going to work there.

Personal Microsoft accounts now use QuickMail rules only, like any other account without server rules,
and the offer that led nowhere is gone. The same correction applies where shared mailboxes are added —
a personal Microsoft account is no longer listed as one that can host one.
(#541)

Fixed: "speak only when true" did nothing on a field that was switched off

In View → Message List Fields, the Speak only when true and Always speak choices stayed
available for a field you had just switched off — and setting them did nothing whatever, because a
field that is off is not spoken at any time. Following the obvious path of switching a field off and
then choosing when it should speak left you with a setting that looked applied and had no effect.

Those two choices are now unavailable while the field is switched off, and the field's description
says why: Turn this field on to choose when it is spoken. (#558)

Fixed: the explanations in Message List Fields were announced first line only

The Spoken preview and the description of the selected field are boxes you can move through and
copy from, but they had no cursor to move — so screen readers reached the first line and no further.
Both now behave like any other read-only box in QuickMail: arrow through them a line at a time, select
and copy as usual.

The same gap was fixed in four other places with the same kind of box: the raw message headers under
Message → Properties, the context line in the spell check window, the shared-mailbox note in
Manage Accounts, and the error line in the appointment editor.
(#558)

Fixed: a field description was sometimes skipped

Still in View → Message List Fields: when two fields in a row carried the same description —
"Turn this field on to choose when it is spoken" applies to every switched-off field of that kind —
the description was announced for the first and silently skipped for the second. Arrowing from
Mailing list to Watched explained one and said nothing about the other. Every field now
announces its own description.

Reporting Issues

Found a problem or have a suggestion? There are three ways to reach us — pick the one that fits:

1. Report a Bug → Send (Help menu, inside QuickMail). Files the report for you anonymously — it includes no email address or other identifying information, so there is no way to follow up with you. Best when you don't want any follow-up.
2. Report a Bug → Copy report and open GitHub (Help menu). Opens a pre-filled issue that you submit under your own GitHub account, so your GitHub contact information is attached. Best when you have a GitHub account and want automatic filing plus direct contact.
3. Email quickmailissues@theideaplace.net. Best when you don't mind sending email and want a personal follow-up.

Full details, including exactly what a report contains (and what it never contains), are in the Reporting Issues section of the User Guide.

Download

There are four downloads. Take a regular one unless you know your PC has an ARM processor — to check, open Settings → System → About and read System type.

The regular downloads run on every supported PC, ARM ones included — just not as quickly there. The ARM downloads will not start at all on a non-ARM PC, so if you are unsure, the regular one is the safe guess.

All downloads include the .NET 8 runtime — you do not need to install .NET separately.