User talk:Wataru

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Penelope seems on the surface like an odd fit. Eudora and Thunderbird are so entirely different. What can possibly emerge from bringing them together?

Each program has unique strengths and weaknesses, but there are also weaknesses they both share. Are these likely to be fixed as a result of the convergence? And how will the differences be bridged?

Eudora unique strengths:

+ Excellent rules creation interface
+ Can set individual sounds for notification along with sorting rules
+ Quote only selected text in replies

Thunderbird unique strengths:

+ Pop-up notifications
+ Per-account folder trees as well as common folders
+ Reading unread messages across folders and accounts with spacebar
+ Outstanding IMAP support
+ Language and character-set support

Weaknesses of both:

- Almost no template variables
- Cannot assign templates to folders (as folder properties)
- Large memory use

So how will the Penelope project deal with these various issues?

What I would like to see in Penelope, ideally, is the best of both worlds plus some new ideas.

+ Adopt Eudora's rules creation interface, and quoting of selected text.
+ Retain Thunderbird's strengths listed above.
+ Add template variables and per-folder templates. 
+ (See The Bat! and the latest Kmail (in KDE 3.5.6) for examples of how 
   this is done. Also Becky! Internet Mail.)

UPDATE: Now that it appears Penelope will become the OSS version of Eudora (although Eudora source code will not be released), the emphasis should, I think, be on fixing the most serious deficiencies of Eudora, namely, language and character set support, better IMAP support, and the templates feature.