Anybody know how to beat Pegasus Mail into submission? [Archive]

Rolfe

27th January 2009, 06:05 PM

Sorry to keep asking for help here - anyone who's fed up, put me on ignore.

I'm setting up my new email accounts. For donkey's years I've used Compuserve as my main email, but that's getting the push soon. I've never been fond of Outlook, and I've used Pegasus successfully in the past, so I downloaded Pegasus.

I've got all three of my domains happily forwarding into my Pegasus identity, and I've got Pegasus sorted out to reply as if from whichever of the three domains I choose. So far so good.

What I can't do, is get the messages I send out to display my name. If I can't fix this I'm going back to Outlook - but I see many pieces of evidence that suggest it's possible. What am I missing?

To clarify. Most mail I receive, in Outlook or in Compuserve, comes ostensibly from Person Name, not in the first instance from Person@domain.com. Even the couple of messages already in the inbox when Pegasus is installed appear in Pegasus that way. As do messages I send to Pegasus from either Compuserve or Outlook.

I clicked on the start of the Setup Wizard for Outlook, and the very first question it asks is how you want your name to appear in the "from" field in the messages you send! My 12-year-old version of Compuserve has a field for that information also. But no such queston from Pegasus. I can't figure out how to fix this at all.

Closer inspection of messages received by Outlook reveals the format Person Name [Person@domain.com] in the reply fields. Closer inspection of messages received by Pegasus reveals the format Person name Person@Domain.com , sometimes "Person Name" is in inverted commas. (Compuserve uses completely separate fields all the time.)

What I simply cannot fathom is how to set up Pegasus so that mail sent out is received as Person Name by any mail client. Everything I try either simply records the sender as Person@domain.com, or screws it up completely. The nearest I got was sender recorded (by Outlook) as Person Name[person@domain.com], which still isn't right. I've trawled the Help files, I've tried half a dozen different ideas, but no dice.

I can't believe Pegasus won't do this. Every other email client I ever met will do it. Can anyone tell me what I'm missing?

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

27th January 2009, 06:28 PM

Try entering, as your e-mail address when asked:"Person Name" <person@domain.com>That is the literal format used in the actual e-mail sent out.

Having said that, I do not use Pegasus Mail so I can't say that it will accept that.

Yalius

27th January 2009, 07:33 PM

Gagglegnash

27th January 2009, 08:27 PM

Hi

Have you seen Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/) yet?

While I am a long-time PMail and WinPMail user, Thunderbird is the one I pimp out SUGGEST... yeah... suggest... that's the ticket... suggest to folks who ask.

Rolfe

28th January 2009, 02:27 AM

Click on "Tools" then "Options". Select "Basic Settings" from the tree on the left; at the top is "Personal Name (shown in your address)"

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_7192497fc4c35859a.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15048)

:hit:

I did trawl that screen last night, I don't know how I missed that one!! Once again, thanks muchly.
:bricks:

I'm surprised it's so well buried though - I'd have expected to see it as part of the basic setup dialogue. I certainly found it some years ago when I used Pegasus in order to subscribe anonymously to an email list. It would have been very difficult to send anonymously from Compuserve, so I set Pegasus up to send from False Name, number@compuserve.com (of course any Compuserve member could have looked up the number and found out who I really was, but it was sufficient anonymity for the purpose). I really don't remember having this much grief over it then - I'm an absolute zombie this morning, having stayed up way too late sending messages back and forward between Pegasus, Compuserve, and my office Outlook email, trying to get this to work!

:hb:

Yes, "Person Name" <Person@domain.com> was one of the (many) things I tried. Didn't work.

And now I can't even find the facepalm smilie. Have an assortment of other appropriate images.

I even came in to work this morning and opened the now-redundant copy of Pegasus on my desktop (they forced us to change to Outlook about a year ago) too see if I could fathom it there (that one was set up for me by the IT guru), but all I managed to do was to confirm that I had received many messages from other people whom I knew were also using Pegasus, with the name field completed correctly.

Did I mention that I really hate programmes that hide essential features deep in an obscure menu? Pegasus, your jacket is on a very shaky nail right now. Thunderbird? Does it have as cool a logo as Pegasus? (I would probably have been a sucker for "My Little Pony" if they'd had that when I was eight....)

Rolfe.

Rolfe

28th January 2009, 03:35 AM

Well, that's fixed. I do have another query though.

One of the things I liked about Compuserve was the way it populated the address book. Whenever I sent (or saved) a new message to someone it didn't know about, a screen popped up asking me if I wanted to save the address. I could edit the associated name, or even the address before clicking yes, or I could click no. Same with replying to a message from someone who wasn't already in the address book.

I can hardly remember manually entering anyone's email address into that address book. It just growed of its own accord. It routinely popped up the email addys of people I hadn't contacted for ages, just by typing in their name to the "To" field of a new message window. Now and again I'd have to weed it out, especially getting rid of obsolete addresses for people who'd changed providers, but basically it worked like a charm.

I've not seen another programme that does anything like this. As far as I can see, you really have to work at populating Pegasus's address book. And I don't think Outlook is any better, at a relatively cursory glance.

Any comments? How does Thunderbird handle this, Gagglenash?

Rolfe.

Gagglegnash

28th January 2009, 09:03 AM

Hi

Well, that's fixed. I do have another query though.

One of the things I liked about Compuserve was the way it populated the address book. Whenever I sent (or saved) a new message to someone it didn't know about, a screen popped up asking me if I wanted to save the address. I could edit the associated name, or even the address before clicking yes, or I could click no. Same with replying to a message from someone who wasn't already in the address book.

I can hardly remember manually entering anyone's email address into that address book. It just growed of its own accord. It routinely popped up the email addys of people I hadn't contacted for ages, just by typing in their name to the "To" field of a new message window. Now and again I'd have to weed it out, especially getting rid of obsolete addresses for people who'd changed providers, but basically it worked like a charm.

I've not seen another programme that does anything like this. As far as I can see, you really have to work at populating Pegasus's address book. And I don't think Outlook is any better, at a relatively cursory glance.

Any comments? How does Thunderbird handle this, Gagglenash?

Rolfe.

It's a right-click on the 'From' field in the mail browser window, and 'Add to Address Book', which presents you with a screen that lets you select the book to which to add it (you can have multiple address books) and edit other information about the contact.

In WinPMail, try right-clicking a name in the 'From' field of the inbox window, then click on 'Add sender's address to...'. There are several handy entries in there, on od which is/should be your address book.

While these two won't just grow your contact list automatically, it's a lot easier than it seems at first look.

Now, Gmail (https://mail.google.com/mail/help/open.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk&utm_medium=ha&pc=habk&utm_term=google%20mail), the Google mail product, does seem to grow my contact list automatically. I don't think you need an invite to set up an account to see if you like it or not, but if you do need an invite, and you would like to try it, I can get you the invite.

grmcdorman

28th January 2009, 10:28 AM

Thunderbird has an option to automatically collect addresses you send to:
Tools->Options, Composition Tab: Automatically add outgoing e-mail addresses to (and a drop-down list to select an address book). This is enabled by default, with the default Collected Addresses address book selected. I don't think it adds incoming addresses, though (and I doubt you'd want that for all mails, such as spam).

ETA: More info on Thunderbird address books here (http://www.cit.cornell.edu/email/thunderbird/address.html). I use Thunderbird at work, by the way, even though everyone else uses Outlook.

Rolfe

28th January 2009, 10:58 AM

In WinPMail, try right-clicking a name in the 'From' field of the inbox window, then click on 'Add sender's address to...'. There are several handy entries in there, on of which is/should be your address book.

Yes, I'd worked that out. Eventually. That's what I meant by "you really have to work to populate that address book."

Thunderbird has an option to automatically collect addresses you send to:
Tools->Options, Composition Tab: Automatically add outgoing e-mail addresses to (and a drop-down list to select an address book). This is enabled by default, with the default Collected Addresses address book selected. I don't think it adds incoming addresses, though (and I doubt you'd want that for all mails, such as spam).

ETA: More info on Thunderbird address books here (http://www.cit.cornell.edu/email/thunderbird/address.html). I use Thunderbird at work, by the way, even though everyone else uses Outlook.

I'm becoming strangely attracted to Thunderbird. No, of course you wouldn't want to store incoming addresses!

What you've described is exactly what Compuserve does. Any time you try to send a message, or save a message you've written offline, it pops up a dialogue box already populated with the name the person is using and the email addy, and a yes/no option. If you don't want to save it, it's the work of a second to click no. If you do, you can either click yes straight away, or edit the entries as you wish (say to get the first name in front of the surname if it hasn't been presented like that, or to get rid of these annoyng inverted commas that make it seem as if everyone is using a pseudonym). It even stores the entries in alphabetical order of the second word, that is usually the surname!

This programme is c. 1997. It's a massively useful feature. Why it's not more widespread I really can't imagine. It's not as if you can't turn it off if you hate it for some reason.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

28th January 2009, 01:58 PM

Rolfe

28th January 2009, 04:23 PM

I've spent the evening playing with Thunderbird, and at the moment it's definitely winning. I found it a lot easier than Pegasus to set up, and I think that is still so even if you factor in the practice I had last night with Pegasus. I never did find Pegasus terribly user-friendly to be honest. It's just that I'd go a long way not to have to use Outlook.

I think Pegasus probably does more, but it's not so intuitive, and Thunderbird does what I want it to do with less thought. I'm glad we had this conversation before I told anyone about my email change. I've got 12 years of emails stored in Compuserve, and I want to shift immediately to the mail client I'll be using on a permanent basis to avoid having to search different places for old emails. Or figure how to merge mailboxes, assuming that's a possibility. I'm probably going to go with Thunderbird.

The one thing Thunderbird doesn't seem to do that Pegasus does, is let you specify the HELO setting. And to be honest that isn't really my top priority. I wouldn't even have thought about it if Pegasus hadn't presented the option. Yes, it was easy to specify the HELO setting, but I couldn't figure where to tell it what my name was! (It was the first thing Thunderbird asked me.)

Pegasus is certainly working perfectly now, but I found when I sent messages out that my name appeared in my Compuserve mail box encased in these silly inverted commas, that make it look as if it's a pseudonym. I always suspected that Pegasus did that, and I don't like it. However, the commas don't appear in Outlook, so I put it down to a quirk of the old Compuserve software.

Thunderbird doesn't do that, and using my primary identity everything appeared perfect in both Compuserve and Outlook. Whoopee. I have found one little oddity though. Using secondary identities (generated to handle mail coming from different domains), the name started to play up a bit. In Compuserve, it didn't display at all, and the name field was filled by a repeat of the email address. However in Outlook, things at first seemed to be absolutely fine. It was only inspecting the small print that I saw there was still a difference in Outlook between the primary identity and the secondary ones. Reply-to messages generated to the primary address had the address correctly displayed in the "To" field as Person Name <Person@domain.com>, but reply-to messages generated to the secondary address dropped the actual name and simply had <Person@domain.com> in the "To" field.

I can't explain this, because Thunderbird does allow different names to be attached to different identities - that's often what it's all about - and it doesn't lose them entirely, they appear in the email headers in the message in Compuserve, and Outlook displays them properly. But it doesn't handle them in the robust way the name is handled in the primary identity, and they tend to get lost at various stages of the process.

This doesn't annoy me enormously, given how much more user-friendly Thunderbird is in general, but it's quite strange.

The address book population is a big plus. It's not as flexible as Compuserve's because it happens entirely in the background and you can't edit the entry without deliberately opening the address book for the purpose. But it does the job. (I can't really tell what Outlook does on that because my office copy is on a thin client and it won't let me edit the address book any way at all. I note the names already in there are listed in alphabetical order of first name though - not that intuitive.)

Thunderbird wins. It even has a cool logo. I'm deeply grateful to Gagglenash and grmcdorman.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

28th January 2009, 05:06 PM

Glad to be of help.

Of interest, by the way, is the fact that Thunderbird is available as a portable application (http://portableapps.com); that is, it can be installed on a USB stick (or similar, like a small external hard drive) in such a way that all its settings and files are saved on the external drive. This means that you can take it with you and have full access to your Thunderbird setup on any Windows computer where you can plug in the external drive; and it doesn't leave any traces (well, shouldn't) on the computer when you're done.

Firefox is also available the same way, as are a number of other applications. (Firefox is great for web development, by the way; I worked on an AJAX app at work, and it was much easier to debug in Firefox than in IE or Apple's Safari.)

Gagglegnash

28th January 2009, 08:58 PM

Hi

:-)

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 03:10 AM

Of interest, by the way, is the fact that Thunderbird is available as a portable application (http://portableapps.com); that is, it can be installed on a USB stick (or similar, like a small external hard drive) in such a way that all its settings and files are saved on the external drive. This means that you can take it with you and have full access to your Thunderbird setup on any Windows computer where you can plug in the external drive; and it doesn't leave any traces (well, shouldn't) on the computer when you're done.

Firefox is also available the same way, as are a number of other applications. (Firefox is great for web development, by the way; I worked on an AJAX app at work, and it was much easier to debug in Firefox than in IE or Apple's Safari.)

Wow! I intend to investigate the former ASAP. One of my perennial problems in this job is that I can't access my personal email from my office computer. Nor can I use my own computer for that at work, because there's no wi-fi, and the network doesn't recognise my own computer if I plug in an ethernet cable. (I've often wonderd what would happen if I tried to use a phone line for dial-up, but I don't really want a heavy visit from Personnel.) It's irritating to know there may be an important email waiting for me, but I can't get it. I was thinking I could add an extra redirect of my personal email to my office email address and then just delete everything after I'd read it. But the portable application sounds like a better solution, possibly.

I've heard a lot of people praising Firefox, but I've never used it. I've never really been especially irritated by IE, although I know it gets up a lot of people's noses. I used to debug my pages in Netscape as well as IE, way back when, but that one seems to have fallen out of favour. I think now might be the time to get acquainted with Firefox.

I've decided I'm 100% happy with Thunderbird. The glitch with the names in the secondary identities is probably a minor quibble, as I don't expect to use these much, and the primary identity is handled perfectly. I also have the option of setting up pop3 mailboxes on my ISP host's server for these additional domain names and accessing them directly from Thunderbird as primary identities, if the glitch does prove to be troublesome.

I'm very glad now I posted this thread, as otherwise I'd still be wrestling with Pegasus. Thank you Gagglenash for suggesting Thunderbird, and grmcdorman for the extra information.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

29th January 2009, 08:35 AM

Yes, the Portable Apps suite is great. Other applications include OpenOffice.org, The Gimp (for graphics), and ClamWin (for virus checking).

The faster the external device, the better, though; it works best with an external HD instead of a flash drive, although they are bigger. The 2.5" external HDs are the easiest to deal with, as they are smaller than a paperback and don't require a power source (e.g. this one (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4148840&CatId=2420) [Canadian source]).

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 09:34 AM

I just wandered off to Comet at lunchtime and got myself a memory stick (flash drive, 8GB) and an external hard drive. As you said, smaller than a paperback, 250GB, and with a second USB connection to make sure it can draw enough power from the computer. Like I said, I don't want stuck with a bill for data recovery again!

The flash drive is mostly just for backing up data in an easily accessible format, and for transferring CDs copied to iTunes - for some reason iTunes won't let you use an iPod to transfer these to a different computer, and you have to use a different medium. However, I'll try the portable apps on it to see how it runs.

The hard drive is for more serious backup. I need to get some sort of routine organised to make sure there's a good chance of minimal data loss if something fries again. (Mind you, I've still got the recovery discs from the last PC, and for the PCs before it, so right now I'm in quite a secure position anyway!)

Hmmm. The system has just told me it will take over an hour to transfer the CDs to the flash drive. Oh well. This does include the whole of the Ring cycle, as well as a lot of other stuff.

You guys have been massively helpful, and I thank you again. I'd let myself get quite out of touch with what's up-to-date.

Rolfe.

Wudang

29th January 2009, 09:57 AM

I use winamp to manage my i-pod.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/07/how-to-use-winamp-to-manage-your-ipod/

Gagglegnash

29th January 2009, 10:07 AM

grmcdorman

29th January 2009, 10:34 AM

She said CDs, so I assume it's a CD set she's bought.

Just for interest, I looked up the Ring cycle (that's the Wagner opera) at a Canadian retailer. On CD, it's 14 CDs. That's a lot of data, although I don't know how big a CD rip is. (A data CD is 650 or 700 MB, max, which for 14 CDs is around 9GB).

ETA: There's a second set that's even bigger, at 16 CDs.

Gagglegnash

29th January 2009, 10:46 AM

Hi

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

D'oh! (_8(|)

I thought it was data CDs.

D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! (_8(|)

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 11:09 AM

Yeah, a set of 14 CDs, Bayreuth Festival 1973, conducted by Karl Bohm. I don't think they're that expensive these days. There are a couple of sets on DVD available too (the 1976 Bayreuth version by Pierre Boulez, and a very naturalistic one filmed at the Met), 7 DVDs for the whole thing including the video. The Bohm version runs for about 13.5 hours according to my iTunes playlist info.

You just need to borrow the discs from someone for a half hour or so, and introduce them to the inside of your computer.... So much for the decision in the 1980s not to put any copy-protect on music CDs because it would always be more expensive to copy them than to buy them for yourself!

Oh, What's Opera Doc!!! I love that. Someone else mentioned that to me today when I remarked that I was trying to download the Ride of the Valkyries for a mobile ring tone. Hah, just noticed the awful pun - "Ring" tone, ta-da.

I'll be here all week....

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

29th January 2009, 01:19 PM

I thought I'd just post the list of portable apps I have installed on my external hard drive; I have a lot. This isn't even a full list, as I have other applications that aren't really portable. Some I don't use much, if at all, but I've installed them anyway (I have lots of free space on the drive). Some are betas, but most are not.
7-ZipPortable |file browser
AbiWordPortable |word processor
AutoRunsPortable |check what runs when you login
BonkEncPortable |Audio file converter
CelestiaPortable |Sky viewer/"planetarium"
ClamWinPortable |Virus Checker
CommandPromptPortable |Command prompt
ConvertAllPortable |Units conversion (e.g. feet to meters)
CoolPlayer+Portable |Audio player
CornicePortable |Image viewer
FirefoxPortable |The web browser
GIMPPortable |Open-source image editor (sort of same idea as PhotoShop)
GraphCalcPortable |Graphing calculator
InfraRecorderPortable |CD writer
JkDefragPortable |Defragmenting tool
JPEGViewPortable |Image Viewer
LBreakout2Portable |Game, Breakout
LightscreenPortable |Screen snapshot program
MahjongPortable |Game, "shanghai" (not really Mahjongg)
Mines-PerfectPortable |Game, mines
MirandaPortable |Instant messenger, supports lots of protocols (MSN, ICQ, AOL, and more)
Notepad++Portable |Text editor
OpenOfficePortable |Office suite (OpenOffice.org)
Password Safe |Password manager [from passwordsafe.sourceforge.net (http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net)]
PDFTKBuilderPortable |PDF manipulator
ProcessExplorerPortable|Task Manager improved
ProcessMonitorPortable |A geek's tool; watch everything a program does
PuTTYPortable |Remote command-line login to Linux-type systems
SecretMaryoChroniclesPortable| Game
SpeedCrunchPortable |Another calculator
StellariumPortable |Another sky viewer/"planetarium"
SumatraPDFPortable |PDF viewer
Toucan |Backup program
VirtualDubPortable |Audio editor
winMd5SumPortable |File MD5 (checksum) calculator
WinMergePortable |File comparision/merge tool
WinPenguinsPortable |Game
WinSCPPortable |File transfer via FTP or SCP
WinWGetPortable |File fetch (from URL, i.e. http:// or ftp://)
XenonPortable |Another file manager

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 02:01 PM

:eye-poppi :jaw-dropp :eye-poppi

Well, I've got 250GB on the computer and 250 on the new external hard drive, so I'm not exactly short of space either. I'm off to start downloading.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 02:15 PM

I use winamp to manage my i-pod.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/07/how-to-use-winamp-to-manage-your-ipod/

I might have been wrong about not being able to move CDs from an iPod to another computer - I was trying to drag and drop in iTunes, but come to think of it, there were several other ways to transfer the files I could have tried. Doesn't matter.

Does your programme allow playlists to be preserved? I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Have you any idea if it's possible to retrieve album artwork online, for CDs you've bought as actual discs? I prefer to buy the discs for the booklet inserts and all the information. But my iTunes library looks awfully dull with all these blank album covers.

(Guys, did I mention how good the Thunderbird online help is?)

Rolfe.

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 02:21 PM

Hi

"Ring Cycle?"

As in, "Der Ring des Nibelungen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJAXJWm8G4A)?" (Note: Illiterate Oaf Warning!)

...or as in, "The Fellowship of the ring," "The Two Towers," "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," and, "Hey! The King's Back!!"?

Wow.... If it's the former, where did you get it? Is it public domain? Is it a download? More importantly, where can I get it?

Actually, it will be both. I also have the BBC radio adaptation of the Tolkein from the late 1970s - 13 CDs of story, plus one with just the music. I must iPod these too.

On CD, it's 14 CDs. That's a lot of data, although I don't know how big a CD rip is. (A data CD is 650 or 700 MB, max, which for 14 CDs is around 9GB).

No, it's less than that. My iPod is 8GB and the whole Ring was just a snack.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

29th January 2009, 04:28 PM

No, it's less than that. My iPod is 8GB and the whole Ring was just a snack.

13.5 hours, 766.1 MB.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

29th January 2009, 04:35 PM

Hmm. That is just a bit more than one 700MB CD. Did you rip the CDs into MP3 files? MP3 is lossy, and smaller than pure CD audio. Depending on the sampling quality and the quality of the playback, it is said that it is possible to hear the difference.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 12:34 PM

I used iTunes, which simply asks you if you want to import these CDs, without giving any file type or compression options. The CDs sound all right to me, but I'm no expert in this area. The file type is given as MPEG-4 in my system. The file extension, from memory, is m4p.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

30th January 2009, 01:48 PM

M4P (http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/m4p) is Apple's DRM'd (i.e. copy-protected) AAC; AAC (http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/AAC), in turn, is "Advanced Audio Coding File". According to that link, it's not as lossy as MP3 ("nearly indistinguishable from the original audio source").

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 02:35 PM

That's funny, the actual file extension, now I'm in a position to look, is .m4a. Ah, google is your friend.

Files in .M4A format are actually the audio layer of (non-video) MPEG 4 movies. M4A is slated to become the new standard for audio file compression. This format is also known as Apple Lossless, Apple Lossless Encoder, or ALE. It is a new codec designed to provide lossless encoding in less storage space.

Audio-only MPEG-4 files generally have a .m4a extension. This is especially true of non-protected content.

I imagine CD files are non-protected.

You may have solved a small mystery for me. When I first got my iPod I didn't know what to do with it. No instructions at all, one was supposed to know by divine revelation. A friend searched her collection for some music that was to my taste, and put a few things on my iPod. I was not a happy bunny. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the musical experience was very disappointing. I said, I don't know what it is, but although that is music that should make me happy, I'm not happy. It was completely uninvolving. She fed me a completely impossible line about losses due to repeated copying from one machine to another. (Even I know that digital files copy without loss.)

I began to worry that I would never use my spiffy Christmas present. Or that I should have looked for a hifi product that would do the job. But my friend then copied one of my CDs for me, and downloaded something from iTunes. Big smile. Bunny very happy indeed. Bunny, in fact, becoming difficult to unplug from the thing.

I can only assume that the original tracks she let me have were .mp3 coding.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 03:03 PM

Back on the subject of email clients, I just received an email from Yuri Nalyssus, with some attachments. I got it both in Compuserve and Thunderbird. Thunderbird laid it all out beautifully, with icons for each attachment in a separate window. But it was Compuserve that found the right applications to open each attachment, without any fuss at all. Thunderbird insisted I choose, and the eventual result wasn't as good as the Compuserve file readers.

I knew that ancient programme was good.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

30th January 2009, 03:23 PM

I just looked in the attachment handling in Thunderbird. Oddly, while you can change automatic actions for file types, you can't add any. It may be that the only way to do so is to select 'Do this automatically for files like this from now on.'

The choice of what is used to open the attachment, on the other hand, is based on what you've got installed on the system (i.e. same as if you saved to disk and then double-clicked). If you don't like the choice, you can choose 'other'; but in any event it's basically no different than double clicking on the attachment in Explorer.

... except, I think, for attachments which are permanently configured as "unsafe" - such as .exe files - in which case the only option is to save it.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 03:47 PM

There was one MS Word document, and a number of text files. I don't have MS Word on my computer, though I do have a Word reader I think.

I believe Compuserve has its own integral readers for many common file types. It opened all the extensions within its own window, properly formatted and unprompted. Firefox correctly chose EditPad for the text files, but asked me to confirm. It had no clue what to do with the Word document.

This is not a problem.

I am currently downloading Firefox.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 03:52 PM

Hey, has this forum suddenly speeded up?

Rolfe.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 04:16 PM

Either this forum has had its chronic sclerosis magically resolved, at exactly the moment I opened Firefox, or I'm in love.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

30th January 2009, 05:00 PM

grmcdorman

30th January 2009, 05:02 PM

Either this forum has had its chronic sclerosis magically resolved, at exactly the moment I opened Firefox, or I'm in love.

Rolfe.Try some other sites before you decide; JREF does seem to be faster for me too (and I haven't switched browsers).

Firefox 3, though, is generally faster in tests; the only one that is consistently faster (especially for JavaScript) is Google's Chrome.

Rolfe

30th January 2009, 05:17 PM

There are a number free apps that will handle Word documents reasonably well. The commonest is, of course OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org); the second is AbiWord (http://www.abisource.com/). Both are available as Portable Apps.

None are perfect, though, because Word documents are a) notoriously complex and b) closed (OpenXML notwithstanding).

It opened readably in EditPad, and with formatting preserved in Wordperfect X4 (though not in 7). The winner (after the integral Compuserve reader) was the word processor in MS Works. Unsurprisingly. What I thought was a Word reader didn't do anything. I'm going to do a file associate with the MS Works WP.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

30th January 2009, 07:44 PM

Yeah, figures that the Microsoft product would do reasonably well. The fun thing is, though, that the newer versions of Office reportedly do worse at opening older DOC formats than the alternatives.

Just wait until you start getting .docx (the OpenXML) though. Works probably won't handle that, unless Microsoft releases a fix and/or a new version.

Rolfe

1st February 2009, 06:05 PM

Just wait until you start getting .docx (the OpenXML) though. Works probably won't handle that, unless Microsoft releases a fix and/or a new version.

I suspect I don't care. If push comes to shove, there's always a text editor.

Firefox is odd. I like quite a few things about it. It's fast. Although five menu bars at the top of the window seems a but excessive. I certainly perfer it to Opera. But when I click on "view source" I don't get my chosen text editor, I get Firefox's own integral version. Well, I think, it doesn't look very well featured, but I only want to make a small edit anyway.

No go. It's not an editor at all. It's just a viewer. No good for calling up your own code and editing it.

Is there a way round this before I switch my default browser back to IE?

Rolfe.

Wudang

2nd February 2009, 02:18 AM

Yes, but I think you won't like it
http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/tip-change-default-text-editor-in-fx/

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 04:04 AM

Hmmm. I tried the instructions on that page, which were easy to follow. The only little snagette is that it didn't work. Not even when I used "Program%20Files" instead of "Program Files". Still opening in the integral source viewer rather than the programme I specified.

It looks as if I need to download the add-on programme specified in the resulting discussion. I can't do that right now as the computer I'm trying to fix this on does not have internet access where I am right now. I'll try it this evening when I get back to the wifi zone and let you know how I get on. Thanks for the tip, if it works in the end that will be massively helpful.

This obviously annoys some other people as well. I'm surprised Mozilla haven't addressed this, but I seem to remember this was a problem with Netscape as well and was the reason I went back to IE rather than continuing with Netscape about 10 years ago.

Take 2. I tried it again, removing the "%20" and going back to "Program Files" in the path name. Don't know why, but it worked perfectly the second time.

No problem at all. Easy peasy.

Rolfe, the very happy bunny.

ohms

2nd February 2009, 05:48 AM

There is an extension called ViewSourceWith which lets you choose which editor(s) you wish to use

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/394

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 06:21 AM

Yeah, that was what I was going to try next (the bit I scored out). But then the easy way worked second time out of the box. It's perfect now.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 06:47 AM

grmcdorman

2nd February 2009, 08:50 AM

There's at least one add-on that lets you choose your own: ViewSourceWith (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/394).

For "menu bars", do you mean tool bars? There's only one menu bar (File Edit View ... etc); below that I have the Navigation Toolbar and the Bookmarks Toolbar, and below that the tabs (which can disappear if I have only one tab open). If you have more than that, you probably have some other extension installed; in any event, View|Toolbars lets you control which toolbars are visible.

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 10:32 AM

I didn't need the add-on - the instructions on the page Kosh linked to worked fine - just the second time I tried it (maybe closing Firefox and opening it again did the trick). I just spent lunchtime happily editing an old page of mine, in EditPad, accessed through "view source" in Firefox. It's fine. (Why did he think I wouldn't like it?)

Menu bars? Toolbars? Possibly. What I have is as follows, in descending order:

The usual File Edit View History etc stuff
Back/Forward Refresh Stop Home then the field showing the url
Most visited, Getting started, Latest headlines, Customise links and more
Norton, with a tick that the site isn't phishing and a dropdown box of options
Then, finally, the tabs
I could well do without the third one, I think. And it looks as if Norton has insinuated its own row in there, I've already been told that programme is a pest.

OK, I got rid of all the contents of the third row, which helps, though the empty row is still taking up space. And I can't entirely blame Firefox if Norton is being obtrusive (can't figure how to get rid of that bar, but it's not there in IE).

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

2nd February 2009, 11:12 AM

grmcdorman

2nd February 2009, 11:31 AM

OK, near perfect. I noticed another oddity. Whereas in IE (and other browsers I've used, so far as I remember), when you hover the mouse over an image, you get the image's "alt" text showing up in a little box. I've used this in my web site to tell people where clicking on a picture that is a link is going to take them. Doesn't wiork in Firefox - the text doesn't display.

Oh well.

Rolfe.alt is not intended to be "tooltips", but the text displayed when the image is not present (e.g. user has turned off image loading on a low-bandwidth connection).

The correct tag is title.

See here (http://htmlhelp.com/feature/art3.htm); in particular this section is of note:ALT text as "tooltips"

Version by version, popular graphical browsers got worse and worse in their display of ALT texts when auto image loading was off. Then they seem to have hit upon the idea of remedying the loss by displaying the ALT texts as "tooltips" when the mouse pointer was on the image location. Perhaps that wasn't such a bad idea in itself, but plenty of authors seem to have reacted by using the ALT text to specify their desired tooltip text, regardless of the fact that it was an entirely inappropriate text for use as the "alternative text" described in the HTML specifications.

Well, HTML4.0 has an answer to this: the TITLE attribute. The HTML4.0 spec says explicitly that it would be appropriate for the TITLE attribute to be displayed as a "tooltip", so it all falls into place. Use the ALT text for the purpose of providing alternative text, for example along the lines discussed in this article, and use the TITLE element to title the image, in a way that would be appropriate for a tooltip. MSIE4 already supports this, for one example, and can be configured (via a checkbox on the Advanced Preferences menu) to display the whole ALT text on the page when images aren't loaded.

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 12:31 PM

Third row is the Bookmarks Toolbar. From the Menu Bar, select View | Toolbars and uncheck Bookmarks Toolbar. (From the sound of it, you emptied it, rather than hiding it).

The fourth is, as you say, Norton being a pest. Check your add-ons (Tools | Add-ons) and see if there's anything from Norton in there you can delete.

(Another common pest is the Yahoo! toolbar; some downloaded packages include it - or other toolbars - and default to installing it unless you explicitly disable the option.)

ETA: Google search on firefox norton toolbar (http://www.google.com/search?q=firefox+norton+toolbar) turns up kev - removing the norton toolbar from firefox (http://kev.deadsquid.com/?p=663). Turns out that not only is Norton a pest about it, it won't let you remove it without resorting to some trickery.

East peasy again. (Sorry, I should have been able to figure that out for myself. :o I'm too used to right-clicking on toolbars in WordPerfect to do anything with them including consigning them to the fires of hell to think of looking in a menu!)

So I unchecked the bookmarks toolbar, and I know it's there if I want to add it back in future. And the same menu had an option to uncheck the Norton toolbar, so I unchecked that too and it politely vanished.

Mission accomplished.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 01:18 PM

alt is not intended to be "tooltips", but the text displayed when the image is not present (e.g. user has turned off image loading on a low-bandwidth connection).

The correct tag is title.

See here (http://htmlhelp.com/feature/art3.htm); in particular this section is of note:

Ah, I see. So any image I really want text to appear for on a mouseover, I need to add a "TITLE" tag. I can only say, it's been 10 years since I wrote these pages, and I don't remember that bit being covered in the "HTML4 for Dummies" book I was working from! Indeed, now you mention it, I see that's displaying fine on other pages, including this one.

Bit hard to figure out what these accursed icons mean without that feature!

This is where I'll be glad of EditPad's facility to do a search-and-replace over about 140 pages in one operation.

Thanks again.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

2nd February 2009, 01:35 PM

I tend to use online references mostly now; one is quickref.org. However, that may be a bit much for you, as I think you don't need C/C++, Java, and possibly not even JavaScript.

Back to the original topic of mail clients: You may also want to get the Lightning (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/) add-on for Thunderbird; it provides calendar support (appointments, to-dos, etc) and will even recognize Outlook/Exchange meeting notifications.

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 04:41 PM

Did I mention these pages I'm playing with are entirely hand-knitted?

I'm afraid I never got beyond simply typing in the tags. I never got as far as figuring how to use an html editor. Didn't seem worth it just for putting up enormous wodges of text.

Now, though, standards have changed, and these pages which once all passed the w3c purity test, throw up all sorts of solecism warnings. They still look the same as they always did on any browser I've used, so I'm not that fussed, but redesign is probably on the cards. Particularly since the front page, once past the neat opener, always was a dog's breakfast.

Maybe if I ever got round to using the Outlook calendar, I'd be more organised. But I've reverted from a Psion back to a paper diary.

Rolfe.

grmcdorman

2nd February 2009, 06:02 PM

I hand-knit HTML (and JavaScript), as you put it, as well myself. However, I'm professional software developer (not a web designer, though); I work for a medical imaging firm.

I do not like WYSIWYG web page "editors" such as Front Page - they tend to generate code that is, at best, suboptimal and at worst a downright mess. I much prefer hand-crafted code, but then just a few months ago I was working on an AJAX (i.e. web) application. Lots of JavaScript, plus fun stuff trying to get it to work cross browser (no less than five browsers - if you count versions - all with their own quirks). The worst, not surprisingly, was IE.

On the other topics: For a calendar, if you want to go electronic, I'd suggest the Thunderbird plug-in I mentioned above.

As for HTML, Notepad++ by default has HTML validation tools - check out the TextFX | | HTML Tidy menu some time, or the Run menu (which allows you to view your HTML in IE or Firefox - not sure about Opera, as I don't have it installed).

Rolfe

2nd February 2009, 06:55 PM

Yeah, I thought things would have got better since I tested every page individually online.

Oh well, one thing at a time....

Rolfe.

Rolfe

4th February 2009, 04:09 AM

Hmmm, just driving by to mention something else about Firefox that's bugging me, something which I don't think has a fix.

The history display.

I use "history" a lot in IE, to find things I looked at up to a month ago without having to re-google or follow a links trail again. It's neatly laid out, by day and week, and the top-level information is the name of the appropriate web site. Click on that, and a list of pages visited on that web site in the period in question comes up for you to choose. Highly effective and user-friendly. It even includes C: so that I can get my own pages from there.

I used Opera for a while last year, and I remember that being rather different but it still worked OK.

The Firefox equivalent seems to me to be useless. Just a random list of page names with no idea when they were visited or even which web site they live on.

What was Mozilla thinking of when it designed that?

Rolfe.

Blue Bubble

4th February 2009, 06:00 AM

Rolfe

4th February 2009, 06:06 AM

You're missing something.

Go into History -> Show All History (control+shift+H) -> Views -> Show Columns

OK, I was missing something. :D

I don't have Firefox here, but I'll do that tonight. (I only got as far as "show all history" before.) I assume it does the trick?

Silly question, but is there any special reason for hiding a well-ordered presentation behind about four layers of menu commands?

Rolfe.

Blue Bubble

4th February 2009, 06:27 AM

Silly question, but is there any special reason for hiding a well-ordered presentation behind about four layers of menu commands?

I'd say yes, there is a reason. Options that one sets pretty much once and once-for-all should be "down there" rather than clutter up top-level stuff.

Rolfe

4th February 2009, 06:36 AM

I need to look at the actual programme to follow what you're saying - I'm at work on IE at the moment.

Rolfe.

Soapy Sam

7th February 2009, 11:19 AM

Actually, I think Outlook may do that as well.

Pegasus Mail is becoming very much a niche program; there is not a great many users any more. Most mail clients are Outlook or Thunderbird, I think (excluding those people using web-mail such as Hotmail or Google Mail).

Incidentally, did you know you can use Thunderbird - or Pegasus Mail, assuming it supports IMAP - with Google?

Apart from a brief flirtation with Outlook Express,some years ago, I have never used an email client.
I use Hotmail and to a lesser extent Gmail, which seem fine- ie they send messages. I admit I'm a communications Luddite- I still use phones to make phone calls and only to make phone calls- but actually, what advantage is there to using a client like Tbird? Why clutter my pc with email when I can dump it on Micro$oft, who owe me $100s anyway?

Rolfe

7th February 2009, 04:21 PM

Not tried it, but as I've only recently acquired broadband, would you care to suggest how I'd have read my old emails without dialling up every time?

And do you trust them to keep everything forever? I've got emails dated 1997 here.

Rolfe.

GodMark2

7th February 2009, 04:26 PM

Apart from a brief flirtation with Outlook Express,some years ago, I have never used an email client.
I use Hotmail and to a lesser extent Gmail, which seem fine- ie they send messages. I admit I'm a communications Luddite- I still use phones to make phone calls and only to make phone calls- but actually, what advantage is there to using a client like Tbird? Why clutter my pc with email when I can dump it on Micro$oft, who owe me $100s anyway?

Microsoft, and/or Google can, at any time, simply decide to delete all of the mail, contact info, appointment calendar entries and other sundry details you have stored on their server. When it's on their machine, you're at their mercy.

Of course, when it's on your machine, you're at the mercy of the Luddite in charge of that machine. It's sometimes difficult to determine how likely he is to 'accidentally' delete your entire online social life, especially after a few drinks.

I do a bit of both: Use my Hotmail account to sign up for things that will probably generate spam, and Thunderbird to deal with people I like and trust.

Soapy Sam

8th February 2009, 08:17 AM

I pretty much delete it all anyway. i've maybe saved four messages to hard drive since 1999. All contact info is backed up. On paper. The only calendar I use hangs on the wall and if my computers were pinched tomorrow it wouldn't affect my social life a bit. (Except the GF might kill me for buying another PC.)

I, too have multiple addresses, some "real", others dead letter drops, but they are all webmail. (I had an early invitation to Gmail and set up several, so there's effectively infinite storage cap for junk. Most of my work stuff is forwarded straight to one of these black holes. Do I care who just retired in Houston?)

What I really meant though is what technical advantages if any are offered by your own email program? What would T'bird do for me that Gmail doesn't?

Rolfe- I went broadband nearly 5 years ago and had forgotten the joys of dial-up, but you're right that this was when I pretty much stopped using Outlook Express and moved over to webmail. I wonder if you will now too?

Rolfe

8th February 2009, 10:33 AM

I doubt it. I'm too used to having the stuff on my own hard disc. I'm the one who went fishing for an email which turned out to be dated November 2000, which contained the text "I'm pregnant" - to figure out whether it was an eight or nine-year birthday card I should be buying.

I do like the full-text search facility, don't know how that works with online mail. Certainly doesn't work very well with paper. Don't even know yet how Thunderbird will cope. Compuserve could find anything. (Compuserve also neatly filed the address book alphabetically by surname. Thunderbird seems to do it by first name, unfortunately.)

Rolfe.

Soapy Sam

9th February 2009, 08:08 AM

Maybe I just don't know enough people:(

GodMark2

9th February 2009, 06:24 PM

(Compuserve also neatly filed the address book alphabetically by surname. Thunderbird seems to do it by first name, unfortunately.)

I couldn't find a simple control for this, fortunately, Thunderbird lets you tinker under the hood a lot (which Gmail doesn't).

Go to

Tools menu: Options : Advanced Icon: General tab: Config Editor button

In the Filter box, type mail.addr

Double click the mail.addr_book.lastnamefirst entry to change it's value from 0 to 1

Open the address book and enjoy.

This will not affect the displayed name if one is defined for the Address book entry.

ETA:
Ok, So I just needed to look more closely.

Open the address book (Tools:Address Book). In the View menu, select the "Show name as" submenu. Then select the appropriately named "Last, First" menu item.