Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 19:28:55 -0800
From: Stefan Tanurkov <stef@ritlabs.com>
X-Mailer: The Bat! (v1.63 Beta/1)
Subject: Happy New Year!
List-Id: <tbbeta.thebat.dutaint.com>
Hello All,
On behalf of RITLABS I would like to thank you all for supporting
The Bat! and wish you Happy New Year!
It's been quite a time I wrote to this list, I am sorry about
that...
So, I guess, it is time to come up with some kind of announcement.
Here we go :-)
What's cooking:
Version 2. It still has some way to go to be released as a Public
Beta. Before the final release will come out, we still will be making
some fixes/improvements to the version 1.
Here is the list of planned changes (let's put aside bugs to be
fixed because this is obvious that we must fix them :-) :
Message editor.
We are currently developing a new mechanism of interaction with the
editor component so it will be possible to use different editors for
writing messages. The first one will be a Windows-compatible one
(RichEdit-based, RichEdit is the component used by Windows WordPad).
It won't be able to create HTML messages, but it will allow to use
proportional fonts for editing messages and creation messages in
languages the current editor hardly supports.
Another editor is being developed for creation HTML messages (please
hold your boos, it is needed for marketing, anyway) - it is based on
the existing code of RTV, so there is no much code to be added and
of course, RTV bugs are the subject for removal. It produces a very
compact HTML code, so this is a plus, but I know many of people here
won't like it anyway. If somebody wants to write a Help article
about proper usage of HTML in e-mail, such effort will be very
welcomed. :-)
As the editor stuff goes, there will be a plug-in interface
available for adding custom editors, even those ones that produce
some special (binary) output.
Scheduler.
A built-in scheduler will be available for Beta-testing soon. It is
not a fully-blown daytime planner, but it is suitable enough to
create simple reminders not just about an event, but about messages
one wish to reply to before a certain date, about messages one
wish to get a reply to. Also, it will be possible to schedule
automatic tasks such as:
- message creation
- mail check/send
- connect/disconnect to/from the Internet
- backup operation
- etc. :-)
Plug-in interface.
As the demand grows, it is time to start produce some code for it. :-)
Moreover, it is better to have this thing settled before the version
2 comes out so those plug-ins would be imported into it.
So, here are the areas we think plug-ins are most needed:
- templates (possibility to add new macros)
- filters:
- conditions
- actions
- scheduler actions
- message viewer:
- filtering messages before they are displayed, so the output
may be something specific to that kind of messages
- some more viewers, so people can view attachments by clicking
Tabs in the Message View Pane.
Building support for:
- PGP 8. Finally - they've started publish the full source code
again, so the plug-in and changes in The Bat! should appear soon.
- BinHex and MS-TNEF attachments. Well, a bit of nonsense here, but
I guess we should do something about it :-))
- Additional message headers (viewing, pre-defining in the templates)
So, this is it for this moment, at least what I had at the top of my
head. :-) Any comments will be appreciated.
Happy New Year to all of you and I hope you won't be disappointed by
our efforts in this new year :-)
--
Cheers!
Stefan mailto:stef@ritlabs.com |
