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Will we ever get..., Multiple POP3 /SMTP under one account
 
I have been a TB! user right from 'the early days', but a few essential features are still missing from my favourite email client, IMO! JFTR,  and for the ready-armed, The Bat! is the only email client for me...yes it is, and in the words of Sinead O'Connor, 'nothing compares to you'. ;)

Now onward: one of the features I have requested, many times in the past, and still would very much like to see, is the ability to add multiple SMTP and POP3 under any account in the account tree.

Now this may seem ridiculous to some people at first, and indeed, as many people that have liked the idea have poo pooed it as being unnecessary. But even after all these years it still irks me that I cannot do it! :/ I really would still like to be able to:

1. ...add an alternative SMTP field under each account.
  And perhaps the alternative SMTP could be easily 'switched' to via the properties context menu of the account.

2. ...add other pop3 accounts under each account without having to create a new account with unnecessary folder structures, or set up forwarders....and I don't mean I want TB! to turn into Outlook, so don't bother saying it.


And to make it clear, I use multiple accounts, and will continue to do so, and I'm glad I have them. I really don't want that to change. I just don't want unnecessary accounts in the account tree.

Perhaps there should be the ability to hide an account in the account tree/pane if all mail for that account is being filtered to another account in the account tree/pane? Yes, an option to set up an account, and hide it, and have all mail received on that account diverted to another TB! account?

However it is implemented, it would IMHO make The Bat! much better than it already is.

Simon
 
1) I can see only one reason for using multiple smtp servers for an account and that's when using a laptop combined with different ISPs with restricted access. Like your home ISP blocks all outgoing traffic to port 25 except to its own mail server (anti spam/virus measure) and your office LAN having similar settings.
Both occur frequently, so your wish would be valid.
Unfortunately thayt can't be done in TB and I don't know if it'll ever get implented.
It's with this in mind that someone created a tool called X-Ray: http://www.xrayapp.com/xray/download.html
That would enable you to set TB to send your mail to the server (that's how X-Ray acts) on your local system and X-Ray with send it through to the right smtp server. So you only change the server address in X-Ray (I even believe it has some automatic recognition of the LAN you're using)
Another way to solve this is to create several hosts files, each setting a different ip-address for the servers you use, so you can select the hosts file that's appropriate for the LAN you're on. Disadvantages for this method are that only an admin user can change the hosts file and that the different servers need to use no (or the same) authentication settings.

2) You can use common filters to stuff all mail in the same account (or into common folders) and closing the accounts that don't contain (new) messages only mentions them as a single line in your account tree pane in stead of a little tree.

I hope this helps.

BTW Due to the ongoing battle against spam more and mail servers are using methods to verify whether the server that sends the mail to them really should do so. Therefore it's possible that when you try to send company mail over your ISP server it won't arrive and those odds are getting worse all the time. So you might reconsider sending mail via 'wrong' servers...
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I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
I just wrote a long reply to your reply, but this board kicked up a flamin' error (in red at the top) and wiped it all out. Should have joined the blinking message list again! :-/ What a PITA web boards are! Anyhow, I haven't got time to type it all out again (should have done it in a text editor, I know) so in summary:

1. Yes, your reason is good enough alone to put it forward to be implemented...and for those people that send mail through their local SMTPs only to find that the receiving server is rejecting their messages because their SMTP server is operating on a dynamic IP. That's infuriating as mail is then delayed whilst the local SMTP cycles through the retries before falling back on any secondary SMTP servers that may be listed.

And re: X-Ray

Yes, I've been using X-Ray for years:  The Bat! -> X-Ray -> Local SMTP

2) I realise that common filters can achieve this in a fashion, but it would be good to have a more 'elegant' solution to achieve this. Having a hide or hidden account feature for accounts where all email is passed to an existing account would be fantastic. It would certainly get rid of a few accounts from my account tree list...and yeah, it is only one entry in the list once the account has collapsed, but I'd prefer not to see it at all.

Thanks for your reply, Roelof.

Take care,

Simon

PS> Perhaps I should have reaquainted myself with the TB! wishlist for this? Instead of this 'drive by' on these forums. :-)
 
Out of curiosity I drove by the X-Ray website and found that there is a downloadable beta that supports SMTP authentication. Just tried it out and it works brilliantly!

From the X-Ray website:

   * [+] SSL/TLS support added. So from now you can use X-Ray with googlemail.
   * [+] HTTP 1.1/SOCKS4/SOCKS4a/SOCKS5 Proxy support added.
   * [+] New Autoselect mechanism added.
   * [+] First take on the implementation of command-line functionality.
   * [+] Filter ordering support added.
   * [+] ReplaceFirst/ReplaceLast/ReplaceAll macros added.
     example: $ReplaceAll($Subject, old, new-new-new)
   * [+] Decode macro added.
   * [+] "Exit and shutdown service" menu item added.
   * [+] Tray icon will be reinstalled after explorer crash.
   * [-] Problem with sticky "Log timestamp" checkbox fixed.
   * [-] Problem with "save to file" filter action fixed.
   * [+] SMTP LOGIN authentication added.
   * [+] $Exists macro added.


Great bit of kit. However, I'd still like to see multiple SMTP options in The Bat!
Edited: Mr Simon - 08 May 2009 02:04:04
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