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Suggestion for new forum and questions before upgrading The Bat., Not all topics fit in the three forums that are there now..
 
Since there are no general forum, I tossed a coin to check where to write this and ended up here. It might be an idea to have a forum for general topics?

Anyway - I am wondering wether it is an idea for me to go for The Bat again and would like to hear what other users suggest.

I have been using a multitude of different mailprograms over the years starting with Pine in the days of no web on the internet.

After some years, I ended up using Outlook as many others and then by some strange turns, I bought a license for The Bat. I have no idea where that licensenumber is now and if it is possible to find out what version I was using. I can not even remember when I switched from The Bat to Thunderbird. But 2-4 years since is not a bad guess. Maybe even a little more.

So - What would be the advantages of The Bat over Thunderbird today? In Thunderbird, I manage some 20+ mailaccounts and I have 6 different SMTP servers that I switch between as the need arises. Can I keep a list of SMTP servers in The Bat and switch? Or do I have to set it per account?

Are there any possibilities to transfer mail etc. from Thunderbird? I could not find it on the list, but maybe I missed something. Thunderbird have been out for a while and should be a natural candidate for a supported list of apps?

Has there been any attempts to make a Plaxo sync for The Bat?

Is there a way to sync the addressbook in The Bat with any mobile phones? Today, I keep Outlook on my laptop for one singel reason. The addressbook. It syncs with my Windows Mobile based mobile phone and I am really searching for somthing that allows me to throw out Outlook completely. Also, the Outlook addressbook sync with Plaxo. For now, it would maybe be ok enough if The Bat would sync to Outlook everytime I chose to do it. But it would be wonderful to get rid of Outlook. especially since I do not use it for mail at all.

How about calendar? Any particular calendar that work well with The Bat?

I prefer to hear what people have to say before I decide to spend time evaluating The Bat again (and then maybe spend money on it :-) )

BTW - The Pro version is the one I am thinking about.

There are several things I really love and miss about The Bat. And nothing would make me happier than be able to start using it again!
Regards,

Oceanwatcher
 
I never studied Thuderbird, so I can't comment on the differences. However, you can use 20+ accounts without problems, to change smtp servers for all of them would take to change the account properties for all of them (one at a time). As a workaround you could use a third party tool like X-Ray ( http://www.xrayapp.com/xray/ ) to act as a locl smtp-server and set to whatever external smtp server you like.

Thunderbird uses the unix mailbox format, so you can import your mail.

There is no plaxo sync plug-in that I'm aware of, nor any way to sync the addressbook with Outlook or a mobile phone.

Though the rumours have it that a decent calendar unction will be built in somewhere in v4, currently there's only a scheduler to execute some tasks.
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I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
Thank you very much for the kind answer. As I am using e-mail a lot, I am looking in on The Bat now and then to find out if anything new has happened that could make me jump back from Thunderbird. The good thing is that all programs these days get better. The difference is what features are important for each person. And the pace at which the change happens.

I just received a mail from Plaxo that they will add a feature request to add sync to The Bat (mailed them with the suggestion yesterday).

Not sure if I like that a calendar will be built in :-) I really prefer separate applications.

Is there a place to add feature requests to The Bat? I would like to see the same SMTP handling as in Thunderbird. You add all SMTP servers the same place. Then in each account you can define that you will use one of them, or you can set "default" as your SMTP server. In the list of SMTP servers you can then choose your default server.

All my accounts are set to "Default", so all I have to do to change SMTP server for all my 20+ accounts is to go into the list of SMTP servers and change the default one to something else. Very neat when you are on a laptop and move around a lot. Especially in Norway where the ISP's have now started to block port 25 so you are forced to use a server with another port (Gmail is one option - read about it here: Blocked SMTP port )

So I would like to add something like this as a feature request.

What happens in the addressbook of The Bat if you import the same addresses from Outlook twice? DO you end up with double of everything or will it update whatever is there? As there is no Plaxo sync yet, I am trying to find a way to keep 1500+ addresses updated. I have a large list of contacts and it is really a pain to keep the list current.
Regards,

Oceanwatcher
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