http://www.ritlabs.com New posts in What to expect in v. 9? of forum at www.ritlabs.com [www.ritlabs.com] en http://backend.userland.com/rss2 Sat, 30 Nov 2019 22:37:21 +0200 What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I agree with your observations. My upgrade fee went up 100% from my upgrade from 7 to 8. One hundred percent!!!   And the product was rolled out with several missing features, clearly an indication (to me) that beta test was incomplete and ver 9 was rolled out prematurely. Ver 9 works smoothly, but why the rush? Unless it was for the money? My expectation is the missing components will shortly reappear in an update, but a customer expectation is that prior features should continue unless explicitly defined. I'm pleased with ver 9 performance overall, but displeased, as are you, with the poor management of this rollout. How Ritlabs manages ver 9 updates and their eventual rollout of ver 10 may have a big effect on whether people continue paying for it. Raising upgrade fees 100% and delivering an incomplete product is not a way to win customers.  


UPDATE on Dec 2: My original post may have been a bit harsh. I have heard back from Ritlabs and I am correct in that new features will soon be available, so I am encouraged that version 9 will eventually prove to be a major update. The upgrade fee remains a sore point, but I look forward to the eventual announcement of the new features.

david
30 November 2019 22:37:21, david kirk.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48534/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48534/ Sat, 30 Nov 2019 22:37:21 +0200 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
What I didn't expect was so much greed. A License now last about a year (v8 to v9) and pricing for license upgrade increased from around 35 Euro to 53 Euro.
So, yeah ... I stick with v8 looking for an alternative and I'm done with Ritlabs after years. and many license upgrades.
30 November 2019 18:53:51, Joerg Kraft.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48530/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48530/ Sat, 30 Nov 2019 18:53:51 +0200 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Ritlabs should work on to improve the mail-search speed. I recently migrated from V4 to V8 and now it takes much longer to search the mail database. Even Thunderbird is a lot faster.
24 October 2019 21:09:43, Hans Peters.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48100/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48100/ Thu, 24 Oct 2019 21:09:43 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
>> I expect dark mode or dark theme
I have strong rumors that this will be added in The Bat! 9   8)

I too expect this!
17 October 2019 16:58:49, George Salnik.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48034/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48034/ Thu, 17 Oct 2019 16:58:49 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I expect dark mode or dark theme like in visual studio but I don't believe it will be in version 9 if ever ...
(it's a thing without which I don't have much reason to upgrade)

I would also welcome the possibility to load a physical directory with message files so that the program reconstructs "virtual" folders in bulk, including subdirectories (when I need to restore old message folders, which it postponed due to long program load time)

Alternatively, hide / show old folders in the bat. Hidden folders would not retrieve messages and delay startup.
17 October 2019 16:39:25, Daniel Bouchal.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48033/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message48033/ Thu, 17 Oct 2019 16:39:25 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I am using TheBat since v5 / 2013 now and I can't complain.

I use it for 4 pop3-accounts, one of them a gmail account. The data folder of TheBat! is about 3.5GB size.

I have tried lots of software before like Pegasus or Thunderbird, but they were either instable or ate my mail (which is the biggest no-no ever).

Yes, mail clients like "EM Client" look fancy, but they lack all the sortinging/filtering stuff I use. I filter a lot back and fourth between the different accounts, have global and account filters, I use scripts that parse out and save certain things from mails into files etc. I didnt find that in the other clients I tried.

I get no exceptions/faults whatsoever, the only thing that sometimes annoys me is the mail filter editing... if you have a filter with like 20 entries and it has to scroll because the entries do no fit into the window anymore, it's REALLY slowly updating that list.
13 October 2019 11:27:37, Oliver Hertel.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47999/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47999/ Sun, 13 Oct 2019 11:27:37 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
How about the ability to search Mailbox names?
Isn't that about 15 years late?

And how about tracking down, trapping and fixing every known Access Violation.
And every repeatable, deonstrable quirky bug, like various duplicate names.

With those, I would gladly do an upgrade.
07 October 2019 00:22:12, Steven Avery.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47909/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47909/ Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:22:12 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
To my knowledge, no, but version 9 looks to be a large release with many changes. Might be worth a trial copy for you when it's available. However, several new HTML features were introduced in version 8.4.  
12 September 2019 21:30:12, david kirk.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47713/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47713/ Thu, 12 Sep 2019 21:30:12 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I loved the bat but I left a couple of years ago over the handling of HTML, specifically in rendering incoming messages
Have they sorted out all the issues with HTML yet?
Thanks
12 September 2019 19:52:22, Rick G.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47712/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47712/ Thu, 12 Sep 2019 19:52:22 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
Thomas Dahl wrote:
What alternatives are people considering?
BR Thomas
=============
Thomas, I like TheBat! and also use Eudora (with the Hermes encyrption update) and look at the new Pandora Eudora-style new program as a possible future move. Have never felt that the Thunderbird and Postbox world (and Penelope when it was a try) was robust enough.

Maybe it gets a little off-topic here, most likely, we hash some of this out on Donationcoder, e.g.

Eudora, Hermes and Pandora - also compared to TheBat! and other email clients
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=48363.0

Due to the Virtual Folders and a few other nice features, TheBat! remains my main email client, with a bit over a year of use now.  However, losing mail at any time is painful, fully understood. And I have never had that problem.
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=48363.0
14 August 2019 14:23:35, Steven Avery.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47459/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47459/ Wed, 14 Aug 2019 14:23:35 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
Thomas Dahl wrote:
Even the ritlabs web site has issues.  The links to "Whats new" "Upgrade Policy" etc are no longer working.
BR Thomas
=============
It does seem to have a navigation question, especially on the "Download the Bat!" page.

Upgrade Policy
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/upgrade-policy.php

Download the Bat!  - this is "What's New"
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/download.php#whatsnew
(notice that the four horizontal spots, including "What's New" do not do the right stuff)
   Latest stable release: The Bat! 8.8.9
   What's New
   Upgrade Policy
   Windows Versions
This takes you down on the same page to "Latest stable release"
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/download.php#home

Purchase and Upgrade
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/order.php

Archived Versions (nice, Ritlabs, thanks!)
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/archive-versions.php

News
https://www.ritlabs.com/en/news/
14 August 2019 13:53:19, Steven Avery.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47458/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47458/ Wed, 14 Aug 2019 13:53:19 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Hello, Thomas,

Postbox and Thunderbird are remarkably stable. There is more general help available on internet for Thunderbird, but real vendor support for Postbox. Both are regularly updated, but that's always the user's choice. I'm not experiencing your pain with TB!, but I'm surprised you haven't moved on to something more reliable for your business. I will agree there is a one-time pain of converting files, but then you could focus on your business and not on your email. Another viable option is Microsoft Exchange where you would get a higher level of service and many web hosts provide that service, such as lunarpages.com (and others - I'm not saying they're better, as I don't know.)  Good luck,

david
13 August 2019 13:51:55, david kirk.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47445/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47445/ Tue, 13 Aug 2019 13:51:55 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Just get the darned program stable.  This is getting beyond crazy!!  The bat is still crashing regularly for half my users and this since over a year.

On my computer I just had a crash that cost me all emails from April to June...  A massive problem for me.  Oddly I lost emails in two accounts but not for identical time scales

I am now getting more worried about the future of the Bat than ever before.

Even the ritlabs web site has issues.  The links to "Whats new" "Upgrade Policy" etc are no longer working.

What alternatives are people considering?

BR Thomas
12 August 2019 09:27:49, Thomas Dahl.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47436/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47436/ Mon, 12 Aug 2019 09:27:49 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I'm with david kirk. I've started using TB at v4. I did move away for a few years to Pocomail until they shut down and wanted something other than Thunderbird or EM Client so came back to TheBat! with no regrets. Sure there are some bugs and I have some usual complaints but nothing major. For my non-business use I don't think it can be beat. I may wait a little before installing a new version but I will renew right away as companies can't stay in business without renewals or new business all the time. In today's world it must be harder with cell phones, tablets, etc. I'd rather have an option to pay for an upgrade rather than a subscription model.

Since I have several email addresses across various domains I use POP3 because I like having all my email combined on at least one computer whether online or not. TB does that flawlessly.

I've never had any tagging or color assignment issues some have reported and when I had a problem with the Address book they fixed it pretty quickly.

As far as v9, I'm sure there some things I'd like to see (at minimum, and new UI) . Even if it brings only technical fixes or other background changes I'll still upgrade.
02 August 2019 18:47:57, Larry Wing.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47411/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47411/ Fri, 02 Aug 2019 18:47:57 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
My experience is the opposite. I began using TB! with ver 7 and there were several performance issues I didn't like. When ver 8 came out I immediately upgraded and by 8.2 all my big concerns were addressed. TB! works flawlessly for me and I have 7 imap accounts, including Gmail. I feel it's pointless to ponder what will be in version 9, but I do believe in treating software the same as the stock market: the only way to get ahead is to stay invested, and that means upgrading to new releases when available. Refusing to upgrade until personal wishes are implemented does not motivate developers. Instead, they are motivated by regular renewals from customers.  There are a few issues I wish were better, but when 9 is announced, I will upgrade whether they're fixed or not. That's my view.

david
01 August 2019 17:22:41, david kirk.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47410/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47410/ Thu, 01 Aug 2019 17:22:41 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Note:right now I am on v. 7, but when I tried v. 8 all of this applied.

I get consistently certain error exception messages, in in realms like colors, filtering etc.  I'm pretty sure others, including Ritlabs, get these.  Generally they do no actual harm, but it is rather rinky-dink unprofessional for these not to be trapped and avoided.

There are similar problems with virtual mailboxes duplicating (e.g. after they are moved).  No harm in function, but annoying. The way to clear out the duplicate would be to fully delete and rebuild.  Rinky-dink error, that should be trapped.

Later, I may add some others, but to me you lose the aura of stability with problems of this nature.

And I combine my usage with TheBat! and Eudora or Pandora.  Long story.  Advantages on each one.

And I doubt I would ever fully leave TheBat! unless there was an equivalent virtual mailbox implementation (I'll try one if you know of one), which is extremely helpful for me for productivity.  

(An analogy, Linkman on bookmarks works on keywords, so I do not have to bother with heirarchy, to a large extent the same is true on TheBat! when a few dozen strategic virtual boxes, and the ability to run a search and immediately morph it to a virtual folder. I save a lot of effort trying to make sure an email gets down to the "one" best box. When really certain emails belong in 3, as you can get in virtual folders.)

So, to be clear, eliminate bugs first, then work on features.

One possible feature would be better external integration with the contact list.  We were discussing this on Donationcoder.

Oh, the Imap implementation on Google mailboxes does seem weird.  Sometimes very weird. I can clear out the box to a small number of emails and TheBat! shows thousands.  On the other hand, I have not gotten the GSuite mailbox to show the actual emails. (I may be missing something there.) None of this bothers me much because I actually bring all the Gmail from many boxes to my Verizon-AOL box and down to the home puter by POP. Nonetheless, it would be nice if it worked better.

Your thoughts welcome!

Steven
31 July 2019 21:28:06, Steven Avery.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47407/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47407/ Wed, 31 Jul 2019 21:28:06 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
@thorsten,
Try adding those request in Mantis (https://bt.ritlabs.com) under "wishes" category.
If gods of electronic messaging look upon you, those might be addressed in the future releases.
31 July 2019 16:50:08, Andrew Savchenko.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47406/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47406/ Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:50:08 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
Cristiano Monteiro wrote:

====quote====
I've been using The Bat for years but, for the first time, I'm contemplating NOT TO RENEW my license, since some of the features I mentioned above are critical for my professional life.

=============

=============
I've been using TheBat! since (IIRC) 1998 (?), well, since ever, on Windows, and I followed every upgrade until version 6. But I stopped renewing my license in 2015 with 6.6.8. Why? Because I did not notice ANY useful new functionalities in TheBat! at all. I think I could have stayed with version 4 (2008) until now, and my workflow would not be any different. Ok, the new versions became more stable, at least this 'feature' was great! So I do not regret to have stayed until v6. (But v6 _is_ stable, so at least this issue has been resolved.)

And I am not the only one who acted so in the past. A client worked until last year with version 2...

Just curious: Did I miss any important function in version 7 or 8? I read the 'new feature' list, and I think, the only new functionality that could me impress a little bit was the synchronization of contacts. (Don't need this.) Was there something other important stuff? (I am not an Exchange User.)

BTW What I was missing in TheBat in every version I know is a much better scheduler. The interface is horrible. (But ok, it's working at least.) I'd like to reschedule messages for resubmission in an easier way.

But anyway, I like TheBat!, and I got used to it. I need the CommonVirtualFolder feature, and the easy coloring of messages. Could be, that those functions exist in Thunderbird or Outlook, too, but I have no need to change. Ok, I am not using IMAP very much (just on my notebooks), and therefore I am one of the last POP users on this planet. So, I don't care if TheBat! has difficulties in IMAP syncing or not.

Edit: I just remember that I missed a really important feature in EVERY version of TheBat! ever since: If I use the function 'Find lost folders' ( Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L) there is no result list WHICH folders have been found (if any). This would be very useful for me because I have deep folder structures in my email accounts.

BTW Why does TheBat 'loose' folders anyway? I never understood this issue since today. At least, the program should search for lost folders in the background and should inform me that there is some issue that should be resolved. THIS would be the right, the proactive way to deal with this issue.

Thorsten
30 July 2019 12:13:24, thorsten.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47399/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47399/ Tue, 30 Jul 2019 12:13:24 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
May be in the minority, but I hope that calendars are not added. Ability to pass/export ical to the system registered calendar application would work.

Mulberry has calendar and tasks yet very simple, lacking in the 'power features'. Chaos Software handles calendar/tasks well, but lacks in the power in e-mail handling.

Outlook and Google are ever changing non-open applications. Yes if the Exchange admin opened IMAP, or if Google deployed a proper IMAP server instead of the non-standard version being used.

These is not The Bat! fault,  it handles messages (over 425k in local mailstore, 175k in IMAP stores.)
18 July 2019 17:23:34, Arnold DeRoy.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47353/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47353/ Thu, 18 Jul 2019 17:23:34 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
The Bat is great as a mail management solution but lacks VERY much when compared to competition.

I personally miss:

Lack of a comprehensive and stable Exchange/EWS interface. Yes, everybody hates Exchange. No, it's not going away anytime soon and I have a number of these accounts that I need to make use.

Lack of interface for calendaring services, like Google, Exchange, etc. For professional reasons I NEED this, and the argument that "this is not e-mail" is dumb. Calendar info has been exchanged through email since forever, they are deeply tied together and no ammount of wishifull thinking will change that.

Better handling of large mailboxes: My +300k GMail account ALLWAYS choke The Bat somehow. At times screen goes blank when trying to display messages list. At other times The Bat "forgets" I've already downoaded all my messages and flags all of them as not downloaded, forcing the (VERY) lengthy process of IMAP sync. This is an issue on it's own, since I've compared IMAP sync for this same account with at least 3 competitors and all of them are faster.

Better, faster searching. First off all, full mailbox search should be integrated on main screen. The Bat should replace that dumb "search box" on main screen that search headers only for a full text search. Second, search IS extremelly slow when you're searching and mailbox is synchronizing in the background. I feel that The Bat is waiting for synch to finish to present results. Other mail clients will immediately display results with a clickable warning that results may be incomplete because not all messages have been downloaded yet. You click and the search is repeated.

More modern, better looking, interface/themes/etc. Yes, how it looks matter. Don't hide your head in the sand claiming that its all about feature set.

I've been using The Bat for years but, for the first time, I'm contemplating NOT TO RENEW my license, since some of the features I mentioned above are critical for my professional life. I've already started evaluating alternatives. None of them comes even close when we talk excluisivelly about mail handling, but all of them presents more compeling offers when the whole package is considered: Better Exchange/GSuite integration, Full calendaring support, sane searching system, etc.

I write this because I love The Bat, and would like to keep it as my one stop solution to mail and calendar management. I want them to take The Bat to the next level. But I will have to jump the ship if this doesn't happen soon.

Regards,

- Cristiano
Kasper M wrote:
Hey guys,

I have been onboard for many years now - and I dont know, it feels like I miss some "major" updates - like exchange functionality and better UI (graphics etc)


What to expect of version 9 of The Bat! ? Any rumors or highlights?


Thanks!
=============

18 July 2019 02:41:14, Cristiano Monteiro.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47350/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47350/ Thu, 18 Jul 2019 02:41:14 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Hello. My wish would be availability to open encrypted mailbox with fingerprint sensor instead of password. Currently I use fingerprint sensor for W10 login purposes.
R.
17 July 2019 11:03:36, Rain Kattai.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47349/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47349/ Wed, 17 Jul 2019 11:03:36 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
On my wish list is word-processor standard formatting. Their are so many quirks in the current system, I have had to resort to some home-grown workarounds. If v9 does not bring this to the party, I am not sure that I will upgrade.

Also, some acknowledged bugs have remained unfixed for the whole v8 series.

Cheers

DrT
15 July 2019 15:55:38, DrTeeth.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47346/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47346/ Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:55:38 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client What to expect in v. 9? in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Hey guys,

I have been onboard for many years now - and I dont know, it feels like I miss some "major" updates - like exchange functionality and better UI (graphics etc)


What to expect of version 9 of The Bat! ? Any rumors or highlights?


Thanks!
23 June 2019 14:17:35, Kasper M.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47268/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic13839/message47268/ Sun, 23 Jun 2019 14:17:35 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client