Which are the best news readers and mail readers? WHY?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LittleMac
  • Start date Start date
The original poster asked for the best, so I gave him the best...
As simple as that, if you wan't an quick-and-easy newsreader and
mail software you must ask for "user friendly" or "idiot friendly"
software, not the _best_.
Click to expand...
The "best" newsreader is the one that exactly fits my needs.[/QUOTE]

Of course it is. But if you like to hear other people to rate their
own favorite news/mail software I bet you get a lot of different
views. I gave mine in a honest way, I told that Emacs/Gnus is not a
simple or easy application for beginners, it's just the best in the
amount of the features, flexibility etc it provides.
If I am a beginner that is one that is easy to use.
Click to expand...

Actually that's false. Sure, for a beginner an easy click-and-play
application is nice. But you eventually need more features, then
you are forced to change to a more complex application. To start
with an application like Emacs/Gnus which already has all complex
features included you never need to change your application when
you learn to be a more advanced user. Remember that when you are
a beginner you don't need to use all the features, just the basic
ones... Learning curve in the start may be a little bit harder,
but since you probably will be using mail/news for decades it's
worth learning it.
If I do a lot of mail / news crossover the best newsreader has
a mail / news gateway.
Click to expand...

GNU Emacs is a especially nice in this sense, since it has almost
everything you can image included. If not, just download additional
components. You won't believe what you can find for it. Doing a
simple mail/news gateway is trivial with GNU Emacs.
If I have a slow PC the best newsreader is the one that uses the
least resources.
Click to expand...

Not true, with powerful features from the mail/newsreader you can
actually save a lot of time (filtering spam, selecting what you
like to read etc) that will save up the time of big software in a
low resource PC working slowly.

And GNU Emacs actually does NOT demand a lot when your computer.
Intel Pentium 200 MHz with 32 MB of RAM running Win98SE is enough
for GNU Emacs/Gnus to be quite quick in reading the newsgroups.
With the same resources Microsoft Outlook Express is a lot slower.
If I need to combine many online tasks, a Suite like Mozilla
would be the best choice.
Click to expand...

GNU Emacs has it's own set of internet tools, including integration
with several products, one example just happens to be Mozilla...
 
Sorry but abuse of the term _best_ is a pet peeve of mine. People are
continually asking for recommendations for the _best_ whatever and rarely
supply any criteria.[/QUOTE]

I supplied the criteria for my usage of the "best" in the original
article: "based on the actual amount of features, flexibility and
possibilities..." etc.
 
That decision has been rescinded and support will be continued.
Not that you should expect any kind of major improvements, just
hole plugs.

BoB
 
Sami Sihvonen said:
Actually that's false. Sure, for a beginner an easy click-and-play
application is nice. But you eventually need more features, then you
are forced to change to a more complex application
Click to expand...


I agree. When I first started posting on Usenet I was using OE. Two
days later, I switched to Xnews, a vastly superior app. Becoming
familiar with Xnews led me to falling in love with GNUs when I
installed Linux, and now I use GNUs in both W2K, and Mandrake. Not all
beginners want to be mollycoddled forever.
 
<news:[email protected]>:
Click to expand...
What sort of cooperation do you need? Any AV should be able to scan
any files that are downloaded, regardless of which app is used to
download them.
Click to expand...
It's been mentioned already, but lemme mention Hamster again. It
will pull a newsfeed and act as a local server, enabling any reader
to function offline.
Click to expand...

Not needed if using the Dialog newsreader.

Imo, that is a requirement that is very very difficult to meet.
Click to expand...

< snip >

Not at all. Dialog handles news and mail very well indeed.

It also does colour coding, scoring etc. As well as having multi
server support. Online and offline newsreading. An inbuilt spell
checker and other items/capability that newsreaders such as
XNews have missing.

A screen shot showing some of this is at ;

http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/colcode

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/
 
Not everyone *needs* multiple servers. I use Netscape for the rare
times that occurs. It has too many good features and security for me
to give it up just because of one or two missing features.
Click to expand...

Besides, the Agent help file explains how to use Agent with multiple
servers.

I find that if I want multiple servers with Agent/Free Agent then
multiple instances works fine. I can/do use Hamster if I don't want to
use multiple shortcuts.

If I don't want to use hamster I use Dialog.

Regards, John.
 
Actually that's false. Sure, for a beginner an easy click-and-play
application is nice. But you eventually need more features, then you
are forced to change to a more complex application
Click to expand...
I agree. When I first started posting on Usenet I was using OE. Two
days later, I switched to Xnews, a vastly superior app. Becoming
familiar with Xnews led me to falling in love with GNUs when I
installed Linux, and now I use GNUs in both W2K, and Mandrake. Not all
beginners want to be mollycoddled forever.[/QUOTE]

Exactly my point there, people really use mail/news for several hours
per day. Just imagine how much less they would use their valuable time
reading junk if they had an powerful tool allowing them to do the things
they like, fast and quick. Like filtering junk, searching for those
topics that are interesting etc. Reading 50 gigabytes of useless spam or
stupid articles in usenet takes a lot more time than learning all cute
features in GNU Emacs.

And let me repeat this one more time: Basic features of GNU Emacs/Gnus
are NOT that hard to figure out, if you just can read english and have
patience to study few simple things. Those basic features can be used
really fast, after that you can spend the rest of your lifetime to take
advantage of all those thousands of advanced features... :-)

PS. I have _NEVER_ heard about anybody switching from GNU Emacs/Gnus
to another newsreader. Once you learn how to use it, there is no
other newsreader that even comes close to it... Hack the source,
if you find something that you don't like. Elisp is easy for an
beginner to hack, almost plain english source code that is done
compiled on-the-fly after editing...
 
< snip >

Not at all. Dialog handles news and mail very well indeed.

It also does colour coding, scoring etc. As well as having multi
server support. Online and offline newsreading. An inbuilt spell
checker and other items/capability that newsreaders such as
XNews have missing.
Click to expand...

It's as a mail app that I find it inadequate. For example, there seems
to be no way to set up reply templates on a per-folder basis, a must
for me. (I mean I need to be able to use a different template for
replies depending on which folder the message I reply to has been
sorted into.) It may be possible to do it with scripting, but there
should be an easy way to do such a thing without having to write
scripts.
 
<news:[email protected]>:
Click to expand...
It's as a mail app that I find it inadequate. For example, there seems
to be no way to set up reply templates on a per-folder basis, a must
for me. (I mean I need to be able to use a different template for
replies depending on which folder the message I reply to has been
sorted into.) It may be possible to do it with scripting, but there
should be an easy way to do such a thing without having to write
scripts.
Click to expand...

I would be at least 90% certain that you can do what you want
with a script. If you ask for the script syntax required in
news.software.readers I am pretty sure someone would give
it to you. Don't forget to put "Dialog" in your header.

Dialog scripting IMO is nothing short of amazing. It's kind of like
having a "make your own" newsreader. So very many extra things
can be done. Certainly increases the already huge number of functions
Dialog already has by default.

In the unlikely event that you cannot do what you want by using a
script, and/or in your opinion the process is too cumbersome, then
make a suggestion about changing things. Marcus is VERY responsive
to feature requests/suggestions. The address for that is :

http://www.40tude.com/dialog/mantis/login_page.php

Once you are registered you can not only make suggestions yourself
but also check out the huge list of suggestions that other people have
made, and are currently being implemented.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/
 
Marcus is VERY responsive to feature requests/suggestions.
Click to expand...

How can he be "VERY responsive" when there hasn't been a new version since
April? It sounds to me like development has come to a veritable stop.
 
How can he be "VERY responsive" when there hasn't been a new version since
April?
Click to expand...

There has been a new version since April. It hasn't however been
released as a public beta. The closed beta team are testing it.
It sounds to me like development has come to a veritable stop.
Click to expand...

Here is a recent comment regarding the situation as it is now :

"Right now the main aim is the release of a final version having all
currently known bugs fixed."

Sounds like a push to release an un "time limited" version to me.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/
 
Here is a recent comment regarding the situation as it is now :

"Right now the main aim is the release of a final version having all
currently known bugs fixed."

Sounds like a push to release an un "time limited" version to me.
Click to expand...

Thanks John. I did not know this. I look forward to giving Dialog a try
when an un "time limited" version is released to the public as freeware.
 
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