<null>

Mail client

Prologue
The mail client is one of the things I love the most about Opera. In this post, I’ll make a few suggestions that would make the mail client even better to my needs.
A few remarks:

• I won’t talk about contact management in this post (I’ll probably do that in the next one)
  
• I don’t use IMAP, so I won’t talk about this either
  
• I keep 8.52 as my main browser, so I won’t talk much about the changes in the Opera 9 preview versions
  

Mail panel
Not much to say about this one, as it has been mentioned in the previous post. If the newsfeeds had a panel for themselves, I would have more space to the mail related items.
As I said before, I don’t have any newsgroups configured in Opera, so I don’t know if they should be included in the mail panel too.
So, basically, it’s just a matter of free space and the possibility of having every item expanded. Right now, in order to see the newsfeeds, I always keep the labels, filters, mailing lists and attachments items collapsed.


Delete mail from server
We can define, for each account, if the mail should be removed from the server. What I’d like was to be able to remove a particular mail from the server at any moment. This could be a menu option or it could be automatic in a few cases (when we label it as spam, for example). In the case of spam, another option would be to delete the message even without even downloading it.


Delete attachments only
It has been mentioned several times in the forums. The ability to delete only the attachments would be of great help.


Storage system
The new storage system is yet to convince me. I see no need in keeping a file for each message. Anyway, a few improvements could make this system a bit better:

• We should have an option to use the old system
  
• Newsfeeds should be stored as they are now
  
• There should be an option to archive mails. Those would be stored in a single file (or a file for each month)
  
• Attachments should be stored separately
  

Automatic actions after x days
We could specify a number of days before Opera performs a number of tasks (preferably, a different number of days for each one):

• Delete mail (dependant on the label – don’t remove important mails)
  
• Delete from server
  
• Delete attachments
  
• Archive mails (see previous point)
  
• Empty trash
  

Easier configuration of labels
It should be easier to edit and create new mail labels (right-click > create new label). Each label could have specific properties:

• Name
  
• Icon (this could take us to a better skin handling – later…)
  
• Never delete
  
• Delete after x days
  
• Delete only attachments after x days
  
• Delete from server immediately
  
• Delete from server after x days
  
• Store all messages with this label in a single file
  
• Automatically forward to a specific mail address
  
• Signature used in replies (when different from the default)
  
• Connection to a specific filter(s) – a message that is “caught” by a filter is automatically labeled
  

Better notifications
This is pretty much the same of what I mentioned in the newsfeeds post. Here’s my proposal:

• We should be able to see the subject and/or sender of the message, if we wanted to. This could be doable for about 3 messages. If we received more than that at once, the current system should be applied.
  
• Clicking the notification should take us to the unread list, as it is now
  
• Right-clicking the notification should make it disappear. If the first item was implemented, it could bring up a menu instead, with options like “read”, “delete”, “delete from server”, “label” and “forward”.
  
• We should be able to define common settings (with newsfeeds and transfers notifications):
  _____- Text size
  _____- The notification duration, in seconds
  _____- Location of the notification (left, right, center, top, ...)
  

Placement of “Mail and chat accounts”
This is not very important, but why is this option, by default, in the Tools menu, instead of the Mail menu?


Better attachment handling
With the newest versions, it seems that the attachment handling is being improved (at least the display). I’d also like to have some improvements in the saving handling. Here are a few suggestions:

• Define a default saving location for attachments
  
• Define specific locations for each data type (it could use the download properties instead)
  
• Define specific locations for each label
  
• Allow automatic saving in specified cases
  

Integration of PGP
I think it’s self-explanatory. This thread seems encouraging:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=72682


Statistics about selected mails
I’d like to be able to access some statistics about all the mails or the ones I have selected, like the number of messages, their size or the number of attachments.


Improvements on signatures
A few modifications could make signatures more useful:

• Definition of a default signature (the current one)
  
• Definition of a signature for a particular contact/group
  
• Definition of a signature for the reply to mails with a particular label
  

Receipt requests
This one has been asked a lot, both for sending and receiving. A forum search returns many results.


Don’t save empty drafts
The automatic saving of drafts is a great feature, as it has been extremely useful. But if I don’t write anything in the mail, than I don’t want a draft to be created…