Searching for Perfection
Written: Aug 17 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Intuitive interface, a host of configurative features, support for multiple POP accounts
Cons: Costs money, font limitation
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| fairview's Full Review: The Bat! |
In a continuing quest for the perfect e-mail program, I have been trolling the web's resources for freeware e-mail clients. Having run out of free programs to sample, I decided to cast a wider net to see if any of the shareware applications could make me part with actual cash. Since "The Bat!" has received such enthusiastic comments at Epinion, it was a natural starting point.
The Bat! is marvelously multi-featured. It will allow the user to accomplish virtually anything, in terms of e-mail handling. From an intuitive interface for dealing with multiple POP accounts, to a sophisticated, yet easily implemented filtering system, to privacy encryption, The Bat! executes all these features with simplicity and style. Even the importation of e-mails from a number of other e-mail clients, which can make a potential user hesitate over switching programs, is no problem for The Bat!
This application abounds with user-friendly features. It brings up large floating windows for composition and reading mail, a necessity when using a small monitor, to avoid that crowded into a teeny-tiny box feeling. In the message composition window, a handy drop down history lists the addresses to which the user has previously written. If the recipient is a new one that has already been added to the address book, access to the latter is a mere click away at the end of the "To:" line as well. In addition, it has that all-important optional SMTP port setting, a necessity if you have a cranky ISP like mine, which blocks the usual Port 25 setting on all servers but its own. The Bat! is miserly in its use of system resources, a blessing when one's computer has reached retirement age but just won't quit.
There are also little things to play with - like extra toolbars that can be docked in several locations to avoid that arduous trip to the pulldown Menus and colour options to change everything from the message list to the background of the composition window. Its folder system allows the insertion of new folders and sub-folders where it seems logical to the user, without the constraints that other e-mail clients often impose. And for those times when you're feeling truly disinclined to do any work, you may view the handy Account Log, which can provide minutes of diversion as you check out the behavior of each of your accounts, conveniently listed separately. Another amusing and unusual feature in the message composition window is the ability to place the cursor anywhere in the window, click and type.
As I discovered one happy feature after another, I thought that I had actually happened upon that rarity among software programs - one that satisfied all my requirements. Then I hit a snag, such a minute glitch, that it seems hardly worth mentioning and one that would probably never trouble the vast majority of The Bat! users. Although almost everything about this application seems to be customizable according to the caprice of the user, there is one little element that still needs a bit of work.
In the Editor Preferences Window, there is the not uncommon option to set the font for the message composition and reading windows. When I merrily set about changing the shockingly ugly default typeface, I was greeted with a dazzling array of nine choices. This appallingly brief list included three peculiar fonts from WordPerfect, which is installed on my system, the utterly useless WP Box Drawing and Multinational Courier A and B, all of which, needless to say, are ineffective for normal English writing.
Hastily checking the fonts folder, I found I had 160 fonts on my system but 151 of these were not available for selection in this section of The Bat! As I tried the available fonts - those typographic horrors like "Terminal", "Fixedsys" and "Monotype", each more vile than the last, I was bemused by the fact that an application which seemingly encouraged a wealth of user customization, should be so remiss as to neglect that one aspect of the interface that the gentle user must confront every time an e-mail is composed or read. Elsewhere, the user can set the font for the Message List Display and chose from whatever fonts are installed on the computer but here, in the vital area of reading and writing e-mail, the overly fastidious user is confronted by a daunting lack of choice.
In an otherwise admirable application, this peculiarity may be considered by most as a mere bagatelle. Practical and sensible users will disregard such an aesthetic anomaly as an amusing quirk and revel in the program's ease of use, comprehensive scope and general intuitive nature but I'm not parting with my cash until this little oddity has been remedied.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
fairview
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Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 1 member
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