R
Robert
After working with Outlook 2003 for an hour or so now I can't imagine actually
using it. Okay, if you're on an Exchange server calender sharing is a little
better, and if you're using an IMAP server it doesn't lock up anymore if you
change folders too quickly. But those are the only benefits I can detect.
There is a very heavy price to pay for those small benefits, though. The
Navigation Bar, for example, combining the worst features of the old Folder
List and Outlook Bar. I suppose I should feel relief that a focus group in
Redmond has decided for me how I want to view my email, but I still feel a
shameful compulsion to arrange things the way I'D like to. Then there's the
silly system tray icon, serving no useful function I can determine, but adding
yet ANOTHER icon down there and no way of getting rid of the useless thing.
The views themselves are less useful as well. Group By Conversation now takes
up so much space that there's little point I can see to using it (each line
takes about 3-4 times the space that the same group took up in Outlook 2000).
And what IS with all the stupid LINES in the mail folders? It makes my head
hurt just to look at the damned things.
The method of selecting which account to send from when sending an email is
now only _slightly_ inferior to that of every other email program I'm aware
of, but still not as good as it could be. And Outlook still isn't smart
enough to select the appropriate signature when sending from a given account.
(Yes, I know that feature is supposed to be there, and you can set a signature
to use per account, but it doesn't actually WORK. Unless, I understand, you
use Word 2003 as your email editor. Which is to say it doesn't work.) If
that feature really DID work I might have a slight flicker of interest in
continuing to use O2k3, but I still don't think I would be able to tolerate
its failings.
Well, I just wanted to get that off my chest. I don't expect Microsoft to
take any action to correct these failings. I mean, what would a user know
about how they want to use the software?
Back to Outlook 2000. I wonder how big a mess 2003 is going to leave behind
when I uninstall it?
-- Robert
using it. Okay, if you're on an Exchange server calender sharing is a little
better, and if you're using an IMAP server it doesn't lock up anymore if you
change folders too quickly. But those are the only benefits I can detect.
There is a very heavy price to pay for those small benefits, though. The
Navigation Bar, for example, combining the worst features of the old Folder
List and Outlook Bar. I suppose I should feel relief that a focus group in
Redmond has decided for me how I want to view my email, but I still feel a
shameful compulsion to arrange things the way I'D like to. Then there's the
silly system tray icon, serving no useful function I can determine, but adding
yet ANOTHER icon down there and no way of getting rid of the useless thing.
The views themselves are less useful as well. Group By Conversation now takes
up so much space that there's little point I can see to using it (each line
takes about 3-4 times the space that the same group took up in Outlook 2000).
And what IS with all the stupid LINES in the mail folders? It makes my head
hurt just to look at the damned things.
The method of selecting which account to send from when sending an email is
now only _slightly_ inferior to that of every other email program I'm aware
of, but still not as good as it could be. And Outlook still isn't smart
enough to select the appropriate signature when sending from a given account.
(Yes, I know that feature is supposed to be there, and you can set a signature
to use per account, but it doesn't actually WORK. Unless, I understand, you
use Word 2003 as your email editor. Which is to say it doesn't work.) If
that feature really DID work I might have a slight flicker of interest in
continuing to use O2k3, but I still don't think I would be able to tolerate
its failings.
Well, I just wanted to get that off my chest. I don't expect Microsoft to
take any action to correct these failings. I mean, what would a user know
about how they want to use the software?
Back to Outlook 2000. I wonder how big a mess 2003 is going to leave behind
when I uninstall it?
-- Robert
