The next release

[Carl Miller]

For me, the focus is now going through as much of Polarbar as I can to try and make sure things are working right prior to the next release. Not sure how long this will take because when I find something broken, I wind up fixing it.

There are however a couple of nice additions working today in the code:

• Heavy integration of the WebKit component (same as popular browsers are using), including full pop-up/context menu support, copying text into clipboard, etc. Too many emails require full rendering in HTML to be readable and this enhanced support provides that.
• Safe HTML viewing - HTML emails love to track you using hidden links and what have you. Polarbar now views HTML emails safely, with only local content shown/accessed while viewing. If you want to load the remote content, there's a handy button at the top of the email that does that. Click the button and the remote content will be loaded and displayed. This is the default behavior and currently no option that says "always load remote content". 
• Simplified packaging for distribution - just a single zip file that is expanded like many other applications.
• Built-in script to run Polarbar for Windows/Unix platforms. Just download the new version, unzip the distribution file and run the app. It'll even help you find your existing data when you first run it.
  
• PBM can now check for updates (call home) to see if a newer version is available (off by default).
  
• PBM can now self-update. When a new version is available, you can choose to install it right away and the next thing you'll see is the new version running. Again, this is entirely user-driven, nothing automatic.

Hopefully these enhancements will be welcomed and any thoughts on the above would be appreciated.

Carl

[WildWilly]

I'm a bit unclear on the unzipping part.  Are you saying that the item that has been PolarBar.Jar will now be completely, permanently unzipped on my hard drive?  I must say I like the sound of the user-selectable automatic updater.  Have you thought about a roller-backer for undoing an update that turns out to have problems?

[Carl Miller]

I'm saying when you unzip the newer PBM, you'll wind up with a directory structure like so:

...\PolarbarMailer

             \lib

and within the root of PolarbarMailer is the run scripts and README.txt.. Inside the lib directory is a bunch of Jar files which are *not* expanded at all (nor should be!).

The current default setting is to perform a backup of the PolarbarMailer directory for just the known application files *plus* all the settings files related to PBM, including those within each account. This is all zipped up into a backup file whose name is based on the version you're currently running when the upgrade happens. You can turn this backup option off via settings, but by default it is turned on. The backup zip file, if restored, will recover your older install back to the state it was in prior to the upgrade. Unfortunately, there is no automated process (today) to restore from this zip file. 

Carl

[Frederik L. Schodt]

I would like to thank everyone who is doing work on the next release. I am very grateful, and look forward to using it!

 

Best,

 

Fred

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