Claris Emailer 1.1v3

by WilliamLH

Here we go with another Claris review.....this one is for Claris's new Claris Emailer 1.1v3 release which is the beta to Claris Emailer 2.0. [Editor's Note: Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is free]

Allow me to start this review by stating that I am a Netscape Navigator Mail user, and since I'm always walking or creating the spiderwebs on the Internet, Netscape was a simple choice. Now comes Claris Emailer 1.1v3 and some of the e-mail strands maybe breaking.

Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is feature rich and very intuitive, like my last Claris review I was pleasantly shocked for two main reasons....

1) Claris has designed Claris Emailer 1.1v3 with most all users in mind.

2) The interface is simple yet powerful.

Setup

Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is very simple to set up, it took me less than ten minutes to retrieve e-mail after I installed it! There is a "Easy Setup" option under the Setup menu that tells you what to do for your particular e-mail account whether it is Claris OfficeMail, Internet(SMTP/POP3), CompuServe, America OnLine, RadioMail or AppleLink. This "Easy Setup" option then guides you through the process (determined by your specific e-mail account type) of setting up all your technical information and explains what each piece of information is and what it is for. You can also set up Claris Emailer 1.1v3 to your own particulars and change them as needed.\

*I attempted to import my Netscape Mail Address Book file to Claris Emailer 1.1v3, but since the Netscape Address Book is HTML based it would not accept it properly, but Claris Emailer 1.1v3 did try and had I spent a little time deleting HTML code Claris Emailer 1.1v3 probably would have handled it.

A HTML document that is copy pasted into an e-mail or sent as an attachment from your computer makes it with no omissions, this is essential, since the way it is now, it sounds like I'm saying that no html makes it with Claris Emailer, and this is not true. In fact this document was HTML that was sent via e-mail from a webpage as an attachment, HTML that I copy/pasted into an e-mail message and HTML that I attached from my Macintosh made it 100% intact.

Interface

Claris Emailer 1.1v3's interface is pretty straight forward and self explanatory, setup as a large folder consisting of four sub-folders.....Inbox, Outbox, Filing Cabinet and Address Book, Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is simplicity and uncumbersome, very true to the Macintosh interface.

Claris Emailer 1.1v3 was apparently designed with the beginner all the way to the power e-mail users in mind, by this I mean that Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is easy enough for a beginner to use with little e-mail experience yet powerful and versatile enough for the power e-mail user who has demanding e-mail requirements such as batch send, filtering, and grouping, priority settings, scheduled e-mail retrieval, address book importing* and numerous other advanced features.

Attachments

Claris Emailer 1.1v3 also provides excellent attachment handling, it flawlessly downloaded and saved several images in various formats (JPEG, GIF, HPGL), as well as several small applications and stuffed archives(.sit, .hqx, .bin, .zip), it also handled a HTML document but not as well as I would have liked, some HTML code got omitted (The code that was omitted was the important HTML such as the HTML, HEAD and TITLE tags that are essential when attempting to view a page in a browser such as Netscape)**.

Claris Emailer System Requirements:

• Mac OS based computer with 68020 processor or higher, Power Macintosh or Power PC based computer System 7.1 or later
• 1.5 MB of available memory (RAM) to run Claris Emailer (4 MB of total memory recommended)
• 2 MB of disk space to install all Claris Emailer files plus 1 MB for your saved messages and files (you may require more disk space if you save many messages or large files)
• A modem, if you connect to an online service using a phone line at least one account on America Online, CompuServe, RadioMail, or the Internet.
• Claris Emailer does not join the service for you. You must already have an active account.
• If you use an Internet account, access to a mail server supporting the POP3 and SMTP protocols and your connection to the mail server must be through MacTCP.

Pros:

• Simple yet powerful.
• Easy to use interface.
• Many advanced features.
• Overall excellent product.

Cons:

• No spell checking feature in this release, would have given the product a higher score.
• It took 4 attempts to download it 2 at the off Claris site with no success and 2 at Claris's FTP site, the demand on Claris Emailer 1.1v3 is high, so downloads are difficult at times.

Reviewers Rating:

WilliamLH, william@en.com

This article is Copyright (c) 1997 WilliamLH. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.