Webmail Beta Release

[drew.phillips]

Sonic has recently made available a beta release of Webmail at https://webmail-beta.sonic.net.

The beta version is running the latest version of Roundcube Mail which fixes a number of browser bugs and other improvements.

In addition, there are a number of new features and improvements including:

• A more functional and improved layout for mobile phones and tablets
• Drag and drop attachments into new emails
• Improved interface for composing messages
• A rich text editor for composing HTML emails with inline images, custom fonts, colors, emoticons and more
• Download multiple attachments in a single zip file
• Keyboard shortcut: Press 'm' to quickly mark one or more messages read or unread
• Keyboard shortcut: Press Ctrl+Enter to send message
• Improvements to message labels (Thunderbird compatible)
• Option to automatically add addresses you send email to into your address book (disabled by default; to enable go to Settings >> Address Book >> Enable "Use automatic address book")
• A number of other small improvements to the UI, functionality, message labels, and templates

While the update to the backend is significant, we've tried very hard to keep the same look and functionality you've grown accustomed to over the years.

Please note that any settings and preferences you've set in the current webmail client are separate from the beta. This includes things like your address book, user interface, message composition and mail identities etc.

If you opt to try it, we welcome any feedback, suggestions, bug reports, or any other comments.

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: We are planning to roll out webmail-beta to production on Friday, April 15th at approximately 11 PM. Information will be posted in a MOTD shortly.

[Michael Anthony]

Thanks for the Bata Release notice. I'll jump in and try 'er out.

Thanks Sonic.net

Michael

[jjohnsen@sonic.net]

If I use the beta client, will email messages I see there not be available in the present client?

[drew.phillips]

If I use the beta client, will email messages I see there not be available in the present client?

Webmail connects directly to Sonic's IMAP servers so folders and messages are in sync between the two. The only thing webmail-beta doesn't sync up with webmail are any webmail client specific settings. Even messages you send will be in the Sent folder on both so you can safely try it without worrying about messages getting out of sync.

Hope that was clear and answered your question.

[wwwdrich]

Roundcube is a much better choice than SquirrelMail, it's what I run on my home servers and on another site I help to support. Are you considering adding any of the sieve or search plugins (I'm a big fan of solr if you're running dovecot for your IMAP server).

Great job getting it up and running and it looks good from a few minutes of playing with it!

[jeski]

looks good. thanks for this.

two questions:
when will roundcube be rolled out?

will blacklist and other settings be applied, or will we need to do that in our individual mailboxes?

thanks

[drew.phillips]

two questions:
when will roundcube be rolled out?

will blacklist and other settings be applied, or will we need to do that in our individual mailboxes?

thanks

We don't have a date when the beta will become live, but webmail.sonic.net is already running an older version of Roundcube.

Any filter settings you've set up in member tools are processed upon receipt of messages so they are applied automatically, no need to configure anything in Roundcube for that.

[drew.phillips]

Are you considering adding any of the sieve or search plugins (I'm a big fan of solr if you're running dovecot for your IMAP server).

We're open to suggestions regarding Roundcube plugins. It's unlikely we'd implement any major infrastructure changes to IMAP like (we do run Dovecot) such as Sieve as it would require a lot of testing and additional storage given all the mail we handle, but let us know if there's anything you'd like to see.

[wwwdrich]

Drew,

There is a dovecot sieve plugin, it shouldn't require any additional storage. It allows users to easily control their mail filtering from their mail client, and from what I remember the dovecot plugin is a no-brainer to install. I don't use it myself, I have a rather large procmail rule set that I run on my home server.

Running Solr does require a bit of storage for the indices, but it is more than made up for in the lowered CPU use for searches. Rather than taking sometimes minutes on my server at home, my mailbox searches are now returning in seconds. The only drawback is that it isn't very well packaged, getting it up and running took more time than I really would have like (but it has more than made up for that time in search speed).