Webmail Upgrade Coming on August 21st, 2017!

General discussions and other topics.
35 posts Page 1 of 4
by drew.phillips » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:49 pm
EDIT: The upgrade was completed on August 22nd at 12:20 AM and the changes are now live.

Sonic will be upgrading our webmail platform on Monday, August 21st, 2017 at 11:59 PM. Maintenance is expected to last 1 hour or less. During this time, webmail will be unavailable. Instead, you can use our beta platform if you need to check your email using webmail during this time. Other mail services will not be affected.

Background:

On June 26th, the first official release of Roundcube Webmail 1.3.0 was made available and we've upgraded Beta platform to provide a preview of the upcoming changes. We have been testing the new version and feel the system is stable and ready for public release.

The new version improves the performance and speed of the webmail system, offers an improved mobile skin and desktop user interface, and includes numerous bug fixes. To see the full list of technical changes, review the CHANGELOG for versions 1.3.0, 1.3-rc, and 1.3-beta.

We encourage everyone who uses webmail to test the beta version now and let us know if you encounter any issues or have any suggestions.

Please be aware of 2 major changes in 1.3.0.

1. The default mailbox view has changed! The mailbox view is now 3 columns wide and optimized for larger screens and wide screen layouts so the folder list, message list, and message preview are all visible at once. If you prefer not to use the 3-column view, you can switch back by clicking the Gear icon above the message list in the middle column, and selecting either "Desktop" or "List" beneath the Layout options and clicking Save.

2. Support for Internet Explorer 9 and below has been dropped. This only affects Windows XP or Windows Vista Internet Explorer users. In Internet Explorer 9 or earlier, webmail will no longer function properly. Those using Internet Explorer 9 and below are encouraged to update as these versions are no longer supported by Microsoft and put your computer at greater risk of getting viruses or falling victim to other threats. The latest version of Firefox will work with webmail on Vista and earlier.

Our mobile skin has also been updated and improved and is now fully functional on the beta site.

We'd love for members who regularly use webmail to try the new version now, before we launch the new version on August 21st. Please let us know if you see anything that's broken or doesn't work right, find any changes that are not to your liking, or have any questions on how to do something in the new version.

Thanks for your feedback and continued use of our webmail product!

If you have any questions, please reply to this post or contact support@sonic.net.
Drew Phillips
Programmer / System Operations, Sonic.net
by vocab » Fri Aug 04, 2017 10:59 am
Will Squirrel mail still be supported in the upgrade?

I love its simplicity and ease of loading, as well as wonderful features like being able to highlight threads or mail from selected senders. Please don't shut it off.

Thanks from the plain-text, keep-it-simple crowd.
by drew.phillips » Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:25 am
Yes, Squirrel Mail will remain available at it's current URL, https://legacy-webmail.sonic.net/.

It will not be affected or removed by this update.
Drew Phillips
Programmer / System Operations, Sonic.net
by vocab » Sat Aug 05, 2017 8:00 am
Drew: Thumbs up and thank you to Sonic.
by drew.phillips » Tue Aug 22, 2017 12:24 am
The upgrade has been completed as of Tuesday, August 22nd at 12:20 AM. If you experience any display issues, please try clearing your browser cache by pressing Ctrl-F5 while on webmail.

If you prefer to use the classic 2-pane layout instead of the new 3-pane display you can switch back by clicking the Gear icon above the message list in the middle column, and selecting either "Desktop" (classic with message preview pane) or "List" (classic without preview pane) beneath the Layout options and clicking Save.

Feel free to post any comments, questions, or suggestions here.

If you have questions and would like assistance you may also contact support by email or phone 7 days a week from 8 AM to 10 PM PST.
Drew Phillips
Programmer / System Operations, Sonic.net
by jxb1 » Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:42 am
When in list view on the new webmail, if I double-click on a message to open it, nothing happens. I am using Firefox 52.3. The prior version of webmail opened the message into the main window the same way as SquirrelMail does.
by motet » Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:22 am
Is the preview pane gone? There used to be an arrow in the lower right corner for opening and closing the preview pane. I hope not--it is (was?) a useful thing.
by drew.phillips » Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:23 am
jxb1 wrote:When in list view on the new webmail, if I double-click on a message to open it, nothing happens. I am using Firefox 52.3. The prior version of webmail opened the message into the main window the same way as SquirrelMail does.
This was an intentional change (background and discussion here) because in order to support double clicking, there was a half-second delay in the previous version before a message would load in order to wait for a double click.

It looks like they may bring it back in a future version, with the trade-off being an additional 0.4 second delay to display the message in the preview window and having the message opened twice.

If it's requested enough, we can test the changes and backport that feature in sooner, but in the mean time you have a couple of options.

If you don't like or want to use the preview pane, click the Gear icon at the top left corner of the message list and choose the "List" layout. This eliminates the preview pane and brings back double click.

If you like the classic layout with preview pane, or the new 3-pane widescreen layout, pressing the "Enter" key with the message selected opens it in a new window. There's also a button you can click at the top right corner of the message preview window that looks like 2 windows stacked on top of eachother (to the right of the icon depicting an arrow pointing to the right) which will also open the message in a new window.

I understand that it's convenient to double-click a message to open it, and that most desktop email clients use this behavior, and it's especially annoying when something that used to work goes away so we apologize for this change.
Drew Phillips
Programmer / System Operations, Sonic.net
by drew.phillips » Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:52 am
motet wrote:Is the preview pane gone? There used to be an arrow in the lower right corner for opening and closing the preview pane. I hope not--it is (was?) a useful thing.
It still exists but depends on your layout. It sounds like you may be in "List" view which no longer has the preview pane.

Click the Gear icon at the top left of the message list and check out the Widescreen or Desktop layout. Widescreen is a 3-column layout with large preview pane on the right, and Desktop is the layout you're probably used to with the message list on top and the preview pane on the bottom half.
Drew Phillips
Programmer / System Operations, Sonic.net
by motet » Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:01 am
Yes, I found that. I used the preview pane only occasionally, but the arrow was a quick way of switching. I can switch between List and Widescreen now, but it requires THREE mouse clicks and deselects the message which was displayed, so is a step backwards feature-wise, I think.
35 posts Page 1 of 4

Who is online

In total there are 33 users online :: 2 registered, 0 hidden and 31 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 999 on Mon May 10, 2021 1:02 am

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Semrush [Bot] and 31 guests