Thunderbird newsreader question for Michael Puckett

Hi Michael (and all):

You mentioned thunderbird back on 4/27 in re: Note to Autodesk; I'm trying
it out and I don't see any ability to search newsgroup(s) on any keys except
Subject and Sender -- is this handled by an add-on that you're aware of, or
am I missing something in the core program?

I've looked on the website and clicked on Help in the Search dialog of the
program itself (which doesn't appear to have an associated Help file, since
nothing happens when I click on it).

 

Hi Randy,

I'm sorry to report that it appears, at least for
version 0.5, that the search engine is under powered
as you've discovered. I don't know if version 0.6
addresses the search shortcomings, perhaps it is
discussed in their support forums:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?c=8

Despite posting about the product, I haven't used it all
that much (though I use the companion web browser product
FireFox almost exclusively). Still, I think Thunderbird
has great promise. I hope the mozilla folk recognize the
search engine is lame and revisit it.

PS: When I call up the help I'm sent to mozilla's web
site. Did you have an active connection when you tried
the help before? Perhaps redirection to their site is
only because the product is early in the development
cycle; once the product is firmed up I would anticipate
local help files.

Michael.

 

Randy,

To add to what Michael said...

Thunderbird allows you to search "Subject" and/or "Sender" fields for
postings located on a newsgroup *server*. However when searching
through your *local* email folder there are many more fields
available---"Body, "Date", "Priority", etc.

Steve Doman

 

Ahhh, good post Steve.

<thinking out loud>

In Outlook Express I keep a local cache of the newsgroups I'm
interested in all the way as far back as the history is recorded;
my "live" folders have a only a couple months worth. When I do
a search it's thru all the local folders, and since there are
cached messages, I've found far better searches result. Hope that
made sense.

So, a similar thing could be done in Thunderbird. I suppose they
have limited the searches to those fields because frequently, only
the headers are downloaded, not the bodies, whereas if you copy
forum posts locally, you have the who she-bang.

</thinking out loud>

Thanks Steve.

 

Gentlemen -

Since this is the Autodesk discussion group for Customization,
might any more of this be taken to email?

 

Hi Michael,

Right on. I've been using Thunderbird recently and like it better than
Outlook or Outlook Express for handling home email. The antispam
feature is a snap to setup and works well. As a newsgroup reader it is
good, but not perfect.

Thunderbird development is at version 0.6 as you noted. According to
Thunderbird's forum, the developers are concentrating on making the
software core stable. They also say more newsgroup features will be
added as the software matures to version 1.0

Regards,
Steve Doman

 

It may not be suitable for this particular forum,
but in my opinion, it goes beyond the benefit of
the current participants. Perhaps if there were
another forum, where off topic, albeit forumite
centric discussions could occur, we could continue
it there. Thank you for not brushing off the idea.

Gentlemen -

Since this is the Autodesk discussion group for Customization,
might any more of this be taken to email?

 

I apologize, Anne; I knew it was close to the edge of acceptability but I
respect Michael's opinions and I was looking for alternatives to the
MiSerable bug-ridden unsecure newsreader I've been using. I appreciate your
good-naturedly allowing it.

 

Me too from the _main_ program help -- the one that didn't work (for me) was
under 'Tools --> Account Settings --> Help.

The reply from Steve Doman helped and made sense; Thanks, Steve.

(Anne, I'll stop now.)