Author Topic: Stability and RC Themes? (Read 4487 times)

Merlin2000 · « **on:** October 09, 2009, 02:54:22 PM »

We're looking at either using a themed SquirrelMail or themed RoundCube.

Sqmail has been stable and pretty much unchanged for a long time. Applying a theme to this program is usually problem free.

RoundCube on the other hand, is still under development, major changes seem to be taking place with the codebase.

For example, if I create a RC theme for 0.3, I may have to completely rewrite it for 0.4. If we're using someone else's theme, then we run into the problem of waiting for them do a full rewrite.

This presents a major problem with us. I'd rather have the uglier sqmail over the beautiful RC, due to the track record of upgrades that Sqmail has.

Let me know what you guys think here..

I'm not out to bash RC! Just hoping to get some more clarification here.

Merlin2000 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 10, 2009, 02:21:13 AM »

Nobody has anything to say about this? We'd like to make a decision soon... any help would be great

Julius Caesar · « **Reply #2 on:** October 10, 2009, 02:46:43 AM »

I can't give you some clarification. The only thing I can say is that the main problem right now is lack of documentation for developing themes. Now you have to figure out everything from the default theme and implement it in your own.

SKaero · « **Reply #3 on:** October 10, 2009, 03:00:03 AM »

There will be changes to the themes but you shouldn't have to do a total re-wright for every new version. There are going to be new features like threaded messages and contact groups that will have to be added to your theme but you don't have to upgrade to the new version till you have updated your theme witch you could do on a separate RoundCube installation. Over all RoundCube will give your users a much more aesthetic pleasing web mail client to use and it worth the extra work :cool:. Check out Roadmap ? Roundcube Webmail to see some of the planed upgrades for Roundcube.

ABerglund · « **Reply #4 on:** October 10, 2009, 12:31:02 PM »

Quote from: Merlin2000;21981

We're looking at either using a themed SquirrelMail or themed RoundCube.

- snip -

I'd rather have the uglier sqmail over the beautiful RC, due to the track record of upgrades that Sqmail has..

Our production system is a themed squirrelmail box, we are evaluating RC as at least an additional choice, if not as a replacement.

In my experience, themed squirrel is fairly high maintenance when it comes to version changes. Perhaps that is simply because we have too many customizations, but it is true in our case. Even with the rapid and extensive changes in RC from the first release to now, RC has been much easier to maintain than squirrel.

Our tentative plan is to move RC into production status as soon as a couple of final features that our users need/expect are added.

Merlin2000 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 10, 2009, 01:14:14 PM »

We're already at the road where we need to skin either sqmail or rc. I like the direction RC is moving toward, but I don't like little bugs popping up here and there. It makes us look amatureish when things don't work properly.

Then again, I wouldn't want to use sqmail for 6 months, just to find out that RC is less of a beta, and more of a stable webmail program, and we end up switching over to RC after we just switched to sqmail 6 months prior.

The only theme that seems to be good enough for our situation, is the MVISION one. The downside with this is that the developer of the theme hasn't posted about any of the problems for nearly 9 months. His last post was in January..

I'm leaning more and more toward going with sqmail for 6 months to a year, and then upgrading it to RC once RC is more developed. We're not looking for specific features, just a solid program, that looks good.

ABerglund · « **Reply #6 on:** October 10, 2009, 01:42:34 PM »

Well, in our experience, squirrelmail has plenty of bugs too, especially in HTML message composition. RC is much better in that function.

We could live with the default skin, although we'd prefer either MVision or umich. Of the two, I think umich has a better chance or becoming reality.

SKaero · « **Reply #7 on:** October 10, 2009, 01:51:36 PM »

The default skin looks a lot better then any skin I have ever seen for squirrelmail but I understand the need for more skins. I am planing a couple myself (including the fabled apple mall skin) but they wont be ready for at least a couple of months because of paying work.

Merlin2000 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 10, 2009, 06:39:29 PM »

I agree the default RC skin looks much better than the sqmail one. Problem is, sqmail is much more intuitive out of the box. The RC buttons don't even have names for composing an e-mail, or names for any of the common functions the average user would need.

We don't deal with techy type people. We host a lot of business based websites, our users are usually older, may wear glasses, and are not that computer literate.

If we went with the Mvision theme, we would redesign the buttons so the button text isn't so tiny on the buttons. That wouldn't be a problem though.

That umich theme looks pretty nice too. Might be easier to brand. I like the fact the developer is still involved in the forums. There's no point using a theme, just to have it for a single version, and never be updated.

Quote

Well, in our experience, squirrelmail has plenty of bugs too, especially in HTML message composition.

- I haven't been able to find a sqmail forum. Any place I can go to and see people complaining about these bugs?

Thanks for all the info guys

ABerglund · « **Reply #9 on:** October 10, 2009, 08:42:35 PM »

Quote from: Merlin2000;22023

I haven't been able to find a sqmail forum. Any place I can go to and see people complaining about these bugs?

The squirrelmail team doesn't do forums, they use mailing lists exclusively. Since HTML composition is a plugin, not a core feature, you'd need to join or search the plugins list and archives.

I've done so in the past, so I can say first hand that you shouldn't expect much help from the dev team on these HTML bugs. They don't really like HTML email, and their position is that the HTML plugin "works good enough" as it is, so no additional resources are being devoted to it. Similar responses are seen to other bugs, that's just the way they are.

Which is in large part why our organization is looking to RC as a future replacement.

Julius Caesar · « **Reply #10 on:** October 19, 2009, 04:02:27 AM »

In addition to this, I'm working on an new version of the GroupVice theme. Upgrading the old theme did not what I expected from it, so have to start from scratch again. This will also take a couple of weeks.

For those interested in the current theme can contact me by sending a PM. Please note that this theme has several flaws when it comes to plug-ins and browser compatibility.