What's a good mail reader?

i’ve been using eudora for, oh, 8 years now and it does everything i want…except it has horrible chinese support. i can’t read anything sent to me in chinese. i’ve read up on some boards and they suggest installing 3rd party programs that would allow me to read chinese on eudora, but i don’t like the idea of slapping more software on my comp.

so what are some good mail readers that can read chinese? like i’ve said, i’ve been using eudora so it’s not like i need anything fancy.

hopefully there are some alternatives out there besides outlook(which i’ve used and absolutely hate).

Since I’m using Chinese windows, my Eudora shows Chinese just fine =) Of course, I’m also using a very recent version.

It’s hard to find a mail reader w/ Eudora’s features. I think the new Mozilla(mozilla.org) integrated mail reader is pretty good. But again, I’m using Chinese Windows so I can’t tell.

I’ll try it on an English system and report back

I use Eudora with Chinese Windows as well and have hardly any problems (maybe because it is XP?). Just once in a while, it won’t display Chinese characters (don’t know why, half an hour later the problem is usually over). A friend in Beijing told me to hit the “answer” button in that case, and the characters will be displayed. The solution is not perfect as you might have difficulties with the line breaks. But, as I said, it doesn’t happen often, anyway (in exchange, I usually have Chinese characters instead of German “Umlaute” in the mails of my family and friends, but I guess you can’t have everything :frowning: )

HTH
Iris

hmm. i have windows xp(us version), but i set everything to default to chinese. i can type in chinese and most programs will display chinese(i even search for mp3s on kazaa using chinese), but not eudora. i guess i’ll just futz around with the settings some more.

Sounds like encoding problems. Usually, a mail header should include information about the character encoding used in that mail. This way, a mail reader knows which encoding and which fonts to use and could display German correctly even on a chinese Windows.
But to use this, you have to set it up first: There must be an entry in the preferences/settings of your mail reader where you can choose how to display various languages. You should be able to add languages (or encodings) and to choose fonts for each. Without this, you can in most cases only use one standard encoding - that of your operating system…

Hi dl7und:

I’ve tried that before. But all I can find is that weird “options” function in the “tools” menu (I think it’s not very user-friendly). There is a “Font” setting option there, but nothing about defining several languages and encodings. Maybe because I use the free version?

Looks like most of my friends use programs that automatically convert Umlaute to the ae, oe, ue-version, so it’s usually no big problem.

Thanks anyway
Iris

I haven’t used it but I have heard of a program named “Pocomail” which is highly recommended and not expensive.
http://www.pocomail.com

Friends told me about Foxmail:

fox.foxmail.com.cn/english.htm

They say it looks similar to Eudora, seems okay and is quite good with Chinese.

What about it? Anybody uses it?

Iris

ok, just installed foxmail and it looks pretty good so far. was a little concerned that being a chinese program it wouldn’t handle big5 as well, but seems to be working fine. kind of an eudora clone with a few different features. so far so good.

handy site i found with instructions for people who don’t want or can’t understand the chinese interface on it:

allanc.dk/foxmail/install.html

I think you can also install an English interface of Foxmail. I downloaded two versions and installed the English version on one of the computers in my office, while my friend installed the Chinese version for herself. She obviously had an older version at first because she couldn’t manage to import some address books. But after upgrading to a most recent version, it obviously works alright. It really does look very similar to Eudora, but it doesn’t seem to get rid of the problems I encounter with Eudora, so I guess I’ll just stick with Eudora.

Iris

I have an issue related to technology but not related to Taiwan that I would like to get resolved. I’m not sure there is a way, though.

I pick up my email from my companies’ mail server in Europe. All the emails (private@company.net as well as taiwanbranch@company.net) are delievered to my company email account where I pick them up as soon as I open my email program here. The same applies to my assistant who also gets all the taiwanbranch@company.net emails forwarded to her company email account.

Problem: I can only default one reply address, either (private@company.net or taiwanbranch@company.net). As most people just hit reply when they get an email, that means that either my assistant gets all my private mails as well (if I use taiwanbranch@company.net) or she doesn’t get any of those sent back by clients and other people connected to the company (if I use private@company.net ). She has to get them, though, to know what’s going on and especially in cases when I’m not in the office.

It is possible to change the reply address manually for each email. But as I write a lot of emails during the day, both private and for business, and I tend to forget to change things like the reply address, I would be glad if the problem could be solved. I asked our sys ad in Europe whether he just could set up a different account for taiwanbranch@company.net, but he said a) he hates creating another account because there are so many already and b - more importantly) he figures that two people picking up mail from one account (in this case my assistant and I) is not too good a solution because mails tend to get overlooked that way (like, Eudora marks emails as “read” that I load down on my computer at home after I already loaded them down in the office. Thus, if I load down an email but choose to ignore it because it’s the job of my assistant to take care of that special task, she might not see that particular email because it’s marked as “read” when she downloads it).

Does anybody understand what I mean? Is it a problem or not? Is there any way around that? I use Eudora, but there’s no way to set up different personae that pick up email from one email account.

Well, maybe I’m just being complicated, and the whole thing isn’t an issue after all. Any suggestions welcome :wink:

Iris

I have downloaded a program called WorkgroupMail for a friend, but never installed it. I’m sure a web search would find it. May only work with Outlook though…

Hexuan, you’re such a goddamned gasbag! You downloaded a program for a friend (is his finger too weak to depress the mouse button or something), but never got around to installing it, let alone running it? Of what possible interest do you think that could be to anybody?

Yes, but I’m trying to become a gravel truck driver so any old sh**e will do in the meantime

Looks like you made it :wink:

Anyway, I’ve found the website of the workgroup mail software and will take a closer look. They have a 30 day-trial version. Thanks for the hint.

Iris

Guys in my office use Outlook or Outlook express. Give it a try they are free anyways

Everybody I talked to, including our company’s sys ad in Europe and my IT-obsessed brother, says ‘don’t use Outlook’. Apart from the fact that it opens email right away (my aunt hates getting the dirty spam thrown in her face every time she opens Outlook), it seems much more sensitive to being infected by viruses, obviously due to the fact that it does open emails right away.

But of course, you’re always free to try for yourself.

HTH
Iris

if you update your Windows like clock work ( every 72 hours) :frowning: , this problem has been resolved

I like Usenet, so I purchased the “full” version of Forte Agent, a news client that has full mail functionality (unfortuantely it does only support sending mail in the free version, no receiving). There I could decide which fonts to use for which encoding (e.g. language).
Iris, I downloaded the Eudora Manual and was astonished not to find (or was that just me?) a single word about different fonts for different encodings, but still there should be a few (Pegasus?) free mail readers that do the job. Once I came across a very simple german mail program called “Vivian Mail”, maybe it still exists - though I never tried it myself.
Germans (or those understanding the language) could go to www.heise.de and look in their free- and shareware archive for alternatives. “The Bat” seems to be recommended quite often…

the way that qualcomm markets eudora is weird. they licence it to 3rd parties who can then slap on localization software. for example, i think there’s a company which sells japanese versions of eudora. not sure why they do this. i’ve been using eudora since before qualcomm bought it.