CTM Development has released a new version of its US$49 alternative e-mail application for the Mac OS, PowerMail. The new version, 3.0.8, is Mac OS 9.1 compatible, has 22 new features, and 19 bug fixes. And it also comes with a Mac OS X preview version. It’s a free upgrade for registered users.
PowerMail now supports SMTP authentication and has added a built-in viewer for HTML mail on Mac OS 9.1, in addition to the former mechanism for viewing such messages in the preferred browser. New popup menus have been added to some toolbar buttons: Reply (to all, to sender), Find (in current message, by content), and Connect (to a single account, to selected accounts). There’s a new slider, limiting or expanding the number of relevant matches to the Find results window.
With version 3.0.8, PowerMail now supports exporting to and importing from Microsoft Entourage mailbox files. The update adds “Show Reply,” “Show Original,” and “Show in Browser” contextual menus. There’s also a new “Find similar” contextual menu item, which will search for indexed messages whose content appears similar to the selected message.
Dragging a folder or set of folders out of the mail browser into the Finder will now start an export process; dragging a folder with subfolders will create several exported files. Dragging one or more mailbox files in the same format (Entourage, Eudora, PowerMail Exchange, Netscape) into the mail browser’s folder pane will start an import process.
Plus, CTM says that due to popular demand, this is the second external release of a PowerMail build usable natively under Mac OS X. The user interface spacing requirements for dialogs and other layouts have not been modified for Mac OS X, as this would imply a degradation of the user experience on Mac OS 9 (or maintenance of two sets of resources to be updated and translated at every change). The user-interface modifications will be phased in overtime, depending on when the majority of users shift operating systems.
PowerMail 3.0.8 works either as 30-day evaluation or, as mentioned, a free update for currently registered users. You can download it at the PowerMail Web site.