[squirrelmail.git] / ReleaseNotes

/*****************************************************************
 * SquirrelMail 1.2.0                                            *
 * The "And I Still Have Not Wrapped My Wife's Presents" Release *
 * December 25, 2001                                             *
 *****************************************************************/

The past year has been anything but uneventful for SquirrelMail. 
This year has seen two leadership changes, the release of the 1.0
series, the 1.1 development series, and finally the much awaited
1.2.0 release.

Being one of the most popular webmail clients, the developers of
SquirrelMail feel a huge desire to continue pusing the envelope and
making their product better and better.  You won't be disappointed
with this release, as it is by far the most feature rich, and yet it
is still the same sleak and unbloated app that we have all grown to
love.  Here is an uncomplete list of new features since the last
stable release.

  * The Paginator! - This enables quick access to any page in the
          message list by simply choosing the page number to view
          rather than tediously clicking "next" 50 times.
  * Hundreds of UI tweaks - The user interface has been given a
          facelift. The HTML has been largely overhauled, and while
          it still has the same general feel, it has been made more
          intuative.
  * Drafts - It is now possible to compose a message and save it to
          be sent at a later date with the drafts option.
  * Collapsable Folders - The folder list can be collapsed at any
          parent folder. This makes folder lists with large
          heirarchital structures much easier to manage and navigate.
  * New Options Page - The options page has been completely
          rewritten for several reasons, the main of which was to
          allow seamless integration of plugin options and to
          provide uniformity throughout the entire section.
  * Multiple Identities - It is now possible to create different
          identities (home, work, school) that can be chosen upon
          sending.  Each identity can have its own email address,
          full name, and signature.
  * Reply Citations - Different types of citations are now possible
          when replying to messages.
  * Better Attachment Handling - The plugin, attachment_common, has
          been fully integrated into the core of SquirrelMail.  This
          allows inline viewing of several different types of
          attachments.
  * Integration of Several Plugins - The following plugins have been
          put directly into the core.  As a result, be sure not to
          install these as plugins, as the result may be
          unpredictable: attachment_common, paginator,
          printer_friendly, xmailer, sqclock, priority.
  * Improved support for newer versions of PHP.  Note that you may
          have trouble if you are running PHP version 4.0.100
          (commonly distributed with Debian 3.0).
  * Ablity to mark messages as read and unread from the message listing.
  * Alternating Colors - The message list now alternates row colors
          by default.  This presents a much cleaner and easier to
          read interface to the user.

Aside from these obvious front end features, there are hundreds of
bugs that have been fixed, and much of the code has been optomized
and/or rewritten.  This stable release is far superior in all
aspects to all previous versions of SquirrelMail.

   Home Page:    http://www.squirrelmail.org/
   Download:     http://www.squirrelmail.org/download.php
   ScreenShots:  http://www.squirrelmail.org/screenshots.php

Where are we going from here? Good progress is already being made on
the Great SquirrelMail Rewrite, also known as the 1.3 branch which
will eventually be called 2.0. Paul has put a lot of effort into
reorganizing the development team into different teams that have
different roles. The purpose in doing this is to keep developers on
track and have to provide some semblance of order.  This project has
grown so large in the past two years that an orderly structure is
necessary if anything is to get done.  The teams are as follows:

   Stable Series Team:      Maintains the stable series
   Development Series Team: Works on the development series
   i18n Team:               Handles i18n work
   Plugin Team:             Manages the mass of plugins
   User Support Team:       Helps users with their problems
   Documentation Team:      Manages the documentation
   Evangelism Team:         Spreads the good news of SquirrelMail

For the next few weeks, the developers will be working on bugfixing
and making the 1.2 series rock solid.  After that, about mid
January, they will start focusing solely on the rewrite.

                  Have a Merry Christmas!
                  Happy SquirrelMailing!
                    - The SquirrelMail Project Team
Commit	Line	Data
815d9ba0	1	/*****************************************************************
	2	* SquirrelMail 1.2.0 *
	3	* The "And I Still Have Not Wrapped My Wife's Presents" Release *
	4	* December 25, 2001 *
	5	*****************************************************************/
	6
	7	The past year has been anything but uneventful for SquirrelMail.
	8	This year has seen two leadership changes, the release of the 1.0
	9	series, the 1.1 development series, and finally the much awaited
	10	1.2.0 release.
	11
	12	Being one of the most popular webmail clients, the developers of
	13	SquirrelMail feel a huge desire to continue pusing the envelope and
	14	making their product better and better. You won't be disappointed
	15	with this release, as it is by far the most feature rich, and yet it
	16	is still the same sleak and unbloated app that we have all grown to
	17	love. Here is an uncomplete list of new features since the last
	18	stable release.
	19
	20	* The Paginator! - This enables quick access to any page in the
	21	message list by simply choosing the page number to view
	22	rather than tediously clicking "next" 50 times.
	23	* Hundreds of UI tweaks - The user interface has been given a
	24	facelift. The HTML has been largely overhauled, and while
	25	it still has the same general feel, it has been made more
	26	intuative.
	27	* Drafts - It is now possible to compose a message and save it to
	28	be sent at a later date with the drafts option.
	29	* Collapsable Folders - The folder list can be collapsed at any
	30	parent folder. This makes folder lists with large
	31	heirarchital structures much easier to manage and navigate.
	32	* New Options Page - The options page has been completely
	33	rewritten for several reasons, the main of which was to
	34	allow seamless integration of plugin options and to
	35	provide uniformity throughout the entire section.
	36	* Multiple Identities - It is now possible to create different
	37	identities (home, work, school) that can be chosen upon
	38	sending. Each identity can have its own email address,
	39	full name, and signature.
	40	* Reply Citations - Different types of citations are now possible
	41	when replying to messages.
	42	* Better Attachment Handling - The plugin, attachment_common, has
	43	been fully integrated into the core of SquirrelMail. This
	44	allows inline viewing of several different types of
	45	attachments.
	46	* Integration of Several Plugins - The following plugins have been
	47	put directly into the core. As a result, be sure not to
	48	install these as plugins, as the result may be
	49	unpredictable: attachment_common, paginator,
	50	printer_friendly, xmailer, sqclock, priority.
	51	* Improved support for newer versions of PHP. Note that you may
	52	have trouble if you are running PHP version 4.0.100
	53	(commonly distributed with Debian 3.0).
	54	* Ablity to mark messages as read and unread from the message listing.
	55	* Alternating Colors - The message list now alternates row colors
	56	by default. This presents a much cleaner and easier to
	57	read interface to the user.
	58
	59	Aside from these obvious front end features, there are hundreds of
	60	bugs that have been fixed, and much of the code has been optomized
	61	and/or rewritten. This stable release is far superior in all
	62	aspects to all previous versions of SquirrelMail.
	63
	64	Home Page: http://www.squirrelmail.org/
65	Download: http://www.squirrelmail.org/download.php
66	ScreenShots: http://www.squirrelmail.org/screenshots.php
67
68	Where are we going from here? Good progress is already being made on
69	the Great SquirrelMail Rewrite, also known as the 1.3 branch which
70	will eventually be called 2.0. Paul has put a lot of effort into
71	reorganizing the development team into different teams that have
72	different roles. The purpose in doing this is to keep developers on
73	track and have to provide some semblance of order. This project has
74	grown so large in the past two years that an orderly structure is
75	necessary if anything is to get done. The teams are as follows:
76
77	Stable Series Team: Maintains the stable series
78	Development Series Team: Works on the development series
79	i18n Team: Handles i18n work
80	Plugin Team: Manages the mass of plugins
81	User Support Team: Helps users with their problems
82	Documentation Team: Manages the documentation
83	Evangelism Team: Spreads the good news of SquirrelMail
84
85	For the next few weeks, the developers will be working on bugfixing
86	and making the 1.2 series rock solid. After that, about mid
87	January, they will start focusing solely on the rewrite.
88
89	Have a Merry Christmas!
90	Happy SquirrelMailing!
91	- The SquirrelMail Project Team