ANNOUNCE: SquirrelMail 1.2.0

/*****************************************************************
* Release Notes: SquirrelMail 1.2.0 *
* The "And I Still Have Not Wrapped My Wife's Presents" Release *
* aka the "Miriam Noel" Release *
* 25 December 2001 *
*****************************************************************/

After a long wait, SquirrelMail is finally making a new major stable
series release. The past year has been ANYTHING but uneventful for
the SquirrelMail Project. This year has seen two leadership changes,
the release of the 1.0 series, the 1.1 development series, and now
finally the much awaited 1.2.0 release.

In this edition of SquirrelMail Release Notes:
* All about this Release!!!
* Reporting my favorite SquirrelMail 1.2.0 bug
* Important Note about PHP 4.1.0
* Where are we going from here?
* About our release Aliases

All about this Release!!!

Being one of the most popular webmail clients, the developers of
SquirrelMail feel a huge desire and responsibility to continue push
the envelope and make SquirrelMail the best it can possibly be. You
will not be disappointed with this release, as it is by far the most
feature rich, and yet it is still the same sleek and unbloated and
cuddly webmail application that we have all grown to love. Here is
an incomplete list of new features and enhancements since the last
stable release.

* Collapsible Folders - The folder list can be collapsed at any
parent folder. This makes folder lists with large
hierarchical structures much easier to manage and navigate.
* 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
face-lift. The HTML has been largely overhauled, and while
it still has the same general feel, it has been made more
intuitive.
* Drafts - It is now possible to compose a message and save it to
be sent at a later date with the drafts option.
* 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 (at best)
unpredictable: attachment_common, paginator, priority,
printer_friendly, sqclock, xmailer.
* 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).
* Ability 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 optimized
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

Reporting my favorite SquirrelMail 1.2.0 bug

Of course, in the words of Linus Torvalds, this release is officially
certified to be Bug-Free (tm).

However, if for some reason some bugs manage to find their way to the
surface, please report them at once (after all, they ARE uncertified
bugs!!!) The PROPER place to report these bugs is the SquirrelMail Bug
Tracker.

http://www.squirrelmail.org/bugs

Thank you for your cooperation in that issue. That helps us to make
sure that nothing slips through the cracks. Also, it would help if
people would check existing tracker items for a bug before reporting
it again. This would help to eliminate duplicate reports, and
increase the time we can spend CODING by DECREASING the time we
spend sorting through bug reports. And remember, check not only OPEN
bug reports, but also closed ones as a bug that you report MAY have
been fixed in CVS already.

Important Note about PHP 4.1.0

First of all, let me say that you all HAVE been warned: the
SquirrelMail Project Team is not supporting PHP 4.1.0 for the 1.2.0
release. Basically, SquirrelMail was in the final death throws of
this development series when the witty PHP folks decided to make the
release of 4.1.0. Of course, we greatly appreciate their hard work! :)

However, we were too close to the end of this whole thing to be able
to spend the week or two EXTRA that it will take to get SquirrelMail
1.2.0 PHP 4.1.0 ready. This will, on the bright side, be a major
priority amongst the team in the immediate future. At first look, it
seems that 4.1.0 support should just require a collection of
relatively minor tweaks. You can expect 4.1.0 support within 2-3
weeks, as a part of a later 1.2.X release.

Where are we going from here?

After things cool down a bit and the smoke clears from 1.2.0,
progress will begin on the Great SquirrelMail Rewrite, also known as
the 1.3 development branch. This branch will eventually become the
long talked about SquirrelMail 2.0. The major developmental emphasis
for SquirrelMail 2.0 will be in making SquirrelMail more flexible
and modular so that it might do a better job meeting the needs of
our system administrators and end-users. We are greatly anticipating
working in this area.

At the same time, we will kick start the SquirrelMail Teams. For
some time now, we have been planning a reorganization of the project
into a variety of sub-teams. Each sub-team will focus on a different
aspect of SquirrelMail Project work. These teams will hopefully help
keep the SquirrelMail project more on track and 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 effectively. The teams (as planned) are as follows:

Stable Series Team: Maintains the stable series
Development Series Team: Works on the development series
i18n Team: Handles i18n (internationalization) 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

Teams will be led by one or two SquirrelMail team members. And team
members can participate in as many teams as he or she desires.

For the next few weeks, the developers will be working on bug-fixing
and making the 1.2 series rock solid. After that, about mid January,
focus will shift toward getting the teams in gear and starting work
on the SquirrelMail 1.3 development series.

About our Release Aliases - by Paul Joseph Thompson

Most importantly, this release of SquirrelMail is dedicated to my
wife and the new baby that she had on 13 December 2001, Miriam Noel
Thompson.

See http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/SquirrelRelease for more details.

Have a Merry Christmas!
Happy SquirrelMailing!
- The SquirrelMail Project Team