[Alex Kac - CEO/Founder]

We have a public beta candidate running right now. We still have some minor known issues (mainly things like a focus lost on SP in a dialog after Finding messages) but that is why this is a public beta and not a release. I am personally a bit nervous because you guys tend to really beat the software up and we're a bit worn down from the last week of impossible bug hunting, but at the same time I think it will be a good excercise.

Now this public beta will be handled differently because I am the front-man for this forum. I simply cannot answer and tag 500 messages in a couple days. Something will get overlooked and someone will get mad. As such this public beta we are going to open our internal private bug tracking system to the public in a way. I have created a separate project in our bug tracking system called "PUBLIC BETA FlexMail" I have named it that so its not mistaken somehow for the private FlexMail project. You will be able to log into our system and sign up for an account which will automatically give you access to the public beta flexmail project. Here are some things I ask for bug reporting through our system called Mantis:

• We ask that if you have a open and shut bug - which is a bug that is clearly reproducible - create a ticket in Mantis. Do not bother with a post here. Please.
  
• If the problem is related to the message downloading/uploading and any other server communication issue please be sure you have a log attached. And also please have "Log All Activity" checkbox on before creating the log.
  
• Please do not create one ticket for several different issues. It makes tickets tracking slower and less reliable. So if you notice several bugs in the new beta, please post them in several tickets.
  
• Not only do logs help, but screenshots are invaluable for any UI issues.
  
• Some bugs occur only with very specific ways of invoking a command. Please note exactly how you got to the bug. For example via context menu by tap/hold, context menu by action/hold, soft key menu, classic menu bar, or something else. This can be critical to us fixing the bug. Its not often, but I cannot count how many times a bug could not be reproduced because we were tapping on the screen or using it in one handed mode while the bug-reporter was doing the opposite.
  
• We don't need to know if the bug occurred in previous releases. The code is so different it really doesn't matter.
  
• Fill out as much as you can in the bug reporting form. Don't bother so much with the "priority" or bug severity - we don't look at those anyway.
  
• Once a bug is triaged (i.e. read, checked, maybe reproduced) we will move it to our private system. I do not know yet if that means you will be notified if its fixed on the next release or not. The system is not really built for that sort of thing, but it may actually work. I simply do not know.
  
• If a bug is marked as fixed, that does not mean you can download a fixed copy. It just means we believe it to be fixed in our source at that time and the next time we announce a build, the fix should be in there. We will need you to verify that it is fixed for you and if not, we will reopen the ticket.
  
• Not every bug will be fixed. We prioritize bugs into crashes, reliability, logic issues (things that don't work the way they should), and UI issues. We believe all these are important, but some are blocking issues and some are not.
  
• You will only see your tickets, not anyone elses. This means your setting, screenshots, and logs also cannot be seen by others.

Our goal here is to make this system efficient, professional (i.e. not all over the place), and make it work for both sides.

So again, I am not announcing the beta right now; I am simply preparing you for how we will perform it. Feel free to post actual QUESTIONS on this list, but I really really will not want bug reports here as if you post a bug report here there is a very very good chance I will miss it amongst all the other posts. I cannot stress that enough.

[Bits]

Sounds good Alex. Appreciate your efforts.

[AKAJohnDoe]

I signed up and validated, but cannot sign into Mantis. Is it not activated yet?

[Alex Kac - CEO/Founder]

John - let me check. I tried it myself with a new name and validated and I got in just fine. Your account shows up as validated just fine so you should be able to login. We already had someone leave a bug report even though no public beta is up

BTW - I have the builds sitting on my desktop. I am just waiting to finish a few unrelated tasks so I'm not too harried.

[jhalsey205]

FYI - I had a similar problem registering for Mantis.

John

Note: my problem has resolved itself (probably user error).

[Scott trotter]

jhalsey205, on Mar 6 2007, 11:10 AM, said:

FYI - I had a similar problem registering for Mantis.

John

Note: my problem has resolved itself (probably user error).

Same problem...can register, but not login. Password reset function works, tho...
--scott--

[Scott trotter]

Scott trotter, on Mar 6 2007, 11:37 AM, said:

Same problem...can register, but not login. Password reset function works, tho...
--scott--

5 minutes later, it works just fine. Must be some kind of database update delay.
--scott--

[Alex Kac - CEO/Founder]

You may need to give it a few minutes. Also, there have been times in the past where I personally found that you had to reset the password to make it work. The system is one we use with all of our private betas so I know it works, but you may have to deal with some initial temperamentalness.

[Scott trotter]

akac, on Mar 6 2007, 11:50 AM, said:

You may need to give it a few minutes. Also, there have been times in the past where I personally found that you had to reset the password to make it work. The system is one we use with all of our private betas so I know it works, but you may have to deal with some initial temperamentalness.

I did both: Registered. Verification email lands you in the user profile page. Set password. Tried to login. Failed. Reset password. Verification email lands back in profile page. Re-entered password. Tried to login. Failed. Waited a few minutes. Tried to login. Worked fine.
--scott--

[Scott trotter]

Impatient beta testers who check the download server might find something of interest there.
--scott--

[Scott trotter]

Scott trotter, on Mar 6 2007, 11:58 AM, said:

I did both: Registered. Verification email lands you in the user profile page. Set password. Tried to login. Failed. Reset password. Verification email lands back in profile page. Re-entered password. Tried to login. Failed. Waited a few minutes. Tried to login. Worked fine.
--scott--

Now I can't login again!
--scott--

[Alex Kac - CEO/Founder]

I guess the cat is out of the bag.

Download link: http://download.pocketinformant.com/FTF/Fl..._Beta/PB1_1418/

Bug Reporting: http://mantis.webis.net/mantis/

A few things. This is a public beta. It is not a final release. We do have some known issues. But this release we believe is ready for public usage. The goal here is to give a wider testing radius than we have internally. That means that you may find a bug that we either did not find in our testing or that we thought was fixed but in a different situation broke again. Use the first post here to know how to post bugs.

Feature requests. We already have a large number of improvements we want to make for Rev 3 including keeping HTML emails intact on replies, message threading, and more. Feel free to post feature requests in the Mantis link, but we won't be looking at them for Rev 2 at all.

Knwon Issues - some of these will be fixed in Rev 2 and some will wait for a later revision.

• Mark for download for ActiveSync accounts will not download attachments (this is scheduled for Rev 3)
  
• We have one report of Draft Messages getting deleted if you create another one
  
• New Keyboard shortcuts do not work when viewing an e-mail (this is scheduled for Rev 3)
  
• Left navigation through address tabs stumbles across <...> chars
  
• Refresh folders not renaming local folders (this is scheduled for Rev 3)
  
• POP sync gets very slow when downloading e-mails from last X days (this is scheduled for Rev 3)
  
• Keyboard shortcuts only support number keys, not letter keys on the T-mo Dash
  
• Mail does not go to Sent folder and simply disappears on sending (this one I have to qualify as one we have been investigating for )
  
• This one is sort of more of a PIE issue, but if a partial message is downloaded and its HTML and it breaks at an image URL giving a partial image URL, PIE can act a bit strangely
  
• Message list size column shows size of message downloaded instead of total size of message (this is scheduled for future)

[Alex Kac - CEO/Founder]

If you have trouble logging on to Mantis - it may be the limit we have on simultaneous connections there. Just be patient.

[Scott trotter]

akac, on Mar 6 2007, 12:39 PM, said:

If you have trouble logging on to Mantis - it may be the limit we have on simultaneous connections there. Just be patient.

I still can't login. If there's a limit on simul. connections, people need to remember to logout when they are done.

Is there an email interface into Mantis? That would be handy.

--scott--

[Scott trotter]

Alex,

In lieu of being about to login to Mantis to enter a few issues that I've found, I wonder if I could ask a few questions about how FlexMail does and/or should behave under certain circumstances. Suppose that I have 2 email clients, Flexmail on a WM device and something else like Thunderbird on a PC, and I'm using IMAP on both clients.

1) Say that I have some messages in a folder--INBOX, for example-- that I'm subscribed to on both clients. Then, on the PC, I move those messages into a different folder, one which I'm NOT subscribed to on the WM device. What should/does happen to those messages on the WM device? They should certainly no longer be in the INBOX, but should they still be somewhere or should they just disappear?

2) Suppose I subscribe to a folder on the WM device, and set the download options to only download the most recent 90 days (or however many) worth of messages. Does Flexmail maintain only the most recent 90-days worth of messages, or does that only apply to the initial batch of downloads. If it does maintain only the most recent set of messages, then what should/does happen to the older messages?

3) Suppose I subscribe to a folder on the WM device, and then set download options to download all of the messages in that folder. Then later, suppose that I change that setting to be only the most recent 90 days. What should/does Flexmail do with those messages older than 90 days?

The common theme here is what does or should happen to messages that aren't explicitly deleted on any client, yet which no longer match the criteria for inclusion in a folder in Flexmail.

--scott--