What next?

Please see roadmap for a more up-to-date plan for Mahogany future. 0.65 then will be primarily a bug fix release, we hope to have the following in it, in addition to 0.64:

• integration of the latest version of imaptoolkit
• improve the manual
• make the key bindings configurable
• better context-sensitive help
• update the (badly out of date) translations

• composer: in particular, plain text and HTML editors (similar to viewers)
• finally implement drafts folder (depends on the previous item)
• address book editor: many minor but annoying user interface fixes

• better cross-machine use support, possible ACAP support
• real MIME type editor
• encryption, PGP and GPG support

Progress update

A detailed listing of all user-visible changes is maintained as part of the source repository. Click on the link below to view this list in your browser.

• View the up-to-date CHANGES file directly from the svn repository.

Older changes diary

This list of changes is largely out of date. It was started as a diary of changes and is no longer actively maintained and is mostly interesting for historical purposes only.

• 06 Sep 00: Mahogany moved to SourceForge, added strong encryption for passwords stored in config files, added remote configuration storage/synchronisation via IMAP. RPM builds almost fixed.
• 07 Aug 00: Serious bug with messages in base64 encoding fixed, readded rsh timeout setting, but it is now disabled by default, encode 8bit characters in the header of outgoing messages too, allow adding all subfolders of an IMAP/MH/NNTP folder automatically, support for setting charset for the outgoing messages, completely rewrote subfolders dialog which is now *much* faster, is possible to specify several address which should be replaced with the destination address when the corresponding option is on fixed serious bug in handling options changes, they are now, handled correctly and [Apply] and [Cancel] behave as expected added the identity choice to the toolbar (advanced mode only) the background colour of the folder tree can now be changed. Printing added to filter rules.
• 11 Jul 00: Many minor fixes, new filter configuration code seems to work fine, more filter options, highlighting of quoted text, work on packaging scripts, work on better Makefile/configure system. Another Win32 preview released.
• 05 Jul 00: Plenty of fixes and changes: sorting of messages
• 06 Jul 00: highlighting of quoted text added, new "Quick filter" dialog for easy filter creation
• 05 Jul 00: Plenty of fixes and changes: sorting of messages by clicking on listctrl headers, improvements/rewrites of filtering code, different font encoding support, better handling of different mail addresses/identities, work on rpm generation, better keyboard bindings, function to remove duplicate messages, FAQ set up
• 15 Jun 00: Performance and reliability improvements in mail collection and remote server access. Support for different charsets in message headers and content.
• 12 Jun 00: Multiple identity support, misc. fixes, OpenSSL dynamic loading to add SSL support to all versions, folderview column order configuration, more filter rules support, composeview configuration usage fixed, v-card support
• 06 Jun 00: started identity support, better network/mailbox error detection, selectable default mailbox format
• 02 Jun 00: Wizard fixes, SMTP and NNTP authentication support, PINE and XFmail import functionality, message viewer code cleanups, better icons under Windows
• 15 May 00: vCard support started, filter/mail collection fixes, Mahogany now runs as root, support for PGP/GPG being started, German translations completed.
• 12 May 00: AvantGo/MAL synchronisation added to PalmOS module. Some long-standing minor bugs fixed. Templates selectable.
• 08 May 00: Calendar module seems to work fine, scheduled reminders and postponed sending of messages implemented. Still some minor additions in mind.
• 05 May 00: Calendar module almost finished. MH folder import wizard. PalmOS auto-install fixes and exclude-list added. Minor misc. fixes.
• 02 May 00: Drag and Drop of messages added. Quick-move menu added. Editor fixes. Outbox handling and Wizard dialog fixes. Server settings fixes. Windows compilation fixes.
• 20 Apr 00: All modules load dynamically under Unix now, Mahogany split into tiny loader binary and large DLL. Minor assorted fixes.
• 19 Apr 00: Work on dynamically loading of plugin modules for MS Windows, bug fixing on Windows version. Newsspool support working for leafnode, too.
• 27 Mar 00: Packaging release 0.50 due out later today.
• 26 Mar 00: Newsreader functionality improved, fixes to install wizard, finished folder creation wizard, added Tip of the Day.
• 22 Mar 00: New filters dialog is complete and working. Folder creation wizard work, minor fixes all over the place. PalmOS improvements (Backup function), Addressbook improvements.
• 21 Mar 00: Added a License dialog, fixed some recursion problem, added warning about plugin modules initialisation, massively improved filters dialog (half-finished), improved folders update behaviour for filtering.
• 18 Mar 00: PalmOS Addressbook fixes, mailfolder code fixes, configuration code fixes, filtering code completion.
• 14 Mar 00: Several minor fixes. Filters testing and fixes. Editor fixes. More Wizardry. RedHat compilation fixes.
• 07 Mar 00: Cvs and ftp servers moved to Sourcegear. Lots of misc fixes to configuration code and IMAP/NNTP subscription management. Fixes to folder updates. Some rather serious speed improvements. Smaller icons.
• 28 Feb 00: New folder update code almost finished. PalmOS backup functionality added. Minor bug fixes. Work on Splash screen. Almost release-grade now.
• 24 Feb 00: Minor fixes, fixed a possible mail corruption bug, work on PalmOS addressbook access.
• 22 Feb 00: Message viewer and editor improvements, PalmOS Addressook connectivity work, folder update improvements. Bug fixes. Web page redesign started.
• 09 Feb 00: Regular expression support and more options for filtering. More minor bug fixes.
• 07 Feb 00: Upgraded to c-client 4.7a. SSL support added. PalmOS synchronisation improved message transfer/encoding, handling of MIME types. Misc bugfixes.
• 04 Feb 00: Getting closer to the release and picking up speed: colour highlighting in folder listing, work on graphical display of online status, freebsd port compiles and works, RPM generation fixed. Started regular expression support for filters. Mail collection more intelligent now. Installation wizard nearly complete.
• 01 Feb 00: Working filters dialog. Bug fixes in several places, generation of "new mail" messages. FolderTree and properties dialog fixes. Can create POP folders again.
• 21 Jan 00: Work on stricter compilation flags and subscription management. We now have a bugtracker set up! Please report all problems there.
• 17 Jan 00: Plenty of gui and configuration fixes. Creation of folders should work as expected.
• 13 Jan 00: Work on installation wizard and filtering/new mail dialog interaction. Fixed minor bug in message collection and removed duplicated header lines in sent messages.
• 6 Jan 00: Filtering code fixes, filter dialog updates. PalmOS module updates.
• 3 Dec 99: Many improvements to folder viewer and rich text editor. SPAM filter added. Message threading added. Start of filter configuration dialog. Better configuration handling. Minor improvement to MIME handling in message composition.
• 26 Nov 99: Optional use of Trash folder instead of delete/expunge model. Filtering code successfully filters the first messages, more functions being added to it now. New, smaller icons for the treecontrol. Several improvements and speed-ups for folder view. Minor bug fixes for message editor.
• 11 Nov 99: PalmOS sychronisation module for Mail works just fine. Know how to effectively block SPAM now.
• 8 Nov 99: Editor/message viewer largely fixed. Work coninuing on filters. Initial PalmOS connectivity, to be finished within two weeks or so. Testing new rebuild/release scripts. wxWindows DND and clipboard code still being fixed.
• 4 Nov 99: Systematically fixing bugs in Mahogany to prepare new release. Worked with wxGTK developers identifying and fixing wxGTK bugs, DND/clipboard improvements. Outbox implemented for optionally queuing messages to send them later. Improvements to dial-up network support. Help viewer improved. Fixing daily recompiles.
• 11 Oct 99: Initial PalmOS connectivity: Mahogany now exporting addressbooks in format which can be uploaded to 3Com's PalmPilot, minor enhancements to addressbook editor. More to follow soon.
• 04 Oct 99: Being back from vacation, development speeds up again: Folder searching implemented and new functionality to detect and control dial-up networking added.
• 30 Aug 99: Development slowed down until the end of September as the core authors are on vacation or otherwise busy. A new release should follow at the end of October or in November.
• 16 Aug 99: message editor improvements, minor bug fixes, plugin interface cleaned up and improved
• 12 Aug 99: Filtering parser works, sort by subject now ignores reply-prefixes (*very* nice), message editor improvements and speed-ups
• 27 Jul 99: Configurable date format, addressbook export, folder update abortable, message sorting configurable, XFace selection dialog
• 19 Jul 99: Lots of development: plenty of fixes (race conditions, bugs, etc) for MailFolder code, Module code finished and GUI support added for configuring it. Templates are already working quite nicely. Tearoff menus option added. Option to work around broken POP servers not updating folder listings.
• 7 Jul 99: Eventually packaging the RPM for RH6.
• 5 Jul 99: Many fixes and additions: folder groups, configurable icons. Pluggable modules work just fine, CORBA in early preparation stages. Asynchronous mail folder interface working, first multithreading support.
• 29 Jun 99: Release 0.23a - including a Windows version. Moved ahead with asynchronous folder access and filtering language.
• 21 Jun 99: Assorted fixes, code freeze for 0.23 release, Windows packaging.
• 15 Jun 99: Filtering language parser making first working steps. Extension module architecture in place and under initial testing. Trying to get ViaVoice-SDK to work on Debian for development of a dictation-plugin. Using GNU's libtool now.
• 14 Jun 99: massive speedup for slow connections, more message editor fixes, documentation updates, asynchronous event handling in preparation of multi-threading.
• 9 Jun 99: Hard working on Windows version and message editor (which now works on Windows for the first time). Some improvements/bug fixes to message composition and sending address handling.
• 20 May 99: Packaging the new release 0.22a. Some more bugfixes and improvements over the weekend.
• 13 May 99: Release still not quite ready, some exciting developments in the message editor are delaying it a bit, adding full selections support and searching in mesage texts.
• 11 May 99: Minor bug fixes, German translations. Message editor improvements (now does cut&paste), progress on filter language parser. Fixed wxGTK layout bug.
• 4 May 99: Several bugs in the 0.21a release have been fixed. Will build new maintenance release within a week.
• 26 Apr 99: Packaging the new release 0.21a, last minute testing of non-debug build.
• 21 Apr 99: Fix printing bugs in wxWindows and last minute testing for new release. Now handling crashing servers and terminating connections reliably by automatically reopening them.
• 19 Apr 99: Fixed dozens of minor bugs, more configurability, better keyboard interface.Preparing an interim release.
• 12 Apr 99: Fonts/colours configurable, better password handling. Redraw optimisations for wxLayout. wxGTK clipboard support working, but not in wxLayout yet.
• 7 Apr 99: New configuration code merged in and tested under Unix, needs some fixing for Windows. Support for posting news articles, several minor fixes. Now runs just fine with wxGTK/gtk 1.2.1!
• 30 Mar 99: New configuration code complete and being tested. Some restructuring in mail sending/viewing code, required for resolving some problems and future threading/filtering. Proper Reply handling, correct display of quoted printable characters in message headers.
• 26 Mar 99: Newsgroup access now works for non-leafnode servers, too.
• 25 Mar 99: More minor fixes and more work on the new config stuff. The next release will be after Easter. Translators wanted! If you would like to help us translate Mahogany to another language, please contact us.
• 22 Mar 99: Several bug fixes, NNTP folders now have full newsreader functionality. Better image support, more configure options, context help for configuration panels. Much faster folder updates for NNTP, possibility to limit number of messages to download. Started simplifying configuration system.
• 18 Mar 99: fixed a major memory corruption bug, GUI speedups, minor improvements.
• 15 Mar 99: integrated and debugged new layout code. Flicker free, printing scales right. Will fix configuration profiles next. Hoping for next release within two weeks.
• 10 Mar 99: M will be renamed Mahogany Mail, continuing a long tradition of tree names for unix mail clients.
• 9 Mar 99: wxLayout rewrite almost complete. RTF editor much more reliable now, more editing functionality and faster, too. Minor improvements and bug fixes. Fixed potentially dangerous progress dialog. Upgraded Linux platform to Debian 2.1.
• 1 Mar 99: Folder update mechanism improved, newsgroups show up correctly now. Rewriting the wxLayout (compose/message display window) once again to make it easier to understand and handle editing correctly. Progressing rapidly. Added progress bar dialogs to initial folder opening, very useful for POP and IMAP access.
• 25 Feb 99: Anonymous IMAP support,more keyboard bindings, minor fixes. Understood how to speed up POP3 and fix NNTP support.
• 23 Feb 99: More bug fixes, started implementation of filtering language, layout engine rewrite. MIME handling improvements, folder view improvements, more and better keyboard bindings.
• 21 Feb 99: Several fixes to MailFolder handling to avoid occasional lockups and IMAP problems. Speedups for POP3 (twice as fast now!) and setting of mail flags. Folderview and Messageview improvements.
• 18 Feb 99: Keyboard bindings in folder view. More German translations. More image formats supported.
• 17 Feb 99: Made several fixes to MailFolder interface to support IMAP properly. Fixed treecontrol problems. IMAP works now. Upgraded to IMAP toolkit 4.5 and more bug fixes.
• 16 Feb 99: Updated docs, added Hackers Guide, new screenshot of GTK version. Fixed several minor buglets (message save to folder/file, url highlighting).
• 14 Feb 99: Fixed some bugs (XFaces, message forwarding MIME type, toolbar sizes, composeview clearing). Build debian package.
• 12 Feb 99: Uploaded source archive and first binaries. Added a note to the download page about a stupid XFace bug which may crash M and how to avoid that.
• 11 Feb 99: Release 0.10a
  Source archive and several binary archives will be uploaded tomorrow morning. Debian and RPM package will follow later. Several hours fixing the cvs trees after a major blunder in merging them. Applied some minor fixes.
• 10 Feb 99: Fixed some minor bugs. More last-minute testing. Uploaded online manual. Release due out tonight.
• 08 Feb 99: External editor support, countless bug fixes, documentation and build updates, packaging the new release due out this week.
• 04 Feb 99: ADB address autocollection fixes, folder tree control fixes.
• 03 Feb 99: some more bug fixes, memory holes plugged, Windows compilation fixes. Preliminary release date: February 8th.
• 01 Feb 99: internal event system added, wxLayout speedups and fixes, BBDB fixes.
• 27 Jan 99: Persistent controls for splitters and filerequesters added.
• 26 Jan 99: Minor fixes to BBDB, code cleanups. Adb expansion fixed, group expansion added, autosave of Adb data.
• 24 Jan 99: BBDB addressbook format working fine. Eudora compatibility problem solved.
• 22 Jan 99: Replacing the bbdb2adb script with proper support for the bbdb addressbook file format. Tracing a rather obscure compatibility problem with Eudora on Windows beig unable to reply to M mails.
• 21 Jan 99: more bug fixes. Added a release date to the download page. Added links to bug-tracking database.
• 19 Jan 99: XFace support bugs fixed, included latest version of scandoc. Minor bug fixes: menu handling, message selection, folder name expansion, mail header corruption. Uploaded new screenshot.
• 17 Jan 99: Many fixes: wxLayout works again, profile fixes, URL handling, scandoc support. User customizable callbacks and external program invocation on new mail. Folder tree control now restores its expansion status. Support for debian package generation. More German translations.
• 15 Jan 99: Fixes for wxGTK, locale support for help system.
• 11 Jan 99: Back to work. First translations appearing (German). Minor mods for new wxGTK. Recompiles use frozen cvs branch now.
• 16 Dec 98: Folder creation dialog practically finished, constraints bug in wxGTK gone, address expansion works fine now, set up infrastructure for translation, volunteers for German, French, Italian and Dutch so far. A merry Christmas to everyone! We'll be back with a new release in January.
• 7 Dec 98: Plenty of changes: folder creation dialog half-finished, XFace code complete and tested, configurable return address, some config changes, new icons.
• 3 Dec 98: Work on tree control. Fixed some layout problems, improved XFaces support, fixes on address auto-collection.
• 30 Nov 98: Python problems still unsolved. Verification and initial setup of some default profiles. M now has a banner appearing on www.linux.org.uk.
• 27 Nov 98: Tidied up sources a little, working on some Python related problems trying to set up an initial configuration script. Work ongoing on central folder tree control.
• 26 Nov 98: The Sparc-Linux machine is up and running fine, setting up build-environment for wxGTK and M.
• 25 Nov 98: M compiles, links and runs fine on Linux-alpha.
• 24 Nov 98: Added new developers' snapshot to download directory. The Linux-alpha system is up and running.
• 23 Nov 98: Big Progress: new layout code integrated, several mail handling related bugs fixed. Installed help system and complete setup for auto-generating documentation and online help. Compiles and runs perfectly on Linux-glibc2-x86 and Solaris-sparc.
• 09 Nov 98: Layout classes do word wrap. HTML based help system. Daily recompiles of wxGTK and M. New web pages layout.
• 27 Oct 98: More work on layout classes. Printing now works almost perfectly. Investigating DND for wxGTK/GNOME. 
• 20 Oct 98: Rewrite of layout classes progressing nicely, code is much cleaner (and faster?) now. Rewrite of the wxWindows treecontrol. First look at integration of gtkXmHtml from the Gnome libraries to use it for HTML display and the help system. 
• 06 Oct 98: Started rewrite the layout classes to speed up rich-text editing and display. First appearance of tree control for folder management. New, very useful, dialog to open any type of folder or newsgroup. M is back on the GNOME Software Map. 
• 02 Oct 98: Still improving MIME/mailcap handling, M compiles and runs fine again under Solaris. Removed dependency on swig and libswigpy. More testing. 
• 28 Sep 98: MIME handling unified, now also for Windows, plugged more memory holes, minor fixes 
• 22 Sep 98: More bug fixes, started rewrite of mail folder classes. More Python support, option to run external Python scripts, first steps towards folder selection tree control. Fixed several wxGTK bugs. Made a developers' snapshot. 
• 9 Sep 98: Fixed numerous bugs, cleaned up compilation system and install target. 
• 1 Sep 1998: Cleaned up Profile API, added magic number testing to MObject, improved configure script. 
• 26 August 1998: Porting efforts underway for most major Unices. Started cleaning up the code. 
• 24 Aug 1998: Release a first Windows binary. Fixing countless bugs and rewrote the configure system for Unix. 
• 21 Aug 1998: preparing the Windows release and fixing some bugs detected in the current release. 
• 19 Aug 1998: The release fulfills its aim: a wealth of problems and bugs is getting discovered and we are working on solutions for them. 
• 18 Aug 1998: Released 0.01 alpha. 
• 17 Aug 1998: We had to delay the release for another day or so to hve time to actually build the rpms. This will also allow us to fix another bug or two. 
• 14 Aug: Only three days to go to the release date. Layout engine appears to be fixed, printing eventually works but is still buggy. Database code on track for integration, first signs of new object hierarchy. Linking with newest wxGTK produces mysterious crash during intialisation. 
• Added folder-alias expansion for mail addresses and saving of copies of mail sent. More toolbars, usability. Plugged lots of memory holes and fixed countless bugs. M gaining stability. 
• Lots of fixes. Integration of IMAP-4.2. More mail handling functionality, a bit more python support. Support for keeping copies of outgoing mail. Support for message parameters. 
• Some fixes and adjustments for new wxGTK version. 
• New FolderView with listctrl and mesage preview window. Fixed some more bugs. M working very well, being usable again. 
• MessageView restructuring finished, works reliably, so does ComposeView. Added printing code, but wxWindows 2.0 still seems to be a bit buggy there. Added some more functionality for mail forwarding. License online. 
• Decided on making M source code freely available and no shareware. It will have a license complying to the Open-Source guidelines, most likely a variant of Perl's "Artistic License". 
• New composition window now fully working with MIME inclusion. Plugged major memory leak in icon cache thus fixing quite some memory corruption problems. Changes in MessageView/FolderView relationship to support message preview in combined folder/message frames. Good progress! 
• MessageView complete with URL highlighting and external browser support. Bugs fixed in underlying string code. Configure now supports full configuration of c-client library and installation target. 
• M compiles and runs just fine on Solaris 2.5. 
• Message View and complete Mime handling works fine under the new port. Fixed a preliminary release date: August 17, 1998 - this could turn out to be a major embarassement, but let's see whether we can stick to it. 
• Created a roadmap and feature list for the first release. 
• Set up a mailing list to prepare for the first public alpha release. 
• Started fitting the new layout engine into M. The composition window works again, but still has a few minor glitches. Code is much cleaner now. Database editor being re-designed. M is sending mails again! 
• The new layout engine works fine and is pretty fast. Now editing needs to be added and it can be integrated with M. New Database editor tab-control. Added a screenshot of them. 
• Started major improvements on user interface. More button bars. Set up road-map for first release. 
• Restructured some classes, moved from AppConfig to wxConfig. Started work on new layout engine for wxWindows2. wxGTK is now primary platform for development. 
• Fully object-oriented Python integration works. First few classes and callback functions available, the rest is straightforward. First scripting examples tried. 
• All STL classes are gone and compilation time is down. Python class hierarchy works. First formatted text output on wxWindows2 port. 
• wxGTK/wxWindows2 ports compile, link and run, but still have some problems. Started replacing STL classes with better implementations. Python has access to first internal M classes. 
• Python integration works, first simple scripts are running. wxGTK port compiles but still incomplete. 
• Development back on track (though at slightly reduced speed), integrated Windows code, compiles again under Linux. 
• Had a cycling accident at the end of March, so expect some delay in the development. Working on Python integration and filtering. 
• Added support for clickable URLs in messages. Decided on header restructuring for supporting precompiled headers on Windows. Windows port (wxWindows 2.0) started. 
• Fixed X-Face support, fixed global configuration file bug. Added user settings for fonts and started support for clickable URLs. Moved to Python 1.5. 
• Got help by Vadim Zeitlin, trying to make M work with wxWindows 2.0 under Windows. 
• Started integrating Python, successfully ran first script from within M. 
• Fixed a profile handling bug which prevented new settings from being written. Found no traces of a memory management bug (no even with ElectricFence!). 
• M now appears on the Gnome Software Map. 
• Added support for XFaces (a little buggy still). Improved profile handling. Started looking for memory management bug. 
• M now compiles and runs successfully under Solaris (SunOS 5.5.1, gcc-2.8.0)! For this to work, I fixed several minor bugs. 
• ADB now collects mail addresses and names from header. Added editing capabilities for compose window. Implemented strsep() function for Solaris. 
• Decided to postpone public release until M is reasonably complete. Do not have time for an alpha release. 
• Improved handling of message/rfc822 content. M now fully suppports MIME contents of forwarded or returned mails (I do not know any other mailer which can do this!). Added Reply function. Several minor fixes. 
• M now easily handles POP3,IMAP,NNTP and Unix mbox mailboxes. Regular checking for new mail. Mails can be appended to other mailboxes. Persistent list of folders to open on program start. 
• Created a conversion script for BBDB database and tested M with a database of more than 400 records. Fixed several bugs. Improved database name expansion. Improved support for additional headers in mails. Added optional separator for signature. 
• Database now working fine. Added an just the test ones. 
• Added alias/name search and expansion to compose window. Started design of database editor. Reorganised window creation and fixed several bugs. 
• Implementation of vCard-like address database. 
• Several bug fixes, and new features for message folders. Remote folders (POP3/IMAP) work perfectly now. 
• Added automatic detection of MIME types. Improved composition window with better file inclusion. 
• Moved source to GNU configure and added support for wxGTK and Python. 
• Created a preliminary logo. 
• Added support for arbitrary user-defined header lines in messages. 
• Started extending MailFolder classes to handle different mailbox types (POP, IMAP, file, INBOX) 
• Composition window enhanced. Sending of mails with included files (via MIME) works. 
• A composition window has been created and M eventually sent its first few mail messages! Mail sending sends fully MIME compliant multipart messages. So far only editing of text contents is provided, binary types will follow soon (simple to add). 
• Profiles have been created and I started to make use of them. 
• The configuration file framework has been improved. 
• Full support for saving included binary files and external viewers. 
• The MessageView code is finished, including full support for qqMIME handling, currently supporting the mailcap database in read-only mode. 
• Full PostScript printing support. 
• The basic GUI framework based on wxWindows 1.66 has been implemented. 
• The mail handling library has been integrated in C++, supporting unix mail folders, POP3, IMAP. 
• The MessageView code is mainly finished, including full support for MIME handling, currently supporting the mailcap database in read-only mode. Display of messages with included files using a SGML-subset display. 
• Full PostScript printing support. 
• Implementation is X11 only at the moment. It will be adapted to wxWindows 2.0 as it evolves. The final release will run both on Unix and Windows platforms. 
• Started development (some day in late October 1997)