The new version focuses on refining and improving every aspect of Barca, from ease of use to daily performance and stability. Major changes include:
Overall Application
- Updated UI, visual tweaks and improvements
- Changes to the Resource usage: Windows Resource consumption reduced
- New and revised mailbox file handling code; most noticeable are improvements in speed of mailbox access, especially when running over networks
New Features
- The ability to drag and drop attached files from Attachments pane or from within the message, for both encoded and extracted attachments
- Drag and drop support added to Compose Window attachments pane
- Right-click context menu added to listed attachments within the message body
- Display of attachment size even if encoded inside the message
- Delete button in Compose window to discard the message
- New Save Message options under File menu
New Editing of Stored Messages
- New feature that allows editing stored messages, under Edit Stored Message menu in Message menu or index context menu (Edit Subject menus have been moved under this menu as well)
- Lets you edit messages previously received to trim out excess text, remove large embedded attachments or edit anything else in the message
- It also has advanced Raw View mode that provides direct access to the message in all its ASCII glory, from manually editing headers to modifying embedded MIME type declarations
- Added shortcut for Edit Stored Message Shift+Ctrl+E
Accounts Setup
- The ability to Copy Outgoing SMTP details from any account and quickly Paste them onto any other account for rapid changes of outgoing server
- New option on Incoming tab of Edit Account window: now you can opt out accounts from being processed through Junk Mail filters, for trusted accounts that get no spam
Quick Search
- New and more user friendly field for text entry
- Automatically shows other Focus options below
- Some old Focus fields have been eliminated
- New fields added that should get more use
- Completely revised rules for Quick search (Focus): they are now exclusive, so enabling "Unread" and "With Attachments" options will now show only messages that are both unread and have attachments, not either like before; this applies to every display option
- Ctrl+L will now also put the cursor in the text field (similar to browsers), ESC will clear the field
Search
- Search This Folder added to the right click menu of the Folders sidebar
- Search will no longer open Search mailbox if nothing was found
- Search history is now going to be saved
- New Clear History link added to the Search window
Changes in terminology
- the Bounce feature has been renamed to Redirect and Focus to Quick Search.
New Accounts Sidebar in Barca
- Allows you to quickly show mail from only certain accounts
- Lets you check any of your accounts with a single click
- Double click the account to Edit properties
New in Barca 2.8
Performance and Stability
- Application speed optimization and profiling; many aspects of the program are improved, including the application performance, memory use and stability
- Improved the speed of application starting and closing
- Several Vista-related changes to the code; new Vista migration tool added to Options, Directories, for users affected by new Vista user restrictions
- Added asynchronous URL and application launching through threads; this should ensure that UI doesn't stall when launching attachments, external links or apps
- Fixed a resource leak that would slowly drain the application resources over time
Usability
- Tweaks to UI appearance, new Vista-inspired default theme
- Tweaks to the look of double-line folder index display
- Tweaked behaviour of auto-complete in Compose window, as well as behaviour of Pop-down Address Picker
- Fixed a glitch when adding email addresses from the drop down box in Compose window where a blank line would sometimes be added
- Added editable box to the Preview Pane header bar so that the subject line can be copied when clicked on
- Fixed several drop-down menus not showing correctly in Vista
- Added feature View Message in Browser; when a rendering error is detected a small drop-down panel is shown to allow user to open the message in the default browser; this feature is also accessible via preview pane popup menu and under Message menu
- Fixed problem remembering the message position and selected state inside a folder when returning to a folder
- Added new option to Settings: when Query to Delete Attachments is disabled you can now choose whether the attachments will always be deleted or not
- Added "Edit..." link to Contacts Info window, shown in Contacts pane as well as when using Focus Command /contact [name]
- Improved Email Support facility
- Added new CHM help files
Email
- Several changes to character encoding and display
- Improved efficiency and speed of email checking process
- Fixed message downloading to better avoid duplicate downloads and to more accurately remove outdated messages from the server
- Improved large image preview, images are automatically resized to fit the preview pane
- Fixed problem with online account folders not purging and growing in size over time
- Fixed bug that sometimes added duplicate address in the Compose window
- Tweaks and improvements to the Folder Index display
- Fixed encoding problem that sometimes didn't show Subject line correctly in Preview bane title bar
- Fixed formatting problems when starting or replying to a message and using custom fonts
- Fixed edited Draft messages getting an extra blank line with each edit
- Improvements done to IMAP, changes to the online folder handling and increases to capacity (6 online folders at the time); fixed IMAP sorting issues
- Fixed View Raw Message to better handle variety of messages
- Fixed searching for certain types of Contacts
- Fixed Online Folders and errors when Checking Mail
- Fixed Vertical Index layout to properly show attachment pane in all cases
- Fixed preview of certain inline GIF images
- Tweaks to multiple recipient handling in Compose Window for better view of recipients
- Fixed several text quoting issues
Calendaring
- Fixed problems that could cause Calendars not to load properly
- Fixed problem with certain types of recurring events not being dismissed after restarting
- Fixed visual glitch in Tasks view, showing top text crossed out
- Fixed speed problems when loading certain calendars
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