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