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Email (Mail vs. Outlook Express)

Overview

Both OS X's Mail and XP's Outlook Express manage multiple email accounts. Both can connect to IMAP or POP mail boxes. Both email clients support sending web pages via email - in Internet Explorer, choose File > Send > Page by Email; in Safari, choose File > Mail Contents of this Page. Both include a built-in address book to enable display of "friendly" names (i.e., if you have a first and last name listed for a contact, their name will be displayed in the From field in place of their email address). Both can display the source code of HTML messages.

Mac OS X

Apple's Mail is a powerful, full-featured email client. Managing multiple email accounts and setting mail rules is simple and straightforward. Mail also includes a solid junk mail filter (covered in another section).

Mail's main viewing window

Mail can natively view many file types inline. In addition to the expected file types (.jpg and .gif), Mail can also view some others, such as .png, .pdf and .psd. If you receive an email that contains photos, a Slideshow button appears at the top of the message that lets you view them in slideshow format right in Mail, complete with transitions. Floating on-screen controls let you view an "index sheet" of all attached photos, scale the photo up or down to fit the display, and import it directly into iPhoto.

Mail's full screen slideshow viewer

Likewise, Mail includes handy controls when attaching image files to a message. A popup menu will appear in the composition window's status bar, letting you specify if you want the image(s) to be small, medium, large, or actual size. As you change this setting, text at the left side of the status bar will indicate how big (in filesize) the resulting email will be. If the filesize exceeds your mailbox's maximum, it will be highlighted in red.

You can search your email messages via the search box in the upper right hand corner. In addition, Spotlight integration lets you save your searches as "smart mailboxes," much like smart playlists in iTunes or smart folders in the Finder.

Smart mailboxes dynamically adjust the email messages they display based upon rules you specify; for example, you could set up a smart mailbox that displays all your emails that contain attachments, or all emails from a certain contact.

Mail supports organizing of messages in threaded form, indenting replies underneath the original email, and strategically shading items to visually reinforce messages' relationships to each other. Subsequent messages can be revealed or concealed via a disclosure triangle. If you turn off the threading option, emails will be displayed as a flat list; when you select an email, other ones relating to it (if there are any) will highlight.

A "Jump to Reply" button appears next to emails to which you've replied. Click the button and your reply pops open in a separate window.

Threaded emails. The grey arrow links directly to your reply

Mail also supports HTML email composition. If you quit Mail with a draft email opened, the draft will be in the same location next time you launch Mail, so you can pick up where you left off.

You can attach items an email message through several means:

• Drag files into a new message window
• Click the Attach button
• Copy files from the Desktop and Paste them into your message window
• Drag an item onto the Mail icon in the Dock (to attach to a new message)
• Select an item on the Desktop, then select Finder > Services > Mail > Send File (to attach to a new message). Unfortunately, this only works if you have one item selected (though that one item could be a folder with multiple items in it)
• In Safari, select File > Mail Contents of This Page or Mail Link to This Page

Emailing a file through OS X's Services menu

To ensure Windows compatibility, Mail includes the ability to send "Windows friendly" attachments. This option is available when you click the Attach button in a composition window; alternatively, if you've drag-and-dropped an attachment into the window, you can choose Edit > Attachments > Send Windows Friendly Attachments. Since Mail itself can open emails that make use of "Windows friendly" attachments just as easily as ones that don't, it's unclear why this option isn't enabled by default, or, for that matter, why you would even want to turn it off.

Mail takes advantage of its integration with OS X's Address Book, which stores all the data regarding your contacts on a system-wide level. For instance, if a contact you've received email from is online, a green dot will appear next to their name; open the message up, and a chat button in the toolbar will initiate an instant message with that contact.

Windows XP

In addition to IMAP and POP accounts, Outlook Express (OE) can connect to HTTP mail accounts (MSN, Hotmail, or other services). Outlook Express supports rich text and HTML formatted messages. It provides Source, Edit, and Preview tabs when editing HTML formatted emails (when in Source Edit mode). Outlook Express provides one-click access to a full array of rich text settings, and even many HTML settings.

Outlook Express' main viewing window

You can attach items to an email message through several means:

• Drag files into a new message window
• Click the Attach button
• Copy files from the desktop and paste them into your message window
• Right-click on files and choose Send To > Mail Recipient
• In Internet Explorer, choose File > Send > Page by Email

Outlook Express allows you to search all of your email messages by clicking the Find button in the toolbar. This brings up the Find Message dialog where you can enter in search criteria. You cannot save your searches for future use, however.

Outlook Express' Find dialog

Outlook Express lets you customize which interface elements you want to see, such as a contacts pane, status bar, etc.:

Enable or disable interface elements

If you enable the contacts pane, for instance, a list of contacts (pulled from Windows Address Book, as well as Windows Messenger) will appear below the main list of mailboxes and folders. Double-click a contact in the list to initiate an email message to them. You can also initiate a NetMeeting session with a contact through Windows Address Book.

Windows XP can also automatically scale down images for the purpose of sending them through email, though this feature is part of Windows Explorer, not Outlook Express itself. Select an image or images in Windows Explorer, and then choose "Email these files" under "File and Folder Tasks" in the window's sidebar. You will be asked if you would like the images to be scaled down to ease sending and viewing them:

Resizing options for sending images through email

Outlook Express' compose window includes a toolbar with formatting and editing controls, such as bold, italic, and underline. You can also set alignment (left, right, center, full), change colors, etc. These built-in controls make composing an email very similar to typing a document in a word processor.

Outlook Express can prevent attachments that potentially contain a virus from opening.

Conclusion

Mac OS X

• Built-in junk mail filter
• View attached images in a slideshow
• Smart mailboxes
• Thread support
• iChat integration to easily IM email contacts
• No inline formatting/editing buttons when composing a new message

Windows XP

• Connect to HTTP mail accounts (MSN, Hotmail, etc.)
• Extensive options to customize main viewing window
• Embed a list of contacts in the main window to quickly initiate a new email
• Built-in formatting/editing controls in composition window
• Newsgroups support
• Ability to block dangerous attachments from opening
• No junk mail filter
• No thread support
• No ability to save searches

Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 7

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