PD/S World - YAM 2.0

Back to reviews index Every new release of a package is often introduced as revolutionary, an incredible occasion to double one's own individual productivity (after few releases we would be in a position to build a skyscraper of twenty floors with the only power of the mind...;). YAM has reached the 2.0 release and, doubting this turns over the fates of the planet, it' s introduced like a mature and performing product.

Petty


Yam 2 logo From oblivius time, YAM keep the role of the firstlady in the field of mailers for Amiga. The appearance, in recent years, of equally valid electronic mail managers (commercial or not), has not managed to undermine from the throne the Marcel Beck creature; the optimal stability, the compactness, the possibility of configuration (within sure limits) of the intuitive user interface (based on MUI) together with the nature of the program itself (it's completely free), are the qualities that mainly allowed to this package to spread itself as an oil spot (collecting enthusiastic consents), ruining, in fact, the very fierce competition.


First steps
The archive (a bit more than 600k in .lha compression) can be downloaded from the support site (www.yam.ch), or from any Aminet mirror; once unpacked and installed, the package occupies approximately a mega and half.
The main vindow We shall remember to whom is in possession of faster machines, that in addition is present a file (about 500k) recompiled expressly for more powerful CPU (040/060) .
Clear and intelligible, the start panel is occupied, in its greater part, from a folders window and a message window, placed over it. Moreover is present a series of push-buttons through which you can approach to the main commands of the program: we report, at a stretch, nomenclature and respective function.

Starting from left, here are listed the main functions we can call from the toolbar:

  • Read reads the selected messages.
  • Edit modification of the message.
  • Move letters from a folder to another one.
  • Delete throw the message in the trash.
  • GetAdd (Get Address) adds an address to the AddressBook.
  • New composes a new message
  • Reply (Your answer) sends the relative answer to a message sent previously from another user.
  • Forward sends content of one email to other users.
  • Get (Captures) get new messages from server.
  • Send sendes the selected messages.
  • Filter as an example applies one or more filters to a determined category of messages (it 's possible to cancel advertising information automatically). YAM is able to manage 100 (one hundred) filters at the same time.
  • Find through the appropriate window, the email that contains the pattern to search.
  • AddressBook shows the book of the addresses.
  • Config actives the configuration panel.
What is new, babe

Modifications added from previous versions:

  • When compressed files are enclosed to the message, the name of the archives is the same one of the first file selected
  • Improved ASL calls: now programs like MFR or AFR are working correctly (carried out test)
  • When the encrypting of an attached is executed, an warning appears
  • Added the Arexx command ''INFO SCREEN''
  • The filters are applied only if is executed a selection of two or more messages
  • ''Headers'' can be copied in the Clipboard with greater facility
  • Automatic check of the chipmem
  • Added a field for telephone number in the AddressBook
  • Inserted the push-button ''Forward'' in the read window
  • The unpacked files are stored in T: directory
  • Greater configurability of the columns (order, bytes occupied, etc.)
  • The position of the windows are saved automatically at the exit from the program
  • Improved the script ''GotoURL.yam''
  • Guides reworked and modernized
  • Added the function ''export'' for the messages (Message menu)
  • Possibility to specify the proxy server
  • Added some tooltype
  • Selection of folders through numerical pad (keys 0-9)
  • Automatic selection of not read messages
  • Support of PGP 5.0
  • Editing of ''Reply phrase'' for answers in ML
  • Now it is possible to insert in the header personal informations (postal address, telephone number, etc.)


    • The window to write e-mailsLetters to a professor
    For the composition of your own messages, YAM puts to disposition a comfortable panel subdivided, like a ''card-holder'', in three parts: the first (Message), concurring (obviously) at the writing of the text, allows you to insert separators (of thin and thick type), emoticons you stored before (of insufficient usefullness), to carry out cut & paste operations, to use a glossary and to have resort, if desired, also to an external editor (by default the worst Commodore Ed); the second section (Attachments), consists in the possibility to enclose to the message files of any kind (images, sound samples, etc.); finally, the third (Options), concurs to add signature at the end of the text, encrypt the messages, to decide the type of ''importance'' (low, normal and high) for the email, to select more adressees for the same letter, to automatically delete the email after transfer and visualizing the ''return receipt' ' (useful in order to verify if the message has reached the address).

    Obviously, the greater part of the operations is carried out with extreme semplicity: thanks to the clean structure of the program, the understanding of the functions needs, also to the neophyte, little less than some minute.

    Dear Diary
    In the mailer, the cataloguing and the ordering of the electronic locations are entrusted to the AddressBook , whose task mirrors, approximately, the one of a normal telephone book.

    Besides the email fields (Alias, Real Name, address, etc), The YAM AddressBook puts to disposition appropriate spaces for ''snail mail'' (City, Street, Telephone Numbers), for generic information (date of birth and description of the concerned person) and for scansions of thumbnails in .iff format; this last particularitity, representing a frivolity above all, shows the extreme care used to develop the package.
    Once compiled, the list of the names can be ordered basing on the alias, on the name, the description or the address; if the directory will turn out too long (and therefore dispersive), YAM supplies the possibility to create ''subdirectories'', to group the addresses by the category to which they belong (ex.: Programmers, Software House, etc).


    High flexibility
    The thoroughness of the program is ulteriorly emphasized by the rich number of options present in the configuration window. Here a partially exaustive list:
    YAM vs Outlook: David strikes Goliath 3 - 1

    Because my Amiga ran out of order, I had to pass momentarily to the dark side. After a month of test, I must admit that YAM lacks to me. It can seem paradoxical, but the small freeware mailer, from various angles, is more advanced of the Microsoft program.
    The greater difference is perceived trough a comparison with the Express version of Outlook: in a classic Windows tradition, the Express is for the customer a true cage: insufficient control at low level of the mails, reduced possibility of configuration. YAM allows from oblivius time to insert an automatic greeting at the beginning of a letter, bringing back automatically name and/or last name, allowing the personalization of the phrases (and the symbols) of the quoting, managing greatly the digital signatures bt the adress and the sender. The Express has introduced in the tests a greater instability, often forcing me to various ''tour de force'' and somersault in order to recover letters. YAM allows a the total configuration of the interface, let you decide gadget, colors, patterns, and all that can be manipulated by video. The Express is totally insufficient on this point.
    Very different the remark on Outlook 2000, distributed in the Office 2000 suite. Outlook 2000 allows a greater configurability; (without catching up the levels of YAM thoroughness as well), and it demonstrated itself as stable and easy to use It 's difficult to choose the winner between Outlook 2000 and YAM: both two products made for two different categories of user. YAM is for the user who wants a comfortable, flexible, efficient mailer, allowing an heavy customization. Outlook 2000 is for the boss, for secretaries, for AmiWorld's director: it inclludes a series of tool useful to whom that has the absolute necessity to organize its time and its own activity in the best way. Calendar, diary, book of the activities, automatic warnings, multilanguage correctors (often they fall in crash), business letters in HTML make Outlook 2000 a must if you have to manage a site with tens of collaborators and numerous engagements. For the remaining 99.9% of customers, I do not find some reason in order to prefer Outlook to small YAM, available also for PC users through an efficient emulator, UAE.
    Last but not least, a small reflection: the price of Outlook 2000 (present in the Office suite) is another reason to prefer the free YAM.
    I conclude with the hope that the YAM author will insert soon the lacking features: it is indeed an agony for an Amiga owner to use a package made by the binding MicroSoft philosophy.

    petty

    The List of Desires

    Here follows a short ''desire list'', a panel of all that would be siutable to implement in the future versions of YAM:

    • Visualization and support of files in HTML (in consideration)
    • Graphical Layout of the folders (through icon)
    • Ability to use graphical files to use like patterns for letters (useful for wishes cards, recurrences, festivities, etc). This function is implemented in Outlook Express/2000
    • Automatic reorganization of photo-weaving
    • In-window preview of graphic attached (as in Outlook Express/2000)
    • Support for IMAP-4 protocol (in consideration)
    • Font for texts not connected with the ones used by program (as in Outlook Express/2000)
    • Possibility to edit ''directories'' (using progressive numbers, symbols, etc.) (as in Outlook Express/2000)
    • Asynchronous transfer (in consideration)
    • Recording of letters in a single file (storing would happen in faster way)
    		The AddressBook
    • Encrypting of messages;
    • Possibility to send ''anonymous'' letters;
    • Insertion of different ''MIME viewers'';
    • Activation of Arexx script;
    • Setting of the percentage of compression (xpk) to apply to the attached.
    • ''On-line'' help (through ''bubble help'')

    It is also possible to use ''personalized'' push-buttons: they are simple brushes in iff format, nothing prohibits from changing the writing or from creating new ones (also with 3d progs).


    Conclusions
    To add another remark is almost superfluous: the introduction, in this new release, of new and useful functions, the strengthening of the preexisting ones, the elimination of some annoying bug and the rock-like stability, are more than enough to reconfirm the package its ''pole position''. furthermore, the compactness and the cleanliness of the code assure to configurations not so fast (020/030) a management more than easy of the product. Thumb up, therefore: Marcel Beck can continue to sleep peacefully.

    MAX1200
    Total: 94%
    One of best PD programs of 1999

    Minimal configuration: 68020 - 2MB Typology: Freeware
    Suggested configuration: 68030 - 6MB Registration fee: ---
    Multitasking: Yes . .

    .

    We remember that Italian localization of the program has been saw from Joachim Thomas, Stefano Guidetti, Francisco Mancuso, Francisco Cells


    Back to AmiWorld Home Page

    Copyright AMiWoRLD
    Contact:
    For this article: macitsan@tin.it
    English version: hooligan@libero.it
    General info: info@amiworld.it    		 [Made On Amiga]