It has been in Beta forever. I’m sorry: it’s garbage top to bottom. I feel like I’m interacting with something from 1996.
I’ll be researching for other email options.
Good luck to you
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I was hoping you would give us some specific details. It’s rare for us to receive such general feedback calling it “garbage top to bottom” without any details so I was wondering if there was something not working properly that we could help fix.
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Hi Dave, Describing the latest Runbox7 beta as “garbage top to bottom” is most disingenuous and a kick in the teeth to those trying to develop this product. It is by not mean perfect but is still in beta form so there is time to improve it with the right feedback. To this effect I would like to make two comments:
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The way I use it is to have no side panel and have the emails preview full hight. However though I can set it up like this, next time I log in it has defaulted to the side panel again. How do I keep my settings?
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Also the top menu of the preview window is strange. There is an icon that looks like “< >”. You would think that this would move you through your emails forward or backwards but actually shows the source code! Is this an error in the beta version because it does not make much sense to me?
Please take the above seriously as without these changes Runbox7 is less that user friendly.
Many thanks, John
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Hello John,
Thanks for your message here, and thanks for understanding that without some details we can’t really act on people’s comments. We are keen to make changes and now is the time to make those.
Yes, I think with the flexibility that Runbox 7 offers in terms of layout it would be very useful for it to remember how you have the screen set up in terms of what you suggest and also things like column widths etc. It’s been mentioned a few times so I am sure we will do something about that.
The “< >” characters are actually there to indicate you can view the source/code of the email because those characters are used in a lot of programming languages and would be familiar to many people especially those who know HTML. However, now that you’ve mentioned it I see your point, and also some buttons to move between messages would be useful especially if you use a view where an open message means you can’t see the message list (mostly on mobile devices perhaps).
I’ll certainly feed these ideas back to the team, and just for your information you can also create issues for us to look at at https://github.com/runbox/runbox7/issues
We are very keen that Runbox 7 is developed in an open way so that people can see what we are doing. You might also find issues there for other things you’ve noticed and may wish to comment on them.
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Hi Dave,
“It’s been mentioned a few times so I am sure we will do something about that.” Yes I myself mentioned it a long long time ago, could be a year but anyway a long time ago when I was of a mind to give feedback. So my question is simple, why have you still not
done anything about it? As you can see I am supportive of the development process but think issues should be dealt incrementally not wait to the end and then do it all. By not getting this done you divert attention from other problems - at least as far as
I am concerned.
Another point is the “< >” icon. I see what you mean. But is your average user really interested in seeing the HTML? Most browsers will let you do this anyway or am I missing something? For myself on the rare occasions when I want to look at the HTML, say to
investigate a suspicions link, I use the browser’s facility. Is there really a reason to have this dedicated icon?
Keep it up, John
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I’ve also been critical of some of the design choices in the past
https://community.runbox.com/t/runbox-7-global-font-choice/964
@Whitehawk your criticism is not constructive. You need to explain what the issue is.
Yes, I agree, the UI isn’t the best, I think it needs some serious input from an experienced non-developer/designer.
But, the fact is that the runbox service as a whole is excellent and feature rich.
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@JohnTowler Thanks for your comments and support!
We are working to increase the speed of bug fixing and minor enhancements, in addition to adding entirely new features.
Regarding the side panel, do you mean the folder pane or the message content window next to the message list?
The <> source code button is a carry-over from Runbox 6 and can perhaps be considered more of a developer utility – but it can be useful for security purposes in order to investigate where a message is sent from and what links and attachments it contains.
Note that you can navigate up and down the message list with the up and down arrow keys, regardless of whether the message list is visible.
– Geir
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Hi Geir,
I am referring to the message content panel. I usually keep the folder panel open. Point about up/down arrow keys noted and that is good enough for me. While playing round with the “mark as unread” icon I notice that it was jacking up the unread message number
if I kept clicking it for the same message, which obviously does not make sense. I would have thought a toggle between “mark as unread” and “mark as read” would have made more sense. The counter is now permanently screwed and now shows several unread messages
even thought there are none. Logging out and in makes no difference.
I am still somewhat bewildered by the necessity of the “<>” icon, since as far as I know most browsers allow you to inspect the code anyway, or am I missing something here?
Finally a minor point here, when logging in to runbox 6 the system does not remember my previously entered user name, which I consider a good security feature when using public computers. In runbox 7 the user name is remembered!
Regards, John Towler
@JohnTowler There is a setting under the menu accessible to the top right of the message list (a vertical ...) named Keep preview pane open, which controls the right-hand message content pane when a vertical preview mode is used. This setting should be remembered from one session to the next.
The reason this setting only affects vertical preview mode is that this mode may affect the format of the message list (unwrapped vs wrapped format).
(Keeping the message content pane open and hiding the message list pane in between sessions obviously wouldn’t make sense as you then wouldn’t be able to see any messages aside from the one currently opened when you log in.)
Regarding the Mark unread bug I have opened an issue for that here – thanks for reporting it: https://github.com/runbox/runbox7/issues/448
Note that the View source button opens just the email message source, and not the HTML source of the entire web page (which wouldn’t be helpful in Runbox 7 anyway as it’s a Javascript app).
Auto-completion of usernames and passwords depends on what you have chosen to do in your browser. You can delete saved logins in your browser’s Preferences/Settings and choose not to save the login next time you log into either service.
– Geir
Hi Geir,
A couple of issues with your comments.
The Keep preview pane open option does not appear to be remembered between browser sessions. On my browser I keep strict control of cookies and noted that there is a runbox.com cookie so I made sure it was not deleted after closing the browser.
Makes no difference. If I log out of runbox 7 and then log in again, without closing the browser it remembers the setting, but after closing the browser it is forgotten.
I may be wrong but I don’t think auto-completion of usernames has anything to do with my browser settings, I keep very strict control over everything. If I switch between runbox 7 and runbox 6, same browser, same settings, same session, then runbox 7 has remembered
my username but but runbox 6 has not.
John
Hi so I note in Runbox 7 that the way it handles attachments is just as bad as Runbox 6 in that there appears to be no way to download multiple attachments at a time to my computer. I’m I missing something here, because please tell me you have fixed this issue.
By the way someone told me I can post direct to your github project. But even though I have signed up to github cannot figure out how to do this.
Still a failure… seriously. It looks like the development cycle is gonna be about 2 years…for nada.
Ragnar would not have let this happen.
@Whitehawk We appreciate that you’ve taken the time to sign up to the forum so that you can comment on Runbox 7. However, other than a comment about it feeling like “1996” and that you feel development is slow you haven’t actually offered much we can work on in terms of how you would like to see Runbox 7 itself develop or changed.
Given that you obviously feel passionate about seeing us make Runbox 7 a success it would be really useful to get some specific detail from you. Despite development being slower than we had hoped for (and I am not going to comment on that further as @Geir has addressed that elsewhere) we are taking note of the feedback and discuss it in our meetings. We have made changes to Runbox 7 and are constantly doing so. You can see these in the changelog.
And while talking about contributions, I would like to thank others on the forum who have made the effort to go out of their way including the production of videos showing their experience of Runbox 7. These are very useful to us even if we can’t act on everything quickly. Thank you!
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The UI is clunky garbage. On a web browser , on a phone… its just junk. I have not encountered antything like it in 27 years I have used the internet, except maybe when email was first being worked out.
It’s like you are trying to re-invent the wheel from a triangle.
Clear enough?
Well, the only description you gave was “clunky”. That could mean many things and so it doesn’t really offer much in terms of clarity.
We know there are problems with Runbox 7 and most are documented publicly at https://github.com/runbox/runbox7/ Unless we can get specific example of actions that are “clunky” and what makes them “clunky” (we know it can vary from one device/customer to the next) there isn’t much point in further discussion in this thread.
@Whitehawk It might be enlightening to learn what browser, platform, and hardware you are running.
Our goal is for Runbox 7 to run as smoothly as a local email client/app, and for the most part that’s what it does.
– Geir
Don’t forget about IMAP. To be honest, I’m not a fan of the interface either. However, if you sign in with another email client, you’ll have greater control over which interface you wind up with.
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I love Runbox, and I applaud you for thinking forward, but…
I would like to chime in here and add that I, too, am often frustrated by the usability and design flaws in Runbox 7. Less importantly, but still a jarring experience, is the way the different frontend parts are (not) tied together, with little visual language in common - you have different looks (and logins) for the main website, support, forum, settings and webmail.
I’m glad that I use IMAP because I wouldn’t like to use Runbox 7 webmail as my main email interface. I’m sure it’s perfectly usable to send and read emails, but it appears quirky, unreliable and confusing to me. Sadly I have to cruise through it to change settings and add filters, incidentally both of which are impossible to do on mobile because they are simply hidden.
The security section is also very strangely put together.
I could make a lot of comments but my time is precious - and are we not paying for you to vet these details? Is it for the paying users to comment on every detail so that it becomes what it should be? I would love for you to hire a UX professional and a designer. I believe those two hires would improve your product a great deal.
Sorry to be so negative, and I appreciate that building a product is hard + you have the rest of the stack to manage, but it seems as if you may not be able to see your blind spots (thus relying on users) and it would really help to hire someone who can. The front end is all users can see, so a lot of the perception of your offering comes down to this.
I have recommended runbox many times but I feel a little embarrassed for having done so every time I have to use the interface(s). I will continue to do so based on the solid backend, fair deals and stance on privacy that you seem to have.
Continued Embarrassment .
@Whitehawk I believe we asked for some further information from you to help us resolve the issues you have with Runbox 7?
I don’t see the benefit of continuing to post comments like the one above unless you are also willing to contribute to helping us make things better? For that we need more information from you as @Geir politely requested 