[Index]

Eudora's Send Again

Qualcomm's Eudora is my email client of choice for a variety of non-obvious reasons. While it is hard to describe it has having a good human interface, it certainly has an effective human interface, polished by years of dedicated attention to Internet email. In my opinion, no other email program -- on the Mac or any other platform -- provides the same ability to deal with vast quantities of Internet email quickly. So, while Eudora's HI is quirky and ugly, it contains some extremely cool features that make the job of dealing with ones daily email a pleasure rather than a burden.

My first example is Eudora's Send Again menu command. When you send a piece of Internet email that can't be delivered (typically because you have the wrong address), the mail system responds by sending you a "bounce message", a message that contains the full text of the original message with a preface that describes what went wrong. A typical bounce message looks like this:

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 09:20:21 -0700
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@mail-out1.apple.com>
To: <quinn@xxx.xxx>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)
 
The original message was received at Wed, 24 Sep 1997 08:55:36 -0700
>from [17.127.18.106]
 
   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<internet.config@share.com>
 
   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to stout.popco.com.:
>>> RCPT To:<internet.config@share.com>
<<< 550 <internet.config@share.com>... User unknown
550 <internet.config@share.com>... User unknown
 
Reporting-MTA: dns; mail-out1.apple.com
Arrival-Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 08:55:36 -0700
 
Final-Recipient: RFC822; internet.config@share.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; stout.popco.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 <internet.config@share.com>... User unknown
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 09:20:21 -0700
 
Content-Type: message/rfc822
 
Return-Path: <quinn@xxx.xxx>
To: Hairyvery@aol.com, internet.config@share.com
From: Quinn <quinn@xxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: internet config file
[... rest of original headers are here...]
 
[... original message body is here ...]
 
--
Quinn "The Eskimo!"       <http://www.AnarchistTurtle.com/Quinn/WWW/>
        "Too late, your imperfection has exceeded acceptable
                  error levels. You are terminated!"

With a typical mail client, you fix a bounce message with the following steps.

1. Create a new message,
2. Copy the body of the message to the new message,
3. Make sure that the signature is correct,
4. Copy across the subject,
5. Adjust the recipient list to correct the problem, and
6. Send the new message.

However, with Eudora you can use the following steps:

1. Select the bounce message and choose Send Again from the Message menu. Eudora will automatically:
   • Extract the original message body and signature from the bounce message,
   • Disable the signature on the new message (because it's copied the signature from the original message),
   • Extract the original subject from the bounce message, and
   • Extract the original recipient list from the bounce message.
2. Adjust the recipient list to correct the problem.
3. Send the new messages.

Now that's what a call smart software!