4 ms·

Ah yes, Matrix support added before Exchange support!

by Closi 4y ago

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Honest question: is exchange support still relevant nowadays? A lot of companies seem to have switched to Office365 which is not the same thing and most of the one I have worked with block third-party clients in their security policies.
- nvr219 4y ago
  I've always used Exchange support to include Exchange Online support and yes that's very important. I would switch to Thunderbird the day they announced full Exchange support.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Office365 is pretty much just Exchange underneath. And tons of larger orgs still use on-prem Exchange. Microsoft just announced the next version of on-premise Exchange for launch in 2024. As cloud costs ratchet up and the weaknesses become more apparent, I suspect you'll see orgs start migrating back away from the cloud.
- gpanders 4y ago
  Unfortunately yes. Some organizations (like mine) use Office365 and disable IMAP/SMTP, so the only way to interface to the mail server is via Exchange :(
- Arn_Thor 4y ago
  You'd be surprised. In certain sectors, companies prefer to keep as little as possible of their sensitive information in the cloud, emails included. Running their own exchange server is a common way to do that.
addicted 4y ago
Exchange support is probably ridiculously hard because I can’t imagine there’s all that many open source implementations for it. Matrix support is probably a ton easier. Besides, matrix is designed to be implemented by multiple parties. Exchange isn’t. In fact, exchange is almost certainly the opposite.
- digisign 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Evolution Believe there are libraries available as well.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    The exchange support for Evolution never worked well for me. There was always something that didn't sync, didn't get detected, or wasn't supported. I don't blame the devs, Exchange is a proprietary standard so you can't expect it to work well. It's like the reverse-engineered drivers for hardware the manufacturer doesn't bother to write Linux support or sufficient documentation for: it doesn't work great, but that's despite the devs' best effort, not because of it.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      > The exchange support for Evolution never worked well for me. it has been working beautifully for me in the past 6-7 years including calendar and contacts > the manufacturer doesn't bother to write Linux support or sufficient documentation for you mean documentation, like this? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/web-service-reference/ews-reference-for-exchange https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/w... Microsoft has many flaws, but not writing documentation it's not usually one of them.
- plus 4y ago
  In addition to Evolution mentioned in another reply, KDE's KMail supports exchange (through Akonadi), and it seems to work quite well for me.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  The exchange protocol is like CORBA and the US tax system got together and had a baby. You’d also need an exchange server to test it with, and running an exchange server isn’t trivial.
  - 4y ago
dizzant 4y ago
This. I've been looking for a new Exchange client since Outlook Web stopped properly supporting Firefox. I reached immediately for Thunderbird, but switched away quickly because of the need to pay for (somewhat clumsy) Exchange integration. If Owl were free, I wouldn't mind the long delays or weird synchronization issues. As a subscription service, I'll take my business elsewhere.
- _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
  There's DavMail ( http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ ) - which you can use with Thunderbird or any other client.
- chrjxnandns 4y ago
  How is OWA not working for you on FF? (Genuinely curious)
  - dizzant 4y ago
    OWA has a known issue with Firefox on Linux where it incorrectly believes that Ctrl is pressed while typing an email. This results in frequent missed characters and spurious actions, including moving focus to the search bar, archiving messages, saving the current message as a draft and closing it, etc. This makes OWA extremely frustrating to use. Another issue with OWA is the unhelpful completions (which I've noted before on HN), which in my experience seem to be related to the spurious actions (more suggested completions = more spurious actions)
    - pure_simplicity 4y ago
      Finally, so this is what was happening.
- fsiefken 4y ago
  What specific long delays or weird synchronization issues do you experience? I just bought the plugin but don't notice any yet with ~7000 mails. Did you find a good alternative? I read above that using DavMail as a proxy can also work.
inferiorhuman 4y ago
Matrix support while the editor itself is left to rot. I finally switched away from self-hosted to Proton. Buh bye thunderbird!
Zardoz84 4y ago
you not need that. Ask to enable SMTP on the exchange server, and use any email client with it.

Ah yes, Matrix support added before Exchange support!

by Closi 4y ago

Ah yes, Matrix support added before Exchange support!

Honest question: is exchange support still relevant nowadays? A lot of companies seem to have switched to Office365 which is not the same thing and most of the one I have worked with block third-party clients in their security policies.

nvr219 4y ago
I've always used Exchange support to include Exchange Online support and yes that's very important. I would switch to Thunderbird the day they announced full Exchange support.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Office365 is pretty much just Exchange underneath. And tons of larger orgs still use on-prem Exchange. Microsoft just announced the next version of on-premise Exchange for launch in 2024. As cloud costs ratchet up and the weaknesses become more apparent, I suspect you'll see orgs start migrating back away from the cloud.
gpanders 4y ago
Unfortunately yes. Some organizations (like mine) use Office365 and disable IMAP/SMTP, so the only way to interface to the mail server is via Exchange :(
Arn_Thor 4y ago
You'd be surprised. In certain sectors, companies prefer to keep as little as possible of their sensitive information in the cloud, emails included. Running their own exchange server is a common way to do that.

addicted 4y ago

Exchange support is probably ridiculously hard because I can’t imagine there’s all that many open source implementations for it. Matrix support is probably a ton easier. Besides, matrix is designed to be implemented by multiple parties. Exchange isn’t. In fact, exchange is almost certainly the opposite.

digisign 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Evolution Believe there are libraries available as well.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  The exchange support for Evolution never worked well for me. There was always something that didn't sync, didn't get detected, or wasn't supported. I don't blame the devs, Exchange is a proprietary standard so you can't expect it to work well. It's like the reverse-engineered drivers for hardware the manufacturer doesn't bother to write Linux support or sufficient documentation for: it doesn't work great, but that's despite the devs' best effort, not because of it.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > The exchange support for Evolution never worked well for me. it has been working beautifully for me in the past 6-7 years including calendar and contacts > the manufacturer doesn't bother to write Linux support or sufficient documentation for you mean documentation, like this? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/web-service-reference/ews-reference-for-exchange https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/w... Microsoft has many flaws, but not writing documentation it's not usually one of them.
plus 4y ago
In addition to Evolution mentioned in another reply, KDE's KMail supports exchange (through Akonadi), and it seems to work quite well for me.
mr_toad 4y ago
The exchange protocol is like CORBA and the US tax system got together and had a baby. You’d also need an exchange server to test it with, and running an exchange server isn’t trivial.
- 4y ago

dizzant 4y ago

This. I've been looking for a new Exchange client since Outlook Web stopped properly supporting Firefox. I reached immediately for Thunderbird, but switched away quickly because of the need to pay for (somewhat clumsy) Exchange integration. If Owl were free, I wouldn't mind the long delays or weird synchronization issues. As a subscription service, I'll take my business elsewhere.

_emacsomancer_ 4y ago
There's DavMail ( http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ ) - which you can use with Thunderbird or any other client.
chrjxnandns 4y ago
How is OWA not working for you on FF? (Genuinely curious)
- dizzant 4y ago
  OWA has a known issue with Firefox on Linux where it incorrectly believes that Ctrl is pressed while typing an email. This results in frequent missed characters and spurious actions, including moving focus to the search bar, archiving messages, saving the current message as a draft and closing it, etc. This makes OWA extremely frustrating to use. Another issue with OWA is the unhelpful completions (which I've noted before on HN), which in my experience seem to be related to the spurious actions (more suggested completions = more spurious actions)
  - pure_simplicity 4y ago
    Finally, so this is what was happening.
fsiefken 4y ago
What specific long delays or weird synchronization issues do you experience? I just bought the plugin but don't notice any yet with ~7000 mails. Did you find a good alternative? I read above that using DavMail as a proxy can also work.

inferiorhuman 4y ago

Matrix support while the editor itself is left to rot. I finally switched away from self-hosted to Proton. Buh bye thunderbird!

Zardoz84 4y ago

you not need that. Ask to enable SMTP on the exchange server, and use any email client with it.