Re: Balsa 2.2.0 end user impressions

[Craig Routledge <webstuff craigroutledge com>]

On 07/21/2004 01:26:12 PM, Albrecht Dreß wrote:
> Am 21.07.04 04:11 schrieb(en) Willem Riede:
> > Could Balsa check whether 587 is available in real time while the smtp
> > server is being set up?
>
> If there is a connection to the net (or the machine where the mta is  
> running, which might be localhost), this would of course be the optimum  
> solution. It's quite simple - just connect() to 587 and then to 25, and  
> try to read the welcome message string, which should start with "220 ".  
> If 587 replies, set 587, otherwise set 25.

I thought of this, however my ISP doesn't give a connection refused on port  
587 -- it just sits there forever.  I confirmed this with telnet.  So when  
Balsa tries to send a mail using the default port it just appears to hang.   
There could be other cases where 587 may be temporarily down and setting  
the port to 25 may cause confusion and/or breakage.  Maybe we just have to  
add a separate port field in the settings and ...

On 07/21/2004 04:43:45 AM, Marco van Oostende wrote:
> As a novice end user, I would probably consult a nephew to help me out on
> the message above. Wouldn't it be user friendly to have a radio button or
> pulldown that gives you the choice between Submission (587) and SMTP (25)
> during setup, and only the plain address in a text box? That way it is
> also less important what the default is.

An editable pulldown would be best so that people could enter alternate  
ports.  This would be useful for people having to tunnel through a firewall  
or the like and has the benefit of giving the user two obvious options to  
try.

Then,

"SMTP server refused connection.
 Balsa by default uses submission service (587).
 If you want to submit mail using relay service (25),
 specify it explicitly via: "host:smtp".
 Message is left in outbox."

could be changed to:

"SMTP server refused connection.
 Message has been left in outbox.

 Balsa by default uses submission service (587).
 You may try submitting mail using relay service (25),
 specify it in Settings->Preferences->MailServers->Port"

Does this sound better to people?