The Eudora Email Client Source Code | Hacker News Reader

The Eudora Email Client Source Code

computerhistory.org

119 pointsopenmosix14 comments

Previous conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17127486

Eudora had this awesome feature that detected if you were about to send a flame / testy short reply, and warned you against it. I seem to remember a “spicy pepper” icon? It saved me from embarrassment more than once. I hope the modern email client maintainers can rescue that bit of functionality.

Oh yeah, I remember that! I think they called it "MoodWatch" or something. If I recall right, it gave a live measurement of the composition, so you didn't even have to send an email to play with it. It had a scale of one to three or five peppers or something like that. I remember playing with it and trying to figure out what kind of language warranted the largest number of peppers.

I do miss that functionality. And it could probably be better implemented today. I think the original feature just checked for a specific set of words and phrases in a blacklist. These days one could probably make a plugin that reasoned about the tone of the content, not just on word choice but also on sentence structure.

The nice thing about this function was that it was local -- it didn't transmit your thoughts to some outside entity for evaluation. Can't remember if you could tweak the criteria by which it calculated the peppers but whatever, this is the essence of having control over your technology.

While only tangential to the article, the short story from which Eudora gets its name is fascinating in both its depth and simplicity: http://art-bin.com/art/or_weltypostoff.html

Found an old CDR from probably 98 or so a while back and it had my Eudora folder backed up on it. On a whim I clicked the exe and much to my surprise it started right up with all my mail intact. I'm so used to software just stopping working after a time that I was completely impressed.

Not to mention, that was certainly a trip down memory lane reading those emails (and cringing at many). Worth tracking down if you have one laying about.

That is awesome! I wish everything that spat out a proprietary backup file format came with a self executable viewer.

I believe that Eudora used the standard email format of the day (RFC822), so it was really easy to extract emails to use/store as you wish.

Eudora is great.

Light grey text on white background along with not allowing zoom makes this site unreadable on mobile.

Using Chrome on Android 8.1 I can zoom, which helps. But much more significantly a helpful "Show Simplified View" button pops up. Pressing that dramatically improves the usability of the page.

Use the Reader view.

No doubt that is what "Show Simplified View" turns on.

On Firefox try View > Page Style > No Style.

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