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March 29 It's crunch time here in MDB (Mail Desktop Beta, our unofficial acronym to keep it short and sweet). The developers are working hard on last minute DCRs and coding like maniacs to lower our bug count, testers are running through a multi-week test pass and buddy tests, and program managers are fighting hard in war meetings and clearing road blocks. What are all these things? I'll explain in a minute. But first, Why ARE we working so hard? That's because our first managed beta starts today! Are you part of the managed beta? "~100 beta members will be sent a survey link starting Wednesday, with feedback collected over the next 7 days. If this 100-group has a good beta experience, the group will be expanded to around 5000 within the next few weeks." - Bradley, our test lead. We're keeping the group small for this beta so the feedback loop will be tight. If you made the list, congrats! If you didn't, don't despair, the next round of beta is only a few months away. That beta will include a MUCH larger test audience. When it comes time for the beta test to start, look for our post here for directions on how to sign up. That's our big news but you're probably wondering what we're doing in the mean time to get the product ready for you. So here’s the dirt. The product team is generally divided into a few major sections (in no particular order of importance):
Developers - These are the coders and keepers of the algorithm. No body knows the features in more detail then these people. Devs, such as Andy, are working on DCRs (design change requests) at the moment, these are last minute changes to the graphical interface before we totally lock down the user interface and focus on bug fixing. When the devs finish their code, they must past on the changes to a tester.
Testers - We're responsible for the quality of product. One of the things we do are buddy tests. Across Microsoft we have ways to methodically ship high quality software. We have a second dev code review every change to be made. Then the test team will test that change before it is added to our code base. We're currently running through a test pass as well. During the test pass, we try to scan and scrub every inch of code to ensure we catch all the bugs and pass that information on to the developer and program manager. Oh yeah, we write a ton of test automation tools to make our job easier. 
Program Managers (PMs) - These are the wonderful people that orchestrate the features and make sure the feature is developed on schedule and without any road blocks. People like Vlada go to "war" on a regular basis to fight for quality. War meetings occur on a weekly basis. Feature representatives and leads have to decide, based on the schedule, which new features and code changes can be made and which has to be postponed. War is a place for difficult product wide decisions, and its brutal for everyone. But if we are to deliver a well rounded product to you guys on time, we just have to make a few sacrifices.
International: These guys make sure our products are localized and globalized for international release. They ensure every string is correct in every language we ship to and every feature works the same way whether you’re reading Chinese or Cyrillic.
CDC: Our design and usability group helps us design the interface so it's intuitive and looks cool. If a button is misplaced or an dialog doesn't make sense, these are the guys that help us redesign it.
User Assistance: We may be masters of C++, but we're not pros at the English language. The UA group comes in and helps us reword our dialogs and write the help file so everything is easy to understand.
Oh yeah, there's also daily triage. This is where developers, testers, program managers, and international decide the responsibility and priority of bugs. Bugs that cause crashes or compromise data integrity raise huge red flags and are addressed first. Smaller cosmetic bugs that aren't seen often are saved until later.
And there you have it folks, the inner works our group. Now, if you don't mind, I'll need to get back to this photo mail DCR buddy test for Azmy. Be sure to look for a post by Vlada later this week on the photo mail feature.
Until next time,
-Lei Gong  March 16
So, I’m Andy. I’m a Development Lead on the Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta project. Just so you know a little about me, I’m in my late 20’s, I like long walks on the beach and dinners by candlelight (no, really I do. I love the beach). What does a Development Lead do? Well, that’s a good question. Deep down, all developers really want to write some code that does something really cool. So you can describe a Dev Lead as someone who manages other developers and helps them to write cool programs while trying to find some time to write cool programs themselves.
So today I want to tell you about a few things. First, we support multiple kinds of accounts in Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta. We support IMAP and POP3 accounts along with Windows Live Mail accounts. That means you can use all the great features of Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta with your work e-mail, your ISP mail, your web mail like AOL or GMail, as well as with your Windows Live Mail account. But while we’re talking accounts, I really want to tell you about...
Separate POP3 Account Support
Yeah, this is really nothing new. Other e-mail clients have had accounts split out, but building on Bryan’s post from last week, this is a big thing for us. From reading his post you know that our heritage is Outlook Express 6 and Windows Mail in Vista. In both of those applications, you’re familiar with how your POP3 accounts were handled: all lumped together under “Local Folders”. Well, for Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta (say that 5 times fast!), we’ve done one better. We split these accounts out into their own account nodes. This allows you to separate your e-mail to manage your communications and your life better.
Consider the following scenario (please note: this is a completely hypothetical situation that may or may not be encountered by our single bloggers – or blog readers. The names and faces have been changed to protect the innocent.):
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I have 3 girlfriends. Their names are Francine, Eustace, and Nadine and they know me as Frank, Earnest, and Ned, respectively. Why do I go by different names for different girlfriends? This is a hypothetical situation, remember? :-) Because I’m such a tech-savvy guy, I have my own e-mail server so I create three different accounts: frank@myemail.com, earnest@myemail.com, and ned@myemail.com. I use Windows Mail for Vista to manage my e-mail so all the e-mails to Frank, Earnest, and Ned go to one Inbox folder. Since I’m lazy and I like Francine the best and e-mail her the most, I’ve set up Frank as the default e-mail account. That means whenever I create a new message, the From: address is set to frank@myemail.com. Now say one day, when I was sending a message to Eustace, I forgot to change my From: address from frank@myemail.com (the default) to earnest@myemail.com. Now she’s got an e-mail from Frank, signed by Earnest, and I’m sure that I’ve got one less girlfriend!
Now if I was using Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta, there would be no problem here. Since we split out the accounts into separate nodes, when I’m in an account and I create a new mail, it’s created using the e-mail address for that account. If I’d only used Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta, Eustace would still be making great big doe-eyes at me! |
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Now that our little story is done, I also wanted to answer some of the questions that have been burning in your hearts since we last posted. So, in no particular order:
- How can I participate in the Beta?
http://ideas.live.com/ is your place for all the new and exciting stuff coming out for Windows Live. Check it and this blog frequently for more information on becoming a Beta tester. Right now, you cannot sign up for the Beta yet since we have not released the Beta. Once we do, we’ll have more information for you as we get closer and closer to the Beta period.
- When will the Beta be ready?
Good question. We’ll let you know more in the coming weeks. Just remember that we’re as excited to get the Beta out to you as you are to receive it!
- Will Live Mail Desktop Beta support Calendar?
Very good question. Calendar support is something that is on our radar and we have Calendar with Windows Live Mail already and Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta is designed to work well with that service! But right now, I cannot comment on when/if it will be in Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta as we simply do not know yet.
- Will Live Mail Desktop Beta be able to sync with my mobile devices?
The mobile experience is an important one to the entire suite of Windows Live products. You can get Windows Live Mail on mobile, so you can roam if you're using that service. We don’t have any mobile-sync support in our first release of Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta but please check http://ideas.live.com/ for more information about any upcoming mobile Windows Live experiences.
That’s all for this week!
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-Andy | March 07 Ok, I admit it…I can be lazy. I hate dealing with sign-in, I hate dealing with multiple windows, I hate hassle. I love reading interesting stuff and sharing it with my friends. Until recently I had 2 options:
- Open up email, create new email, copy and paste the article into email, add friends, and send
- Open up my Space (http://spaces.msn.com/vladka), sign-in, create a new entry, copy and paste the article, hit publish.
Phew…too much work!  Remember, I don’t like hassle. I am so happy we finally got the “Blog it” feature working in Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta. Now when you get an interesting email from a friend, or read something cool via RSS it is a two-click process to share it friends.
- Notice, the easy “Blog it” button in the action bar
 ? Simply click it—it’ll take you directly to your Space. With all the text prepopulated! - All you have to do is click [Publish entry] and you are done!
Now that’s a feature to blog
about…
-Vlada Breiburg
 March 03 Windows Live gives our team new ways to innovate quickly and get those improvements to our customers. It's a good time to look at a little into our past, in order to see what will be in Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta.
The History
The same team that brought you Windows Mail in Vista is now releasing our next generation mail client. We took all of the learning from our experience developing the many versions of Outlook Express, the improvements we made when we released Windows Mail (OE’s new name) in Vista and used that knowledge to build a new mail experience we think is very special and cool.
Great places to learn about the improvements made in Windows Mail in Vista are covered here:
The feature list below will show the feature evolution between Windows XP's Outlook Express, Windows Vista's Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail Desktop.
 RSS
The new RSS feature is one I use often. Different people like to read RSS in different ways. Internet Explorer v7 (download here) has a new innovative way to switch from a web site to its RSS feed. Their approach is innovative and will build a following. My personal preference is for Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta's traditional model using folders, read/unread list, and a preview pane.
Here is what is possible in the RSS feature of Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta:
- When I see a blog entry I like, I can click "forward" and email it to my friend.
- I can click "Reply" and let the blog author know what I think about that post. Reply is invaluable in email, why not have it for blogs?
- Quick Search Box: There is a box in the top of the email client. As you type, the list of messages are filtered so only the messages that include the search text are shown. For RSS this will search the title and blog description.
- Map feeds to folders: Windows Live Mail Desktop allows you to map several feeds to a single folder if you want. This is a great way to reduce the number of folders to eliminate scrolling. Separate folders often aren't needed for feeds that receive posts infrequently.
- Traditional support: All of the features you expect from most RSS readers, including drag & drop to folders, read/unread, folders to organize subscriptions.
- Blog It!: This is a very cool feature. Vlada on our team worked on this feature and she will tell you all about it soon.
Blog sites should supply the email address and names in their RSS feed if they would like the reply by email feature to fill in the "TO:" line when the user clicks Reply. ArsTechnica on feedburner.com is a good example of a compatible feed. We use the Internet Explorer v7 RSS platform which normalizes the blog XML.
To Enable RSS items to support "Reply by Email":
- RSS 0.9x & RSS 2.0: channel/managingEditor and item/author should contain the author in the form "email (full name)".
- RSS 1.0: Work the same except by using the elements channel/dc:creator and item/dc:creator.
- Atom 0.3 and 1.0: Stores the name and email address in elements feed/author/name and feed/author/email. (Or set feed/entry/author)
-Bryan Starbuck
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