Last week’s update resolved lots of small complaints and a few big ones. Most of our work centered around making up for some of the limitations and “features” of web browsers and Flash.

So-called Security
IE7 introduced extra security for downloads, where it would show additional UI (the yellow bar) across the top of the browser with special controls of whether to block or permit downloads from this website. I don’t really understand why the dialog box which you can accept or cancel isn’t enough, but someone at Microsoft thought not. Additionally, when you allow a download using the yellow bar, it reloads the page. No big deal in for an old-school HTML web app, but in a Flash or Ajax application reloading the page loses context. The net result being that when you would download a zip file attached to your email on IE7, sometimes, the first time in a session, when your security setting were set just-so, the app would reload and you would need to go find that particular message again to download the attachment. Ugh. Now, we have a lovely interstitial dialog on IE which prevents that.

When Pop-ups are for Good, not Evil
We also, at long last, added pop-up blocker detection. With pop-up blocking built into the browsers these days, it has become more of an issue for new users that sometimes application interface controls just appear to fail when they happen to be triggering a new window. Now, if your action is being blocked, we’ll let you know that you want to turn off your pop-up blocker — we promise not to abuse you with pop-up ads! And, watch out, IE folks, changing pop-up blocker settings will, of course, reload the page. We added in an extra IE-specific reminder for that. Sigh.

HTML email is here to stay
Once upon a time, email was composed of letters, words and attachments. If you wanted inline images, there was always ascii art. Tables, css, and such were rarely seen in emails 3 or 4 years ago. Now, fancy HTML is found in every inbox. From holiday cards to bank statements, email can look like the colorful pile of paper still delivered by the postman on foot. We’ve always supported viewing HTML for Internet Explorer, the dominant browser, but as Firefox has gained popularity, we plan to address this cross-browser. Naturally, the Flash-browser blood-brain barrier is a minefield of ill-defined and broken behavior. Never fear, we’re building bridges and digging ravines, so Webtop users and develops will be able to navigate without concern. We’re also looking to soup up our HTML editing, but in the meantime, we’ve added the option to attach the original message, rather than forwarding inline when formatting would be lost in translation.

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