Roundcube Alpha skin upgraded

We upgraded our Roundcube Alpha skin to version 2.0.1. This upgrade fixes some display problems on Internet Explorer 7 and 8. We recommend that you suggest to your Roundcube email users upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 or above, since the earlier versions aren’t fully compatible with the latest technologies used in Roundcube so there might still be some display discrepancies there and there. You can download the latest version of the Alpha skin from the customer area.

Skins upgraded to Roundcube 0.6

Two of our Roundcube skins, LiteCube and Alpha, have been upgraded to version 2.0 and are now fully compatible with the newly released Roundcube 0.6. If you have purchased these skins, you can download the new versions in our customer area. Please note that the new themes will work properly only with Roundcube 0.6. They will not work with any previous versions of Roundcube.

This upgrade concerns only the desktop skins. The mobile skins (LiteCube Mobile and Alpha Mobile version 1.1) are compatible with Roundcube 0.6 without needing any upgrades.

I’d also like to mention that since in most cases Roundcube skins are not backward compatible, we’ll continue actively developing only the latest versions of the skins. The previous versions (compatible with the older versions of Roundcube) will be available for download, but will not be fixed or upgraded anymore. So if you submit any suggestions or bug reports, they will be implemented or fixed only in the skins compatible with the latest version of Roundcube. If you’re using an older Roundcube version, we encourage you to upgrade to get the latest and best of what our skins have to offer.

Our demo has also been upgraded to Roundcube 0.6: http://nutsmail.com/rc.

Where are all the Roundcube mobile skins?

I come across many questions on various forums asking why there are so few Roundcube skins. Users don’t understand why such a widespread and fast growing system like Roundcube can have so few theme choices.

As far as I can see, there are two main reasons for the lack of Roundcube skins. The first reason is that Roundcube has a very quick development cycle: new program versions are released fairly frequently. This is great for the webmail functionality, but unfortunately it’s a difficulty in skin development. By the time a developer creates, tests and distributes a skin, a new version of Roundcube will be available and the old skin most likely won’t work on it. It needs to be upgraded and in some cases undergo a complete overhaul. Not many developers can afford keeping in step with the new Roundcube releases.

The situation is even more complicated with Roundcube skins for mobile devices. In addition to the development cycle problems, there’s the inherent lack of Rouncube support for mobile systems. It’s just plain difficult to create a Roundcube mobile skin. When creating ours, we spent a lot of time not only putting together the designs, but developing the technology needed to transform the typically desktop-oriented Roundcube output into a mobile-friendly form. It was a challenge to say the least.

But mobile devices are here to stay and will only gain more users as time goes on, so providing Roundcube and SquirrelMail with mobile skins is very important. If you ever tried using Roundcube with its default skin on an iPhone or a smartphone with Android you know what I mean.

Well, even if there aren’t dozens of Roundcube skins available out there, at least there are a couple on our site you can try . We have two skins available, Alpha and LiteCube, both bundled with their mobile versions and a plugin that selects the correct skin version (desktop or mobile) depending on the device that’s used to check the mail. In a few days we should be done with upgrading the themes to work on the newly released version of Roundcube (0.6). If you’d like to see how the skins look, click here, or visit our Roundcube demo at: http://nutsmail.com/rc (username: test (at) nutsmail.com, password: testtest). We hope you’ll enjoy using Roundcube with our mobile themes on your smartphone!

NutsMail translations: filling the gaps

We receive many questions about how to make NutsMail work in local languages. Although SquirrelMail (and thus NutsMail) is translated into 158 languages, the translations aren’t included in the installation package. They need to be downloaded and installed separately. (Available here.)

The difficulty with localizing SquirrelMail is that it uses third-party plugins to enhance its functionality, for example, message details, preview pane, bookmarks, calendar, etc. But most of the published translation files only include the translation of the SquirrelMail core, not of the third-party plugins. So even if you get SquirrelMail (or NutsMail) working in your language, you will still see some English text here and there – the text created by the plugins which are not translated.

NutsMail comes with a number of third-party plugins enabled by default. This makes it a webmail solution that is feature-full right out-of-the-box. Unfortunately some of those plugins are not translated, which can make it difficult to fully localize NutsMail for those who don’t know how to create their own translation files.

To fill these gaps, we decided to build a repository of the missing SquirrelMail plugin translations. The translations will work in NutsMail and SquirrelMail alike, so the current SquirrelMail users will benefit from the new repository as well.

If you find that your NutsMail is missing translations in your language, and you’d like to see it fully localized, please let us know and we’ll send you the missing text to translate. When you send it back to us, we’ll compile it into the proper format and post it in our translation repository for download. This way you’ll be able to fully localize your NutsMail setup and contribute to the SquirrelMail community.

We hope this new project will be of help to many non-English NutsMail and SquirrelMail users!

Mobile themes upgraded to scroll on Android

If you use NutsMail on Android you may have noticed that on some devices page scrolling doesn’t work properly. This is due to an Android iframe bug that, although reported to Google a couple of years ago, still remains unfixed. We have included a workaround in all NutsMail mobile themes that will hopefully fix the problem on most Android smartphones.

If you use mobile themes in your NutsMail installation, we encourage you to re-download their files from our customer area and replace them in your NutsMail “themes” folder. The new version of the mobile themes is 2.1.

This upgrade does not affect NutsMail itself, only the theme files, so if you’re running NutsMail 4.2, there’s no need to re-download and upgrade the NutsMail program. If you’re running an earlier version of NutsMail, we encourage you to upgrade, since NutsMail 4.2 is based on the latest version of SquirrelMail which includes a lot of security fixes.

NutsMail under the hood, part 2: Languages

Today we’ll continue our exploration of the more advanced functionality and options of NutsMail. Let’s take a look at its multilingual configuration.

SquirrelMail/NutsMail has been translated to a lot of languages and it’s easy to change between them: we simply enable the “select_language” plugin. This creates a language combo box on the login screen: (more…)

RoundCube Alpha and Litecube upgraded

We have upgraded the RoundCube Alpha and LiteCube Mobile themes to version 1.1. RoundCube includes functionality for inline display of PDF mail attachments, but Alpha Desktop and both mobile themes had problems handling this properly. The problems have now been fixed and PDF attachments can be viewed and scrolled. On the iPhone, use one finger to scroll the main page, and two fingers to scroll the pages of the displayed PDF.

We have also fixed the mail column widths in Alpha Desktop, so the subject line always fills all the available table space.

You can download the upgraded versions of the themes by logging in to our customer area. If you’d like to purchase any of our RoundCube themes, visit our online store.

Roundcube Alpha theme released!

We’re pleased to announce that the long awaited Roundcube Alpha theme has just been released! But it’s much more than just a Roundcube theme, it’s a package that includes a desktop theme, a mobile theme and a plugin that selects either one depending on which browser is used. (more…)

NutsMail 4.2 released!

A new version of NutsMail, 4.2, is available for purchase or download (for users with valid licenses). We have made only one, but major change in this latest version: it’s based on the newly released SquirrelMail 1.4.22. We encourage you to upgrade your NutsMail setup to 4.2, since it includes some important security upgrades in SquirrelMail core. The change log for SquirrelMail 1.4.22 is available here.

NutsMail under the hood, part 1: Administration

There is a lot to explore in NutsMail, new functionality, new options, new themes. (What is NutsMail?) In this series of articles we’ll take a closer look at some new and old options that can make your NutsMail experience better. (more…)