Tim Rowledge wrote:

> I thought it might be you. We all know Jecel is quite, quite mad


That is one "quite" too few...

> I think I’d prefer the original release of Marcel (circa 1995,
> http://www.riscos.com/the_archive/rol/faqs/antsuite.htm) to pretty
> much any web based email I’ve ever yet seen.

I wasn't able to find any screen shots to get a feel for what it was
like. Before Celeste I used KMail for many years. I am not picky and so
far the only email client that has really bothered me is Outlook Express
(which I still use for an old account). Refusing to show me as much
detail as I need is something I can't forgive.
 
> But thinking of Better Email Apps - I want more. I want all my communications
> in one easy to follow list. Email of course, but tweets, skype texts, SMS,
> Messages err messages, Facetime video & audio, everything. I have email
> and iChat mixed conversations lasting years and one has to know that some
> of the stuff is in iChat files and some in emails. Stupid!

This sounds like a very good project, though far too ambitious for GSoC
(though I would say the same of the other ideas that have been proposed
as well). Wasn't this what Google Wave was supposed to be about?

> Give me a proper database of all my messages of whatever form and
> a decent way to read/view/edit them. Handle the best available communication
> route - if someone is only on twitter, send a long email or video message by
> a means that will work with them.

I have my emails from 1988 and from 1990 on (in 1989 and before 1988 I
was stuck with floppy only machines and didn't have the disk space to
save emails) and they are a very valuable resource to me, but they are
in several different formats. Recent stuff in Celeste databases, before
that KMail files and (later) KMail directories, mbox files and the first
ones as screen dumps (with line noise and all). I have to be very
careful to keep Celeste databases below 2GB, which is really annoying.
It would be good to import everything into a single place.

Integration would be the second step. Just being able to search
everything without having to remember if I read it on IRC or got an
email would really help, and being able to reply via the proper channel
as you suggested would be the third step.

-- Jecel