[#SAK-12710] Description of Mailtool not clear.

Sakai

Description of Mailtool not clear.

Created: 15-Jan-2008 10:00 Updated: 23-Oct-2008 06:06

Component/s:

Mailtool

Affects Version/s:

2.4.0, 2.5.0, 2.4.1, 2.5.2, 2.5.3

Fix Version/s:

None

Time Tracking:

Not Specified

Environment:

All environments

Issue Links:

Cloners

This issue cloned as:

SAK-13108 Description of Messages tool not clear.

2.4.x Status:	None
2.5.x Status:	None
2.6.x Status:	None

Description

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In 2.4x the labeling of the MailTool and the Messages tool is not clear. Here is what is said:

Mailtool
Send mail to groups in your course.(Attachment-enabled)

Messages
Display messages to/from users of a particular site

Actually the Messages tool also "sends mail to groups in your course." Some other prose should probably be used to distinguish these tools.

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Peter A. Knoop - 15-Jan-2008 11:30

Luke, any prose you'd like to suggest for consideration here?

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Luke Fernandez - 15-Jan-2008 15:13

I have yet to get the MailTool to successfully run so I don't know what functionality it has that Messages does not have. But regardless the prose does need to be something other than "Send mail to groups in your course" because that is one of the core functionalities that exists in the Messages tool as well. Put another way, "Send mail to groups in your course" is not a characteristic that distinguishes the Mailtool from the Messages tool; they both have that functionality.

If institutions stealth one of these tools the prose is not a problem. But if both tools are available the prose needs to be fixed.

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Stephen Marquard - 27-Feb-2008 11:21

This is about the description in Worksite Setup, i.e. from the tool registration file rather than help. See SAK-13108 for the related issue for Messages.

Peter, pls reassign to the Mailtool project lead.

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Peter A. Knoop - 25-Apr-2008 10:54

Clay, could you help out here with some text for Mailtool? Thanks.

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Clay Fenlason - 25-Apr-2008 11:17

From my comment in SAK-12710, which now also seems assigned to me:

Where I think the mailtool and messages are functionally distinct is in the fact that Messages will keep its messages online by default, and the mailtool *only* sends messages out to people's email clients. Also the Mailtool allows you to append your note to the Email Archive, and add in other external addresses for delivery. Not sure if Messages does this, but I haven't looked at Messages since it used to be bundled with Message Center.

I had imagined that an institution would either choose Messages or Mailtool, but not both.

I'm tempted to say we should change 'Mailtool' to 'Email', and then say "Email: Compose and send email to individuals, groups, roles, or external recipients."

In future, what should *really* happen is that the 'Email' tool should involve a merging of the Email Archive and Mailtools, where the mailtool effectively becomes the composition pane of the larger tool devoted to email handling for the site.