Messenger Pro

Hello,
I bought Messenger Pro ages ago for my A9Home, but found it was not so hot for GMail accounts, seems I needed ‘Hermes’ or something like that for SSL/IMAP to work.

Seems like a few versions have passed, and Messenger Pro 7 is now on !Store.

I’m tempted to buy, but have one fairly basic question:

If I get Messenger Pro from !Store, can I (realistically, and out of the box) use my 4 GMail accounts?

One of the accounts is a @gmail.com one, and the rest are custom domains, but hosted on Google Mail.

I’m not looking for some great battle here, downloading SSL modules etc. Just want to try using my RISC OS machine for a few more activities than I do now, i.e. email.

Cheers

Garry

Messenger Pro uses remotenb for imap, hermes is for pop. (I think it may not use hermes at all in the latest version)
I had nasty problems with versions of the ROOL ROM from Feb this year, however the latest revisions seem to be working extremly well.
I use imap/SSL on my email, it required a little fiddling with remotenb after configuring it using mpro.
I only have one account, but it can be configured for multiple.
Probably better to get confirmation from rcomp about whether it can do it.

Cheers,

Malcolm

I use Messenger Pro 7 with Virgin Media (which uses Gmail) using IMAP. It works quite well, the only problem I have is that when I send an email, on the first try I always get an error saying “Articles could not be found” but a second attempt is OK.

The downside is that NNTP doesn’t work with this setup: I use NewsHound and Pluto for that.

The IMAP feature in Messenger Pro is really intended for local servers, rather than ISPs, but it can be made to work.

I think the reason you are getting this message is that you have tried to configure NNTP, like I did.
If you run !RemoteNB (Inside !MessengerPro directory somewhere obvious) and remove the nntp server the message will disappear – or it did for me!

Tempted to give it a try, I’d like to do a little more of my work on RISC OS, and this is one area which I could conceivably do.

I have a gmail test account, and once wrote an Archive mag article on how to use Gmail with RISC OS via Mpro. However, for some reason it was never published, which was odd, as the article explained how at the time Archive could have facilitated users getting signed up etc. This was in the pre-Jim Nagel days, I think, so it may have been more a case of lack of time rather than lack of interest.

I don’t often log into the gmail account, but last time I tried, it worked.

As malcolm says, the key to the IMAP version is to run !RemoteNB directly during “first five minutes” setup as it is easier to interact with it via an iconbar icon. Once it is set up, it’ll run transparently, but the iconbar menu and UI is jolly useful for the initial setup.

Hi Andrew,
Sounds good, might have to give it a try.

Cheers

Garry

Hi,

I use MPro for gmail. It works very well and I tend to do most of my “serious” email sessions with it. I also have the “Can’t find article” error but will try the fix recommended above. I also need to direct it to save the outgoing messages to googlemail/sent mail rather than the internal sent mail, but this isn’t a major issue.

Really need to settle down with the manual and learn to use it properly. For example, I’m sure it must be possible to eg. shift select to select a great wad of emails in one go. That would be really helpful!

I tried Malcom’s fix and it disn’t work for me. Yes, you do need to redirect sent mail etc but that’s true of all email programs.

I’ve knocked up a tutorial for configuring !MessengerPro for gmail
I’ve got a feeling it’s not 100%, but it should be good enough to get it configured, and sending/receiving email works – which is the important thing!

Cool, and that works for more than one account? Might have to get on !Store…

I assume that adding another account you just add another user. I’ll have a look when I get a chance.
I’m not a big fan of using GMail due to American companies operating inside the EU are effectively illegal – even Microsoft recognises this, and thankfully they managed to avoid a situation where all US companies are banned from operating in the EU.
The US government on the other hand doesn’t seem to care about that happening – which is incredibly strange, but that’s (some) American’s for you.

due to American companies operating inside the EU are effectively illegal

That sad situation is that a great many companies within the EU are equally illegal. Data held on a cloud server in an area under American jurisdiction or an American company anywhere? That’ll be in direct contravention of EU data protection laws then.

thankfully they managed to avoid a situation where all US companies are banned from operating in the EU.

Because at this time, America has clout and it throws epic tantrums. Come the day America’s power wanes, I reckon the EU would be only too happy to tell them ALL where to go. But for the moment, cutting off the US is commercial and political suicide.

The US government on the other hand doesn’t seem to care about that happening

Of course not. If the American government thinks it has the power to send their Feds to arrest people on foreign soil (the whole Kim Dotcom debacle) and can compel companies to hand over data hosted in other countries regardless of local law forbidding such a thing [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/28/us_judge_digital_search_warrants_apply_everywhere/], then do you think they care whether or not the EU “likes it”? They’ll just do whatever the hell they want. Business as usual, I guess…

By the way, it is worth reading the above link, and then reading the “assurances” that the UK government gives regarding the safety of the census information – http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/confidentiality/data-security-and-the-us-patriot-act/index.html – when you consider that a district court (not the Supremes) has the overreach to demand data in another country.
Still, I guess the silver lining is that the British basically gave this information away, as opposed to their usual track record of losing it somewhere on the Tube, or… ;-)

Follow-ups to Aldershot, perhaps?

Should really be in Aldershot

when you consider that a district court (not the Supremes) has the overreach to demand data in another country

replace “has” with “seem think they have”

Yes, you can set up multiple users, each with their own login details, even on different servers etc. Indeed, my own test setup has a selection of connections – gmail, orpheus and so on. In more recent versions of Mpro, we simplified switching users via a button on the toolbar, for this very reason.

BTW, you’ll always do best to drop questions to us via email, rather than forums, since we don’t normally check newsgroups/forums for such enquiries, but we do try to answer every bona-fide email we receive.