End of classical interface

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by chickadee

BritTim, I have always appreciated that you, a seasoned software engineer, have not jumped down the throats of us who are upset by the loss of the "lifetime" member accounts and the classic interface. You understand that we have legitimate grievances.

I am sympathetic, yes. Actually, I disagree most strongly with FastMail removing lifetime member accounts. I think they could have upgraded those accounts to the lowest still supported tier without it costing them much, and this would have avoided the public relations hit (whatever legal arguments might be made that FastMail were allowed to do it).

The classic interface is a tough one. Yes, there is some functionality lost by its removal, but I have moved my customers to the current interface with only temporary impacts to everyday use. There are features I find useful occasionally, but I can live with the classic interface being retired. I understand it might be painful for some others. Meanwhile, I find it entirely credible that continued support of the classic interface is a major drain on FastMail' development resources. I think they would have been better advised to engage with the base, and explain what they cannot do while keeping the legacy support, but the decision itself does seem reasonable to me.

[n5bb]

Fastmail has over 150,000 customers and over 40,000 business customers. I think that a lot of people on this forum don't understand the customer base that Fastmail is listening to. Less than 2% of paying Fastmail customers even logged into Classic during the month of last December. My guess is that only a few percent of Fastmail customers even know that the Classic interface has recently existed.

I have several friends and family members who have Fastmail accounts, and none of them have any idea the EMD Forums exist. Fastmail staff are far more active here than staff of Google, AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and all other large email providers (who never visit).

The fact that some people on this forum are mad that Fastmail doesn't support very old browsers (which are no longer supported and have horrible security issues) shows one reason that Fastmail staff got tired of responding to requests from users resistant to change. Things are different than they were when Fastmail was founded 18 years ago.

Bill

[PON]

I no longer use the classic interface but have reported issues with the new UI which are being ignored. They are not a result of using an old browser; I have zero interest in old browsers and support dropping support for them.

I haven't asked for anything more than the ability to sort contacts by nickname but this doesn't even get a response. I account for some of the business users and quite a few of the personal users.

My wife's family thank each other when saying goodbye after visits for their "hostility" after a malapropism by a non-native English speaking visitor once. Customer hostility seems to be the new attitude from Fastmail.

Nobody want to hear "Don't you realize you are not in the 98% of the customer base we pay attention to".

To be clear: I ACCEPT the loss of the old interface but not the hostility that is evident in the refusal to implement a trivial feature from the old one or to even respond when asked about it.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Fastmail has over 150,000 customers and over 40,000 business customers

These numbers are not independently verified. Anybody can put anything in his/hers/their LinkedIn and/or home pages.

Originally Posted by n5bb

Fastmail staff got tired of responding to requests from users resistant to change.

According to the same unverified LinkedIn source FM has 880 or 645 employees (two different numbers are quoted on one page...). So they have more than enough manpower to respond to requests.

[joe_devore]

Originally Posted by janusz

According to the same unverified LinkedIn source FM has 880 or 645 employees (two different numbers are quoted on one page...). So they have more than enough manpower to respond to requests.

lol
880 or 645 still seems rather unreal... lol
I imagine a number much smaller then that... but who knows based on the size of this building... do they rent office space because their name is "not" on the building... x(
GoogleMaps - FastMail

and their: FastMail - Company page doesn't give a peep about employee count

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by janusz

These numbers are not independently verified. Anybody can put anything in his/hers/their LinkedIn and/or home pages.

According to the same unverified LinkedIn source FM has 880 or 645 employees (two different numbers are quoted on one page...). So they have more than enough manpower to respond to requests.

True, their comments on their LInkedIn page are not verified by others. But they seem reasonable to me.

If you click the "See all 880 employees on LinkedIn" link, you will see that those are just people who associated their profiles in such a way with the Fastmail profile that the LinkedIn system classifies them as "employees". That's not written by Fastmail, who reports on their LinkedIn profile that they have between 11 and 50 employees. Their group photo in Dec 2016 has 13 people, but I doubt that is the complete complement (since they own Pobox). I also believe they have hired several new employees in 2017.
https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/01...ear-in-review/

Bill

[Bamb0]

Its just so sad what they are probably going to do Billy!!!!

Just cause its a little more maintence for them they are gonna cut off whats been better for years.....

[joe_devore]

Originally Posted by Bamb0

Its just so sad what they are probably going to do Billy!!!!

Just cause its a little more maintenance for them they are gonna cut off whats been better for years.....

T-2 ish DAYS! Till the end of the Classic UI ;_; ;_;


melodramatic! ;p

[Gsptlsnz]

And so it ends...

[joe_devore]

Originally Posted by Gsptlsnz

And so it ends...

loi X( yah soon not this nano-second.. loi x( but soon..


T-anytime now.. lol X(
according to Current Local Time in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
its 10:03am (AEST)(Friday, June 30, 2017)(updated #4) lol ;p

so they could be NUKING the Classic UI anytime now.. as soon as they get to work since after all they are a day ahead... X( X( X( X( X(

[brong]

Originally Posted by n5bb

True, their comments on their LInkedIn page are not verified by others. But they seem reasonable to me.

If you click the "See all 880 employees on LinkedIn" link, you will see that those are just people who associated their profiles in such a way with the Fastmail profile that the LinkedIn system classifies them as "employees". That's not written by Fastmail, who reports on their LinkedIn profile that they have between 11 and 50 employees. Their group photo in Dec 2016 has 13 people, but I doubt that is the complete complement (since they own Pobox). I also believe they have hired several new employees in 2017.
https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/01...ear-in-review/

Bill

I can confirm that we still have between 11 and 50 employees. Kind of glad I'm not trying to manage a team of 880!

Yes, the classic interface is going away today as planned. All the specific features that we promised to migrate to the new interface have been implemented: https://www.fastmail.com/help/guides...lassiccomeback

Specific things that are wanted by one or two very vocal people but not commonly requested need to be weighed against additional code complexity. In the past we have been too eager to implement every request (leading to pain years later as we had to test and maintain all that rarely used functionality) so in some cases the new interface doesn't support everything that the classic interface did.

In most cases there is still a way to perform the same operation, it's just not an identical workflow to the classic way of doing things. For example, many things that were done with sorting in classic are now better achieved with filtering/searching.

The Classic interface has served us and our customers well for many years and we are sorry to see it go. We know that removing something that seems to 'just work' feels counterintuitive, but behind the scenes it was a lot of work. We are looking forward to not needing to maintain two different codebases, allowing faster feature delivery with fewer bugs.

Regards,

Bron

[Gsptlsnz]

How about increasing the storage space?

[Bamb0]

Originally Posted by brong

The Classic interface has served us and our customers well for many years and we are sorry to see it go.

If you were sorry you wouldnt be doing this..... You dont care and its sad.....

Whatever is easier for you and screw the user

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by Bamb0

If you were sorry you wouldnt be doing this..... You dont care and its sad.....

Whatever is easier for you and screw the user

While sympathetic to those who prefer the classic interface, I think this attack on Bron is unfair. It is FastMail's judgment (right or wrong, but clearly defensible) that some new developments they want to carry out are more important than continuing support for the classic interface at this time.

In essence, they have made the decision to "screw" a few users who believe the classic interface is essential to avoid "screwing" a larger group of users that need new functionality they would be unable to provide if they still needed to invest their effort in maintaining the old code.

[joe_devore]

Hi Brong, thx for your reply and stopping by...

BUT for many of us that rely on these "rarely used features"
This is still DOOMS DAY..


for me I will be LOGGED into the Classic UI
right down to the L.A.S.T. nanosecond.. lol

so do u have an exact time?


NOTE the melodramatics... lol :P :P

______________________________________________
This is all I am asking for...

- Folder counts (NEW/total)(right margin aligned)
- Trash folder's empty link
- Classic UI's search results display per folder headers and separate each folder's readout by a [hr]

The best way to implement them would be by adding them as tickable options in
the SETTINGS -->MAIL --> FOLDERS page

That way everyone is happy...
not to mention the paying "customers" part
and that us "few" users that use these features... well we
have been with FastMail since the beginning... for me its been 14 years (ie 2003)

Is the Classic UI code not compatible with the New UI code base??
ie. u can't just copy and paste code.. lol ahh yeah...