Email has become an essential part of our life and it is hard to imagine a business world without such useful tool. Considering the widespread usage of various email clients, it's important to use software that has appropriate options that will enhance your user experience and simplify most of your operations connected with emails.
Of course there are many free email services though today we are talking about webmail clients using POP3 and SMTP protocols for both local and remote mail servers. Mostly these mail clients are powered by PHP or Java scripts. Even though most of these clients are not that new, we believe that their popularity and great set of extremely useful and well-thought options will be the key arguments for you to try them out. As usual we are glad to hear a word from you about software that we have missed to include to our list.
Roundcube offers a wide range of various functions including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation, message searching and spell checking. This browser-based client has conquered thousands of users' hearts due to its excellent interface and superb functionality.
* * *
AtMail has great Ajax-powered interface with a bunch of awesome options. Among other useful features we can mark out video mail, PHP source code, IMAP support, live spell check, HTML email composing etc.
* * *
This browser-based webmail client has clean and simple Ajax-powered interface which makes it fast and powerful - just as any desktop mail client is. It supports all major browsers, can be easily integrated into the cPanel. Also Aftelogic software has such usable features as message preview pane, auto-complete for e-mail addresses, keyboard shortcuts, spell-check and many others.
* * *
I've included Squirrel mail into this list due its reliability and smooth interface. It is a simple, powerful and plain software which will work almost anywhere you want. It includes built-in pure PHP support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols. All pages are rendered in HTML 4.0 (with no JavaScript required) which increases its compatibility across major web browsers.
* * *
Zimbra has Ajax-powered interface which helps users to enrich their user experience. The great thing about this software is that you can integrate 3-rd party applications into your webmail like maps, CRM data etc.
* * *
Mailr is an open source webmail application written in Ruby which uses Ruby On Rails web application framework. It has a bunch of great options such as slick address book, HTML and plaintext message composition and mail filters based on Maildrop.
* * *
The great thing about Hastymail is their plugins system. Besides default functions you can you can add pages within the Hastymail application, modify internal data structures, make AJAX callbacks using their AJAX system and do many other useful things.
* * *
Postaci is a database independent (supports MySQL, mSQL, Microsoft SQL, Sybase, PostgreSQL), multilingual POP3/IMAP e-mail client. It has very clean and simple interface which can be used at any platofrm which supports PHP.
* * *
Claros inTouch is an Ajax communication suite which includes webmail, post-it notes, calendar, address book, built-in instant messenger and rss reader. It has pretty neat security system including powerful anti-spam protection.
* * *
Being a new kid on the block Emexis can conquer with the leading clients. It was build on SquirrelMail although it has improved user's interface, calendar, disk quote etc.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript XML) is a comparatively new technique that provides for a quicker and more interactive development of apps using XML, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is a concept, a client-side script that is used to establish communication to/from a server or a database without the need to wait for a refresh or a web page. AJAX enhances the process of the data exchange with a database/server without the need to wait for a postback. In its core, AJAX is commonly used for JavaScropt techniques to link to a web server in a quick, dynamic way, excluding the necessity to load various web pages.
It’s generally assumed that there are 4 main benefits of using Ajax for web apps. These are:
Similar to any other thing in the world, Ajax advantages are opposed to some disadvantages that are also worthy to be mentioned here.
When you decide to integrate the pages of your website with Ajax-based functionality, you will run all callbacks via an XMLHttpRequest object installed in the client-based JavaScript. By means of this object, you can call other objects that are placed on the service side directly. The latter include web pages/services, which can either save or return the data back.
Originally, Ajax was an acronym for ‘asynchronous’, meaning that several actions are happening independently from one another within one and the same interface. Whenever an Ajax-based callback is sent to the server, there is no need to wait for a response to arrive. You simply continue working with a web app as the sent request is being processed. As soon as a response is ready, the server will send it back and a client will process it automatically.
Ajax functionality can be applied to any web application, on which small amounts of data could be retrieved without the necessity to post back the entire web page. A good example of Ajax being used on a website is revealing a set of suggested search results as a person types in a search request/keyword. The results are being displayed by means of a drop-down menu, which appears automatically as a user enters the first letter in the search bar. The more one types, the more relevant search results become. Whenever a person sees a suggested product/service that matches the search criteria the most, he can click the direct link to get to the page with details. The entire process of the search of the ideal suggestion happens on one and the same page. The process is speedy as a user doesn’t need to wait until a web page re-loads a couple of times.
Next come another no less popular examples of Ajax usage on a web page.
Lightboxes replacing pop-ups, submission and validation forms, external widgets, voting and rating forms, and a number of other popular web solutions are also making use of Ajax functionality. The web has gone more user-centric and user-friendly. Ajax-based features can enhance user interaction with web apps better than anything else.
Related terms: web browser, XML, JavaScript, navigation.
References and further reading:
* * *
Subscribe to our newsletter and access exclusive content and offers available only to MonsterPost subscribers.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.