M5 is alive!

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!24 39.entry





February 28
M5 is alive!
Well, almost. It's coming very soon, we promise. But for those who
can't wait, here's a sneak peak at all the new features for Windows
Live Mail Beta "M5" (M5 is geek speak for Milestone 5). If you're a
WL Mail beta tester you won't have to do anything to get it -- your
inbox will update automatically. If you aren't a beta tester, go sign
up!

I don't have space to review all the great features that are already
part of Windows Live Mail, you can look over our earlier blog posts
for that. This is just all the NEW stuff.

Hotmail Classic View
OK, I know it's a contradiction to name anything with the name
"classic" as NEW. But it is. We know our customers roam....and that
they don't always log in to Windows Live Mail on computers with IE
(and many times they aren't even logging in from a computer at all).
We want to help make sure you guys can get your mail any time you
need. Now for people not using Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher, we
have a new view of WL Mail, what we're calling the Hotmail Classic
View. Some of you have noticed that we're missing a few features.
Well, we're still not done, but there's tons of new stuff including:



Contact picker on compose
Report & Delete for junk mail
Download/send/forward attachments
Reply to and Forward mail
CC/Bcc fields on compose
Move message to folders
Safety messaging

Besides additional browser support, Hotmail Classic serves another
purpose. While we know the vast majority of you love Windows Live
Mail, we do know that some of our customers miss things about Hotmail
that they've been using for years (we'll admit, it surprised us how
beloved the checkboxes were!). Think of Hotmail Classic as a bit like
a soda that came back as classic ?. Hotmail Classic view has the
familiarity of Hotmail, but with the benefit of being built on top of
the new, more robust Windows Live Mail platform.

Pick your own colors
Some of you love the new colors (or lack of) in Windows Live Mail.
But we got a fair question from many of you -- you can color
personalize your Messenger, your Space...why not your Mail? Now you can
pick the color scheme that fits you best. Find the one you love, or
change it every day. It's up to you. (And yes, real men do pick
pink.)

Offline Mail and other good stuff
Announcing Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta! The next generation of
desktop mail is coming. Check out the team blog for all the details.

New user wizard
We keep adding features, and we want to make sure you know about them,
so we've created a first experience that helps you customize WL Mail
just the way you like it. The first time you log into Windows Live
Mail, we'll walk you through some of the most important options in WL
Mail so you get the experience that's right for you.

Configurable reading pane
Did you know that you can turn the reading pane off? That's ok, no
one else did either. Now you can configure the reading pane while
reading your mail. No hunting through options, you can change it on
the fly. Even better, we've added an option: the bottom reading
pane! Now you can chose between having the reading pane on the right,
bottom, or off. You pick. Change it whenever you like.


Outlook-like shortcuts
You can now use the shortcuts menu in the left hand navigation to
switch between Mail, Contacts, Calendar and the Today page. Need more
space? Minimize the shortcuts to give yourself the maximum amount of
room to view your mail.


Contact picker
I know auto-complete is awesome. Start typing a name and we complete
the address for you. It's perfect for writing a mail to one or two
people. But admit it, sometimes you just want to browse. You want to
peruse your contact list and choose your contacts and groups. With
contact picker you can browse your contacts and groups while composing
a mail and choose which addresses you want to add.


Find in contacts
If your contact list is bigger than 20 people, you're probably tired
of scrolling through the list looking for the right contact. Well,
hunt no longer. Find in Contacts will actually word wheel through your
contact list as you type. For those of you lucky enough to be on the
Windows Live Messenger beta, this will probably look familiar. Select
the contact you are looking for and you'll jump right to that contact.
Your contact management just got a whole lot easier.

Spaces integration
Those cool contact cards aren't just for Messenger anymore. The
"contact control" now pulls in the profile picture for your contacts.
You can view their contact card, jump to their Space or profile and
more. This feature won't be ready immediately when M5 is released but
we were too excited to keep it a secret.

Custom filters
While Windows Live Mail continues to use the custom filters you set up
in Hotmail, there hasn't been any way to edit the old rules or create
new one. And boy did our beta testers miss it. Until now. Custom
filters are back, allowing you to have mail sent directly to a folder
of your choosing based on the criteria you select.

Easy empty folder
Want to empty your trash or junk mail folder quickly? Now you can,
without having to open the folder first. Just click on the empty
folder icon and your trash is gone. It's that simple.

So, that's the M5 highlight list. Still want more? We're already hard
at work on M6, but we'd love to hear what you think. Love something?
Hate something? Tell us. Remember, your feedback is helping us shape
the future of Windows Live Mail.

- Steve Kafka

Program Manager