Publisher:
Peachpit PressWe were slightly burned on the first edition of this book,
which covered the 3.X versions of Eudora
Light and Eudora Pro. About three
months after the book came out, Qualcomm released Eudora Pro 4.0 for both the Mac
and Windows, and even though much of the discussion of Eudora Pro 3.X still applied,
it wasn't good for the sales of the book. So, we decided to wait until the next large
release of Eudora Pro, which was scheduled for another three or four months away.
Silly us.
Events conspired to delay the release of Eudora Pro 5.0 so completely that we finally
decided to instead update the book to talk about Eudora Pro 4.2, which came out in
June of 1999. The uncertainty of when it would actually ship and other projects meant
that I finished updating the book in late August, and Peachpit had it on store shelves
within a month, which was great.
I just hope Qualcomm doesn't release Eudora Pro 5.0 before the end of 1999.
As much as the first edition of this book was a joy to work on, this one was even
more fun. My editor, Nancy
Davis, and I have figured out a wonderful working relationship that smooths all
of the normal concerns an author has with a publisher, and when we're both in the
groove, we can turn out a book in no time flat. This book took about six weeks again,
which was roughly the same amount of time the previous edition took, but I had a
lot more going on with other projects this time.
Despite the fact that QuarkXPress is now at version 4.x, we stuck with version 3.32,
which had worked fine for the first edition. Other tools did need updating, though,
since Snapz Pro, which I used for screenshots on the Mac side, didn't work properly
with Mac OS 8.6 until I updated it to version 2.0. And Timbuktu Pro, which I use
to control the PC from my Mac, never quite displayed graphics properly, though the
screenshots I took were fine.
Screenshots required more work than anything else in this book, since I had to retake
every one of them. Eudora Pro 4.0 had changed Eudora's interface significantly for
both the Mac and Windows, and moving from Mac OS 7.6 to Mac OS 8.6 meant that every
window looked a little different.
The other major effort came in writing four new chapters. Eudora's Find and Search
capabilities changed completely with Eudora Pro 4.2, so that chapter needed a total
rewrite. Then, I added chapters on personalities, window management, and Eudora's
new IMAP capabilities. IMAP was by far the hardest, since it required me to change
the way I thought about email. I think I understand it now, though I still don't
like the limitations it brings to the ways I've worked for years.
I've updated the annotated
table of contents for the book, so you can see precisely what's in this version.