Is there no subfolder list or preview pane in Email now in 7.9? Is this progress?

I was really excited about the changes to the Email module coming as that was one of the really weak areas of Sugar/Suite, the email client.

Obviously there was some big hiccups with the release of 7.9 and Email Delete function is still missing in 7.9.1 even but as I take a closer look I’m becoming quite alarmed.

In the old client (and in almost all email clients in general), you can set it up so you can have a list view of your inbox and then a preview pane. The preview pane was below the list view in 7.8 and earlier. It appears now to view the email you must go to a separate page? Or am I missing a setting somewhere? Because even on a fast server hosted close to me, SuiteCRM the pages don’t load super fast, so it makes going through a list of emails way more cumbersome than if you had a preview pane.

The other thing is in many cases you may have subfolders of your inbox folder. Again, in 7.8 and before there was a folder list on the left. This appears to be missing in 7.9.x. And you have to click the INBOX button to display a pop-up window.

It seems these changes combined with SuiteP theme seem to indicate going in a direction of simplifying the layout as if to make the application more targeted for mobile devices? From the perspective of a desktop display, this is quite disturbing.

I am starting to consider at least temporary abandonment of 7.9 and having to patch any major bugs in last 7.8 myself and quite possibly just begin my own personal fork at this point as things recently seem to be going in a backwards direction. I made extensive modifications to inbound email processing just before 7.9 and we were transitioning from using external email client to built-in email client. This new Email module has caused a lot of grief and delay. I will try to be patient a little longer though.

I completely agree, email is at the very heart of our business and sadly suitecrm seems a long long way off providing basic functionality satisfactorily.