Raven

I have renewed my interest in coding. Classes are over and the break is starting. I will have a lot of time to sleep and recover from being sick. While Scott’s Gmail Alert has been very stable for this year with very few major issues reported, I have a longing to do something bigger and better than SGA. I envision a program that acts as a full-fledged email client, yet is small and runs silently in the task bar. Email should not be complicated

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Personally, I am techier than the average person that I come across and have different needs when it comes to my email. I don’t need to ask how to attach a file. In fact, there are times I wish I could do more with my email. The client that I envision is simple to use and able to be programmed to do things no other client can do. A user may which to interface with another peripheral, run a script or manage a database. One contact may be more important than another and require a more obvious alert. The possibilities are endless for what could be done.

I am announcing my new project: Raven. With full support for IMAP protocols and the convenience of SGA merged together with new features and ideas. Raven is a sort of code name since the project has not even really started yet and has no name. I don’t want to concern myself with naming it at this time, I’d rather build it. There are many things I want to improve on with SGA, but I don’t see much future for a program limited only to Gmail.

I have decided, and hope to follow through with, that I will post progress to this web log. My thoughts and ideas, programming techniques and maybe even some code will be included. My goal is twofold: I want to document the process all while creating a great new program. Current users of SGA will be able to have a reduced upgrade price for Raven, if they wish to leave SGA; new users will have the option of either a trial version of full version for a low cost.

Raven’s user experience will start in the installer. I will not use a third party installer, instead I will create my own to ensure that from the users perspective, Raven is there to make life easier. There will be opportunities to help with the project in the future.

Raven is named after a unit in the game StarCraft 2 until a final name can be decided on.