Today's release marks one of the biggest and most significant updates to OE Classic since its initial 1.0 release!
New features
- [2023-10-04] Options/Advanced: Edge Chromium browser engine support
For many years, OE Classic has relied on the MSHTML (Trident) browser engine, the same one used by Internet Explorer, to display HTML email content, much like Outlook Express did in the past. This engine was adequate for displaying simpler HTML content found in emails. Over time, we improved its support, enabling OE Classic to utilize more recent Edge modes of Internet Explorer, like Internet Explorer 11 mode which could show even more complex email HTML layouts. However, this engine had its limitations, including occasional freezing while loading certain emails, slow and synchronous operation, and increasing incompatibility with modern email newsletters that sometimes resulted in broken layout of the received email. Eventually, Microsoft discontinued support for Internet Explorer. This left a gap as there was no capable system-supported browser engine available. Afterward, Microsoft introduced the Edge browser, initially based on their EdgeHTML engine, but later replaced it with the new Edge browser using the Chromium (Blink) browser engine. This new browser engine became system-supported, available to all third-party app developers.
Starting today, OE Classic can use this Chromium (Blink) engine in addition to the existing MSHTML engine it already uses. This new HTML engine can be selected in OE Classic's Advanced options, and it is now the default browser engine option for new installations. For existing installations, the option can be changed in the Advanced options.
Edge Chromium is based on the Chromium (Blink) engine, which powers many web browsers today, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge Chromium. It is a modern engine capable of rendering all modern HTML web content, including HTML5, CSS3, and optimized JavaScript code, while leaving behind insecure legacy technologies like ActiveX. It also renders content asynchronously in a separate thread making the application using it more responsive.
Since the new engine requires the installation of Microsoft Edge Chromium web browser, we've designed it so that if Edge Chromium is installed and available, it will be utilized when the "Edge Chromium" option is selected in OE Classic's options. However, if the option is selected but the browser engine is not installed on the system, OE Classic will automatically detect this and gracefully fallback to the older MSHTML engine, which has been a part of Windows for a long time. Please note that to activate the new engine, OE Classic must be closed and started again, after selecting the "Edge Chromium" browser engine option in the Advanced options window.
Edge Chromium option in Options/Advanced. |
To utilize this new browser engine, you need to have the Microsoft Edge Chromium web browser installed. It comes preinstalled by default in new installations of Windows 11 and Windows 10. For older operating systems like Windows 8 or Windows 7, you can still install an older version of Edge Chromium (version 109.0.1518.140), which is sufficient for OE Classic and can be used on Windows 7 and newer. However, on more modern versions of Windows, OE Classic will use a more recent version of the browser engine due to the presence of the updated Microsoft Edge Chromium browser installation, resulting in fewer bugs, faster operation, and improved and more secure display of HTML content.
If you don't already have Microsoft Edge Chromium downloaded on your system but want to try out this new browser engine, you can download it from the following links:
The latest version - for Windows 11 and Windows 10:
When using Windows 11 or Windows 10, you get the best looking HTML content and thus the best experience in OE Classic.
■ Download Microsoft Edge (Chromium) - The latest version (Evergreen Bootstrapper installation)
■ Download Microsoft Edge (Chromium) - The latest version (web browser)
Older version (109.0.1518.140) - for Windows 8 and Windows 7:
■ Download Microsoft Edge (Chromium) - Evergreen Bootstrapper installation (recommended)
■ Download Microsoft Edge (Chromium) v109.0.1518.140 (32-bit) - Older version for Windows 8 and Windows 7
■ Download Microsoft Edge (Chromium) v109.0.1518.140 (64-bit) - Older version for Windows 8 and Windows 7
Once the browser is installed, OE Classic will be able to utilize it, resulting in an instant improvement in the quality of rendered HTML content in newsletters or other mailings that require it. You don't have to set it as your default web browser - however, its installation is necessary to use its browsing engine in OE Classic.
Unfortunately, older versions of Windows (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista) cannot use this new browser engine because it cannot be installed on these old and also obsolete systems. However, OE Classic can still use MSHTML due to its graceful fallback mechanism, allowing it to work on those systems, at least for now.
All essential features are already functioning, including displaying HTML content, displaying embedded or external images, zoom settings, printing, and important security features such as optional blocking of externally loaded content (images, scripts) which works much safer than with older browser engine and optional blocking of JavaScript for enhanced security. Since it is the system browser, we expect it to be well-supported by screen-reader software, ensuring good accessibility. Note that the option to block ActiveX in OE Classic is only for legacy browser engines. Chromium/Blink browser engine doesn't support ActiveX at all.
This update is one of the most crucial that OE Classic has received since its initial release, and it ensures future compatibility with upcoming Windows 12.
Implementing support for this engine was a delicate operation that required extensive code rewriting and testing and took a significant amount of time. However, it now works exceptionally well, and with future updates, it will only get better.
Here's a concise overview of what the new browser engine enables, which was not possible with the previous one:
- Avoiding various issues such as freezing, slow loading, unresponsiveness, and in some cases, even causing OE Classic to shut down.
- Displaying HTML layouts correctly, which were previously appearing broken or blank, or showing Outlook tags that weren't supposed to be visible.
- Automatically correcting the orientation of images with embedded orientation information that were saved incorrectly rotated.
- Supporting a wider range of image and other formats, including WEBP, SVG, PDF, and more.
- Automatically identifying and displaying images based on their file signature rather than relying solely on their file extension, which may sometimes be incorrect.
- Enjoying colorful Emojis instead of monochrome ones.
- [2023-07-30] Customizable templates for plain text quoting
OE Classic has supported customizable templates for many years.
By default, they are stored in the folder:
c:\Program Files (x86)\OEClassic\Html\
This new feature adds support for body quoting of plain text, making it customizable. Here's a brief summary of how templates work:
- When you click "Reply", "Reply All", or "Forward", OE Classic will load a template from selected templates in the above folder (based on selection made in Options/Compose).
- The template is used for the basic layout of the reply or forward messages and can be modified if the user knows some HTML. Each template has two parts, one for plain text messages and the other for HTML messages. The appropriate one is loaded and used based on the type of message being loaded.
- In the template, there are placeholders that can be removed but are used to insert certain formatting or content of the message. These are:
{FONTSTYLE1} - Default CSS styles 1 provided by OE Classic, can be replaced with custom CSS styles.
{FONTSTYLE2} - Default CSS styles 2 provided by OE Classic, can be replaced with custom CSS styles.
{ORIGINALMESSAGENC} - The "Original Message" text (in a localized form depending on the language being used, so it could be in German, French, or any other selected language).
{ORIGINALMESSAGE} - The "Original Message:" text (also localized).
{FROMTEXT} - The "From:" text (localized).
{FROMITEM} - The sender of the message (From item).
{REPLYTOTEXT} - The "Reply-To:" text (localized).
{REPLYTOITEM} - The Reply-To of the email - if absent, this line may be left out, as in that case Reply-To is identical to From.
{TOTEXT} - The "To:" text (localized).
{TOITEM} - All recipients in the "To" field.
{CCTEXT} - The "Cc:" text (localized).
{CCITEM} - All recipients in the "Cc" field.
{SENTTEXT} - The "Sent:" text (localized).
{SENTITEM} - Email sending date, formatted based on selected Windows locale.
{SUBJECTTEXT} - The "Subject:" text (localized).
{SUBJECTITEM} - Email subject line.
{ONSENTFROMWROTE} - The "On {SENTDATE}, {FROM} wrote:" text (localized).
{BODYITEM} - The actual message body. Without this placeholder, the message body text would be absent.
The new placeholder is:
{BODYITEM-QUOT80} - Similar to "BODYITEM", it adds message body text. The difference is that "QUOT" indicates it will be quoted (chevrons, or ">" characters, will be added to beginning of each line, providing quoting or indenting). The number 80 indicates the line length (in characters) before the line is wrapped. Currently supported range is from 40 to 120 - any larger or smaller number will be ignored, and the default value will be used instead.
If you want to customize your own templates to personalize how your reply or forward messages look, they must be stored in your custom folder outside of OE Classic's installation folder, or you can choose to use one of the predefined templates provided with the program.
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