Infacta GroupMail Review

Downloading the trial version for this application is moderately fast, which is a big hint that the program itself is very basic or very compact. Upon installing the setup wizard will actually give component options to choose from:

• Full installation (program and add-ons)
• Compact installation (program and no adds-ons)
• Custom installation (program and option to choose add-ons)

To experience the full trial version I opted out for the full installation (adds-ons at 446KB, 30.6MB in total) and chose a quick desktop icon shortcut. Shortly after installing the chosen components installation was complete. In short, very simple and short while running smoothly on Windows Vista SP1.

After opening GroupMail 5 for the first time a user-friendly wizard helps get you set up with your e-mail account and identity. There's various ways to choose your group type:

• GroupMail Format (default, recipients are stored internally)
• External Databases (recipient information is retrieved from an external database)
• Address Book (uses contacts from existing address book)

After choosing GroupMail Format an option is given to create a local one (default) or a custom to be saved on a directory of choice. Proceeding with the default I was given an option to select the group's structure from the field name (e-mail, title, first name, etc) to data type and length of characters allowed in each field. upon leaving them at default another option starts up with naming your fields along with options to allow duplicate e-mail storage. Finally the last step comes up, naming your group, which probably should've been the first option during the setup, personally speaking. Upon typing my name I was set to start using GroupMail.

After viewing the many options I chose the "Create a new message" option which gives a pop-up of an e-mail window complete with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. The options work greatly in its favor and are easy to identify (a single "B" for bold, a chain link for inserting URLS).

One of my complaints over the options was even after creating a list and choosing multiple lines it only inserted a bullet on the first line, so you'd have to select each line for an ordered list with bullets or numbers. There's many more options for it like spell check (very useful), inserting RSS feeds, and ability to insert images. Speaking of images another issue I came across was not wrapping text around images through the Rich Text editor so it had to be formatted through editing the source, which will be daunting on users who aren't familiar with CSS/HTML code snippets. Thankfully I knew this beforehand although I'm sure some people using this probably hired someone to develop their sites and wouldn't know to use 'align="left"' to format images. In short the basics of this editor are just that, basic. It could be a bit more user-friendly in terms of visuals (interface is quite plain), applying macros for saving time, and image editing options (borders, alignments, effects).

The upside to writing e-mails is that you're provided with four pre-installed templates (full version might have more). They all represent basic header images and are filled with dummy text ready to be edited. The aesthetics of the templates leave much to be desired and could stand to appear more professional and up to date (they appear to have been designed during the Windows '98 era). The good side of it all is that it can all be edited out with your own images so it's not permanent.

Other areas of GroupMail 5 include Exclusion List (exclude recipients from receiving e-mail), Web Services (set up various services like link tracking and online polls through GroupMail, sign-up required), and Tweaker (change/edit recipient details).

Options like Add-ons, Database Connections, and Scheduler are all unusable in the trial version so one would have to opt for a full version to test out these features. It would've been nice to have a go with these features since I'm very wary over software that limits my experience, maybe a 30 day full version trial.

Even after testing out the limited features I still was able to manage my groups effectively, especially with being able to sort out groups. If the trial version could make me want more I only wonder what awaits in the full one.