Sun Convergence Product Features

This page describes many of the features and capabilities in Sun Convergence 1.0.

Q. Does Convergence work in off-line mode?
A. Off-line mode is currently not supported in Convergence 1.0. Off-line mode is on the product road map for a future release.

Q. Can I customize the Convergence look and feel?
A. You can customize Convergence at various levels. Creating a look and feel that emulates your company's look and feel is very doable. See the Convergence 1.0 Customization Guide for more information.

Q. Does Convergence provide a basic web mail service?
A. Convergence provides much more than a basic web mail service, with many capabilities usually found desktop email clients.

Q. What client platforms does Convergence support?
A. Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0, and Safari 3.0 are supported client browsers. The plan is to provide support for Internet Explorer 6 later in 2008. See Client Requirements for more information on supported client browsers.

Q. Does Convergence support folders?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence support Mail preview?
A. Yes, Thunderbird- or Outlook-like mail preview is supported.

Q. Does Convergence support vacation messages?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence support saved sent messages?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence support signatures?
A. Yes, rich text signatures. You can also create vcards.

Q. Does Convergence support flags and priorities?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence support background colors for HTML messages?
A. Yes. Convergence has a full featured Rich Text Editor. Both email messages and instant messages can be composed in rich text as well as in plain text.

Q. Does Convergence support themes for background?
A. No, not for messages, but themes/skins are supported for the entire application. You can create your own themes/skins and make those available to your users. Users then have the ability to choose from available themes.

Q. Does Convergence support multiple fonts and colors?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence support underline, bold, and italic?
Yes.

Q. Can Convergence compose HTML messages?
A. Yes. Sun Convergence has a full-featured rich text editor.

Q. Does Convergence provide an address book?
A. Yes. The same address book is used across the email and calendar services.

Q. Does Convergence use auto-completion of address fields?
A. Yes. This works for both email address auto-completion while composing email and filling up To, CC, Bcc fields, as well as while inviting users to calendar events.

Q. Does Convergence support attachments?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence provide quota support on mail size and attachment size?
A. Yes. This is supported in email and calendar events. You perform quota management through configuration and user provisioning, which is enforced by the server.

Q. Does Convergence support time zones?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Convergence have multi-language support?
A. Yes. Convergence is localized into nine languages (English, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese) out of the box. Additional language support can be added on a need basis. See Adding a New Language in Convergencefor more information.

Q. Can Convergence perform auto-logout, as well as single sign-on?
A. Yes, single sign-on (SSO) is supported.

Q. Can Convergence perform a quota per folder?
A. No. However, Convergence does provide total quota per user. Messaging Server supports quota per folder and per message type.

Q. Can Convergence disable HTML for incoming mails?
A. By default, images in HTML messages are hidden. Users have the option to show images. This setup reduces the security risk of HTML messages. Currently, Convergence does not have an option for "don't show HTML messages in web client." Note that while composing email, users can choose to compose in plain text or HTML.

Q. What are the Convergence search options for email?
A. Convergence provides both quick search and advanced search. Quick search works in a fashion similar to Thunderbird search, enabling you to search on:

• Subject
• Sender
• To or CC
• Subject or Sender
• Body

Advanced search enables searching on combinations of these and other message attributes.

Q. Does Convergence support tagging email messages?
A. Tagging is planned for an update release in the near future.

Q. Can I switch between HTML and text encoding of email messages?
A. You can compose messages in either rich text format or plain text.

Q. Does Convergence support drag and drop?
A. Drag and drop of email messages, from one folder to another, within Sun Convergence is available. Drag and Drop of events, from one time slot to another, within the Calendar Component of Sun Convergence, is available.

Q. Can I download and open all attachments together?
A. Currently, this is not available today. Such capability is planned for in an updated version in the near future.

Q. Can I copy formatted text from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and paste into the Convergence compose email window with the original applications' formatting preserved?
A. No, this capability is not supported.

Q. Does Convergence upload attachments in the background?
A. Yes. While Convergence uploads a large attachment in the background, a user can continue to type the email message.

Q. How configurable is Convergence?
A. Sun Convergence is highly customizable and configurable on a per user, per domain, and per deployment basis. You can define the client look and feel, and available services (mail, calendar, instant messaging, and so on) by domain and organization. See Convergence 1.0 Customization Guide for more information.

Q. Does Convergence support configurable web pages?
A. In the future, we plan to develop a user configurable home page, which can display a collection of widgets (email, calendar, and other custom widgets). That page will be configurable by users in terms of content and layout.

Q. Where does Convergence store the web pages' configuration?
A. Some of the configuration is stored in LDAP and some in property files.

Q. Does Convergence support multiple preview panes?
A. Multiple messages can be opened in different tabs, at the same time. You can have a tab where you are creating events, other tabs where you are reading or composing email, and so on.

Q. Does Convergence support attachment preview panes?
A. Attachment preview is not possible today, however, we plan to support it in a future release.

Q. Does Convergence provide language support (spell check, grammar check, thesaurus, and so on)?
A. Spell check is available in the Rich Text Editor, in addition browser spell check.

Q. Does Convergence support public folders?
A. Yes, public folder support is the same in Convergence as it is for IMAP, Messenger Express, or Communications Express. You need to configure a special user as the owner for such folders. Users then need to subscribe to such folders to view them.

For more information on public folders, see To Create a Public Shared Folder.