4QD currently use Pluto. We are sure that we could not run our business as economically or as efficiently without Pluto. Nor would it be so enjoyable! However RISC OS has two excellent email and news reader programs and the choice between Pluto and Messenger Pro is difficult.
We therefore had dedicated this part of our site to helping to promote Pluto and to helping other Pluto users. This introduction is paraphrased from the 'unofficial' instructions which I was trying to write.
However Jonathan Duddington is apparently a person not afraid to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Although he has done nothing to stop such an endeavour, he has made no attempt whatsoever to cooperate actively with a project which can only be to his advantage!
Such negative encouragement can only result in one end result. I have too many projects which will thank me for what I do, so the improvement of Pluto's instructions has been terminated.
Although Pluto is an email and news reader, it is probably best thought of as a text database and processor. Emails and News are, after all, simply items of ASCII text.
Pluto stores, sorts, indexes, displays and edits ASCII text - whether it be emails, news articles or even genealogical notes - but of course most of Pluto's functionality is aimed at email and news, so such things as its display of the various quoting levels of an email in different colours is second to none.
Each separate item of text is an 'Article'. Pluto stores articles in 'Boxes' - up to 58 of them, which can be added at will. For each box, Pluto keeps several indexes. These indexes will allow you to choose different ways of sorting and retrieving your articles and the use of separate indexes means that re-sorting a box full of articles is nearly instantaneous.
Pluto is a large and powerful application which still grows in response to users' requests, so it can, initially, seem daunting and complex. However it is supplied with comprehensive automatic setup routines which will simply allow you to swap from your present email system to Pluto.
Pluto has a plethora of choices. So much so that the beginner say find it difficult to know where to start. However Pluto has several 'Get Going' routines set up Pluto's choices in a way which mimics your existing system to ease the transition.
Pluto's choices are mainly in two places: those which are to do with Boxes, and those which are to do with Users or which are global. Global ones are set up from the Icon Bar menu, where there is an entry 'Lists', and a submenu 'Users' which opens the Users list. You can add/edit a users's settings from here.
Choices particular to a single box set up in a 'Box Edit' window which opens by an double click on Pluto's Boxes list. This allows you to add new boxes or edit your preferences as to how they behave.
RISC OS is blessed with what are probably the two best email programs in the universe. Before settling with Pluto, we purchased the other one - Messenger Pro. There is a fierce difference of opinion about which is the best - the two sides are probably split between 'Programmers' and 'Users'. Read why I think Messenger is probably a 'Programmers' program.
Before choosing Pluto, I had tried Messenger. I went for Pluto for two very good reasons: one is that it will handle mailing lists, the other is that Messenger has parameters such as article status attached to a user - not to a box, so the status of an email depended on who was reading it. That second objection has now been removed.
Mail lists are not handled by Messenger itself - but by NewsBase, and it is mainly Newsbase which is flawed. It is quite possible that this will be solved and I may well then find that I can help Mark Sawle win the 'war' with Pluto. We shall see!