I think he did waste his time. So did I. I use Gmail. I was so hoping for a lot of performance fixes but no, they are taking care of creating a Refresh button instead of a link. :|
We're making a cross-platform desktop client in C++ / Qt.
We access Gmail over IMAP, and we specifically optimize for their servers (ie: we don't bother supporting the full range of the IMAP protocol, and we take advantage of Gmail specificities)
This allows the client to feel fast, even though actions that have to sync with Gmail, like deleting or archiving something aren't really faster or slower than with the web interface. But they happen in the background, so it feels snappier.
We will be releasing a private alpha in a few days. It's still very early, though. You can read / delete / archive / reply to emails in your inbox, and that's all for the moment.
Drop me a mail if you want to try it out, or sign-up for the beta at http://betterinbox.com (The beta will be released later, in a few months I think)
Strange that the "refresh" button does not provide any visual feedback if there are no new messages. Not good. Even refreshing inbox by clicking on "Inbox" on the left briefly shows a "loading" message.
I preferred when the refresh button was a link. It made sense because all of the buttons are actions to be performed (POST) whereas the refresh link simply checks for new emails (GET).
I'm glad to see there's some forward motion on Gmail; it's seemed like development stalled out a year or so ago. However, it's a bit depressing. If it takes this long to get around to fixing the small things, how long is it going to take the fix the big things?
Gmail's still the best web-based email client I've seen, but at this rate not for long. There's a big honking opportunity here for someone to move in and eat Google's lunch.
Came here to mention the same thing. It is incredibly surprising to see that they've not improved the usability of plain text after all these years. Arial is still the default font both for composing and reading.
Now, what I'd also really love to see is a 80 character width guide while composing plain text emails. That may be too nerdy though, but I'd just love to get as close to my usual Vim/mutt config as possible.
Maybe they'll at least get a lab feature out for us plain text users. At least let us customize our plain text font choices. For now, there are a few Chrome extensions that fix this issue.
The most useful thing for me out of that list is "Shift + ?" shortcut. For too long I had to open another tab, open Google, and type in 'Gmail shortcuts'...
Need a better way do inline quoting. Gmail insists on top-posting even when I select the part I want to reply to, it's several extra steps to cite and trim properly, especially if you want to reply to more than one part of a message.
32 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 92.4 ms ] threadWe access Gmail over IMAP, and we specifically optimize for their servers (ie: we don't bother supporting the full range of the IMAP protocol, and we take advantage of Gmail specificities)
This allows the client to feel fast, even though actions that have to sync with Gmail, like deleting or archiving something aren't really faster or slower than with the web interface. But they happen in the background, so it feels snappier.
We will be releasing a private alpha in a few days. It's still very early, though. You can read / delete / archive / reply to emails in your inbox, and that's all for the moment.
Drop me a mail if you want to try it out, or sign-up for the beta at http://betterinbox.com (The beta will be released later, in a few months I think)
That said, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
This whole sign-up page seriously needs some love.
We can be faster than gmail.com because we're a desktop app. Trying to compete with gmail.com as a webmail would be way harder.
But gmail.com is a much bigger competitor for us than Outlook, since that's what most people use. Our main target are people using gmail.com.
It's the one advantage, in my opinion, that desktop outlook has over gmail.
You can also get the same behavior if you turn keyboard shortcuts on with either "u" (to refresh current view) or "gi" (to go back to the inbox).
Gmail's still the best web-based email client I've seen, but at this rate not for long. There's a big honking opportunity here for someone to move in and eat Google's lunch.
Generally the small things don't get fixed because the big things are getting fixed.
Gmail has been regularly releasing new features and new labs over the past year. http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/
I have a lot of non-working email addresses in my contacts, and it is a PITA to clean them up.
Now, what I'd also really love to see is a 80 character width guide while composing plain text emails. That may be too nerdy though, but I'd just love to get as close to my usual Vim/mutt config as possible.
Maybe they'll at least get a lab feature out for us plain text users. At least let us customize our plain text font choices. For now, there are a few Chrome extensions that fix this issue.