Personally I really like the new design, despite the fact I have actually implemented most of the things mentioned in the article. However, I thinks that this shows that gmail is an amazing app that it provides this level of customisation, and this doesn't include any of the stuff from the labs feature set.
You can do this with Gmail just fine since it supports both pop3 and imap out. But I join the chuckling at the notion that "this demonstrates gmail's flexibility". If it was really flexible and customizable, I would still have the old theme.
> You can do this with Gmail just fine since it supports both pop3 and imap out.
Gmail's IMAP works, though it's had a number of minor-but-irritating bugs for years (these bugs even affect the official applications too). I wish they'd fix them - I get that it's not in their interest to support nonstandard clients for which they receive no ad revenue, but that's no excuse here, because they still cause some of the same problems on the Android and Blackberry apps.
This article, dated February 2008 (four years ago!) is just as relevant today as it was then. The duplication of messages with broken synchronization is what bothers me the most, as I use offlineimap to handle my mail: http://weblog.timaltman.com/archive/2008/02/24/gmails-buggy-...
In my experience, they're usually far more customizable. Clients I've used include KMail on Linux, The Bat! on Windows and Mozilla's Thunderbird, all of which offer myriad options to customize the appearance and behavior of message list, message pane and folder lists, though the first two apps much more so than Thunderbird. You also get to modify things like toolbars much more freely, and OS/toolkit theming usually also beats the GMail theming system.
You could argue that GMail has a higher customization potential given the fact that you can muck around with the document client-side (though Thunderbird extensions are similar, and if you really go down that road: I can also change the source code of KMail and recompile it), but we're talking in-app options here.
And so I find the notion that "GMail has impressive configurability because it has the options described in the article" amusing. Somehow the world has forgotten just how sophisticated an experience a regular old desktop app running in the context of a regular old desktop environment can be.
I'd also argue that regular old desktop toolkits and libraries still require a lot less investment of effort to achieve such levels of sophistication than the web development environment does at the moment. Like I said, thought-provoking.
Also worth noting is that Thunderbird's layout can be thoroughly customized with a bit of JavaScript hacking via its extensions interface, just as Firefox can. While TB may not have tons of visual options by default, it can still get them via third-party extension.
You're missing out on a ton of great Gmail features if you are using a desktop mail client. Integrated hangout/voice /text chat, phone, conversation view, the social pane with contextual information..the list goes on.
Outlook has conversation view as well, and Microsoft Lync (formerly Office Communicator) integrates the rest of the feature set (yes you're vendor-locked, but you are with GMail too). In my opinion GMail executes better on most of these features, but they're not the only ones to offer them.
Not a fan, but Lync even allows XMPP access (if so configured), so all your GTalk buddies can message you from GMail (at least that should work - didn't try).
Those features also only promote you to stay logged in on your gmail account at all times, and there have been numerous security issues with that approach.
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would chose gmail over any native application for mail. Every time I see someone use gmail I cringe at how primitive and slow the workflow is.
>I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would chose gmail over any native application for mail
I can't speak for the 350M other people using Gmail. But here's why I use Gmail(some of these aren't exclusively Gmail):
- Conversation View
- Calendar Integration
- Very good Labelling/Grouping system
- Online Storage
- Browser access
- Very Powerful and effecient Search
- Great filter system
- Autosaves unfinished emails
- Integration with multiple third party tools including Attachments.me, dropbox, google docs, taskforce
I used to use Thunderbird, and it was great. But I had big 3 problems with it: 1) I never got comfortable with searching emails. 2)I couldn't access my email from other devices/computers etc 3)My emails starting chewing up a lot of HDD space.
I'm not arguing that gmail isn't good at what it does. But it is at an inherent (huge) disadvantage of being executed in the browser.
Just some comments. Thunderbird became dramatically better at searching a couple of years(?) ago. I frequently feel limited by search in gmail, I've assumed that there are advanced features lurking around somwhere but the UX is so bad I just don't.
I don't see how storage can be a problem. With gmail you hit the limit at <8 GB, that can hardly be a problem on a workstation. If anything it's an argument against gmail.
But, perhaps the most important one, I don't get why everyone seems to believe it's native or web, never both. Of course you have both... The question is why you'd want such a blunt tool for something as important as mail on your workstation. Yes, browser access is still awesome - that's why you have both.
And when you consider security it's borderline to irresponsible being logged in constantly in the browser and since I value instant notification that alone is a dealbreaker on my WS.
And if you're on a laptop with a bad connection relying on gmail or something similar is a sure way to get a heart attack.
if you are limited by search in gmail, you are doing it wrong. you are saying gmail is inferior to thunderbird for search? over google? c'mon. you also take issue with apps running in the browser, which is counter-culture. you are refusing to accept that there are specific advantages to the additional functionality we have gained in the browser, while claiming your machine is more secure than Google's data centers. sorry but you're not making a sound argument.
Read in what context I said that gmail search is inferior to thunderbird for search. But yes, how do you, without googling it up, search for a message in gmail from address x, sometime in the year of 2010, where the subject began with y and the content contained z.
Counter-culture? Few would argue that native apps doesn't have advantages over browser apps. The best you could say about a browser app is that it is "good enough". But obviously they suffer greatly from being in the browser just because all workstation operating systems are centered around native apps and not apps within the browser.
Which means that I can click on my mail-application in the taskbar/whatever but whereas in a browser I have to navigate through all my browser windows to find the one with mail in it, which doesn't even have to be in it's own window but hidden somewhere with lots of other tabs.
Again, I never said that my machine is more secure than googles data center servers. But any native application has security advantages over something run in the browser (and potentially drawbacks as well, but the inherent issue with being logged in on a web app doesn't exist in a native application).
It all good advise, exactly to the point what I use except for the theme - I use "Soft gray" - it's works better with preview pane lab and gets rid of the huge red button.
You can talk IMAP/POP and SMTP, and you get to control your own user interface, or you can talk HTTP, HTML, and JS and abdicate control to someone else. I fell into that trap myself. I was a heavy user of Gmail for about four years, and when they started changing things and told me "only 0.07% of users use that feature we just removed", it was too late.
This mayhem ruined "the cloud" for me ... and I used to help run parts of it. Blah.
For GUI clients, Thunderbird is the best I've seen, followed by Evolution (back when I used it, anyway).
Though if you're open to a ncurses-based client, I use mutt. The #1 reason I switched to it (instead of any other client) when the new Gmail design was released was because it opens almost instantaneously. It's a subtle thing, but not having to leave my inbox open all the time and being able to open it in a split second when I need to really helps my workflow.
It's slow because all the UI elements in the new themes have alpha transparency and rounded corners. It increases the amount of work your browser has to do to paint it tremendously (though GPU acceleration will help).
Rounded corners? AFAICT the defining characteristic of the new UI is that every single visual element is a rectangle with a pale grey 1px border. It's all so flat, ugh.
besides the default theme and the high contrast theme, all others are useless and look like the work of a 5 year old. Design has a function, namely to make things clear and give the user a good experience.
I HATE HATE HATE the new design! I was dreading the day they took away the old look, but these tips go a long way to making gmail usable for me again. Thanks!
I ended up leaving Gmail a few months ago (knowing this was coming). The new design works really poorly with browser zoom. I need to view the page zoomed in to 300% or so most of the time (I don't have good vision). Zooming really worked pretty well on all of the past iterations, up until this one. There are a number of panes that stay visible when scrolling, so the content area on the web page becomes really really small. (I'm not usually one to complain just because things changed, I didn't like the mystery meat icons either, but I can get over something trivial like that.) It just doesn't work.
I couldn't really figure out where else to go, but OWA 2010 doesn't have these problems, so I went to Office 365 for my own domain (and forwarded Gmail). I never thought I'd pay for email but considering how vital mail is, having real support is a nice piece of mind.
I remember how awesome webmail seemed in 2003 (when I switched from Outlook to Gmail), but now that I've gone back to Outlook, I see all the awesome stuff that I was missing. This is really not to credit Outlook though, I'm sure Gmail (threading) influenced them greatly in the past 8 years. I know you can just use Outlook+Gmail, but sadly IMAP isn't nearly as good as Exchange.
agreed. for those of us who feel that gmail is a necessary evil this definitely helps ease the pain. I just wish I could pay for a commercial service or install a server-side app that had similar functionality.
the default settings in the new gmail design are really bad. at least the gmail team should have some kind of migration wizard that allows users to easily figure out to configure the settings to make the new design work as well as possible for them.
I use this regularly now, but I'm still dead set on moving back to having email in my workstation. Now, Google seem ruthless in their hunt for your information and this alone should be enough to make a decision. But it's a bigger problem than just that: you are at their mercy for any change they introduce, and they are a critical component of the internet for many if not most of us. Namely this interface change, or the availability of that simple html option. One could argue that the same can be said for any "cloud service" but email is typically a bit too critical to many of us. It definitely is for me. And they would push their integration plans whatever your opinion is and whatever the consensus is. This modus operandi seems to be the new standard at Google.
The last straw was a recent incident I had with my Android phone. So apparently in one of the recent updates of Google Talk they realised they could just log me into their one-and-only Google Account with gmail, etc. included. I had very carefully avoided Gmail's app (which they won't let you delete). I had refused to "sync" anything or add my Google account. Now, Google wouldn't let me log-out or delete my account.
I don't have any particularly compromising information in my phone. I don't have any "secret" numbers and the labels make sense just to me. I have it set up so if I lost it, it wouldn't be a big problem. But now I had my email forcibly open in my phone for anyone to see. Now I had to lock the screen and be extra-careful. Google doesn't let you delete your account from the phone easily. They provide this "option" but if you click on it they will let you know that you can only delete your account from the phone by doing a factory reset. Goodbye installed apps, settings, highscores, everything. So I did, and proceeded to create an account just for the phone.
Now, searches are getting painfully slow and they're quite poor compared to Thunderbird. But I'd still prefer gmail for the convenience of having it always available and always synced from anywhere, if only they weren't so insisting in upping their stakes and in forcing people into an all-or-nothing situation. I bet it makes business sense for them, it just doesn't make it for me.
I lost my youtube account when they stopped allowing independent accounts (had it locked to someone else's Google account and couldn't get this person to release it). I cannot afford to risk losing my main email account, so I'm taking preventive action while they still allow a relatively easy migration back to the desktop.
I quite like the new design, and I've been using it since it was in "beta" a couple of months ago.
It certainly provided a couple of frustrating days before I got used to it, but I find it much more soft on the eyes - to me the old layout now looks pretty harsh; giving the impression of being just "functional".
A lot of non-technical folks I work (and live!) with find the new design much, much more pleasing. Bear in mind these are the folks that use hotmail, yahoo etc - so they really are after the "eye candy" more than the functionality; and with google's new social push I can assume this is now the target audience.
My only complaint would be about the icons; regardless of wether you've used Gmail before - you will get caught out; a few days ago it took me a good few minutes before I could find out how to get to my contacts.
My biggest new-Gmail-design pet-peeve is that the Display Density setting is only respected if your browser window is wide enough.
I prefer the "Comfortable" setting. I have a 22" monitor at 1680x1050, but I don't have my browser window maximized (it only takes up 65-75% of the screen width).
So, GMail has helpfully reduced my display density to "Cozy", ignoring my setting.
As far as I know, there's no way to "fix" this; it's a known issue but there's no workaround other than making my browser window wider.
It took my months of using the new design before I realized this. My impression before was simply that the design was “broken” on my desktop computer until one day I resized the window and discovered this issue.
A year or two ago I got tired of my email UI changing every week, so I switched to the "plain HTML" view. It's not as fast or smooth or javascript-y but I don't think it's changed a bit in years.
Its not just GMAIL. Google analytics is painfully ugly. The first screen before showed a list of all the sites and traffic. Now it shows just the list of accounts. Its awful. There is no way anymore to use the classic design.
Also, once I am in google analytics it is just a UI mess. They cram every feature possible and make it unintelligible. They are ruining the UI for gmail,google search and google analytics.
This is more like a "how to revert to 2006 GMail" list.
I mean, he even goes out of his way to turn off Priority Inbox and important markers. That has nothing to do with the redesign - it's just turning off year+ old features, which is what a good portion of the post is. Luckily for the author, options exist to turn off all the features that have been released in the past many years.
Of course, there's some apportioning of valid and invalid frustration with any redesign, and I won't invalidate any of that here. But this post just comes off as "make all the scary new stuff go away!"
I tried Priority Inbox for a while when it first came out. It's an interesting feature and maybe it works for some people, but I decided I didn't need it.
It didn't matter until the redesign, though. In the new design, the "importance markers" are very similar in appearance to the stars, and they are right next to each other. It's hard to tell them apart at a glance. That's why I finally had to turn them off.
Thanks for the tips, I'd done most of these when they changed to the new theme, but the the icon button/web clip tips escaped me. Thanks for those! I couldn't find the high contrast theme, unfortunately.
As a random anecdotal data point, my inbox would be completely unusable without priority inbox. My email volume is way too high without it.
What concerns me more about the new design compared to the old original is the readability: now it is much worse. Why not offer the most popular old themes (adapted to the new layout) an option?
I was so busy using gmail I barely noticed the transition. Which for me says everything. Great design shouldn't be noticed, it should just work.
Obviously this is just one anecdote. But for me gmail is still the indispensable tool it always was. For all its shortcomings it is an amazing product.
I'm finding this hard to believe. You didn't notice when the Send button went from the bottom of the message to the top? Maybe you meant that you noticed but didn't find it jarring enough to cause a lot of confusion?
I'm finding it hard to believe that you down-voted me for expressing a personal observation. Even after I expressly pointed out that it was an anecdote.
I confess I haven't really noticed any of the button changes. This is mainly because I am almost 100% keyboard in gmail, though. Send is a quaint tab-enter. :)
I can say every now and then I look for the buttons, but the only one I really ever find myself using is the refresh button, and that is simply if I wasn't already positioned on the keyboard.
I'm not sure I follow. I don't avoid it. They just happened to have not changed the way I interact with it. I confess I did find my old theme a little more pleasant to deal with, but I'm already at the point where I don't remember it anymore.
I'm curious what "important buttons" you are referring to.
I'm also curious how folks that get this worked up over their email client don't go into shock when they get a new car. Consistency is not the norm in life. Seems it is really only a norm when it was dictated by function.
Not that I feel you shouldn't get worked up over what ever you want to get worked up over. I just don't understand it.
When you get a new car, that's because of a choice you are making or a consequence of your actions (such as if the previous one was totaled.) When a website that a person frequents which "seems to work fine the way it is" changes, people get worked up because they see the change as unnecessary.
Similarly, if you are a developer, you might feel the same way if the company you work at randomly decides to switch bug trackers or wikis, when the new ones aren't really any better than before.
I wonder if the anger could be redirected by the realisation that if they were running their own client software, they would be in control of the interface. To realise the dream of free software. But I suspect most of the "rage" will blow over in fifteen minutes.
Its a constant wonder how Google and other large companies can't actually realise that their design departments are not doing a great job. You'd think that Apple's successes might actually make them realise that great interfaces (especially if they can outdo the competition) are hugely valuable.
Some things about the new design are defensible, however others are definitely not. My particular pet hate is that all the things that are not mail services (but you can still access within gmail) are splattered around all corners of the screen. Chat is in one corner (along with 'gadgets' - whatever they are). G+ is in the opposite. And in a third (behind a button that is very unhelpfully named 'gmail') are contacts and tasks. Where is the sense in that???
>large companies can't actually realise that their design departments are not doing a great job
There are obviously a lot of unhappy users with legitimate gripes. But Google would probably be looking at the growth of Gmail to validate what ever the design department is doing. That growth is pretty impressive.
Growth? Gmail grew 3 or 4 years ago. I wouldn't recommend Gmail to anyone now, it's just another Hotmail type service, there's nothing special or good about Gmail anymore.
What really surprised me is how few of my friends get the 'conversation' view even in 2012. After too many awkward conversations and now their 'we've got absolutely no design skills and can't design for shit' redesign, I'm just shrugging when people say their hotmail account has been hacked for the 15th time.
I've been using gmail pretty exclusively for the past 4 years now, and haven't really had to much exposure to other services. But I've been extremely satisfied. Enough to stick around.
So just out of curiosity - what services would you recommend to an inquiring mind?
fastmail's non-free service, maybe? I got it a very long time ago, mainly for the .in email address. It's been no-frills, fast, and (mostly) reliable. I'm still not sure I'd recommend it to a gmail user, but its been a good email account to have.
Careful - don't rely on fastmail for XMPP. I switched to them based on them having that, since I used it a lot with Gmail. Then I found out that fastmail is running some super wobbly XMPP server which kicks you off any time you really get going really quickly in a conversation.
I've opened multiple tickets, and all they can say is "sorry" and "we know about it" and "we're working on it", but actual fixes still haven't come. Having a solid chat experience obviously is not high on their priority list.
Late reply, sorry. I never even knew they had the option of an XMPP server. For what it's worth, I find the mail experience to be both reasonable, and pretty much fat-free, which I guess is all I really need.
I moved my domain and imported all emails from Fastmail to Google Apps because of:
1) Deficient search, the more email you keep, the more you rely on search to find something from few days to few years ago. Incredibly painful with Fastmail.
2) Lack of calendar. It's just so more convenient to have your calendar integrated with email.
3) Lack of Exchange ActiveSync support (as in protocol). This protocol allows to sync email, calendar and contacts from the same account. All these things I want to be synced to my phone. Keeping contacts and calendar in Gmail (because it has ActiveSync support) and email in Fastmail was becoming more and more frustrating.
As a publicly traded company, their published estimates of gained users over the past year are probably extremely solid. I wouldn't worry about bias, they would be in heaps of trouble if they lied about these numbers.
> But Google would probably be looking at the growth of Gmail to validate what ever the design department is doing.
If past performance is your primary way of to 'validate' anything, you obviously have a very poor understanding of the subject matter and are going to lag behind those who do.
I'm not entirely sure what you're stating here. Businesses shouldn't look at past performances in order to make judgements about future performance? And those who ignore it will have an edge?
andrewfelix was prompting you to elaborate. Just replying "that's not what I said" is completely unproductive - this is meant to be a conversation, not a game of twenty questions. We shouldn't have to guess at your meaning.
Sorry. I thought about this, but it seemed obvious to me. Maybe it isn't. I'll give it a try.
Of course past performance of a product is a factor worth considering in determining the future success of someone in any field. However if you really want to excel at this field, past performance is not likely to be the _primary_ factor (though it could be a smaller factor) in how you 'validate' future worth.
For instance, I can easily measure the past performance of stocks on the stock exchange. However if I really want to succeed in trading shares, 'have the stocks of foobar gone up in the past' is not likely to be the primary way I validate whether foobar is worth investing in.
Hope that helps you :) I didn't mean to sound as indignant as perhaps I did.
With you now. I'd guessed that was what you meant, but wasn't sure.
... incidentally, I still find it strangely novel when disagreements on HN don't turn into Internet Arguments. Makes such a refreshing change from, well, the rest of the web. :)
Apple makes plenty of UI nightmares. Examples include Snow Leopard firewall configuration dialog, the leather versions of iCal/Contacts, the finder, etc.
I loved the new design. Much less clutter. A service I use every waking moment need not label everything. I like the direction of Google's design efforts.
The Google+ design will continue to evolve, I'm sure (it is not quite there yet).
Another trick I found is to go into Labs and enable the one that moves the in-browser chat box to the right side of the inbox. It's not as nice as before where it just stacked on the left side, but with the new design it wanted to show me one of the chat box or utility at-a-glance views like my Calendar, but not both. Now I get both again, at the inexpensive cost of horizontal screen estate.
Their spam/filtering has gone down hill. It does a great job with the spam. Unfortunately, several people I communicate with a few times a day, half of their stuff goes straight to the trash and I don't see it. If I login to webmail I can see they have both an Inbox and Trash label on them but my phone and mail client to register the new mail and it doesn't show in the Inbox. I just want it to pick one.
Yup, I hit this too. I think they score things without SPF records as spam. Though this causes trouble because another company I use bounces mail if you use an SPF.
In the end, I'm still using Gmail and ditching the other company...but not recommending Gmail anymore because of the disruption.
I go into the trash label inside Gmail.
I click on a message that I didn't want to go straight to my trash.
At the top where it shows the Trash label there is also an Inbox one with it.
As soon as I click the "x" on the label, I can see the email being downloaded by the mail client I use. It is of course displaying the Inbox and not Trash.
Either someone has my login and is messing with me by somehow adding the Trash and Inbox label or there is a glitch in the system putting both labels on it. My guess is the glitch.
I know I was probably 1 of 10 people that actually used (and liked!) the Terminal theme with all green monospaced text... sadly that is now gone, and Terminal theme is now just a lame white on black with variable-width font. bummer :(
I'd also add a tip to check out the Minimalist Suite http://minimalistsuite.com - It's Chrome extension for Gmail as well as other Google properties that allows you to customize the UI and remove of things you don't use. There are many that do this but this is the best IMHO.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 263 ms ] threadThat made me chuckle, using a desktop email app. Funny/curious/thought-provoking how different standards apply to web apps still.
Gmail's IMAP works, though it's had a number of minor-but-irritating bugs for years (these bugs even affect the official applications too). I wish they'd fix them - I get that it's not in their interest to support nonstandard clients for which they receive no ad revenue, but that's no excuse here, because they still cause some of the same problems on the Android and Blackberry apps.
This article, dated February 2008 (four years ago!) is just as relevant today as it was then. The duplication of messages with broken synchronization is what bothers me the most, as I use offlineimap to handle my mail: http://weblog.timaltman.com/archive/2008/02/24/gmails-buggy-...
You could argue that GMail has a higher customization potential given the fact that you can muck around with the document client-side (though Thunderbird extensions are similar, and if you really go down that road: I can also change the source code of KMail and recompile it), but we're talking in-app options here.
And so I find the notion that "GMail has impressive configurability because it has the options described in the article" amusing. Somehow the world has forgotten just how sophisticated an experience a regular old desktop app running in the context of a regular old desktop environment can be.
I'd also argue that regular old desktop toolkits and libraries still require a lot less investment of effort to achieve such levels of sophistication than the web development environment does at the moment. Like I said, thought-provoking.
Those features also only promote you to stay logged in on your gmail account at all times, and there have been numerous security issues with that approach.
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would chose gmail over any native application for mail. Every time I see someone use gmail I cringe at how primitive and slow the workflow is.
I can't speak for the 350M other people using Gmail. But here's why I use Gmail(some of these aren't exclusively Gmail):
- Conversation View
- Calendar Integration
- Very good Labelling/Grouping system
- Online Storage
- Browser access
- Very Powerful and effecient Search
- Great filter system
- Autosaves unfinished emails
- Integration with multiple third party tools including Attachments.me, dropbox, google docs, taskforce
I used to use Thunderbird, and it was great. But I had big 3 problems with it: 1) I never got comfortable with searching emails. 2)I couldn't access my email from other devices/computers etc 3)My emails starting chewing up a lot of HDD space.
Just some comments. Thunderbird became dramatically better at searching a couple of years(?) ago. I frequently feel limited by search in gmail, I've assumed that there are advanced features lurking around somwhere but the UX is so bad I just don't.
I don't see how storage can be a problem. With gmail you hit the limit at <8 GB, that can hardly be a problem on a workstation. If anything it's an argument against gmail.
But, perhaps the most important one, I don't get why everyone seems to believe it's native or web, never both. Of course you have both... The question is why you'd want such a blunt tool for something as important as mail on your workstation. Yes, browser access is still awesome - that's why you have both.
And when you consider security it's borderline to irresponsible being logged in constantly in the browser and since I value instant notification that alone is a dealbreaker on my WS.
And if you're on a laptop with a bad connection relying on gmail or something similar is a sure way to get a heart attack.
Counter-culture? Few would argue that native apps doesn't have advantages over browser apps. The best you could say about a browser app is that it is "good enough". But obviously they suffer greatly from being in the browser just because all workstation operating systems are centered around native apps and not apps within the browser.
Which means that I can click on my mail-application in the taskbar/whatever but whereas in a browser I have to navigate through all my browser windows to find the one with mail in it, which doesn't even have to be in it's own window but hidden somewhere with lots of other tabs.
Again, I never said that my machine is more secure than googles data center servers. But any native application has security advantages over something run in the browser (and potentially drawbacks as well, but the inherent issue with being logged in on a web app doesn't exist in a native application).
-No. You are not living in reality. Browser is the future. Your resistance is futile.
-Mine is always the first tab. It is also my home page. You are making really bad excuses why this doesn't work for you.
-No. It has security dis-advantages since your data is stored on your device, which doesn't have the same security layers as Google's data centers.
This mayhem ruined "the cloud" for me ... and I used to help run parts of it. Blah.
I probably going to use newest Thunderbird when I leave gmail.
Though if you're open to a ncurses-based client, I use mutt. The #1 reason I switched to it (instead of any other client) when the new Gmail design was released was because it opens almost instantaneously. It's a subtle thing, but not having to leave my inbox open all the time and being able to open it in a split second when I need to really helps my workflow.
I've tried several stylish options to no avail, I miss the old dark layout with high contrast buttons.
Even the dark theme has a bright white message pane for no reason.
It also runs very sluggishly compared to the old UI, not sure why.
Well this should give me the kick in the pants to get off gmail anyway.
I couldn't really figure out where else to go, but OWA 2010 doesn't have these problems, so I went to Office 365 for my own domain (and forwarded Gmail). I never thought I'd pay for email but considering how vital mail is, having real support is a nice piece of mind.
I remember how awesome webmail seemed in 2003 (when I switched from Outlook to Gmail), but now that I've gone back to Outlook, I see all the awesome stuff that I was missing. This is really not to credit Outlook though, I'm sure Gmail (threading) influenced them greatly in the past 8 years. I know you can just use Outlook+Gmail, but sadly IMAP isn't nearly as good as Exchange.
Did they forgot to change this view or G-Plusification will kill this as well?
the default settings in the new gmail design are really bad. at least the gmail team should have some kind of migration wizard that allows users to easily figure out to configure the settings to make the new design work as well as possible for them.
thanks again for the guide!
The last straw was a recent incident I had with my Android phone. So apparently in one of the recent updates of Google Talk they realised they could just log me into their one-and-only Google Account with gmail, etc. included. I had very carefully avoided Gmail's app (which they won't let you delete). I had refused to "sync" anything or add my Google account. Now, Google wouldn't let me log-out or delete my account.
I don't have any particularly compromising information in my phone. I don't have any "secret" numbers and the labels make sense just to me. I have it set up so if I lost it, it wouldn't be a big problem. But now I had my email forcibly open in my phone for anyone to see. Now I had to lock the screen and be extra-careful. Google doesn't let you delete your account from the phone easily. They provide this "option" but if you click on it they will let you know that you can only delete your account from the phone by doing a factory reset. Goodbye installed apps, settings, highscores, everything. So I did, and proceeded to create an account just for the phone.
Now, searches are getting painfully slow and they're quite poor compared to Thunderbird. But I'd still prefer gmail for the convenience of having it always available and always synced from anywhere, if only they weren't so insisting in upping their stakes and in forcing people into an all-or-nothing situation. I bet it makes business sense for them, it just doesn't make it for me.
I lost my youtube account when they stopped allowing independent accounts (had it locked to someone else's Google account and couldn't get this person to release it). I cannot afford to risk losing my main email account, so I'm taking preventive action while they still allow a relatively easy migration back to the desktop.
It certainly provided a couple of frustrating days before I got used to it, but I find it much more soft on the eyes - to me the old layout now looks pretty harsh; giving the impression of being just "functional".
A lot of non-technical folks I work (and live!) with find the new design much, much more pleasing. Bear in mind these are the folks that use hotmail, yahoo etc - so they really are after the "eye candy" more than the functionality; and with google's new social push I can assume this is now the target audience.
My only complaint would be about the icons; regardless of wether you've used Gmail before - you will get caught out; a few days ago it took me a good few minutes before I could find out how to get to my contacts.
I prefer the "Comfortable" setting. I have a 22" monitor at 1680x1050, but I don't have my browser window maximized (it only takes up 65-75% of the screen width).
So, GMail has helpfully reduced my display density to "Cozy", ignoring my setting.
As far as I know, there's no way to "fix" this; it's a known issue but there's no workaround other than making my browser window wider.
Also, once I am in google analytics it is just a UI mess. They cram every feature possible and make it unintelligible. They are ruining the UI for gmail,google search and google analytics.
That said, any browser-based alternatives?
I recommend installing muttator, the equivalent of vimperator for thunderbird. It will make the time you spend with email much more efficient.
Personally, the redesign pushed me back to Thunderbird and I ended up deleting thousands of emails. It was quite liberating.
I mean, he even goes out of his way to turn off Priority Inbox and important markers. That has nothing to do with the redesign - it's just turning off year+ old features, which is what a good portion of the post is. Luckily for the author, options exist to turn off all the features that have been released in the past many years.
Of course, there's some apportioning of valid and invalid frustration with any redesign, and I won't invalidate any of that here. But this post just comes off as "make all the scary new stuff go away!"
It didn't matter until the redesign, though. In the new design, the "importance markers" are very similar in appearance to the stars, and they are right next to each other. It's hard to tell them apart at a glance. That's why I finally had to turn them off.
As a random anecdotal data point, my inbox would be completely unusable without priority inbox. My email volume is way too high without it.
Obviously this is just one anecdote. But for me gmail is still the indispensable tool it always was. For all its shortcomings it is an amazing product.
I can say every now and then I look for the buttons, but the only one I really ever find myself using is the refresh button, and that is simply if I wasn't already positioned on the keyboard.
So you've got no qualification whatsoever talking about the new interface as you avoid it entirely.
What I love most is sometimes the important buttons are red and in the top left. But sometimes they are gray and in the bottom right.
Which will it be today? Flip a coin! Consistency is an alien word to the Google Design Team.
I'm curious what "important buttons" you are referring to.
I'm also curious how folks that get this worked up over their email client don't go into shock when they get a new car. Consistency is not the norm in life. Seems it is really only a norm when it was dictated by function.
Not that I feel you shouldn't get worked up over what ever you want to get worked up over. I just don't understand it.
Similarly, if you are a developer, you might feel the same way if the company you work at randomly decides to switch bug trackers or wikis, when the new ones aren't really any better than before.
Some things about the new design are defensible, however others are definitely not. My particular pet hate is that all the things that are not mail services (but you can still access within gmail) are splattered around all corners of the screen. Chat is in one corner (along with 'gadgets' - whatever they are). G+ is in the opposite. And in a third (behind a button that is very unhelpfully named 'gmail') are contacts and tasks. Where is the sense in that???
There are obviously a lot of unhappy users with legitimate gripes. But Google would probably be looking at the growth of Gmail to validate what ever the design department is doing. That growth is pretty impressive.
What really surprised me is how few of my friends get the 'conversation' view even in 2012. After too many awkward conversations and now their 'we've got absolutely no design skills and can't design for shit' redesign, I'm just shrugging when people say their hotmail account has been hacked for the 15th time.
So just out of curiosity - what services would you recommend to an inquiring mind?
I've opened multiple tickets, and all they can say is "sorry" and "we know about it" and "we're working on it", but actual fixes still haven't come. Having a solid chat experience obviously is not high on their priority list.
1) Deficient search, the more email you keep, the more you rely on search to find something from few days to few years ago. Incredibly painful with Fastmail.
2) Lack of calendar. It's just so more convenient to have your calendar integrated with email.
3) Lack of Exchange ActiveSync support (as in protocol). This protocol allows to sync email, calendar and contacts from the same account. All these things I want to be synced to my phone. Keeping contacts and calendar in Gmail (because it has ActiveSync support) and email in Fastmail was becoming more and more frustrating.
If past performance is your primary way of to 'validate' anything, you obviously have a very poor understanding of the subject matter and are going to lag behind those who do.
andrewfelix was prompting you to elaborate. Just replying "that's not what I said" is completely unproductive - this is meant to be a conversation, not a game of twenty questions. We shouldn't have to guess at your meaning.
Of course past performance of a product is a factor worth considering in determining the future success of someone in any field. However if you really want to excel at this field, past performance is not likely to be the _primary_ factor (though it could be a smaller factor) in how you 'validate' future worth.
For instance, I can easily measure the past performance of stocks on the stock exchange. However if I really want to succeed in trading shares, 'have the stocks of foobar gone up in the past' is not likely to be the primary way I validate whether foobar is worth investing in.
Hope that helps you :) I didn't mean to sound as indignant as perhaps I did.
... incidentally, I still find it strangely novel when disagreements on HN don't turn into Internet Arguments. Makes such a refreshing change from, well, the rest of the web. :)
The Google+ design will continue to evolve, I'm sure (it is not quite there yet).
In the end, I'm still using Gmail and ditching the other company...but not recommending Gmail anymore because of the disruption.
As soon as I click the "x" on the label, I can see the email being downloaded by the mail client I use. It is of course displaying the Inbox and not Trash.
Either someone has my login and is messing with me by somehow adding the Trash and Inbox label or there is a glitch in the system putting both labels on it. My guess is the glitch.
The main thing I find irritating is that it contains the Inbox label as well.
Any filter to send something to the trash says "Skip Inbox, Delete It".