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Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

sparrowmailapp.com

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Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#61

Post by mitjak »

mbateman wrote: post #52

Overall I like the idea and most of the design. There are a lot of awesome little touches in it. But a lot of small things seem weird. Maybe some of these can be smoothed out for the full release: - The status item (why?) that doesn't have a drop-down menu at all, but simply shows/hides the application? - The slightly-off-feeling fonts and buttons (especially labelled buttons like "save" and "send"). - The hidden-see…

> No option for plain text composing.

You just prevented me from downloading this: none of the professors at my university allow non-plaintext email, and will ignore any HTML email that is sent.

I always thought HTML emails are for newsletters anyway?

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#62

Post by mitjak »

Like for some others here, something feels off about the design. I think it's that the app feels a bit like an iOS app running natively on OS X: the icons on the left and at the bottom, the iOS mail app-style listing, and the tooltips that look reminiscent of the copy/paste menu. Not to say it's bad; it's just a somewhat confusing user experience, as if I'm running an iOS app with the Parallels like "unity mode" enabled.

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#63

Post by dekz »

Is it just me or was spam arriving in the main inbox? This client would work well with an integrated to do list also.

Some feedback: - Not sure its exact name but it needs the minimize of the toolbar to gain extra horizontal space. - Spam in the inbox? Wasn't appearing in my gmail, only in the client. - Something about the Compose window, from a visual perspective seems rather ugly. - Growl support - System resource usage seems sporadic. - Either have a menu icon or a dock icon, or let the user choose. - No attachment support

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#64

Post by dmlorenzetti »

j_baker wrote: post #43
Lewisham wrote: post #3

Really great app, but really disappointingly appends "Sent with Sparrow" at the end of sent messages, with no preference to turn it off. Massively uncool, even if I can delete it myself. EDIT: Found this on the author's Twitter feed. Weird interface for what is an otherwise intuitive app: "Open the preferences window and double-click on the account. You'll be able to edit the signature."

It's not that far-fetched to imagine that if it is appending text to your emails that you should edit the signature. :-)

Based on what other posters have mentioned, I think the OP's point is that double-clicking on a preference item is unintuitive in a Mac app.

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#65

Post by melvinram »

I really like this app, particularly since I can click the notification and take action on an email almost immediately.

A few tweaks I'd suggest if there was a way to email back some feedback:

* Better performance (think it's slower in the beginning since it's indexing all past emails)

* A way to archive emails while in single message view (when I click the notification of an incoming email)

* A better way to visually separate unread messages. That blue dot is not good enough.

* Allow me to select how often to sync. I want to check email every 30 minutes so I can get real work done. It would probably help performance as well.

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#66

Post by fdeth »

A very good start! My thoughts:

* menubar icon needs to go, not useful

* needs a performance upgrade, scrolling is un-smooth, switching accounts takes too long

* as a long time Mail.app user I miss save and send buttons being on top

* I can haz plaintext composing?

* it started crashing on me after I've added a second account

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#67

Post by lelele »

mitjak wrote: post #61
mbateman wrote: post #52

Overall I like the idea and most of the design. There are a lot of awesome little touches in it. But a lot of small things seem weird. Maybe some of these can be smoothed out for the full release: - The status item (why?) that doesn't have a drop-down menu at all, but simply shows/hides the application? - The slightly-off-feeling fonts and buttons (especially labelled buttons like "save" and "send"). - The hidden-see…

> No option for plain text composing. You just prevented me from downloading this: none of the professors at my university allow non-plaintext email, and will ignore any HTML email that is sent. I always thought HTML emails are for newsletters anyway?

> I always thought HTML emails are for newsletters anyway?

They are for hyperlinked text, that is: whenever you want to embed a link in your mail. Many people are not computer literate enough to copy and paste an URL, more so when it gets splitted in pieces by your mail client.

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#68

Post by Lewisham »

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #64
j_baker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that far-fetched to imagine that if it is appending text to your emails that you should edit the signature. :-)

Based on what other posters have mentioned, I think the OP's point is that double-clicking on a preference item is unintuitive in a Mac app.

Yeah, that's the problem. There's no reason to believe the screen is where you set your signature, let alone double-clicking would result in anything.

http://skitch.com/lewisham/d346d/preferences

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#69

Post by Lewisham »

zbailey wrote: post #42

Hoping this is useful feedback, if the developers are here lurking. Agree/Disagree? First, it looks absolutely great. I love the "tweetie"-ish UI. A very refreshing look and feel. Hotkeys - very glad to see these already integrated, but wish they would have defaulted to the standard GMail hotkeys. Since your product is aimed at GMail users for now, I would go with those hotkeys Scrolling - something weird is happenin…

Noticed the same thing about scrolling. Getting the impression that the author has created his own views, which is breaking normal scrolling. Not sure it was worth it.

Re: Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac

#70

Post by malandrew »

Off to a great start so far. Here are my suggestions:

-- Undo needs to allow you to undelete the last deleted message and allow you to undo a send for X seconds.

-- GMail address book browser. I need to be able to easily browse and edit my contacts as well as add a new contact from the currently active message.

-- Labels (yes, I know it's in the roadmap already). Especially and interface to rapidly add and remove labels like on Quora.

-- Plain-text emails

-- Mouseover/hover states for the menu buttons.

-- Double-clicking for account preferences is not intuitive enough.

-- Greater visual separation between read and unread messages. A little blue dot isn't sufficient.

-- Ability to set how often is checks for new messages. Setting for 30 minutes helps eliminate distractions.

-- It can be kept minimalist by only permitting certain actions via keyboard shortcuts. For example, there is no reason that bold and italics can't be made available via just CMD-B and CMD-I.

Question: When I delete does it delete just that message or the whole thread like in web-based GMail? If it deletes the whole thread, how can I delete single messages out of a thread instead of the whole thread?

If this progresses as I think it will, it looks like it will be worth buying. How much do you plan on charging for it? $19.99 is the sweet spot for me. You might want to use the Van Westendorp method to determine how to price it.

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