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Introducing the new compose in Gmail

gmailblog.blogspot.co.uk

11–20 of 202 posts

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#12

Is this really a step forward? It feels a little bit like a step backwards -- more like classic email clients and less like Gmail.

I agree. This interface seems cluttered to me. A live view of my inbox may distract me while I am writing an email.

In addition, GMail haas been feeling more bloated for me lately with such an Ajax-heavy UI, and I feel like this could cause further slow-downs.

However, I will keep an open mind - this is not a drastic redesign to the overall system.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#13
post #7

I can see the merits of this, but I'm curious about how it fits into a mobile strategy. My big complaint about email, especially gmail, is that it seems to insist on keeping too many elements from desktop to mobile. My mobile email needs are much more like my SMS needs, yet the UX for mobile Gmail (for example) largely resembles the desktop client. I know that's tangential, but it's what's on my mind regarding Gmail…

The thing is, who uses mobile GMail? Almost everyone I know uses a native client (Android or iOS). The mobile version of Gmail is definitely a second-class citizen, but I'm glad they're not letting it hold back development of awesome features like this.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#14
Why is this so important that it reaches top spot in minutes. My links to curing cancer with ultrasound or creating ai get nothing, but the big G opens a new window for compose and it's a giant leap for humanity!

Peter Norvig gave singularity summit talk on exciting work they're doing http://fora.tv/2012/10/14/Peter_Norvig_Channeling_the_Flood_... , why isn't that top spot?

HN is kowtowing to the pseudo-brogrammer crowd.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#15
post #9

Good. The most annoying thing to me about gmail's interface is center-clicking on something (to reference it, like something in a mailing list) and having the entire window redirected. This is cool :)

This has been one of my biggest Gmail annoyances - having to open a second Gmail tab while composing to do a search.

Really looking forward to this hitting my account.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#16
I hate being the guy who sidetracks a thread off the bat by complaining about something unrelated, but...

Whatever blogspot theme Google uses for this blog is just god awful (oh, I see, this is it: http://gmailblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/as-you-may-have-noticed-gm...), and I swear it gets worse every time I view a post there.

To wit:

When I load the page I see the orange "loading" gears. Then that sliiiiides up to reveal the content. Really? Can they really not innovate here? This is a company that spends massive amounts of resources to get their homepage to load as quickly as possible. Heck, they even penalize companies in their index with slow loading times. And yet they purposefully add loading animations and transitions which add at least a second to page load, and probably more as far as time it takes me to engage in the content.

Also, every time I reload the page I see something different. Sometimes there is text in the black menu bar. Sometimes there is not. Sometimes there is an "extra" screen that slides up after the orange loading gears, sometimes not. Sometimes the sidebar navigation is there, sometimes not. Try refresh a few times yourself and you'll see.

Also, I love the five-second delay for the document URL update when you navigate via the sidebar.

All of these fancy, look-we're-using-ajax, gee-whiz-its-a-single-page-app features -- just for a simple blog post. Talk about complicating a simple problem!

Again, apologies for the rant but I couldn't even concentrate on what the blog post was saying because I was so distracted by this garbage.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#18

Why is this so important that it reaches top spot in minutes. My links to curing cancer with ultrasound or creating ai get nothing, but the big G opens a new window for compose and it's a giant leap for humanity! Peter Norvig gave singularity summit talk on exciting work they're doing http://fora.tv/2012/10/14/Peter_Norvig_Channeling_the_Flood_... , why isn't that top spot? HN is kowtowing to the pseudo-brogrammer cr…

I guess that more than a dozen of people saw this on RSS and rushed to post here. When you post a link that has been already posted recently, HN upvote it for you,

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#19

I hate being the guy who sidetracks a thread off the bat by complaining about something unrelated, but... Whatever blogspot theme Google uses for this blog is just god awful (oh, I see, this is it: http://gmailblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/as-you-may-have-noticed-gm... ), and I swear it gets worse every time I view a post there. To wit: When I load the page I see the orange "loading" gears. Then that sliiiiides up to reveal…

They have a sort of theme roller implemented. Watch the dropdown on top left.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#20

Why is this so important that it reaches top spot in minutes. My links to curing cancer with ultrasound or creating ai get nothing, but the big G opens a new window for compose and it's a giant leap for humanity! Peter Norvig gave singularity summit talk on exciting work they're doing http://fora.tv/2012/10/14/Peter_Norvig_Channeling_the_Flood_... , why isn't that top spot? HN is kowtowing to the pseudo-brogrammer cr…

I think that you are confusing "what you want to read about" with "what the HN community wants to read about".

It's a pain when your carefully curated submissions don't even hit the front page, but you just have to suck it up and move on.

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