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The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

blog.jgc.org

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Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#51

Post by jlees »

untog wrote: post #10
tete wrote: post #8

Most mail clients seem to do this (maybe not so many web-based ones). Gmail has the problem of creating Tofu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting#Top-posting

Does anyone care about top posting any more? I feel like I haven't heard the term since my newsgroup days.

On USENET, especially without a threaded client, top-posting was a sin because it often removed valuable context - or forced the reader to scroll down to see the context then back up to see the reply. It also made for poor arguments in long threads where a poster would address multiple points at once rather than inline, point-by-point.

Similarly, when using non-threaded email clients the same problem exists. The bottom of the post becomes a mishmash of quotes and arrows (ah, "> > > > > > > > > > >", how we miss you) and almost impossible to figure out what the original poster was trying to say.

With threading, and especially Gmail's aggregate view of threads, top posting is far less of an issue. If everyone is using Gmail (e.g. Apps set up within a company), there's very little reason to reply inline for shorter messages, and more reason (phone consumption) to top-post. For longer discussions, though, it still helps to address points individually inline rather than attempt to pull them out on top.

Even within an organisation entirely using Gmail, there are still people who are sticklers for bottom-posting and seethe when they see top-posting. I used to be one of those people on USENET, but for the reasons above, I've changed my stance considerably.

Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#53

Post by scrumper »

hartror wrote: post #21
dlss wrote: post #5

I do use this feature -- I often select random blocks of text while reading. This feature means I often (5-10% of the time) have to click discard and then reply again to get my desired behavior. In related news nytimes.com used to have a similar feature where the definition of words would pop up when you selected them. It basically caused me to stop reading their site.

Oh my that NYT feature drove me nuts. Not only does it mess with us habitual selectors but it is basically hidden from the users who need it most, those not savy enough to select-right-click-search-on-google a word they don't understand.

> habitual selectors

Ah, my condition has a name. All it needs now is a support group. My case become terminal when I discovered three finger drag on OSX.

HN is a particularly good site to do it on because of the little lines and gaps that appear between selected blocks of comments. You can get a very satisfying 'pop' of a multi-comment selection springing from a single one if you move your mouse just a bit while dragging over the gap between one comment and the next.

Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#54

Post by arctangent »

justindocanto wrote: post #15

I'm confused why this is on the top of the front page.

I'm guessing that a lot of HNers spend a lot of time in their Gmail account, and that this functionality (which was news to me) was perceived as a significant time saver and judged to be worth sharing with the rest of the community.

Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#55

Post by Simucal »

lhnn wrote: post #52

So many people in this thread are saying they highlight sections of text as they read. I don't do that, and no-one I know does that. What is the benefit? Is it intentional, or is it a habit with no real use?

I don't do this, but I could see someone doing it to keep track of where they are in a large article.

Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#56

Post by micampe »

masklinn wrote: post #18
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #2

That's interesting. Thunderbird has been doing this for a while, and I love it.

Same for Apple Mail. I definitely don't love it: 1. I'm one of those serial overliners which will randomly select text and paragraphs while reading, so half the time I end up with a completely useless piece of quoted text. 2. I craft mail responses by quoting all the original mail, interspersing responses and cutting the stuff I don't care for afterwards, very rarely do I only need to quote a single contiguous block…

I am a serial overliner and I love the feature anyway.

Re: The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

#58

Post by jgrahamc »

trhtrsh wrote: post #47
hackmiester wrote: post #9

Wow, great, a condescending title! Fact is, I am using this. It used to be in the settings, I think, which is how I found out about it. And as others have stated, it's in a lot of mail clients. Apple Mail supports this, as does the iOS mail app, too. "I haven't heard of this feature" != "no one knows about this feature".

Wow, I gave jgc credit for the non-obnoxious title, and then I realized that the title is obnoxious, but the HN gods improved it.

I agree, that is a better title. I've changed the post title to match the HN title.
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