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I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

taigeair.com

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Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotcha. In general I detest html email so your #4 problem isn't something I've faced. My answer of dragging and dropping isn't actually something I do very much either. I normally just copy and paste the link into the email and don't format it in anyway. I'm totally with you on subject editing and accessing email addresses from the header. Adding clicks purely to minimize the design seems like a poor move to me too.

Sorry I meant #3. Either way, I like to format my links. If there's a shortcut to pop out the message to compose mode, I'd totally learn that. I wonder what the gmail team is thinking with this new UI...

shift + r

Alas, you'd then still need to click the formatting and header to make the changes you're talking about.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#42
post #15

I'm torn between strongly agreeing with these points and wanting to comment pointing out that none of them matter..... I hate change for change's sake, but the new gmail compose window has made me more efficient. It took some getting used to however. Responses to the points made in the article: 1) I can’t easily delete my signatures. Forget about deleting your sig and generally cleaning up email threads. Decent email…

Saying 'hit the big red compose button' totally misses the point of why subjects get edited. If you'd ever participated in a discussion list, you'd know that sometimes a single discussion thread branches out into multiple smaller threads. The best way to handle this is to reply with a new subject so that threaded conversation views in email clients show it as a new thread, but all the participants stay on the reply-t…

What you're arguing for is better parent-child discussion relationship management in Gmail. Something like Gmail + Google Group at a much deeper integration level, with the Google Groups part not sucking like Google Groups does now.

Also, I'd love if I could take a mailing list thread (like from NANOG), and with one-click blow it out onto a thread on something like Stack Exchange.

Email needs to continue to evolve. It's role is to remove the friction of communicating tasks, thoughts, ideas, concepts, etc. We need work refining how those things are defined and moved between communication mediums.

/endRant

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#43
post #40

I'm normally pretty easy to please with UI changes, but even I'm a little frustrated with some of the new compose quirks. Personally, I've had a very hard time putting together bulleted lists in the new compose. To start the list, you need to click the underlined A (for Additional Formatting), then the familiar bulleted list icon. I can live with that, though I'd certainly prefer one click. To do a nested list, thoug…

I can honestly say I've never used text formatting in an email, so I realize we're coming at this from two different directions. If I need a list of things in an email I'll do this: - step 1 - sub step a - sub step b - step 2 - etc Which gets me thinking about how cool it would be if gmail accepted and displayed markdown formatting..... Would that be a winner for you too?

Yeah, that's something I'd really love to see in Gmail as well as Docs.

It doesn't even have to be full markdown support, just the most convenient things (* for bullet points, ...)

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#44

I'm normally pretty easy to please with UI changes, but even I'm a little frustrated with some of the new compose quirks. Personally, I've had a very hard time putting together bulleted lists in the new compose. To start the list, you need to click the underlined A (for Additional Formatting), then the familiar bulleted list icon. I can live with that, though I'd certainly prefer one click. To do a nested list, thoug…

I think those shortcuts are easy to learn (at least on Windows). Ctrl-K for links, Ctrl-] for indent more, Ctrl-[ for indent less.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#45

Honest question, why would someone use the gmail ui at all, even before the 2013 changes? I have rules setup in gmail, and sometimes when I need _very good_ search I will login to search, but everything else Outlook covers fine/better. Mac guys at the office use Mail. I've always thought of gmail.com as nice for vacations or using someone elses or crazy times when I dont have laptop/phone/tablet by some act of god

Hmm, I agree with much of the OP's criticisms of Gmail, however I consider Outlook and Mail to be effective forms of torture.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#46
I don't know if anyone else has this problem but since I use VI for code editing I have a twitch reaction to hit escape a lot when I'm editing text.

This actually closes the compose window now. Which is incredibly frustrating. I know it's not a mainstream user problem just something that effect my perception of Gmail on a daily basis.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#48

I'm normally pretty easy to please with UI changes, but even I'm a little frustrated with some of the new compose quirks. Personally, I've had a very hard time putting together bulleted lists in the new compose. To start the list, you need to click the underlined A (for Additional Formatting), then the familiar bulleted list icon. I can live with that, though I'd certainly prefer one click. To do a nested list, thoug…

Learning the following keyboard shortcuts for formatting bullet lists made the transition to the new compose UI much less painful for me:

  ctrl + shift + 8 to create a new bullet list
  ctrl + ] to indent right
  ctrl + [ to indent left

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#50
post #18

> Internal Server Error

I made a screenshot (seems like the pictures aren't working for the cache links): http://i.imgur.com/lSC4g0C.jpg

Surely you could've made it a PNG!

http://awesomescreenshot.com/00e18gxe65

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