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A new Gmail inbox

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Re: A new Gmail inbox

#191

Post by ktf »

aiiane wrote: post #28
ktf wrote: post #21

Is this different than folders? Or labels? Is the primary benefit here that these categories are more prominent in the UI?

Unlike labels, which require fixed rules (or manual action) to place emails into them, the tabs sort emails algorithmically.

So I have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about how I want my mail to be filtered rather than manually put my own correct filters in place?

Doesn't seem right for me, but I guess I can see the draw for folks who don't want to deal with setting this stuff up themselves. (Which is probably most folks.)

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#192

Post by tuxracer »

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #84
aiiane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not forced to use it. What would you rather they add?

How about useful search? Currently, you can't direct searches within nested folders. You either search all messages, or search within one folder/label. So for example, I have e-mails grouped by project, and within big projects there are sub-labels: project1/testing project1/doc project1/proposals ... project2/testing ... If I search in "project1", it doesn't look in any of those sub-folders. Search also could use a g…

You can search nested labels. If you go into a sub label you should see the search box auto-populate with that label (including the nested on).

For example I have a nested label "Invites" in the label "Calendar" (Calendar/Invites). Searching "label:calendar-invites blah" searches for "blah" inside the nested label.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#193

Post by onli »

beefman wrote: post #170
bretthopper wrote: post #36

These comments are pretty sad. I know we feel the need to comment on everything right away these days, but honestly there isn't much to say about this feature until we've actually used it. HN almost universally believes in execution over the idea, yet here we are trashing an idea before seeing the execution. It's great that Gmail is trying to innovate and improve the email experience. Maybe this feature won't work ou…

The opposite is true. I don't need to know anything more about this feature to conclude: 1. it's anti-useful for me and 2. while it may be useful for some, it is another clear step toward throwing in the towel on e-mail as a platform for serious discourse. Nor do I agree that execution trumps ideas. Both are necessary and insufficient for success, but execution is far easier to commoditize. Those who can't judge good…

>1. it's anti-useful for me and

How is it anti-useful? In which way does it hinder anything useful?

>2. while it may be useful for some, it is another clear step toward throwing in the towel on e-mail as a platform for serious discourse.

It is not. It is a buttonbar for selecting pre-categorized mails. It does nothing against email itself and doesn't change its usefuleness for discussions at all.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#194

Post by JohnBooty »

Timothee wrote: post #40

I find all these new email products (Sparrow, Mailbox, etc.) interesting on a UI/UX level but they're highly irrelevant to me. I always read about how hard it has become to manage one's inbox, but I really don't have a problem with it. My system is simple: do not sign-up for newsletter or notifications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, etc.) you won't read, unsubscribe anytime you realize you don't read the ones you r…

  > My system is simple: do not sign-up for newsletter 
  > or notifications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, 
  > etc.) you won't read, unsubscribe anytime you realize 
  > you don't read the ones you receive, delete emails 
  > you won't ever need again, archive the ones that are 
  > nice to keep around but won't require anything from 
  > you anytime soon, and use filters whenever possible.
If that fulfills 100% of your email wants, awesome!

I've been managing my email fairly well with various hand-rolled filters (which are a pain to update) since the 1990s and I have to say: I still think there's a lot of potential value in what Google is rolling out here.

  > unsubscribe anytime you realize 
  > you don't read the ones you receive,
Again, if it works for you: perfect!

This doesn't work for me.

The reason why is because there are whole classes of emails (notifications, etc) that I do want to read... but only occasionally, and I don't want those classes of emails clogging up my inbox.

Obviously, I can and do manage this myself today with filters/rules/labels/etc. It is totally possible. It is also a pain in the butt sometimes. So I'm eager to see what Google can do here.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#196

Post by brianbreslin »

first thing that popped into my head after seeing this: Other Inbox. I've had a similar feature for years from them, just tosses things in the OIB/xyz labels/folders.

Also how will this work with something like Mailbox app for iphone?

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#197

Post by antimatter »

Timothee wrote: post #40

I find all these new email products (Sparrow, Mailbox, etc.) interesting on a UI/UX level but they're highly irrelevant to me. I always read about how hard it has become to manage one's inbox, but I really don't have a problem with it. My system is simple: do not sign-up for newsletter or notifications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, etc.) you won't read, unsubscribe anytime you realize you don't read the ones you r…

I do this exact same thing. Works perfectly for me with minimal effort.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#198

Post by SEMW »

moskie wrote: post #151
SEMW wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it blurs the line between the "content" of my inbox and advertising Yeah. They used to automatically file non-spam promotional emails into a separate folder where you could safely ignore them, but now they just go into your regular inbox! Money-grabbing so and so's. (...is what you'd be saying if this feature were being eliminated rather than introduced...)

I'm sorry, but this blog post is suggesting I should have a big shiny button at the top of my email inbox that will show me "Promotions" from Google Offers and Zagat (also owned by Google). That rubs me the wrong way.

> a big shiny button... that will show me "Promotions" from Google Offers and Zagat

No. It files all your emails that it classifies as promotional but non-spam. That won't include Google Offers and Zagat if you're not subscribed to Google Offers or Zagat (for me, it's mostly events & careers newsletters). It's just an auto-categoriser (a new UI for smart labels), it doesn't invent new emails that weren't there before.

Several people in this thread have already explained this. If you don't believe us, go to gmail and switch to the new view - there doesn't seem much point in doing competing close-readings of a short blog post when you can see how it works first hand...

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#199

Post by Steuard »

pseut wrote: post #144
dragonwriter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it more like min(idea, execution)? Its more like idea * execution, where the range for each input (and the output, consequently) is [0,1].

So you think that it's worse than min(idea, execution)?

You can't directly compare numerical values of "idea" to "idea * execution": the two are conceptually different things.

To abuse physics terminology, the units are different. In physics, a mass of "12 kg" is not in some sense greater than a force of "6 Newtons", even though the two are related by F = m * a. Similarly here, dragonwriter is defining "quality = idea * execution", so there's no reason to expect that the numerical value of this notion of quality should be directly comparable to the numerical value of either of its components. (Comparing the value of "quality" defined this way to the value of "idea" would require assuming some specific value for "execution" for the comparison to be sensible. If you just compare the numbers directly, you're assuming perfect 1.0 execution, which probably isn't what you intended.)

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#200

Post by alan_cx »

bretthopper wrote: post #36

These comments are pretty sad. I know we feel the need to comment on everything right away these days, but honestly there isn't much to say about this feature until we've actually used it. HN almost universally believes in execution over the idea, yet here we are trashing an idea before seeing the execution. It's great that Gmail is trying to innovate and improve the email experience. Maybe this feature won't work ou…

Im not going to say anything what so ever about gmail, even though I have an account, almost by some sort of weirdo default.

I'm just going to stick with dear old yahoo mail and leave it at that. Its might be old, even stagnant, but it is simple, clear, functional and causes me zero grief. As it has done for 15 odd years.

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