Live data from Hacker News

A new Gmail inbox

gmailblog.blogspot.com

281–290 of 313 posts

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#281
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really interesting. You don't even label emails you've archived? I like to chuck "invoice" on everything that represents money changing hands: actual invoices, e-purchase emails (congrats on buying this game / software, here is your key), stuff like that. I also have a few others about specific topics. In terms of labeling emails that need replies for me if it's still in the inbox if it needs a reply / action.…

I think that labels become problematic because the more things you label, the closer looking at "All emails labeled X" looks just like a search. In other words, to be the most useful, a label needs to have as few uses as possible, or else become a separate folder for perusing. And if a label looks just like a search, skip the clutter and just do the search. If its a bin for perusing, well, good on this new feature. I…

That doesn't fit the bill and would be efficient if you only had 1 sender per label. Nearly all of my labels have a one-to-many relationship, and so recreating that 'search' would first require me to remember each of the parties involved, find their email address, and then manually construct the query. I think his example is poor use, I think the suggested usage pattern is to take the 10s the first time you have a new contact (that falls under a label) and filter all future messages, making it a 1-click operation to access that archive going forward.

I think your logic is seriously flawed, but as long as it's your email and not mine, so be it!

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#283
Mine was just enabled (and I use my own domain with Google Apps for Business, so that's a first. Usually I'm the last one to receive beta upgrades).

Here's my first impressions:

1. [Primary] tab was very accurate, right off the bat. It detected all personal and important emails properly. And all social updates went to, well, [Social].

2. [Promotions/Updates]: these two are a bit all over the place. Honestly I don't even understand exactly what they meant by "Promotions", but seems it's "anything that is long, but not personal, and certainly not a simple automatic trigger/trigger". All mixed up. Promos went to Updates, and vice-versa.

3. It also failed to detect several emails from discussion lists and blog posts, that went incorrectly to [Promotions] or [Updates], when it should have gone to [Forums]

4. For now there's no ability to customize the tabs. At all. WYSIWYG. Not even the label. The "+" is just a shortcut to enable/disable one of the 4 additional tabs (besides Primary, that is always visible).

Overall, this is clearly a beta version, so it'll be interesting to see how they improve the functionality over the next releases. I'm sure it'll be a nice addition to most types of users (particularly those that have thousands of emails archived - which is not my case).

I just wished I could customize the labels right away; it's something so small and ridiculously simple to implement, yet it would allow users to make it personally relevant to them. But considering the OP, this should be coming soon.

ps: I can't understand why so many negative comments about an optional feature. At least for now - and likely the next 6-12 months - you'll have the option to simply not use it. And if (when?) they force it down your throat, well, just vote with your money... Oh, wait. Did I just say money?

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#285
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Labs is a place where they incubate awesome ideas and features. Then they launch it into the main project and people hate it. Then they kill it. I would rather they just left it in labs.

Oh you mean like when we could enable features we like and disable the ones we don't like? You mean, the 90's! Nowadays the corporations make all the choices for you. They know what's good for you, better than you do. Maybe.

One size fits all.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to your gmail. Enable keyboard shortcuts. Press "d".

No can do. I refuse to turn shortcuts on because there are at least 2 (and maybe more I'm not aware of) ways to send the email I'm currently drafting. Command + Enter, or hitting shift, then enter. I've learned from past email programs that's a recipe for disaster. Turn those two off and I'd gladly use keyboard shortcuts.

Use the undo send lab.

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#287
post #191
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Do you find that you often have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about what mail you consider spam?

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#288
> In the Gmail for Android 4.0+ and Gmail for iPhone and iPad apps, you'll see your Primary mail when you open the app and you can easily navigate to the other tabs.

And if you don't have Android 4.0+, if you enable this feature you won't be able to see half of your emails - because apparently updating apps for older versions of Android is really hard, despite literally everyone except the people that made Android having no problem doing it whatsoever.

(note to those not on Android: some of Google's own apps only update in lock step with the Android version, so you can only upgrade your Google Talk app by upgrading your whole O/S - which in practice often means buying a new phone)

Re: A new Gmail inbox

#290
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a fundamental difference in working style. I never write multiple emails at once, nor have I wanted to. To me that is clutter. The "pop out" choice is a poor one since it turns Compose into 3 operations: Press compose, press the pop-out button, press maximize on the new window. (as for the chat box, I use Minimalist, and my Gmail UI is trimmed of anything extraneous).

Just hit "d" -- first have shortcuts enabled.

Yes, I found that out in this thread. It's still a worse experience, though, as it's much slower.
Post reply on HN