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Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

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Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#141

Post by iopq »

siddboots wrote: post #112
ihnorton wrote: post #27

Lately I've had a persistent feeling of annoyance with several Google products. Each annoyance is small enough to tolerate individually, but in aggregate it seems to me that Google has really lost something in the attention-to-detail department; this kind of persistent annoyance was the same thing that led me to Google from other services years ago. Two examples: - maps: new interface is so terrible that I am activel…

Youtube: * Buffering was nerfed/broken some time ago. I can no longer watch 720p+ videos on youtube at all. * Changing video quality now has a long and unavoidable delay, and often fails outright. * Google are evidently uneasy about the profile name that I signed up with, and have been repeatedly nudging me to change it. I don't know how to reassure them about my choice. * Advertising. Everywhere.

There's ads on youtube? I wouldn't know, I'm using adblock

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#142

Post by jlgreco »

tene wrote: post #133
jlgreco wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even figure out how to get a permalink in Maps anymore. Nightmare.

It's the chain button next to the printer button just to the left of the map. It's... right there. What would you prefer they do to make it easier for you? [EDIT] Oh, looks like I don't have the new version yet. Oops. Thanks for the correction.

Unfortunately you are looking at Classic Maps. Classic Maps was perfectly usable, I agree.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#143

Post by human_error »

tghw wrote: post #135

I find it very hard to have sympathy for someone who says "For better or worse, email takes up a large part of my work life." and then chooses to use a free, ad-supported email service. If this is such a crucial tool for you, then you should be willing to pay a reasonable price for something you're happy with instead of just complaining about it online.

Maybe she's a business user and pays for it. Business version also has the same bad layout.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#144

Post by thezilch »

graeme wrote: post #136
thezilch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a load of crap. Plenty of untasteful and inconsistent crap had come out of Apple, under Jobs; it's painfully easy to find examples [0]. Everyone is going to have their opinions, of course, but the compose, unlabeled / iconography buttons, detractors of WYSIWYG emails, etc are _not_ disasters for myself and many others. [0] http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/06/on-ui-inconsistency-in-ios-5/

I think you misread pg's point. He didn't say jobs produced perfect consistency. Pg said that forcing consistency tends to result in bad design decisions. Maybe jobs could do it, page can't. To disprove that point, you'd need to show an example of forced consistency across apple platforms that degraded usability. Showing inconsistency isn't responding to the argument.

I really can't see the line between the top-most comment, about bugs, pg's special insight into Jobs, and the conclusions you've drawn. What Jobs has to do with the class of issues bulleted, in the top-most comment, is beyond me. There's not even any proof being shown that what Page or Google is doing is wrong; just a bunch of parroting of blanket statements.

I really didn't want to compare Apple and Google or Page and Jobs; that's the point. We're not even comparing the same things, and you don't have to look far to find power users scorning The Apple Way. We can go on all day with issues pertaining to Apple's HIG -- forced consistency -- and the degrading of usability.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#145

Post by [deleted] »

tene wrote: post #133
jlgreco wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even figure out how to get a permalink in Maps anymore. Nightmare.

It's the chain button next to the printer button just to the left of the map. It's... right there. What would you prefer they do to make it easier for you? [EDIT] Oh, looks like I don't have the new version yet. Oops. Thanks for the correction.

[deleted]

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#146

Post by derekp7 »

bcj wrote: post #100
ams6110 wrote: post #76

Doesn't gmail still offer imap? Use a real mail client, not a web page. Much more fulfilling in almost every way. I like emacs, because I like to be able to write emails using the same editor I use for everything else. But that's a preference. There are many good mail clients to choose from.

Of course that doesn't always protect you from Google's whims. Google purchased the company that made the mail client I like, Sparrow.

This is actually a good thing. I've always wanted to get better at HTML5 / "web 2.0" programming. Now I have an incentive. I think I'll just go ahead and make my own web mail client, with imap support, and host it on my own server (or AWS account). Can't think of a better way to learn than to have a good project (necessity and invention, and all that).

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#147

Post by mebreuer »

If you're such a heavy gmail user, I'd recommend using keyboard shortcuts for linking, formatting, adding cc/bcc, etc.

Once you enable them, you can easily check if you've forgotten by hitting ?, and within a month you won't have to touch your mouse (or navigate the UI) for anything save for the esoteric features.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#148

Post by 30thElement »

djt wrote: post #139
general_failure wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a good comment but the Steve Jobs bit was unnecessary (because people like me will get distracted and flame you for it).

Is your distraction his problem though?

If you want to be understood, you have to make sure your point is clear. Throwing in an unnecessary controversial point, especially about someone as divisive as Jobs, just muddles pg's main point.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#149

Post by krakensden »

triplesec wrote: post #69
amerika_blog wrote: post #58

The new Gmail compose is 20 years worth of interface design learning, lost in a single poor choice.

google is good at that. See the latest iteration of google maps for android. Ugh.

My favorite part is that it doesn't work with the hardware search or menu buttons.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#150

Post by rattray »

One trick I use for composing messages: Add "compose" as a search engine to chrome. I use the url https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&su= , which means I type "compose", hit `tab`, and then type the subject line of the email I want to send.

Makes for a nice way to get quickly to a distraction-free compose window.

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