Introducing the new compose in Gmail • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#71

Post by hnriot » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #46

nkurz wrote: post #32

Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger). Minutes? I do sometimes wonder where the day goes... Alternatively, Shift-click on compose (or press capital C to with keyboard shortcuts on), and you'll get an actual window that you can move and resize. With the chat mini-windows I frequently wish that I c…

Do you know how annoying it is to have 5 gmail tabs open and have to constantly switch between them because you have email threads that you need open and then a compose window as well. And every time you switch you have to cycle through them to choose the right one? This is a daily occurrence. I hugely welcome this change.

You've always had the option of compose in a new window, shift-click.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#72

Post by nkurz » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #46

nkurz wrote: post #32

Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger). Minutes? I do sometimes wonder where the day goes... Alternatively, Shift-click on compose (or press capital C to with keyboard shortcuts on), and you'll get an actual window that you can move and resize. With the chat mini-windows I frequently wish that I c…

Do you know how annoying it is to have 5 gmail tabs open and have to constantly switch between them because you have email threads that you need open and then a compose window as well. And every time you switch you have to cycle through them to choose the right one? This is a daily occurrence. I hugely welcome this change.

Could you flesh this out so I can understand the benefit? Are you replying to each of the threads, and thus need 5 compose windows as well? I tend to stick with windows and rarely use tabs, so I certainly could be missing an essential use case.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#73

Post by hnriot » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

How is this return to popups any different to the option that's always been present, shift-click to open compose in a new window. Personally, I liked having the choice.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#74

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #61

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how annoying it is to have 5 gmail tabs open and have to constantly switch between them because you have email threads that you need open and then a compose window as well. And every time you switch you have to cycle through them to choose the right one? This is a daily occurrence. I hugely welcome this change.

The problem there is that you need to load an application 5 times rather than 1 time, and then opening up the separate emails in their own tab. Introducing another floaty thing that reinvents the wheel isn't the proper solution here.

Are you arguing for tabs inside the Gmail interface? It's the same functional equivalent, we're just quibbling about style then.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#75

Post by threedaymonk » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:38 PM UTC

Supreme wrote: post #52

facepalm All of the pain points that this supposedly solves have already been solved with tabs. Middle click compose and all of those problems are solved with the added bonus of having an entire screen to write your email in. Google is being taken over by pointy haired managers and marketing. RIP.

I seem to recall that both Google search and Gmail were initially popular with technically sophisticated users. I remember proselytising this amazing new search engine to people still using Lycos, or Yahoo, or Alta Vista, or whatever it was back then.

I used to be able to get very accurate results in Google search with judicious use of quotes, excluded terms, and exact phrases. Now, Google second-guesses what I really meant, and usually gives me a result that's more generic, more mainstream, but not actually what I was looking for.

The contemporary services are better for people who don't understand sets, and who don't really know how to use the more esoteric features of their browser. That's not necessarily bad, but it's bad for us. But we'll cope: there's no shortage of alternative email clients.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#76

Post by nkurz » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

pkamb wrote: post #70

nkurz wrote: post #32

Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger). Minutes? I do sometimes wonder where the day goes... Alternatively, Shift-click on compose (or press capital C to with keyboard shortcuts on), and you'll get an actual window that you can move and resize. With the chat mini-windows I frequently wish that I c…

> and you'll get an actual window that you can move and resize. I'd do this all the time if it gave you a new tab rather than a new window. Who uses new browser windows these days?

That currently works as well. You can open Compose in a new tab with Control-click for Win/Linux or Cmd-click for Mac.

I rarely see the appeal of tabs, so generally use windows. They are great as temporary bookmarks, but not for working with multiple sources in parallel. I'm confused that this is not more common, other than that more and more sites break it. Similar to the "new" Google compose window, and unlike tabs, the main advantage is that you can see both source and compose at once without needed to switch back and forth.

I'll turn the question back at you: why don't people use new windows? Is it just backlash from terribly designed sites that automatically pop up new windows for everything?

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#77

Post by GlennS » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:46 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #9

Good. The most annoying thing to me about gmail's interface is center-clicking on something (to reference it, like something in a mailing list) and having the entire window redirected. This is cool :)

You can use Ctrl+left-click to get the same 'open in new tab' behaviour as middle-click.

I do agree that broken middle-click is hugely annoying. I'd much prefer they fixed that though, rather than introducing a non-standard popup as the default left-click behaviour.

I don't really understand why they hijacked middle-click in the first place. Does anyone actually use middle-click + drag to scroll? I would've assumed the majority have scroll wheels? Is this some accessibility thing that I'm missing?

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#78

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:50 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #71

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how annoying it is to have 5 gmail tabs open and have to constantly switch between them because you have email threads that you need open and then a compose window as well. And every time you switch you have to cycle through them to choose the right one? This is a daily occurrence. I hugely welcome this change.

You've always had the option of compose in a new window, shift-click.

I just got done describing that that's not what I want, though I'm not sure I made myself very clear.

Different tabs, different windows, it's all the same thing. I want Gmail open exactly once for a single goal. My other post describes my use-cases more completely.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#79

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #72

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how annoying it is to have 5 gmail tabs open and have to constantly switch between them because you have email threads that you need open and then a compose window as well. And every time you switch you have to cycle through them to choose the right one? This is a daily occurrence. I hugely welcome this change.

Could you flesh this out so I can understand the benefit? Are you replying to each of the threads, and thus need 5 compose windows as well? I tend to stick with windows and rarely use tabs, so I certainly could be missing an essential use case.

One tab: an email with project build instructions.

One tab: an email with a homework assignment.

One tab: my inbox.

One tab: composing a reply to a recruiter.

Two tabs: Other emails from the recruiter I'm using to compose my reply to the recruiter.

The first three I'm fine with being separate tabs in Chrome. That's fully intentional. However, the last three tabs are all one task, and in my mind should be achievable in one window/tab.

Re: Introducing the new compose in Gmail

#80

Post by karpathy » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

I welcome this change if they implement it well. I sometimes keep two gmail windows open so that I can compose in one while I reference emails or search in the other.