My look at Gmail [screenshots]
I got an invite to join Gmail today, which basically made my day. Yes, it’s just a free email service, but I’m the type that lives for this stuff. Here are my opening thoughts (been playing with it for an hour or so):
- It’s a lot more than just 1GB of storage: it’s a great UI
- The reason Google is picky about browsers is that Gmail uses a lot of JavaScript. It does not work with Safari (even with the user agent changed). I hope that Apple will work with Google on this. But for me, a dedicated FireFox user, this is “no thang”.
- It’s not all that good at detecting spam, but it will likely become better with more people in the system
- Auto-refresh for the inbox is nice
- The interface is super-fast
- Having all messages in a “conversation” together is very nice, especially when you can hide and show bits and pieces.
- It has keyboard shortcuts. It’s a frickin’ web page with keyboard shortcuts. Enough said.
- Along the same lines, it has autocomplete. Amazing.
Here you can see how it bundles conversations. If you click on the collapsed portion, it expands in real time. You can close an expanded view in the same manner. My clicking the grey “quoted text” link, the window expands to show what I was replying to. Very slick for those 3-4 bounce back emails on a lazy afternoon.
Here you can see the [very] slick spell check. I have discovered that Gmail uses frames to accomplish this feat. When you enter spell check mode and there is at least one error, it converts the text in the HTML text area to HTML in a frame. It then converts the mis-spellings into red links with a box of choices in the mouseover state. If none is correct, click edit and you get a text entry box in place of the word. Click done for spell check and it converts this HTML frame back into a text area. It’s seamless.
I’ll be posting more on this most likely. In the mean time, if there is anything you want to know/see–fire away in the comments.
I believe in avoiding JavaScript unless absolutely necessary. I prefer to use server-side scripting and not have any browser dependencies.
Mike:
I’m usually in the same camp, but you can’t do this stuff with server side scripting. Stuff like auto-complete, spell check, pre-loading and key commands. It adds a ton to the service.
There’s a tradeoff to use server-side scripting. And that is, of course, page reloads. The primary reason why web applications are more cumbersome and clunky than native apps is because of page reloads, so creative use of javascript can improve a web application to a tremendous degree.
Any idea when it will be released? How did you get invited to beta test? Thanks,
The keyboard shortcuts idea certain sounds cool. It’s been no secret that this sort of thing could easily be done on web apps — I remember reading somewhere on how to implement “mouse gestures” on your website, so it’s not a huge leap to assume it’s just as easy to allow keyboard shortcuts — but I’ve never seen it actually usefully implemented anywhere, ever.
The 1GB of storage could certainly have some amazing uses. For instance, you could email yourself a copy of Photoshop and download it from your webmail at work, or what have you. Too bad apps are getting so big nowadays; 1GB isn’t gonna be enough soon…
Tomas: You are right. It’s nice to have such a quick UI.
Slim: No word on when it will be out.
Dowingba: You’re right that keybaord shortcuts are easy but haven’t been put to good use. They are really handy with Gmail. It’s not JS for the sake of fancy JS.
I hate to be a bother, but if you have an extra gmail invite I would be SO grateful!
thanks,
aj