About Dan Wilson
Dan Wilson
Dan Wilson
Model-Glue:Gesture for Fun and Profit
Watch Video
Presentation Files
360 Flex Course
DataCurl LLC, My Company
2010 Speaking Engagements
Video Interviews
DZone Articles
Missing Features from Gmail
Sez : Dan Wilson
September 27, 2007 9:31 AM
If you asked, I would say I like Gmail a lot. However, I have been yelling at it lately because it is missing some vital features.
Missing Feature 1:
The ability to instantly mark a single email as read. I do not like unread email in my box. I am happy when I see 'Gmail Inbox'. I do not like 'Gmail Inbox(23)' even if I know those 23 emails are garbage. Call me neurotic if you must.
To mark email unread, you can open it, which takes much longer than I want to invest, or you can use the drop down command. The drop down command requires clicking the tiny checkbox on the left, going to the drop down box and selecting 'Mark Read'. Sometimes, I accidently select Mark Unread. Or for more fun, 'Add Star'.
Solution: Add a 'Mark Read' button
I'd be happy to trade either my 'Archive' or 'Mark Spam' button for it. I will settle for a context menu option.
Missing Feature 2:
The ability to ignore future emails in a 'conversation'.
I subscribe to quite a few mailing lists and sometimes I lose interest in a thread. I want to push a button and have all future emails in the thread marked read. This way I am not annoyed by the Unread counter, but I have the message for historical purposes when I want to search through all the mailing list posts for an answer.
Solution: Add an 'I Don't Care' button
Ideally, this would be a button on the same level as 'Archive', 'Delete' and 'Mark Spam'. I certainly would use it more frequently than either of those three. If trading buttons is offsides, I'll settle for a drop down entry.
Attention Google
Lots of people want these two features, just read the comments below! Surely you are busy with your new office suite and don't have time to enhance Gmail. You are welcome to hire me on to help you with this. For a small fee and some stock options, I am sure we can get this worked out.
There are no comments for this entry.
Add Comment
Subscribe to Comments
Actually, feature number 2 is available, if you use keyboard shortcuts. j/k will move you up/down in the inbox view. Use 'x' to select the currently '>'d conversation, and then hit 'm' to mute the conversation. From gmail help:
m Mute Archives the conversation, and all future messages skip the Inbox unless sent or cc'd directly to you. Learn more.
I haven't yet found a mark as read button.
the mark as read already exists. Select the email using the checkbox then under the more actions drop down the first entry is "Mark as read"
You can also use the better gmail firefox extension:
http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/lifehacker-co...
Feature #1 is also available, I think, depending on the ease you need. I use the GMail macros Greasemonkey script for Firefox (the same script that's used in the Firefox extension Mark mentioned) with a few customizations. To mark one email unread I:
1. j/k to the message
2. x to select that message
3. r to mark the selected message Read (hence the m, r sequence)
I can also select groups of messages:
1. Type m then u to Mark (select) all Unread messages
2. r to mark those messages read.
I do the latter for a lot of mailing lists. All keyboard driven, all very quick and easy, I think.
Suscribe
Follow Us
Contact
"The ability to ignore future emails in a 'conversation'."
I think that is an awesome idea!