New Gmail lab feature: Hide read labels
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Gmail team just released another lab feature. If you use filters to automatically label your incoming mail, this new feature may come in handy:
A lot of people want to see their labels in order to see which ones have unread messages, but they don't want a long list of label names cluttering up the left hand side of their inboxes. To help out with this, we've made a Gmail Labs feature called "Hide read labels." Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings and all your labels without unread messages will be hidden under the "More" menu. Labels with unread messages will automatically show up, unless you've explicitly chosen to keep them hidden.
This is particularly handy if you use your inbox as a to-do list where unread messages are the outstanding things you need to take care of. If you use that method along with labels like "Home" and "Project X," it's easy to see all your to-dos in context. With this Labs feature on, labels with outstanding to-dos will be bold and have a number next to them; everything else will be hidden in the "11 more" section:
Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Today, Google announced "Push Gmail" for iPhone and Windows Mobile. This is incredible news for users who need or want instant email notifications on their iPhone:
You can set up push Gmail by itself or choose to sync your Contacts and/or Calendar as well. If you're using an iPhone, make sure you're running iPhone OS version 3.0 or above (on your device, click Settings > General > About and scroll down until you see Version). If your software is out of date, follow Apple's upgrade instructions. Then, visit m.google.com/sync from your computer for set up instructions. If you're already using Google Sync, you can just enable push mail.
Once you're set up, new messages are normally pushed to your phone within seconds. While this type of speed is pretty awesome, push connections tend to use more power than fetching at intervals, so don't be surprised if your battery life isn't quite what it used to be. We've done a lot of work to optimize power usage, but if you prefer to save battery life, you can always turn off push in your phone's settings and fetch mail every 30 or 60 minutes instead.
Read the official Gmail blog post.
Update: Smoking Apples wrote a very helpful article on how to setup and use Push Gmail.
Things app: Quick Entry Autofill for Mailplane
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Yesterday, Cultured Code released Things 1.2.2. Guess what's in the release notes:
Quick Entry Autofill now works in Microsoft Word 2008 and Mailplane.
Great! Now it's super easy to create a new to-dos based on email conversations. Most importantly, Things creates a to-do that links back to the Gmail conversation.
Here's how it works:
1. In Mailplane: open a Gmail conversation.
2. Select some text inside the conversation, it'll be added as Things to-do note:
3. Select Mailplane > Services > New To-Do containing selection as note or simply press ⌃⌥⇧⌘0. As a result you'll get the Things Quick Entry dialog:
4. Make your changes and press Save to add the to-do. After the dialog closes, the to-do can be found in your Things inbox. Just click the email link and your conversation will magically open inside Mailplane.
Tip: If you are an OmniFocus user, check out the Mailplane/OmniFocus plugin for a similar integration.
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AppleReviews: Mailplane video review
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ben Gribbin at Apple Reviews created a very informative video review:
Ben shows how you can attach files via drag and drop, how to use the Mac address book, how to switch between accounts, and more. At the end, he gives Mailplane a 5 star verdict!
I love the "video review" format, BTW.
Check out the Apple Reviews site for more product reviews.
Ben shows how you can attach files via drag and drop, how to use the Mac address book, how to switch between accounts, and more. At the end, he gives Mailplane a 5 star verdict!
I love the "video review" format, BTW.
Check out the Apple Reviews site for more product reviews.
Helvetimail - a minimalist Gmail skin
David Klein ported Josef Richter's Helvetimail Gmail stylesheet to Mailplane:
If you are looking for a minimalistic Gmail skin, here's are the links:
- Stylesheet download: http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail.css
- Helvetimail home page: http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail/
- David's home page: http://tehdik.com
Requirements: The stylesheet only works with the latest Mailplane 2.1-beta version.
Installation: Assign the downloaded file to the Mailplane > Preferences > Tweak UI > Custom Stylesheet setting.
Important: Gmail is changing all the time! If the stylesheet stops working, please check the Helvetimail or David's page for a new version.
Tip: As an alternative take a look at Gmail's built-in Themes. They are maintained by Google and will keep up with Gmail's changes.
Thanks David Klein for sharing!
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New Gmail lab feature: Play Google Voice messages
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The is a new lab feature for the lucky Google Voice users:
Google Voice helps you manage your communications with a unique phone number that rings all your existing phones, a single voicemail inbox with online access and automated transcription, and lots of handy features like the ability to block spammy calls and easily record personalized greetings for your callers. Think of it as Gmail for your phone calls and text messages (watch this video to learn more). Google Voice is currently available via invitation, which you can request here.
For those of you who already use Google Voice, you're probably used to receiving voicemail notifications via email. A couple of minutes after someone leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice number, you'll receive an email showing who called, an automated transcript of the voicemail, and a link to play the message. You can click the link to listen to the message right from your computer.
Previously, clicking "Play message" opened a new page in your browser, but starting today, you can play voicemails right in Gmail. Just turn on the Google Voice player from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings and whenever you get a voicemail notification, the player will appear right below the message itself.
Best of all, your message status will stay synced: messages played from Gmail will appear as read in your Google Voice inbox and won't be played again when you check new messages via your phone.
Four new Gmail themes
Google has added four new themes to Gmail, maybe you like them:
I know there are only three screenshots :)
Gmail: More ninja tips in more languages available
Google released more Gmail tips in more languages. Master some Gmail tips and tricks and get more productive:
When we published the Gmail tips guide in July, we promised it would help you become a Gmail ninja. Now, if you want to become a Gmail ниндзя or 忍者, you can do that too: these tips are now available in Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and UK English.
We've also added a handful of new tips to the English site, culled from suggestions you submitted. Some of the new tricks to help manage your email efficiently include sending and receiving mail from multiple addresses, adding formatting to chat messages, and selecting multiple messages at once using shift-select. Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas, and please keep them coming.
Mailplane 2.0.14 released
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Release notes:
- NEW: Correct Address book First/Last name ordering (for Japanese users)
- UPDATED: Russian translation (thanks to Vlad)
- FIX: Unread message counter didn't work correctly for some accounts
- FIX: Changed keyboard detection logic
Tip: If you encounter any problems, please check out the known issues page.
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Download Google Gears workaround for Snow Leopard
Friday, September 04, 2009
The last blog about "Google Gears on Snow Leopard" post stirred much interest: Many Mailplane users want to try the Snow Leopard workaround to get their "Offline Gmail" back. This persuaded me to provide the binary Gears download: Visit the download page.
Read carefully and enjoy at your own risk
Snow Leopard and Google Gears
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Are you using Mailplane 2.1-beta with Google Gears to get your Gmail offline? Unfortunately, Google Gears for Safari doesn't work with OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. There's no official statement, but I found this comment at the end of Google Gears Issue 847:
Snow Leopard and Safari 4 introduced some changes which are incompatible with Gears. Apple made these changes to improve the security of their OS and of Safari. While we continue to talk to Apple about the issue there is no workaround for us at this time.
Gears continues to work with Firefox on Mac OS X.
The problem seems to the new 64bit Safari version. It doesn't load any InputManagers like Google Gears.
However: Mailplane, Fluid, or even 32bit Safari would still be capable of loading Google Gears, even under Snow Leopard.
I went ahead and tried it:
- Checked out the Google Gears code
- Removed the OSX version check
- Built the thing
- Installed the resulting Google Gears
Bingo! My "Offline Gmail" inside Mailplane 2.1-beta is back! I tried Fluid and 32bit Safari too: Both worked as expected.
A few questions remain: Is the networking code for Snow Leopard still the same? Are there any Snow Leopard related bugs? Will Google offer a solution soon?
