Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/04/27/google-revamps-gmails-web-interface/
Gmail, Google’s popular email service, has undergone a revamp that includes visual tweaks and a battery of new features, some focused on usability, others on security.
I still hate their last update.
Diane
This one is no better. Any useful functionality seems to be entirely gone or very well hidden.
I like this update. I’ve been using Google’s InBox app as my primary smartphone mail app since it’s been available, and love in particular snoozing emails for later, but, of course, stock Gmail on a web browser could not do that. Also, the web app for inbox.google.com, which can, has been pretty slow and almost unusable. I’d started just pulling out my phone or iPad to snooze mails when I was using Gmail on my Mac. Adding snoozing to the stock gmail app (I can just hit a lower case “b” to snooze a mail now) means I won’t have to do that, or use the inferior inbox.google.com.
There are things I don’t like about the update (namely, when you delete mail, Gmail puts a dark box telling you that its deleted and offering to undo it, which cannot be dismissed with a kestroke, partly covering up the list of messages), but my issues with it are minor. Nice update IMO.
I like the new features and the new look. But as is almost always the case, Google only rolled it out to personal Gmail accounts, not Gmail for Business—so I can’t actually use the new features and security where I actually need it.
Organizations that use one of the various flavorts of Gsuite can enroll in
the early adopter program so they can access the new interface before it
become standard for Gsuite subscribers.
Can anybody suggest a workaround?
Whenever I did any action, a message bar popped up stating what I’d done and gave me the option to undo. This window always vanished on its own after a few seconds. With new gmail, the same window appears but now requires the mouse to get rid of it. I have tremor dominant Parkinson’s and so I try to use the mouse as little as possible. Anybody have a fix for this? I would rather not have returning to the old gmail be the only fix. thank you!
If we’re talking about the same little black box in the lower-left corner, you don’t have to dismiss it. It will go away on its own when you do anything else in Gmail.
Here is the information you want straight from Google.
That box that cannot be dismissed is annoying. One way to dismiss it without a mouse is to open a message (type “o”), preferably one that you have already read, which disappears the box, and then press “u” to return to the list of messages. I’ve provided feedback to Google; I hope that they either move the box back to the top, or provide a key to dismiss it (“esc”?)
Or just tap “i” to reload the inbox (all these shortcuts may require that you enable keyboard shortcuts in the settings). I haven’t been bothered by this new dialog at all, since it disappears so quickly in normal use.
That’s interesting, because it’s been way too sticky for me.
(I just deleted a message to time it. It takes one full minute to disappear on its own.)
hi adam…
not true with the new gmail.
thanks for the reply.
kind regards,
rev. michael day
Are you sure about that? I have the revised interface with my own G Suite account. I don’t have it with my employer’s G Suite, but that’s because they don’t want to turn it on. Boo.
Note that the interface has to be explicitly activated in the admin console, which I did with my own G Suite account.
Doesn’t look like it goes away on its own, Adam… at least not quickly.
But why would you sit and look at the screen at all, much less for a minute? As soon as you load another message or do anything else in the Gmail interface, it disappears.
Not everything else. If you use Gmail’s tabbed inbox, using the “~” and “`” keys to switch between tabs doesn’t clear the message. Also, using “j” and “k” to move the current message focus up or down the list of messages also does not clear it. (For people who don’t know, Gmail’s tabbed inbox interface separate your in box into tabs for Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. This and Gmail’s superior spam filter is likely to keep me with Gmail going on, as I only get notified of the messages that come to the “Primary” tab and can deal with everything else when I want to.)
So, a typical use case: I wake up in the morning, and open the Gmail. I read the messages in the Primary tab that I want to read, then use the “x” key to mark and the “j” key to move to the next messages to mark the ones that I want to delete, and press “#” (well, Shift-3) to delete the marked messages. This puts that message on the screen, partially covering the list of messages in the in box. Then I press “~” to move to the next tab, and this is the problem: pressing that key does not clear the “deleted message” box. Now I can’t “x” and “j” through all of my new messages in the Promotions tab (where there are typically a lot) because I can’t see the name of the sender or even which message I am marking.