While the new features are ongoing, Alpha 8 is now at least as stable as V3 was – so it could feasibly be called Beta 1.

This is very much an ‘under the hood’ upgrade, with things like proper Firefox 4 support, double checks to ensure Chrome doesn’t have multiple installs of AIB and to properly clear out pinned labels when you delete or rename them.

And most importantly, ‘Notes’ now works in the Send & Archive popup HAB, and there is a HAB is in the new Projects view.

Cunningly, I also made AIB a little smarter about self-diagnosing any issues it has, so we can better work together to fix any issues that flare up!

You can download from www.activeinboxhq.com/install_v4.html

Behind the scenes… I’m working to improve how we handle support (it’s always a struggle to balance with new development, but it’s so important to me to get it right for you), get all functionality rock solid stable, encourage more V3 users to come join in and share their opinions as we develop, and of course – my absolute favourite bit to work on – keep refining the AIB workflow and features… so keep your requests and thoughts coming in the blog comments and Get Satisfaction and we shall discuss!

Update 14th March 2011

Hey all – a change to Gmail disrupted ActiveInbox more severely than normal this weekend, but it’s all fixed up. Grab 4.0.1.1 from the normal V4 install page; or see the post at http://www.activeinboxhq.com/blog/2011/03/13/important-aib-update-to-fix-gmail-changes/

Onward!!

Hey all,

Hot on the heels of yesterday release (which landed just as ANOTHER Gmail change happened!) I’ve updated ActiveInbox again to work with the slick new Gmail header.

This is a critical update… ActiveInbox will stop working if Gmail updates and you’re not running this version!

To install, you can either wait for Firefox/Chrome to auto update, or you can get it straight from www.activeinboxhq.com/install.html

(If you’re trying out the ActiveInbox 4 Alpha – which I’m HUGELY excited about! – you should update to Alpha 7 or later).

Hi guys,

There’s not much to say here, other than this is a big fix for the SECOND recent Gmail change (with the new header)

Special thanks for to Yifeng, Bernard, Michael, Mike, Chris and everyone in the comments who helped me understand what was happening.

Oh, and this should be more stable in Firefox (I found a nasty bug that affected loading sometimes!).

Right, Alpha 8 is still due soon… push push push!!

You can download Alpha 7 from http://www.activeinboxhq.com/install_v4.html

Update 17:17 GMT

If you use Firefox and Alpha 7, and ActiveInbox won’t load, please re-download 4.0.0.7 and install it again (from install_v4.html)… it seems to fix it for the few people who reported it (sorry guys!).

The Horizontal Action Box (HAB) appears in Active Results

This is a quite small announcement for a HUGE amount of work

With Alpha 6, the HAB appears in the Active Results, allowing you to quickly change the status, deadline, project of active conversations to rapidly keep on top of it all.

The sundries that go with that – a count on the Active Results tab, getting Older/Newer links to work in conversation, Active Results working on general searches, and lots of little bug fixes are all included!

Pete Got His Paintbrush Out!

The much more fun news is that Pete has given Alpha 6 a lick of paint to lay the foundations for a masterwork of art (it’s not there yet… but precious steps have been taken!)

The ‘Notes’ field is much more useable, the sidebar is sharper, and the ‘Active Results’ are much easier to scan.

Dan also stepped up and insisted on rounded corners for the Active Result tab, and a prettier count on it – and he was absolutely correct to do so, so they’re in

Fixing A Gmail Change

Ahh, the bain of ActiveInbox’s life… because we integrate so deeply into Gmail we really do suffer when Gmail changes. Over the years I’ve put in lots of fail safes and detectors for problems, which means we normally fix problems in under 24 hours, but even so, those 24 hours still need to be endured The good news is because ActiveInbox is mostly about clever labeling, you can always do that manually if you reaaaally have to… but yes, the fix is here!

(You’ll know if you suffered the problem because when you clicked Status/Deadline in the HAB, no label was added but the Labels dropdown appears).

Keep One Hand On Your Hats: Alpha 7 Due In 48 Hours

There are lots of little fixes I want to do rapidly, but I didn’t want to delay this release any longer (it’s already been more than a week since Alpha 5).

The next release will have lots of little glitch fixes (including some from Get Satisfaction), a bit of interface polish, the Active Result’s HAB will work on Projects, and for the techies in the audience I will get SSL set up for the server to bullet proof your notes.

Download Alpha 6

If you have Alpha 5, it will update automatically in the next day, but if you’re just joining us or want it right now (recommended), you can grab it from http://www.activeinboxhq.com/install_v4.html

Hi guys,

This morning Gmail did an update that stopped ActiveInbox from labeling conversations (you will have perhaps seen the Labels dropdown appear after clicking an AIB button, but no label).

This update fixes it. It should update automatically (definitely in Chrome), but you can expedite the process by installing straight from www.activeinboxhq.com/install.html

As ever, sorry for the inconvenience – Gmail wobbles are what we are perennially on guard for!

(ActiveInbox 4 power users… an update is coming next!)

Introducing Notes

Okay, this is the big one! We can now add our own notes to each and every single conversation in Gmail. What does that mean? You can store next actions, links to calendar events, links to related emails or private notes that will help drive the conversation towards your goal.

It’s as simple as either clicking the edit icon, or double clicking the text box (both to the right of the ‘Notes’ label) to enter your note.

And, when you view the ‘Active Results’ for any search, the first line of the notes are shown! This makes it very useful if you develop the habit of using the first line of your note to show next actions (think of it as a better subject line).

One draw back: the note is stored on our servers, and you cannot yet access the note when you’re not using ActiveInbox. We’re thinking about ways of doing this… either by having a separate web interface (so you can access it anywhere), or possibly by storing the note as an email in the conversation.

The Projects View

You no longer need to just rely on a view of ‘Top Priority’ or ‘To Do’ to drive your reviews.

You can now click ‘Projects’ in the sidebar to get a list of all projects in use, and instantly see active conversations within each.

Firefox Support

We finally did it! All future releases of ActiveInbox 4 will work on Firefox as well as Chrome.

Tidier ‘About’ Box

To bring ActiveInbox 4 back up to speed with a little improvement we made to V3, the ‘About’ box is hugely simplified & a lot sleeker: it’s now just News, Support, Account & Preferences.

Warning! It Is Not Very Pretty

One significant caveat is that Alpha 5 isn’t very pretty. I have focused on trying out new features with the hopes of getting your very early feedback. If we get the greenlight, Pete will start making it beautiful

Bits and Pieces

I tried to fix as many bugs you found as possible:

• Thank you once again to the hugely helpful & much appreciated Daniel Griffiths for helping me fix a bug where the prefs dropdown appeared off the screen.
• Annoying tooltips have been removed from the sidebar
• On a Monday, clicking ‘Start of Next Week’ will actually be next week now

What’s Next?

Unless there are any urgent demands:

1. Alpha 6 will include working ‘Older’/'Newer’ links in conversations linked to from ‘To Do’ and ‘Projects’; as well as the HAB in the ‘To Do’ view so you can change the status of emails using checkboxes.
2. Alpha 7 will prettify and refine what we have.
3. Alpha 8 will be dedicated to ‘Focus Mode’ which I hope to discuss very soon

Install

You can now go to www.activeinboxhq.com/install_v4.html to grab the latest version (although it should auto update if you were already using a V4 alpha).