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Thoughts on Gmail’s “Preview Pane”

Thanks to Hasit and Alexandre for letting me know about a new Gmail Lab feature, “Preview Pane”.

This is a pretty cool addition for maintaining an overall context of your progress through conversations, at the cost of more clutter / less focus on the current conversation.

I suspect it’s going to be popular with a sizeable % of us, particularly as its reminiscent of what we expect to find in “normal” email clients.

What has me stumped is I’m not sure how quickly we can adapt AIB around it. It’s not as simple as a technical fix, as just planting the HAB (Horizontal Action Box) in the new preview pane is going to add to clutter. Also, I’m not sure how much it changes the workflow to use the new preview pane.

We’re going to have to marinate/discuss it (in the comments) for a few days.

Is It Time To Retire Our Preview Popup To Focus On New Features?

One immediate consideration is that we might drop our own Preview Popup – or at least the cube in rows. Gmail now has two Lab features that make it unnecessary: their own right click Preview, and now the Preview Pane.

Rather than a costly message preview, we could add features to just quickly add Status/Deadlines to a message & archive from the thread list.

http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Robertson/1313724269 David Robertson

No, no it is not. The preview pane is broken, anyway. You can’t scroll the entire page, so your chat box, calendar, etc aren’t accessible.

The preview pane is nice, but they only made it for tablets/touchscreens, in my opinion.
http://profiles.google.com/alexandremrj Alexandre Jesus

For me its time to retire the preview popup, better to focus on new features. One idea is marking a message as announcement automatically creates the corresponding filter, another idea is having the sidebar with a blue dot when there are unread messages corresponding to that category.

The preview pane in Gmail is a bit cluttered because it has the ads and all, and a new toolbar will really add to the clutter. Don’t know how to help in this
http://www.alexweblog.com Alex

I think it’s good to retire the Previous Popup feature. Regarding this new “Preview Pane” lab feature, I personally won’t use it because, as you said, it makes it harder to focus on one task at a time. With the preview pane, one can’t help peeking at it once every few seconds to see what’s next which is quite a distraction.
Teleo

I think the preview pane makes little sense under a serious workload of mails. In horizontal mode, each item in the threadlist takes multiple rows, and so you can’t properly see the contents of your inbox. In vertical mode, a similar problem manifests itself.

For what it’s worth, personally I don’t use any of the preview features. I won’t miss the cube either.
The one change I am eagerly waiting for is the UI change to match the new Gmail look.
krog

If you give me the option of planting the HAB in the preview pane, I’ll try it out and report on whether the added velocity is worth the clutter.

http://www.tekture.com Nathan Sudds

I’m not sure the HAB needs to be “in” the preview pane, it seems that Google’s features for the main toolbar work on both the preview pane and the list of emails — this would solve a problem I have always had where I would like to have the HAB across the inbox. If you could put one below the main toolbar above the inbox and make it apply to the preview message if I don’t have anything else selected…. or… the list of selected items if I do. That would be amazing! (IMO).

This seems to be how all the features of the toolbar for Gmail work now, so it seems possible to do — this would not be “clutter” to me it would basically be exactly like it is in the individual mail item view or label … which everyone loves right?

krog

Yes! +1
Steven Aagaard Mountfield

This would be great!
…and I do not use the AIB preview, so no worries if this is lost to pursue greater goals.
Rob Harrington

I have been using the preview pane (in vertical) for a few days now and I like it. I am running a pretty wide screen (1920 x 1080) so I would even vote for the option to put the HAB before or after Gmail’s toolbar or even to replace the Gmail toolbar on the AIB tab altogether (reducing even more clutter).

There are things I would need added to the HAB if you were to eliminate the gmail toolbar altogether, but that should be phase 2 of this discussion. For now – keep both toolbars, and display always whether the preview pane lab is turned on or not.

Also, I think it is a given, but preview pane needs to work on the Active Results tab at all times too. Interesting that it does work on the inbox right now, but not on filtered lists/ And this is before you’ve even begun implementation?

Andy- your tool to implement GTD helps me run circles around my co-workers when it comes to processing tons of information and never missing a deadline (mine or those I’m waiting on). I’m trying to convince them to use it too.

-Rob
Douglas Michael Massing

On the question of the HAB, I’ve had a minor annoyance with it since it appeared. Is it useful? You bet. Long may it wave!

On the other hand, since it appears with (that is to say, ahem, after) the message, it causes a second screen redraw. I can’t tell you how may times I’ve “hit” a spot in the message that dances away laughing while the screen redraws for the HAB.

As always, keep up the good work!

Best,
M.

Jochen Schuetze

Hi Douglas & Andy,
just to let you know that I loved the complaint about the screen redraw:
To me it seemed some times that, at first the conversation text appeared without the HAB, and then it was pushed down by inserting the HAB above the text. The delay was much shorter in Chrome than in Firefox (long [maybe a year?] ago…), which is why I’m on Chrome now.
Still, if the HAB could appear immediately, this would be appreciated.
Best regards,
Jochen

Jochen Schuetze

Hi Andy,

1.: Please don’t retire anything just because this new preview pane lab can replace it. I’m not sure I (and many others) will ever want to (be forced to) use the lab..

2.: Please try to adapt AIB to the preview pane lab:
- With the preview pane displayed, I don’t get the AIB horizontal tool bar.
- With the lab on, but no preview pane displayed, the lab’s scroll bar for the message / conversation text (in the conversation content display) cannot take me all the way to the bottom of what is there to display – probably because the scroll bar doesn’t account for the extra vertical space occupied by the AIB horizontal tool bar..

Thank you!
Jochen

PS.: Any plan whether / when to get the [Delete | ] permanently visible (not just in a “fly-out”)..?
http://pastorwalters.wordpress.com/ Daniel Walters

I personally think you can retire the AIB preview popup. But that’s just me!
Rob Harrington

Andy-
I would agree with Nathan’s comment regarding having the HAB always available so I can perform tasks such as assigning dates or contexts to a group of selected emails instead of one at a time. This would help my productivity quite a bit.

As far as getting rid of AIB preview pop-up – Yes, I never use it.

I plan to leave the preview pane lab turned on and will offer more feedback as I use it. At first glance I like it and I am only missing the ability to ‘act’ on the message via the HAB. I think incorporating it just below Gmails action items would be great.

Thanks for all your hard work!

-Rob

http://www.tekture.com Nathan Sudds

I agree with Rob too, thank for all your hard work!

About the preview popup — I never use this either, I understand others might but for the poll that you are asking, I just wanted to chime in to say I don’t use it.

Keep up the great work, hopefully if you keep the popup — our thoughts on just adding the HAB to the top of the inbox will make maintaining both features not too difficult.

Rob Harrington

Nathan -
Have you turned the preview pane lab on? What do you think?
-Rob

http://www.tekture.com Nathan Sudds

I have definitely turned it on, surprised I didn’t mention that — I love it — if we can get the HAB at the top of the inbox and working in other areas like the Labels view, I think this would actually help me not hinder me at all!

(note — I’m in vertical mode too)

http://profiles.google.com/alexandremrj Alexandre Jesus

You don’t think that its already too crowded? I feel it so bloated
Rob Harrington

Alexandre- what is your screen resolution? Did you try vertical or horizontal or both?
http://profiles.google.com/alexandremrj Alexandre Jesus

I tried in my netbook and in my big screen (1680*1050) with 22 inches.
And i tried both
But I’m using the new Google theme, in dense
Diane Elhard

I’ve turned on the preview pane as well and like it, but hate that it interferes with my view of the Active Inbox. Putting the HAB at the top of the Inbox would be most helpful! The preview pane is helpful to my productivity, but I want to be able to use both it and the HAB to maximum effect.
Let me chime in with a thanks for all the hard work and attention to details, it’s most appreciated!
Diane

krog

I vote for retiring the preview popup — I personally never use it. Appreciate all the hard work!
http://www.facebook.com/shadrach Shad Bolling

I, too, like the new Preview Pane in Gmail. One of the additional things I use is Minimalist Gmail (http://mattconstantine.com/mg), which allows me to turn off any element in Gmail that is distracting (or, in the case of Gmail’s action items in the top toolbar, redundant). I’m leaving Minimalist Gmail turned off for now, since AIB’s HAB doesn’t appear in the new Preview Pane. I vote with Rob Harrington to have the HAB appear just below the Gmail’s action items in the top toolbar; that way, when I re-enable Minimalist Gmail, the HAB will be the only thing that appears there.

I also do not use AIB’s preview pop-up.
http://info.philipp-grunwald.de/ Philipp Grunwald

Oh yes, I’m with you on that! Your preview pane has several bugs (I can’t scroll the “tags”, if I got more than a dozen or so, I’m out of luck reaching those at the end of the alphabet!) and overall it would be more important to think about how to BATCH process e-mails within AI (better than currently).

While you’re on it, I wonder when you’ll finally scrap those silly “>” parts of the button, which I always fear to hit accidentally! Adding a horizontal bar wouldn’t add clutter, but be helpful – and you can also design it in a slim fashion!

Jochen Schuetze

Just a comment on `those silly “>” parts of the button´:
I would find them extremely helpful — if they just could all be visible and accessible on the screen all the time: This would allow me to keep the mouse pointer stationary over the “>” part of the “[Delete | ]” button and quickly walk through a series of messages by just clicking every time I’ve read a message and decided to delete it. (This used to be possible when the AIB toolbar on the right-hand side of a conversation still existed. Couldn’t this be resurrected?)Philipp, I understand your fear to hit the “>” part accidentally. Maybe, since there is already a choice to display “” or “”, a fourth option “” can be added to the editable preferences of the HAB?As I’m making suggestions:Would it be possible to extend GMail by some more shortcuts, e.g. for the things that those buttons with “” would do? Ideally, those shortcuts would be editable. Consider combinations with Ctrl and Alt as well as F1 — F12 to avoid conflicts with existing GMail shortcuts.Finally, about labelling:I love GMails feature that allows me to attach labels by typing the first couple of letters. However, when I write a new message, GMail doesn’t offer this, and I use AIB to attach labels immediately. How about adding the feature that would allow me to type the first few letters of the label name there?Just some suggestions / votes for your prioritised to-do list…

Jochen Schuetze

Phew, without proper paragraphs, this is unreadable — my apology!
Here comes the same text, hopefully broken into readable paragraphs:

Just a comment on `those silly “>” parts of the button´:

I would find them extremely helpful — if they just could all be visible and accessible on the screen all the time: This would allow me to keep the mouse pointer stationary over the “>” part of the “[Delete | ]” button and quickly walk through a series of messages by just clicking every time I’ve read a message and decided to delete it.
(This used to be possible when the AIB toolbar on the right-hand side of a conversation still existed. Couldn’t this be resurrected?)

Philipp, I understand your fear to hit the “>” part accidentally. Maybe, since there is already a choice to display “” or “”, a fourth option “” can be added to the editable preferences of the HAB?

As I’m making suggestions:

Would it be possible to extend GMail by some more shortcuts, e.g. for the things that those buttons with “” would do? Ideally, those shortcuts would be editable. Consider combinations with and as well as F1 — F12 to avoid conflicts with existing GMail shortcuts.

Finally, about labelling:I love GMail’s feature that allows me to attach labels by typing the first couple of letters. However, when I write a new message, GMail doesn’t offer this, and I use AIB to attach labels immediately. How about adding the feature to AIB that would allow me to type the first few letters of a label name to pick it?

Just some suggestions / votes for your prioritised to-do list…

Jack Fuller

AIB’s Preview Popup no longer needed, imho. Gmail’s Preview pane makes it even better than Outlook [Look Out!], as messages can be processed in the pane, without specifically opening it.
Ben

I like the new preview pane. I really really like it. I have a slower internet connection and it speeds up my email simply because I don’t have to wait as long to see it. Of course I share and office with three other people, so distractions are something I’ve had to learn to deal with

Since we have the option of turning the preview pane on or off, I think the best thing would be to add the HAB to it and let us decide for ourselves.

I never used the old preview pane. It didn’t seem intuitive enough and I always forgot it was there.
Randall Corn

So what happens when they get rid of Labs? What will they keep?
Jason Bartlett

I had forgotten about the preview pop-up – it doesn’t appear in “multiple Inbox” mode in GMail which I use to filter messages into larger chunks for filtering and prioritizing. Preview could be dropped and I wouldn’t miss it.

Absolutely a +1 for HAB in preview mode. In the usual place would be best for both horizontal and vertical split views. As an option at the top of horizontal preview window pane would suit me just fine.

Also +1 to the comment about the current drop down for Archive and Delete etc. I really miss the old upper right corner pinnable menus where I could keep Delete showing all the time. I scan and delete a lot of email so having the option of keeping Delete on screen would save a lot of mouse work. Even the option to specify the order in the menu (and put Delete on top and always visible) would do the job for me.
Lsievert

Yes, you can retire your preview popup to work on other features, like AIB for iPad.
http://twitter.com/arunkw Arun Kumar

I never used AIB preview pop-up, whenever I saw it accidently, I was overwhelmed but It didn’t stick to my mind to use it again.

I am upset with gmails preview pane, Its still half cocked and it has long way to go to match style of outlook. Already my screen is full with stuff making an email message reading tedious such that we have to use scroll bar for mail reply, I would like to focus on one unread mail at a time and process it rather then watching all the mails in the panel.

Rob

Arun-

Did you know you can reply to an email just by pressing ‘R’ while viewing? Check out other shortcuts here. Please give more detail on why you think the preview pane is ‘still half cocked and it has long way to go to match style of outlook’. It’s hard for Andy to create requirements from a comment like that without further explanation.

As far as wanting to process one email at a time. For those who wish to do so, simply turn off preview pane.

Cool

Please at least make AIB work inside of Google’s split inbox view.
Dave Armstrong

I use priority inbox and have never been able to use popup preview. Have dropped back to classic inbox on a few occasions and tried to make use of popup. it’s cumbersome in my mind but maybe I am not enough of an AIB power user to appreciate .
Diane Elhard

I’m using the vertical preview pane, by the by.
Rob

Andy-

Sounds like we have a consensus (although -, I don’t know what makes a quorum) – drop the preview pane and add the HAB to Gmail’s preview pane or better yet next to or below Gmail’s standard toolbar so it is always available. Please chime in and let us know how we can help and how long you think something like this might take.

I know you are looking at revamping deadlines right now too, but in my opinion this takes precedence over deadlines aren’t broke, just not friendly to mobile devices.

Thanks!!
Rob

Hey AIB and preview pane comentators / users-
Don’t let this discussion get buried by other areas Andy is looking at (deadlines / Move Nexter). Head on over to the latest blog entry and make your voice heard if you feel that making the HAB work seamless with the Gmail labs preview pane should be a top priority.

http://www.tekture.com Nathan Sudds

Hey Rob,

I was just thinking about this yesterday, the “move-nexter” button to me is not a big deal as it works fine for me right now — I appreciate that everyone has their preferences and Andy needs to balance that out. I believe even though this new discussion has been launched, it doesn’t mean that Andy isn’t working on ideas to support it. But it probably can’t hurt to just voice where we feel the move-nexter falls in terms of priority for us too.

Andy or Lisa, if you are seeing this — could you confirm what the plan is for AIB’s HAB when it comes to the Preview Pane? – some confirmation that this is in the works would be great.

Thanks

http://www.activeinboxhq.com Andy Mitchell

Hi Rob & Nathan,

Yep – you’re quite correct! I’m trying to cast the net wide and gather a better understanding on a wide set of issues, all relating to a Big Push on AIB… so we can do the minimum amount of tweaks on an elegant solution.

I’m going to hammer out a new blog post shortly, with a proposal that I hope you’ll approve

http://www.tekture.com Nathan Sudds

Sounds great Andy — I’m finding that I have to switch back to the default to regain most of the features now, the Preview Pane is great but even in the toggle off mode it still has some issues it seems.

Looking forward to the proposal on the elegant solution

Rob Harrington

Thanks Andy! Looking forward to reading all about it.

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