Return Gmail Full Screens, Great Design, and Distraction-free Email | Hacker News Reader

Return Gmail Full Screens, Great Design, and Distraction-free Email

home.oldcompose.com

17 pointsnkurz29 comments

Is this something more than the plugin that sends the IE8 user agent to gmail?

I hope so, that way it will work when google finally takes the IE8 trick away.

lol, no, this is the entire plugin, seriously, it took them far longer to make that webpage

   if (host.indexOf("mail.google.com") == 0)      {
      var agent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)";
      httpChannel.setRequestHeader("User-Agent", agent, false);  
   }

The worst part I guess is they have to be a 3 people team! :)

Hm, their page says:

  What Makes Old Compose So Unique?
  Old Compose was built from scratch as opposed to other solutions which simply trick the browser into thinking you are using Internet Explorer 8.

  What's the difference?

  Old Compose can work... forever.
  Old Compose can support all the extensions you love... forever.
  Old Compose works with all the awesome new Gmail features.
  Old Compose will even work with awesome products that haven't even been invented yet!

You don't have to take my word for it, download the plugin, open it with 7zip and look at the source.

All it does is change the user-agent.

When Google stops supporting IE8, it will be over, hopefully we have many years.

Indeed. Unfortunate that their page says otherwise.

But the "team" is "Culturally Diverse"!

That appears to be only the case for the Firefox version. The Chrome version looks legit - the main implementation is in gmail.js inside the extension folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\fcnoahpalppomkbilmlkhiimjfmpmgpk\ on Windows).

I can't download the chrome version right now but look at their code carefully - is that code perhaps there to translate IE8 compatibility to Chrome? Is that all it is doing or is there something more? Because I am betting it is just IE8 compatibility. Would be happy to be wrong.

It's using MutationObservers to look for the compose window showing up, then click the fullscreen button on the compose window and do a couple of other things. Here's the code:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/7d24b19158f33c179086

You can also just...

* Have shortcuts on and hit "d" -- open a new compose [browser] tab

* Hold Shift and hit "c" (or click "Compose") -- open compose in a popup

* Hold Shift+Ctrl and click "Compose" -- open a compose that fills 90% of the viewport

And shift-click on the arrow in the small composer to re-open your composition in a new browser window.

Or just click Compose normally, and then click the arrow icon thing next to the close button of the compose window. All of these seem like better solutions than an extension.

None of this is sufficient if, like me, you frequently have emails to reply to.

I have to remember to shift-click "Reply" to get the larger window and then also select "Edit Subject" from a dropdown to see what I'm replying to (which, bizarrely, causes not only the subject line but also the body of the email to appear. Perhaps they forgot to hide it?), or click the inane "..." they put at the bottom to see the thread. Rarely has a UI caused so much black bile to accumulate within me.

Nothing is more efficient than, like me, frequently replying to email with "r" and typing my response. That which I'm replying to is directly above, so I'm not sure I follow what you are looking for.

I don't know that this extension purports to "fix" reply. I don't recall Gmail's reply ever working much differently than it does -- an inline textarea under the thread. Unclear what you are gaining from shift-click replying. Anything but inane... and hardly anything near one of the worst UIs... very revisionist.

Of course you could just check 'Default to full-screen' next to the little trash can on the bottom right of every new Gmail message (no plugin required)...

I'm glad you made something you really like and use. Congrats on getting on Hacker News too!

However, I love the smaller compose box. I can't tell you how many times I needed to look an another email while writing one. I was ecstatic when gmail added the feature!

And let's be serious, the "tiny Gmail compose box" really isn't that tiny.

+1/this.

I didn't like the new gmail at first, who likes when the things they use everyday change. But "pop out reply" is fantastic, for exactly the reason you cite: I can my emails search for context, for additional info, and move seamlessly back and forth between the compose area and the email area - it's like having a non-intrusive "always on top" window for note taking when doing research.

For distraction-free composition in Gmail, I always keep this bookmarked: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1

The smaller compose window enhances productivity. With the smaller compose window, users can view many emails while composing a single one, and the compose window stays out of the way. No back and forth to get the details you need.

For reading the mail as you are typing it, most humans find their eyes get tired after reading lines longer than 120 characters. A full screen compose window, could mean 200-250 characters. The current smaller popup wraps text after 72 characters, which is easier to proofread when writing (many novels wrap around 60-100 characters for this very reason).

There was a time not long ago when the gmail compose window would flexibly configure (at least with mozilla/firefox) to some GTK rc "theme". so one could configure keys to do useful shortcut vi/emacs-like things, like delete a whole line. alas, no more. so "oldcompose.com" bring that functionality back and i'll join ye.

The main part of the gmail compose window is simply a div element with contenteditable attribute. Your browser is free to do whatever it wants there, including vi or emacs key bindings. It's up to your browser.

along about early 2013 google/gmail changed something that they will only say no longer plays happily with the edit window widget that (at least) firefox uses (i had one javascript 'expert' tell me that gmail didn't want anyone using other than their own single-key shortcuts)

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/ymngoPD... "That one should stop working, because the new composer doesn't use a TEXTAREA for message body editor."

I use GMelius, and love it.

Website: http://gmelius.com/ Chrome store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmelius/dheionainn...

Is there anyone that, like me, likes the outlook interface better than chrome? The gmail apps and mobile website might be better, but in a normal browser outlook is just much easier to use

- Hit down arrow in bottom right corner of (crappy little) compose window

- Select "Default to Full-Screen"

Yes, this works pretty well. It still isn't technically full screen, but it's much larger than the default one. I do wish it was possible to open a gmail compose window without the whole gmail back-end behind it, so that I could pop open a compose tab without waiting the few seconds it takes for gmail to load, but I guess if I cared enough I could just find some lightweight smtp client.

It breaks the labels on the promotions, updates, forums tabs.

Heading: "Team Culturally Diverse"

Contents: Three white guys with no content about culture or diversity. Rather an odd thing to feature on the app's main page.

100% positive it was an attempt at humor.

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