13 ms·

New in Gmail Labs: Unread message icon

179 points by julian37 16y ago

julian37 16y ago
Appears to be based on this code: http://snipplr.com/view/29188/ http://snipplr.com/view/29188/ EDIT: actually, it might or might not be based on it, but that code shows how to implement dynamic favicons, at least for Google Chrome. Another edit: MikeCapone observed in another comment that it only goes up to "30+" so they might just be using 30 static images. But if so, why that wouldn't work in browsers other than Chrome 6+ and Firefox 2+ is beyond me.
- ggrot 16y ago
  Just guessing, but it's probably because most browsers heavily cache the favicon image.
  - pasbesoin 16y ago
    Actually, I was just wondering whether this means that Chrome is no longer going to do so.
  - julian37 16y ago
    Surely it would be cached based on the image URL though, not based on the page URL, and different images could use different URLs. I still don't see how this would pose a problem.
citricsquid 16y ago
Huzzah, now I don't need this extension to do this for me. Rather off topic, but I really wish one day that gmail (@gmail.com and custom domains) supported multiple logins from the same window, I have Opera installed just for company email.
- maurycy 16y ago
  http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/access-two-gmail-accounts-at-once-in.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/access-two-gmail-accou... http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another-address-without.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another... http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22370 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...
- DenisM 16y ago
  I have three accounts in the same window, I can switch which one I use currently by clicking on the email address. Two of them are Google Apps accounts, and one is a Gmail account.
  - citricsquid 16y ago
    It doesn't seem to work for me, I can only use my gmail accounts, those using custom domains don't have mail "enabled" but if I login to them alone they work fine. Maybe it's a problem at my end then!
    - kevruger 16y ago
      When did you sign up for the google apps account? I've seen this issue with new google apps accounts because google now has all google app accounts also set up as a regular google account for other google services. For example - before if you had a google apps account for your business, but wanted to use a service like google voice - you had to sign in to google voice with a separate google account. Now Google Apps allows you to use your custom domain to sign into all google services. I've seen this conflict in setting up newer Google Apps accounts for customers because the Google Apps account is treated as traditional Google Account. I'm sure there has to be some sort of work around for this.
- ydant 16y ago
  They support it, although it is tricky to set up and it sometimes gets confused if you have to sign into ancillary Google services with your secondary account. I am always signed into my personal account in one pinned tab and my apps account in another. The secret is in the gmail URL, specifically the /u/0/ in the URL. It turns out you can switch the number and be able to sign in multiple times. This may only work after you have enabled the multiple sign on that you can find with a quick search. Lifehacker covered this fairly recently. http://lifehacker.com/5733636/switch-between-multiple-gmail-accounts-with-a-url-hack http://lifehacker.com/5733636/switch-between-multiple-gmail-...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- natrius 16y ago
  I hate Google's multiple login behavior, so I just open an incognito window for my less frequently used accounts.
  - joeshaw 16y ago
    What do you hate about it? I like the idea, but I find it to be buggy and incomplete. Not all of the Google services work with it yet, mobile versions of their sites don't seem to support it at all, etc. If/when that's solved, I think it'll be an improvement over having multiple browsers open.
    - natrius 16y ago
      For instance, I'm normally logged into my personal account, which uses Mail, Voice, Calendar and more. To use Mail with my work account, my current account in every service is changed, so my Voice Chrome extension no longer shows correct data, as well as other weirdnesses that I've blocked from my memory since I started using incognito windows instead.
jbri 16y ago
I had no idea Chrome had that "pin tabs" feature until I read this blog post. My tab bar is suddenly a lot neater without the ever-present Gmail/HN/SO occupying as much space as the stuff I'm actively working on.
- jasonkostempski 16y ago
  Love the pin feature! Also note, anything you install via the web store can be configured to always open in a pinned tab by clicking on the little wrench when you hover over the app icon. For me it's Mail, Calendar and Grooveshark. Why would I ever close them?
- spooneybarger 16y ago
  It used to be that you couldnt SOMETHING-w to close a pinned tab. If you did that, it would just gray out and when you clicked on it, it reopened in at the same location. Now, it has to stay open, you can close w/o taking extra actions and it is always using memory for the full page. I tell you all of this so hopefully you can imagine how much better it used to be and I can add you to the campaign to get the old behavior back.
  - ydant 16y ago
    For a while there the persistent-but-closed state of pinned tabs was coming in and out randomly for me (based on updates on whichever repository I was on). I agree, the old behavior of having a dual-state pinned tab was VERY nice. I pretty much always have three pinned tabs now (GMail, GMail, GReader), but it used to be a few more. Now if I close GReader, which I do if I'm focusing down on working and know I won't be hitting it, it disappears - instead of that little placeholder. I've been hoping re-enabling that behavior it was an option I just missed somewhere. I guess not.
- joshu 16y ago
  Me neither. But I have multiple gmail apps open. How do I tell the difference? grah.
  - 16y ago
MikeCapone 16y ago
That's nice. A couple years ago I suggested that they should do that for the GMail link on the Google homepage: http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/17/google-homepage-feature-request-gmail-unread-emails-notifier/ http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/17/google-homepage-feature-requ...
MikeCapone 16y ago
I installed it and it just says 30+ I wish it went up to 99 at least. I get about 150 emails a day...
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  I have 100+. Not sure what the discrepancy is.
  - MikeCapone 16y ago
    I tried reloading and I still have 30+. Strange. Update: After a bit of usage of GMail it's been updated to 70+. Seems to be working now.
mcmc 16y ago
What's the point? How many people actually keep fewer than 10k unread messages in their inbox?
- markkat 16y ago
  I'm tidy. I don't have any. My wife on the other hand... I think you either have 0 or 10K+.
  - phillmv 16y ago
    I don't know how people can withstand that. At 1k+ messages you might as well declare email bankruptcy and regain a meaningful counter.
    - estel 16y ago
      I've done this twice now. I'm sure there was some important stuff in my "Archive all unread emails" click, but I sure as hell wasn't going to check.
- daeken 16y ago
  I have none. I have a complex series of filters which direct mailing lists, automated emails, etc into separate labels which bypass the inbox. If it makes it to my inbox, it's important enough to be read quickly -- this generally means only about 50-100 emails a day.
  - spooneybarger 16y ago
    Wow. 50-100? I filter down to less than 10 a day. Either I'm much more aggressive with my filtering or you are far more of an important person than I am.
- ernestipark 16y ago
  Multiple inboxes and filters are from Heaven. Pretty sure that my unread message count is directly related to how busy/crazy my life is at the moment.
staunch 16y ago
I was excited but it seems slower than <title> to update. Ugh.
clemesha 16y ago
I find the 'unread messages count' to be extremely distracting when I'm trying to actually get real work done. Through the corner of my eye, I'm constantly glancing and thinking: did it just increment? Just keep your email closed until you get stuck on that hard problem, ha.
- Joakal 16y ago
  I use HTML based version (faster and less prone to JS glitches) and there's no gmail number in title.
  - xuki 16y ago
    You should give keyboard shortcut a try (require JS). This alone forces me to use JS in gmail.
- varenc 16y ago
  there's also a gmail lab's feature to turn the unread email count off
- mryall 16y ago
  Yeah, that's one of the most valuable tips I got from the whole GTD thing: stop your email client notifying you when new email arrives. Productive email is asynchronous. Closing it down is best, but when I accidentally leave it open I still don't want the message count visible. In addition to enabling the Labs feature to turn off the inbox count in the web UI, I also have a one-line Greasemonkey script to remove it from the document/tab title.
- mhartl 16y ago
  I actually have a filter that marks all my incoming mail as "read" precisely to avoid this problem. It might seem heavy-handed, but this solution works even when working inside Gmail itself.
Groxx 16y ago
Interesting... I like it, but it's entirely eclipsed by extensions like Google Mail Checker Plus[1], for me. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gffjhibehnempbkeheiccaincokdjbfe https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gffjhibehnempbke...
- s3graham 16y ago
  I prefer the favicon over the extra clutter of another icon.
  - Flenser 16y ago
    depends how many accounts you've got. I'm checking 3 accounts so it saves having to have 3 pinned tabs open.
marklabedz 16y ago
I've been using Better Gmail for Chrome to get this functionality: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gmfocnipihcoejdieiimhiecclokidea https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gmfocnipihcoejdi...
- cyrus_ 16y ago
  There is also a Better Gmail extension for Firefox.
brownleej 16y ago
What I really want is something that can cause the icon to change when I get new chat messages. I frequently find myself unable to hear the soft incoming message sound, because I'm listening to something louder, and it would be nice to have a visual indicator.
- joeshaw 16y ago
  I use this Greasemonkey script to do this. It works in Chrome and Firefox: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24430 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24430 It does the unread count thing, but it also toggles between it and the chat icon if you have unread chat messages. It's a must if you pin gmail tabs.
  - brownleej 16y ago
    I've been using this script all day, and it's been great. Thank you so much.
nazgulnarsil 16y ago
i want the shortcut icon to do this in my bookmark bar.
fierarul 16y ago
It's great, I actually wanted this thing since I use pin tab all of the time for Gmail, but I dislike that it displays a number even if you have an empty inbox too. I don't like seing a 0, it should have defaulted to the normal icon. I try to keep my inbox as short as possible and I label a lot so having an empty inbox is expected.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
frazerb 16y ago
Number of starred items might be more useful. Also, seems to be an issue - this number does not increase (from 0 to 1 in the test I did) when you 'mark as unread'. Tried to give feedback about this to gmail labs but couldn't.
dgudkov 16y ago
Nice feature, but they'd better not show 0 when no unread messages.
- omh 16y ago
  That's exactly what they do. I'm not quite sure why you think it's such a bad idea though?
  - ydant 16y ago
    I don't know the grandparent's reasoning, but for me, having a small 0 there means I loose the peripheral vision effect of the icon. That little glowing "0" is hard to distinguish from another number in quick glance. If there were no icon then I could quickly determine the most important piece of information to me - do I have mail or not? Screenshot of the "0" and "2" from two Gmail tabs I have open side by side: http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6883/20110126084559selection.png http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6883/20110126084559select... I tend to keep my inbox fully read. It's my staging area - Unread = totally unprocessed, Read = TODO, Starred = Deferred TODO or important later. For me, a quick glance for unread (any amount) is more useful than exactly how many.
  - dgudkov 16y ago
    It's like having a sign that says "Nothing here".
makethetick 16y ago
Very handy feature to have, I had been keeping an eye on the pinned tabs - they flash/pulse when the page updates (new email comes in), now it's a lot easier.
mike_heffner 16y ago
Now only if Campfire would add this feature I could pin both these tabs.
millerc 16y ago
This just in: cloud services discover biff(1). Within a few years we should have an OS. Sorry to be cynical, it pains me to see the whole state of computing thrown out the window everytime we reinvent new paradigms (none of which add substantial value). Hint: we'll progress when we start building over old assets, not reinventing them at every "guerre de clocher".
- dcdan 16y ago
  It also pains me to see how the web has forced us back a decade in terms of what's an impressive UI feat. When your hands are tied, undoing a knot becomes notable.
tdfx 16y ago
I wish they would come out with a HTML5 Desktop Notifications lab feature.
- heed 16y ago
  They don't have a lab feature for HTML5 Desktop Notifications, but you can build extensions utilizing it. Here is one I built to show notifications for gmail chat messages: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/phokmbaffndjgejhemchophkkpdmpeln https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/phokmbaffndjgejh... :)
jalada 16y ago
Good, the extension I was using in Chrome had a tendency to be a bit buggy.
jordanlyall 16y ago
It would be cool if we could interact with the app via the tab. Example: I'm in another tab and can right click the pinned Pandora tab to pause the music.

179 points by julian37 16y ago

Appears to be based on this code: http://snipplr.com/view/29188/ http://snipplr.com/view/29188/ EDIT: actually, it might or might not be based on it, but that code shows how to implement dynamic favicons, at least for Google Chrome. Another edit: MikeCapone observed in another comment that it only goes up to "30+" so they might just be using 30 static images. But if so, why that wouldn't work in browsers other than Chrome 6+ and Firefox 2+ is beyond me.

ggrot 16y ago
Just guessing, but it's probably because most browsers heavily cache the favicon image.
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  Actually, I was just wondering whether this means that Chrome is no longer going to do so.
- julian37 16y ago
  Surely it would be cached based on the image URL though, not based on the page URL, and different images could use different URLs. I still don't see how this would pose a problem.

citricsquid 16y ago

Huzzah, now I don't need this extension to do this for me. Rather off topic, but I really wish one day that gmail (@gmail.com and custom domains) supported multiple logins from the same window, I have Opera installed just for company email.

maurycy 16y ago
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/access-two-gmail-accounts-at-once-in.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/access-two-gmail-accou... http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another-address-without.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another... http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22370 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...
DenisM 16y ago
I have three accounts in the same window, I can switch which one I use currently by clicking on the email address. Two of them are Google Apps accounts, and one is a Gmail account.
- citricsquid 16y ago
  It doesn't seem to work for me, I can only use my gmail accounts, those using custom domains don't have mail "enabled" but if I login to them alone they work fine. Maybe it's a problem at my end then!
  - kevruger 16y ago
    When did you sign up for the google apps account? I've seen this issue with new google apps accounts because google now has all google app accounts also set up as a regular google account for other google services. For example - before if you had a google apps account for your business, but wanted to use a service like google voice - you had to sign in to google voice with a separate google account. Now Google Apps allows you to use your custom domain to sign into all google services. I've seen this conflict in setting up newer Google Apps accounts for customers because the Google Apps account is treated as traditional Google Account. I'm sure there has to be some sort of work around for this.
ydant 16y ago
They support it, although it is tricky to set up and it sometimes gets confused if you have to sign into ancillary Google services with your secondary account. I am always signed into my personal account in one pinned tab and my apps account in another. The secret is in the gmail URL, specifically the /u/0/ in the URL. It turns out you can switch the number and be able to sign in multiple times. This may only work after you have enabled the multiple sign on that you can find with a quick search. Lifehacker covered this fairly recently. http://lifehacker.com/5733636/switch-between-multiple-gmail-accounts-with-a-url-hack http://lifehacker.com/5733636/switch-between-multiple-gmail-...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
natrius 16y ago
I hate Google's multiple login behavior, so I just open an incognito window for my less frequently used accounts.
- joeshaw 16y ago
  What do you hate about it? I like the idea, but I find it to be buggy and incomplete. Not all of the Google services work with it yet, mobile versions of their sites don't seem to support it at all, etc. If/when that's solved, I think it'll be an improvement over having multiple browsers open.
  - natrius 16y ago
    For instance, I'm normally logged into my personal account, which uses Mail, Voice, Calendar and more. To use Mail with my work account, my current account in every service is changed, so my Voice Chrome extension no longer shows correct data, as well as other weirdnesses that I've blocked from my memory since I started using incognito windows instead.

jbri 16y ago

I had no idea Chrome had that "pin tabs" feature until I read this blog post. My tab bar is suddenly a lot neater without the ever-present Gmail/HN/SO occupying as much space as the stuff I'm actively working on.

jasonkostempski 16y ago
Love the pin feature! Also note, anything you install via the web store can be configured to always open in a pinned tab by clicking on the little wrench when you hover over the app icon. For me it's Mail, Calendar and Grooveshark. Why would I ever close them?
spooneybarger 16y ago
It used to be that you couldnt SOMETHING-w to close a pinned tab. If you did that, it would just gray out and when you clicked on it, it reopened in at the same location. Now, it has to stay open, you can close w/o taking extra actions and it is always using memory for the full page. I tell you all of this so hopefully you can imagine how much better it used to be and I can add you to the campaign to get the old behavior back.
- ydant 16y ago
  For a while there the persistent-but-closed state of pinned tabs was coming in and out randomly for me (based on updates on whichever repository I was on). I agree, the old behavior of having a dual-state pinned tab was VERY nice. I pretty much always have three pinned tabs now (GMail, GMail, GReader), but it used to be a few more. Now if I close GReader, which I do if I'm focusing down on working and know I won't be hitting it, it disappears - instead of that little placeholder. I've been hoping re-enabling that behavior it was an option I just missed somewhere. I guess not.
joshu 16y ago
Me neither. But I have multiple gmail apps open. How do I tell the difference? grah.
- 16y ago

MikeCapone 16y ago

That's nice. A couple years ago I suggested that they should do that for the GMail link on the Google homepage: http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/17/google-homepage-feature-request-gmail-unread-emails-notifier/ http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/17/google-homepage-feature-requ...

MikeCapone 16y ago

I installed it and it just says 30+ I wish it went up to 99 at least. I get about 150 emails a day...

stanleydrew 16y ago
I have 100+. Not sure what the discrepancy is.
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  I tried reloading and I still have 30+. Strange. Update: After a bit of usage of GMail it's been updated to 70+. Seems to be working now.

mcmc 16y ago

What's the point? How many people actually keep fewer than 10k unread messages in their inbox?

markkat 16y ago
I'm tidy. I don't have any. My wife on the other hand... I think you either have 0 or 10K+.
- phillmv 16y ago
  I don't know how people can withstand that. At 1k+ messages you might as well declare email bankruptcy and regain a meaningful counter.
  - estel 16y ago
    I've done this twice now. I'm sure there was some important stuff in my "Archive all unread emails" click, but I sure as hell wasn't going to check.
daeken 16y ago
I have none. I have a complex series of filters which direct mailing lists, automated emails, etc into separate labels which bypass the inbox. If it makes it to my inbox, it's important enough to be read quickly -- this generally means only about 50-100 emails a day.
- spooneybarger 16y ago
  Wow. 50-100? I filter down to less than 10 a day. Either I'm much more aggressive with my filtering or you are far more of an important person than I am.
ernestipark 16y ago
Multiple inboxes and filters are from Heaven. Pretty sure that my unread message count is directly related to how busy/crazy my life is at the moment.

staunch 16y ago

I was excited but it seems slower than <title> to update. Ugh.

clemesha 16y ago

I find the 'unread messages count' to be extremely distracting when I'm trying to actually get real work done. Through the corner of my eye, I'm constantly glancing and thinking: did it just increment? Just keep your email closed until you get stuck on that hard problem, ha.

Joakal 16y ago
I use HTML based version (faster and less prone to JS glitches) and there's no gmail number in title.
- xuki 16y ago
  You should give keyboard shortcut a try (require JS). This alone forces me to use JS in gmail.
varenc 16y ago
there's also a gmail lab's feature to turn the unread email count off
mryall 16y ago
Yeah, that's one of the most valuable tips I got from the whole GTD thing: stop your email client notifying you when new email arrives. Productive email is asynchronous. Closing it down is best, but when I accidentally leave it open I still don't want the message count visible. In addition to enabling the Labs feature to turn off the inbox count in the web UI, I also have a one-line Greasemonkey script to remove it from the document/tab title.
mhartl 16y ago
I actually have a filter that marks all my incoming mail as "read" precisely to avoid this problem. It might seem heavy-handed, but this solution works even when working inside Gmail itself.

Groxx 16y ago

Interesting... I like it, but it's entirely eclipsed by extensions like Google Mail Checker Plus[1], for me. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gffjhibehnempbkeheiccaincokdjbfe https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gffjhibehnempbke...

s3graham 16y ago
I prefer the favicon over the extra clutter of another icon.
- Flenser 16y ago
  depends how many accounts you've got. I'm checking 3 accounts so it saves having to have 3 pinned tabs open.

marklabedz 16y ago

I've been using Better Gmail for Chrome to get this functionality: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gmfocnipihcoejdieiimhiecclokidea https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gmfocnipihcoejdi...

cyrus_ 16y ago
There is also a Better Gmail extension for Firefox.

brownleej 16y ago

What I really want is something that can cause the icon to change when I get new chat messages. I frequently find myself unable to hear the soft incoming message sound, because I'm listening to something louder, and it would be nice to have a visual indicator.

joeshaw 16y ago
I use this Greasemonkey script to do this. It works in Chrome and Firefox: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24430 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24430 It does the unread count thing, but it also toggles between it and the chat icon if you have unread chat messages. It's a must if you pin gmail tabs.
- brownleej 16y ago
  I've been using this script all day, and it's been great. Thank you so much.

nazgulnarsil 16y ago

i want the shortcut icon to do this in my bookmark bar.

fierarul 16y ago

It's great, I actually wanted this thing since I use pin tab all of the time for Gmail, but I dislike that it displays a number even if you have an empty inbox too. I don't like seing a 0, it should have defaulted to the normal icon. I try to keep my inbox as short as possible and I label a lot so having an empty inbox is expected.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

frazerb 16y ago

Number of starred items might be more useful. Also, seems to be an issue - this number does not increase (from 0 to 1 in the test I did) when you 'mark as unread'. Tried to give feedback about this to gmail labs but couldn't.

dgudkov 16y ago

Nice feature, but they'd better not show 0 when no unread messages.

omh 16y ago
That's exactly what they do. I'm not quite sure why you think it's such a bad idea though?
- ydant 16y ago
  I don't know the grandparent's reasoning, but for me, having a small 0 there means I loose the peripheral vision effect of the icon. That little glowing "0" is hard to distinguish from another number in quick glance. If there were no icon then I could quickly determine the most important piece of information to me - do I have mail or not? Screenshot of the "0" and "2" from two Gmail tabs I have open side by side: http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6883/20110126084559selection.png http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6883/20110126084559select... I tend to keep my inbox fully read. It's my staging area - Unread = totally unprocessed, Read = TODO, Starred = Deferred TODO or important later. For me, a quick glance for unread (any amount) is more useful than exactly how many.
- dgudkov 16y ago
  It's like having a sign that says "Nothing here".

makethetick 16y ago

Very handy feature to have, I had been keeping an eye on the pinned tabs - they flash/pulse when the page updates (new email comes in), now it's a lot easier.

mike_heffner 16y ago

Now only if Campfire would add this feature I could pin both these tabs.

millerc 16y ago

This just in: cloud services discover biff(1). Within a few years we should have an OS. Sorry to be cynical, it pains me to see the whole state of computing thrown out the window everytime we reinvent new paradigms (none of which add substantial value). Hint: we'll progress when we start building over old assets, not reinventing them at every "guerre de clocher".

dcdan 16y ago
It also pains me to see how the web has forced us back a decade in terms of what's an impressive UI feat. When your hands are tied, undoing a knot becomes notable.

tdfx 16y ago

I wish they would come out with a HTML5 Desktop Notifications lab feature.

heed 16y ago
They don't have a lab feature for HTML5 Desktop Notifications, but you can build extensions utilizing it. Here is one I built to show notifications for gmail chat messages: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/phokmbaffndjgejhemchophkkpdmpeln https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/phokmbaffndjgejh... :)

jalada 16y ago

Good, the extension I was using in Chrome had a tendency to be a bit buggy.

jordanlyall 16y ago

It would be cool if we could interact with the app via the tab. Example: I'm in another tab and can right click the pinned Pandora tab to pause the music.