4 ms·

Have to disagree, even though I'm a big gmail user and I do like it way better than the other webmail systems. A thread in gmail looks more like a pile than a r

Have to disagree, even though I'm a big gmail user and I do like it way better than the other webmail systems. A thread in gmail looks more like a pile than a real thread - it's nowhere near as smooth as navigating in a newsreader. It presents newer messages on top, and I sometimes find myself confused when I can't tell if certain text is new or quoted in an old message. And there is no "kill thread" - you can set up a filter, but that's a longish operation and I don't think it lets you say "I don't want to follow this particular discussion" as opposed to "filter out this subject/author". It all comes down to gmail being a mail system, not a forum system. And goog's forum system, groups, is pretty sad.

skybrian 15y ago
In GMail, you can mute a discussion using the "m" key. (There is also a GMail labs feature that makes it work a bit better.) Also, within a thread, new messages are posted at the bottom.
btilly 15y ago
You should really read through http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 to find out what gmail does that you don't know it does. For instance the "kill thread" functionality that you don't think exists is called mute and is available by pressing m. I stand by my previous comment. Every piece of basic functionality that was requested is actually present in gmail. The aesthetics are not the same, and some things require hitting two keys (for instance y then o to archive the current message and move to the next - keeping the current one from showing up again unless you look for it). But the basic functionality is all there.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Is there a way to get gmail to highlight posts on mailing lists that are replies to one of your own messages to the list? That's one of the main features of newsreaders I miss (HN's threads?id= view is kind of a clunky approximation).
  - btilly 15y ago
    Not reliably, but here is the best substitute that I am aware of. Click on the icon at the top left, select Email Settings. Search for Personal level indicators and turn them on. Save changes. You'll now have indicators of which emails were sent to you personally, and a stronger indicator of emails sent only to you. When people respond to you they tend to reply to you, so it tends to work out reasonably well.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      That's pretty useful, thanks! It seems like they ought to be able to directly mark messages which are reply to one of my messages via message-ids, but this does catch the majority of them.
- yaakov34 15y ago
  I didn't know about the "mute thread" capability - thanks. But maybe "the aesthetics" are somehow crucial - I've always had keyboard shortcuts enabled in gmail, but following a modern mail thread (in which most people top-post, in any case) is still not the same as following one of the old usenet threads. Not the same feeling of smoothness or being aware of the flow of conversation and a message's place in it. I was, in any case, talking about forums, not mail systems. It seems that none of the modern forum software even wants to give me something as super-basic as not showing messages I've already read. Exceptions are few. And it's in forums that I need "kill thread" and "kill followups" (I suppose gmail labs has that, too), not in my email. I have no idea why that is; certainly it's possible to replicate the old software with today's tech, and for all I know the wonderful new forum software already exists, but it's not being used very widely. And here I am in 2011 using phpBB boards and livejournal and HN, and they are all much clunkier and less-featured than tin and trn, when it comes to actually following conversations.
  - btilly 15y ago
    I agree with you. However http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/board/show.iwt?boardid=2 http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/board/show.iwt?boardid... is one forum that implements not showing you messages that you've already read. It doesn't have kill thread or kill followups, but that one feature sets it ahead of the pack.
    - yaakov34 15y ago
      I looked at it now, and it seems like you can mark forums read, but once inside a forum, like http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/forum/show.iwt?forumid=9 http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/forum/show.iwt?forumid..., you can't mark messages and threads read - they all show up. Or maybe I missed something. Anyway, it still gives me the same feeling as virtually every forum - here is a space in which people converse 99% of the time in plain text, and the technology they use to structure and follow these conversations is far more primitive that what we used in 1991 (when threading really came into its own) and very arguably worse than in 1981-1990, too. And all this while the technology used to zip their messages around the globe and display them is the stuff of fantasies.
- barrkel 15y ago
  Killing a thread is not the same as killing a branch. Gmail linearizes multi-branch conversations. Multi-branch conversations occur more naturally in fora and mailing lists, but it can be useful to ignore a branch.
- adambyrtek 15y ago
  > The aesthetics are not the same, and some things require hitting two keys (for instance y then o to archive the current message and move to the next - keeping the current one from showing up again unless you look for it). Looks like you don't know everything about Gmail shortcuts yourself. The same feature is available under '{' and '}' (or '[' and ']', but in this case the behavior depends on the label you are currently in).
  - btilly 15y ago
    I was just skimming through that page to find options. My usual mode is just j/k. But good to know.

skybrian 15y ago

In GMail, you can mute a discussion using the "m" key. (There is also a GMail labs feature that makes it work a bit better.) Also, within a thread, new messages are posted at the bottom.

btilly 15y ago

You should really read through http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 to find out what gmail does that you don't know it does. For instance the "kill thread" functionality that you don't think exists is called mute and is available by pressing m. I stand by my previous comment. Every piece of basic functionality that was requested is actually present in gmail. The aesthetics are not the same, and some things require hitting two keys (for instance y then o to archive the current message and move to the next - keeping the current one from showing up again unless you look for it). But the basic functionality is all there.

_delirium 15y ago
Is there a way to get gmail to highlight posts on mailing lists that are replies to one of your own messages to the list? That's one of the main features of newsreaders I miss (HN's threads?id= view is kind of a clunky approximation).
- btilly 15y ago
  Not reliably, but here is the best substitute that I am aware of. Click on the icon at the top left, select Email Settings. Search for Personal level indicators and turn them on. Save changes. You'll now have indicators of which emails were sent to you personally, and a stronger indicator of emails sent only to you. When people respond to you they tend to reply to you, so it tends to work out reasonably well.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    That's pretty useful, thanks! It seems like they ought to be able to directly mark messages which are reply to one of my messages via message-ids, but this does catch the majority of them.
yaakov34 15y ago
I didn't know about the "mute thread" capability - thanks. But maybe "the aesthetics" are somehow crucial - I've always had keyboard shortcuts enabled in gmail, but following a modern mail thread (in which most people top-post, in any case) is still not the same as following one of the old usenet threads. Not the same feeling of smoothness or being aware of the flow of conversation and a message's place in it. I was, in any case, talking about forums, not mail systems. It seems that none of the modern forum software even wants to give me something as super-basic as not showing messages I've already read. Exceptions are few. And it's in forums that I need "kill thread" and "kill followups" (I suppose gmail labs has that, too), not in my email. I have no idea why that is; certainly it's possible to replicate the old software with today's tech, and for all I know the wonderful new forum software already exists, but it's not being used very widely. And here I am in 2011 using phpBB boards and livejournal and HN, and they are all much clunkier and less-featured than tin and trn, when it comes to actually following conversations.
- btilly 15y ago
  I agree with you. However http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/board/show.iwt?boardid=2 http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/board/show.iwt?boardid... is one forum that implements not showing you messages that you've already read. It doesn't have kill thread or kill followups, but that one feature sets it ahead of the pack.
  - yaakov34 15y ago
    I looked at it now, and it seems like you can mark forums read, but once inside a forum, like http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/forum/show.iwt?forumid=9 http://iwt.mikevitale.com:8080/gaming/forum/show.iwt?forumid..., you can't mark messages and threads read - they all show up. Or maybe I missed something. Anyway, it still gives me the same feeling as virtually every forum - here is a space in which people converse 99% of the time in plain text, and the technology they use to structure and follow these conversations is far more primitive that what we used in 1991 (when threading really came into its own) and very arguably worse than in 1981-1990, too. And all this while the technology used to zip their messages around the globe and display them is the stuff of fantasies.
barrkel 15y ago
Killing a thread is not the same as killing a branch. Gmail linearizes multi-branch conversations. Multi-branch conversations occur more naturally in fora and mailing lists, but it can be useful to ignore a branch.
adambyrtek 15y ago
> The aesthetics are not the same, and some things require hitting two keys (for instance y then o to archive the current message and move to the next - keeping the current one from showing up again unless you look for it). Looks like you don't know everything about Gmail shortcuts yourself. The same feature is available under '{' and '}' (or '[' and ']', but in this case the behavior depends on the label you are currently in).
- btilly 15y ago
  I was just skimming through that page to find options. My usual mode is just j/k. But good to know.