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> I don’t mind a UI refresh, it’s going to be just like the gmail refresh everyone hated it and now we’re all fine with it. We are not fine with it. It really

by hsn915 4y ago

> I don’t mind a UI refresh, it’s going to be just like the gmail refresh everyone hated it and now we’re all fine with it. We are not fine with it. It really sucks. It's just out of our hands. To this day I hate the gmail interface. It used to be so much better back in the day.

irrational 4y ago
I’ve used gmail pretty much since day 1, but I can’t recall any of the previous interfaces. What were the good features of previous ones?
- hsn915 4y ago
  No wasted space. More colorful. More buttons. It was more pleasant to look at and provided more useful functionality on the UI. The modern trend of wasting space and erasing colors is really bad. The only new feature I like is the "tab" categories (but only on desktop). Though they really botched it because now I'm confused about the difference between categories and labels so I don't use labels anymore. IMO they should have used the existing labels system for that.
- alias_neo 4y ago
  Fast and light which it currently is not. It was also pretty easy to find and read your email, which it currently is not.
  - dietr1ch 4y ago
    You can still opt-in into the ancient HTML UI. It's really lightweight and network-bandwidth friendly, but not having shortcuts for some basic actions makes it a little bit too arcane and sometimes way slower than just paying the resource costs. I wish there was a better balance between both UIs. The "better looking" one wastes too much resources (CPU, memory, screen space).
    - alias_neo 4y ago
      Thanks, I didn't know that, I think I'll switch it back. It's not about resource cost for me, I use high end hardware and fast connections (coupled with ad and script blockers, both in-browser and at network level, which are probably adding to the frustration) and not only does it load and run like complete crap, I literally couldn't find an email I knew was there in my "inbox" last time I opened it. I only use Gmail/Workspace for family/personal stuff so I just use mobile apps 99% of the time now, but if I had to use it more regularly I'd be quite annoyed. Not that Office 365 which I use for work is any better in a web browser.
- michelb 4y ago
  It loaded quickly and was snappy.
- boomlinde 4y ago
  At the bottom of this guide there are two links to switch from the current state-of-the-art design to the "basic HTML" version, and back, should you regret it: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en The "basic HTML" version is probably not exactly as any previous version but it's a good approximation. I think it makes much better use of color and space, and the buttons have text labels instead of using an arcane symbol language I have to relearn every time I have the misfortune to use it.
  - manigandham 4y ago
    You can switch the gmail UI buttons to be text labels.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
alias_neo 4y ago
Nah I'm fine with it, because I never go to the website and just use mail clients; I can tolerate you its existence, out of sight out of mind and all that. Actually I did use the web client one time recently and I literally couldn't find an email I knew I'd just received; my inbox is kept at 0 unread; so in theory it should have been impossible NOT to see it, right? After the initial confusion then annoyance came the realisation and I just went and found my phone to read it on.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > Nah I'm fine with it, because I never go to the website and just use mail > clients; I can tolerate you its existence, out of sight out of mind and all that. And that contributes nothing to this thread because we are discussing the Jetbrains UI and the Gmail UI was an analogy. Unless you would like to argue that we can ignore Jetbrains UI changes like Gmail UI changes because we can use VIM as an interface to the code, so the Jetbrains UI is out of sight out of mind and all that.
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    I'm afraid my British humour (sarcasm) may have been lost here. I'm neither fine with Gmail, nor with major changes to Jetbrains IDE which I've been using every day for years now, and totally agree with all of the points in the article (and by extension this thread).
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      > I'm afraid my British humour (sarcasm) may have been lost here. That's fine. Apparently you're no Eric Idle, but I'm no Einstein here either.
bowsamic 4y ago
Yep, exactly. We tolerate it, and people forget how much better it used to be
jackpeterfletch 4y ago
> We are not fine with it I actually really like it. I've been looking at IntelliJ for 8 years, the refresh is really very welcome XD. I also haven't noticed any lost functionality.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ByThyGrace 4y ago
IIRC on desktop you can still use the old-ish (at least, plain HTML) version of gmail if you disable Javascript once logged in. At least it worked quite recently for me.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Yeah, but it’s the old non-plain-html version I want.
bmacho 4y ago
Which previous? https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ Still points to the "basic HTML" version, which is at least faster than the standard one. (I use it, and I'll keep using it, until I can, I guess.) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049

by hsn915 4y ago

irrational 4y ago

I’ve used gmail pretty much since day 1, but I can’t recall any of the previous interfaces. What were the good features of previous ones?

hsn915 4y ago
No wasted space. More colorful. More buttons. It was more pleasant to look at and provided more useful functionality on the UI. The modern trend of wasting space and erasing colors is really bad. The only new feature I like is the "tab" categories (but only on desktop). Though they really botched it because now I'm confused about the difference between categories and labels so I don't use labels anymore. IMO they should have used the existing labels system for that.
alias_neo 4y ago
Fast and light which it currently is not. It was also pretty easy to find and read your email, which it currently is not.
- dietr1ch 4y ago
  You can still opt-in into the ancient HTML UI. It's really lightweight and network-bandwidth friendly, but not having shortcuts for some basic actions makes it a little bit too arcane and sometimes way slower than just paying the resource costs. I wish there was a better balance between both UIs. The "better looking" one wastes too much resources (CPU, memory, screen space).
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know that, I think I'll switch it back. It's not about resource cost for me, I use high end hardware and fast connections (coupled with ad and script blockers, both in-browser and at network level, which are probably adding to the frustration) and not only does it load and run like complete crap, I literally couldn't find an email I knew was there in my "inbox" last time I opened it. I only use Gmail/Workspace for family/personal stuff so I just use mobile apps 99% of the time now, but if I had to use it more regularly I'd be quite annoyed. Not that Office 365 which I use for work is any better in a web browser.
michelb 4y ago
It loaded quickly and was snappy.
boomlinde 4y ago
At the bottom of this guide there are two links to switch from the current state-of-the-art design to the "basic HTML" version, and back, should you regret it: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en The "basic HTML" version is probably not exactly as any previous version but it's a good approximation. I think it makes much better use of color and space, and the buttons have text labels instead of using an arcane symbol language I have to relearn every time I have the misfortune to use it.
- manigandham 4y ago
  You can switch the gmail UI buttons to be text labels.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

alias_neo 4y ago

Nah I'm fine with it, because I never go to the website and just use mail clients; I can tolerate you its existence, out of sight out of mind and all that. Actually I did use the web client one time recently and I literally couldn't find an email I knew I'd just received; my inbox is kept at 0 unread; so in theory it should have been impossible NOT to see it, right? After the initial confusion then annoyance came the realisation and I just went and found my phone to read it on.

dotancohen 4y ago
> Nah I'm fine with it, because I never go to the website and just use mail > clients; I can tolerate you its existence, out of sight out of mind and all that. And that contributes nothing to this thread because we are discussing the Jetbrains UI and the Gmail UI was an analogy. Unless you would like to argue that we can ignore Jetbrains UI changes like Gmail UI changes because we can use VIM as an interface to the code, so the Jetbrains UI is out of sight out of mind and all that.
- alias_neo 4y ago
  I'm afraid my British humour (sarcasm) may have been lost here. I'm neither fine with Gmail, nor with major changes to Jetbrains IDE which I've been using every day for years now, and totally agree with all of the points in the article (and by extension this thread).
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    > I'm afraid my British humour (sarcasm) may have been lost here. That's fine. Apparently you're no Eric Idle, but I'm no Einstein here either.

bowsamic 4y ago

Yep, exactly. We tolerate it, and people forget how much better it used to be

jackpeterfletch 4y ago

> We are not fine with it I actually really like it. I've been looking at IntelliJ for 8 years, the refresh is really very welcome XD. I also haven't noticed any lost functionality.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ByThyGrace 4y ago

IIRC on desktop you can still use the old-ish (at least, plain HTML) version of gmail if you disable Javascript once logged in. At least it worked quite recently for me.

nicoburns 4y ago
Yeah, but it’s the old non-plain-html version I want.

bmacho 4y ago

Which previous? https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ Still points to the "basic HTML" version, which is at least faster than the standard one. (I use it, and I'll keep using it, until I can, I guess.) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049