5 ms·

Chrome Now Officially Lets You Open All Email Links In Gmail

82 points by dotpot 15y ago

tbassetto 15y ago
And if you want to open mailto links in Gmail with Firefox (and Opera I guess): http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/Getting-Gmail-to-handle-all-mailto-links-with-registerProtocolHandler http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/Getting-Gmail-to-handl...
zalew 15y ago
in FF you just go to preferences http://i.imgur.com/Nf6hK.png http://i.imgur.com/Nf6hK.png
- revelation 15y ago
  My, what an intuitive interface! Just add a new "mailto" content-type and link it to gmail. Theres so much wrong with this on so many levels. "mailto" isn't a freaking Content-Type, and this is not the right way to design interfaces.
  - throwaway64 15y ago
    a selector pops up the first time you click a mailto: link
  - zalew 15y ago
    would renaming it to 'link type' solve your problem? this ui to associate links to apps works since, I don't know, old versions of IE? it's a bit obscure, yes, but how would you solve it?
angelortega 15y ago
This really great!
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
What other protocols can developers use this new method with?
- RobAtticus 15y ago
  I believe Google Calendar also asks if you want iCal files to be opened in Google Calendar. I think other sites could register as that protocol handler as well.
- Andrex 15y ago
  Any protocol can request to be registered with the browser. Just a simple line of JavaScript[1]: window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(scheme, url, title); [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  irccloud.com (no affiliation, it's convenient though quite buggy) will open irc: links.
joejohnson 15y ago
Google finally incorporates another obvious feature, obviating the need for a silly chrome add-on. Yay.
mike-cardwell 15y ago
On the front page of my website where I display a mailto link, I also have GMail and Yahoo specific compose links: "Email: mymailtolink (Compose with GMail/Yahoo)" https://grepular.com/ https://grepular.com/ I wrote some JavaScript code a while back which would automatically detect if a visitor was logged in to GMail, and would replace all mailto links on my page with GMail compose links instead. I never put it live on my site though as the process of detecting if a user is logged in to gmail is pretty dodgy. In case you're interested in the code, or the detection process: https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Private_Information https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Pri...
- zalew 15y ago
  Interesting experiment, but I don't think webdevs should interfere with what client should be run by the user to send the email. Mailto: works just fine, and it's up to the user to set up the client for mailto.
dchest 15y ago
This is an odd wording: "Allow ... [No] [Use Gmail]". This may confuse people who will think that in order to use Gmail, you have to click this button. Oh, I should submit a bug report instead of posting here.
- pragmatic 15y ago
  The wording is confusing and I had to do a double take and then click on the help to figure out what its' really wanting to let me know. "Allow Gmail to open all email links" is terrible wording. It would seem to the average user that gmail wants to open up all the links in their email. mailto: is getting less common (due to spambots) and personally I can't remember the last time I clicked on one of those (that wasn't a web page from 2002). This will cause a lot of confusion and some tech support calls from family/friends. Wouldn't it make more sense to say "Do you want to use Chrome as your default email client" or something?
  - andybak 15y ago
    mailto: is getting less common due to spambots? I thought spam filters were getting better. I never hide my email address and get next to 0 spam (gmail).
  - drostie 15y ago
    The whole post is terribly worded. When I heard "email links" I naturally thought, "links in my email" and not "mailto: pseudo-protocol links." So I was very confused when it said that "an application on my computer that I never used would pop up and interrupt me" and that now the links "will open a fresh Gmail compose window."
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Yup, I had the same reaction. Still, once I figured it out I was duly impressed. I hated clicking links and having it launch the never-used mail.app.
driverdan 15y ago
For those interested the API it's using is navigator.registerProtocolHandler. http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/06/Registering-a-custom-protocol-handler http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/06/Registering-a-custom-p...
kevinherron 15y ago
When I tried this out yesterday with a pinned gmail tab clicking the email link opened up a new tab and loaded gmail :(
- RobAtticus 15y ago
  Seems that's intentional, even without a pinned gmail tab: "Say yes, and clicking on email links in any application on your computer will open a fresh Gmail compose window."
lucb1e 15y ago
It took them a while to build that in. So secure and fast, but something as basic as this (which the competition got since day one) has no priority apparently.
- thehigherlife 15y ago
  Secure, Fast, and Feature-Complete. Pick two.
pragmatic 15y ago
Edit: Mea Culpa. I see this is for desktop links. I clicked the help last night when this popped up and must have read it incorrectly. However, this can still cause problems if you have 2 email clients, say Outlook for my corporate mail and gmail for my personal mail. IT departments are going to love this.
- hallowtech 15y ago
  wut? This is for mailto links on webpages, not links within an email to webpages.
- notatoad 15y ago
  If you use gmail, why wouldn't you choose to do this? I'm so sick of mailto: links opening up whatever useless mail client came preinstalled on whatever computer I'm using.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
marcusf 15y ago
A complete aside, but the pushState/client side rendering implementation on the blog surprised and confused me massively. It seems like the wrong tool for a blog.
- udp 15y ago
  They could at least have sent the page you're trying to load so that it's ready to render immediately (instead of having to retrieve it from the server after the "container" has loaded).
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    Yeah, whatever they're doing about server-side rendering is just completely failing, which is really surprising. Gmail works well without js, so it's not as if they don't have competent web devs. Smuggling XML in a giant CSS comment is also very … special.
Metapony 15y ago
Creepy.
BenoitEssiambre 15y ago
finally

82 points by dotpot 15y ago

And if you want to open mailto links in Gmail with Firefox (and Opera I guess): http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/Getting-Gmail-to-handle-all-mailto-links-with-registerProtocolHandler http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/Getting-Gmail-to-handl...

zalew 15y ago

in FF you just go to preferences http://i.imgur.com/Nf6hK.png http://i.imgur.com/Nf6hK.png

revelation 15y ago
My, what an intuitive interface! Just add a new "mailto" content-type and link it to gmail. Theres so much wrong with this on so many levels. "mailto" isn't a freaking Content-Type, and this is not the right way to design interfaces.
- throwaway64 15y ago
  a selector pops up the first time you click a mailto: link
- zalew 15y ago
  would renaming it to 'link type' solve your problem? this ui to associate links to apps works since, I don't know, old versions of IE? it's a bit obscure, yes, but how would you solve it?

angelortega 15y ago

This really great!

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

What other protocols can developers use this new method with?

RobAtticus 15y ago
I believe Google Calendar also asks if you want iCal files to be opened in Google Calendar. I think other sites could register as that protocol handler as well.
Andrex 15y ago
Any protocol can request to be registered with the browser. Just a simple line of JavaScript[1]: window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(scheme, url, title); [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers
drivebyacct2 15y ago
irccloud.com (no affiliation, it's convenient though quite buggy) will open irc: links.

joejohnson 15y ago

Google finally incorporates another obvious feature, obviating the need for a silly chrome add-on. Yay.

mike-cardwell 15y ago

On the front page of my website where I display a mailto link, I also have GMail and Yahoo specific compose links: "Email: mymailtolink (Compose with GMail/Yahoo)" https://grepular.com/ https://grepular.com/ I wrote some JavaScript code a while back which would automatically detect if a visitor was logged in to GMail, and would replace all mailto links on my page with GMail compose links instead. I never put it live on my site though as the process of detecting if a user is logged in to gmail is pretty dodgy. In case you're interested in the code, or the detection process: https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Private_Information https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Pri...

zalew 15y ago
Interesting experiment, but I don't think webdevs should interfere with what client should be run by the user to send the email. Mailto: works just fine, and it's up to the user to set up the client for mailto.

dchest 15y ago

This is an odd wording: "Allow ... [No] [Use Gmail]". This may confuse people who will think that in order to use Gmail, you have to click this button. Oh, I should submit a bug report instead of posting here.

pragmatic 15y ago
The wording is confusing and I had to do a double take and then click on the help to figure out what its' really wanting to let me know. "Allow Gmail to open all email links" is terrible wording. It would seem to the average user that gmail wants to open up all the links in their email. mailto: is getting less common (due to spambots) and personally I can't remember the last time I clicked on one of those (that wasn't a web page from 2002). This will cause a lot of confusion and some tech support calls from family/friends. Wouldn't it make more sense to say "Do you want to use Chrome as your default email client" or something?
- andybak 15y ago
  mailto: is getting less common due to spambots? I thought spam filters were getting better. I never hide my email address and get next to 0 spam (gmail).
- drostie 15y ago
  The whole post is terribly worded. When I heard "email links" I naturally thought, "links in my email" and not "mailto: pseudo-protocol links." So I was very confused when it said that "an application on my computer that I never used would pop up and interrupt me" and that now the links "will open a fresh Gmail compose window."
redthrowaway 15y ago
Yup, I had the same reaction. Still, once I figured it out I was duly impressed. I hated clicking links and having it launch the never-used mail.app.

driverdan 15y ago

For those interested the API it's using is navigator.registerProtocolHandler. http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/timers.html#custom-handlers http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/06/Registering-a-custom-protocol-handler http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/06/Registering-a-custom-p...

kevinherron 15y ago

When I tried this out yesterday with a pinned gmail tab clicking the email link opened up a new tab and loaded gmail :(

RobAtticus 15y ago
Seems that's intentional, even without a pinned gmail tab: "Say yes, and clicking on email links in any application on your computer will open a fresh Gmail compose window."

lucb1e 15y ago

It took them a while to build that in. So secure and fast, but something as basic as this (which the competition got since day one) has no priority apparently.

thehigherlife 15y ago
Secure, Fast, and Feature-Complete. Pick two.

pragmatic 15y ago

Edit: Mea Culpa. I see this is for desktop links. I clicked the help last night when this popped up and must have read it incorrectly. However, this can still cause problems if you have 2 email clients, say Outlook for my corporate mail and gmail for my personal mail. IT departments are going to love this.

hallowtech 15y ago
wut? This is for mailto links on webpages, not links within an email to webpages.
notatoad 15y ago
If you use gmail, why wouldn't you choose to do this? I'm so sick of mailto: links opening up whatever useless mail client came preinstalled on whatever computer I'm using.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

marcusf 15y ago

A complete aside, but the pushState/client side rendering implementation on the blog surprised and confused me massively. It seems like the wrong tool for a blog.

udp 15y ago
They could at least have sent the page you're trying to load so that it's ready to render immediately (instead of having to retrieve it from the server after the "container" has loaded).
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  Yeah, whatever they're doing about server-side rendering is just completely failing, which is really surprising. Gmail works well without js, so it's not as if they don't have competent web devs. Smuggling XML in a giant CSS comment is also very … special.

Metapony 15y ago

Creepy.

BenoitEssiambre 15y ago

finally