4 ms·
> It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. UI-wise, yes, but GMail was also the first mainstream "A
by pilaf 2y ago
> It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to.
UI-wise, yes, but GMail was also the first mainstream "AJAX" [1] app. Before it the expectation was that clicking on almost anything on the page would cause a full page refresh. GMail was in part revolutionary because of how snappy it felt for a webmail client.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)
- HNDen21 2y agoI remember using OWA (Outlook Web Access) before that.. but you are right this is the one that stands out..... soon after this Digg was created and the onslaught of all the web 2.0 sites like delicious, flickr etc etc
- pilaf 2y agoAfter all XMLHttpRequest was a non-standard addition to the web API by Microsoft, specifically added for Outlook AFAIK. Firefox copied it though, so GMail could use it without sacrificing browser agnosticism.