Open messages in tabs

Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:44 am

I am a pretty heavy KMail user, mostly on Netbook what stays on travels with me. But on home computer I have a 24" screen.

I dont like this idea because it is designed only to work on people who do not need to have multiple emails or accounts open at same time. It slows down to just manage accounts and mails and place the user to spend time browsing the emails.

I work with old people, many who are new users who have never used computer before, they are mostly over 70 years old and I can only say with that experience, this will never work well.

Old people need to see the context in one view when managing emails. That means they need to have access right away to inbox, outbox and sended. They need to have a possibility to have the addressbook open same time. They like a logical idea to have one window for every email what is being written and what is opened. Forcing user to have (even by default) one view, is not good always. On emails, that is just the case what I have noticed.

All my clients likes the left-to-right idea. You start from left selection what folder you are (inbox, outbox etc). It is like the way how the mail has be on table in boxes or in drawers. Then you see right away the list of mails. Here comes the first biggest difference among users. Some prefer that newest comes bottom of list, but definetely most wants newest to be on top of the list. Then the second big difference is found, do they like that every email what they open gets opened to own window or is the preview integrated to the mainwindow. Very few likes the integration when they have small screensize (they use big fonts, they are old people) or monitor format like 5:4 (17-20" / 1280x1024) .

Most likes that the email gets whole new window, but not on the fullscreen, only few of these people likes the letter is on fullscreen. They want to open multiple mails and process them in time just closing them.

Now people have started to have widescreens (21-30", 1680x1050/1920x1200) and almost all of them likes the idea to have the preview integrated on mainwindow, side of it.
So you end up to have mailboxes on left, list on middle and preview on right. Few are hoping that the preview would be on middle and list on right, I dont know is it possible to get it that way! But no one use preview bottom of the list because it is just so small space for it.

They like the integrated sidepanel because it allows them to have only ONE click to go trought their mails. They see right away how many and what mails are not readed yet.

Two have now since Mozilla's Email client Thunderbird 3.x to be enjoying about opening emails to tabs. But they still like the idea that new written email is opened to own window.

Almost all (98-99%) of them wants the new email being opened on new window. Because they usually leave the letters open while answering multiple letters at time or editing them same time without saving them first. It just helps them a lot.

And when it comes to better usability, oh oh... they just LOVE the KWin effect called "Presenter". Just swap mouse to top right corner and you can see all your emails what they are about to read and what they are writing.

One thing what some do not like, those few who have two or even three accounts, is that the KMail UI freeze when switching account. (This is going to be fixed on KDE SC 4.5 if the KMail gets ported to Anakondi).
So they like to use tabs for every account. It just slows down them because they need to do more clicking and they can not see right away where they are. (One fix for this would be using POP or offline-IMAP and sync only when ordered)

We have developed very powerfull windowmanager and effects for it. same way as the email clients have be build among times to be logical way. Allowing multitasking. The breadcrumbs and tabs does not fit to email clients so well (this is just what I have noticed when thinking them) clients because it forces the usage to be a single-tasked.

You can right now test it by making KWin rules to have every window on fullscreen without decorations and top of others. Then have the client configured to open every email to new window. And you soon notice you are more and more managing the views than actually doing the task, reading and writing emails.

On home computer, I have the typical accounts | list | preview -configuration. And on netbook, I have accounts | list. On the netbook, it is many times important to have multiple emails open same time and even on that for me, I have just need to understand that even the old people knows what suites best. And they are correct, the presenter effect is just awesome on that.

francisco_t Registered Member Posts 37 Karma 0 OS	[kmail] Open messages in tabs Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:53 pm I think it's a good idea that kmail could open messages in tabs, like what happens now with folders. How to use: Clic in message, open in the preview frame. Double clic open in a new window, and middle clic or ctrl+mouse button open in a new tab. Also I think it's very useful in little screens, like notebooks.
ioxer Registered Member Posts 1 Karma 0 OS	Open messages in tabs Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:38 pm I cannot stress how much this would help me out on my netbook screen!
mck182 KDE Developer Posts 138 Karma 0 OS	Open messages in tabs Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:03 pm I think that this one solves it better http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=118299 (but it's just a matter of taste really). Maybe both could be integrated? Like in Dolphin. You can have tabs _and_ breadcrumbs. I'd go gruszek's idea. I'm not using kmail now, because the interface feels tooooo heavy on me.
jrusinek Registered Member Posts 2 Karma 0 OS	Open messages in tabs Thu Jan 14, 2010 6:37 pm I also find breadcrumbs (http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=118299) a wonderful idea. I'm using KMail everyday (with Kontact) and it would really improve my experience. Additional back button (like in quick access plasmoid) would be also great.
Fri13 Registered Member Posts 397 Karma 4 OS	Open messages in tabs Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:44 am I am a pretty heavy KMail user, mostly on Netbook what stays on travels with me. But on home computer I have a 24" screen. I dont like this idea because it is designed only to work on people who do not need to have multiple emails or accounts open at same time. It slows down to just manage accounts and mails and place the user to spend time browsing the emails. I work with old people, many who are new users who have never used computer before, they are mostly over 70 years old and I can only say with that experience, this will never work well. Old people need to see the context in one view when managing emails. That means they need to have access right away to inbox, outbox and sended. They need to have a possibility to have the addressbook open same time. They like a logical idea to have one window for every email what is being written and what is opened. Forcing user to have (even by default) one view, is not good always. On emails, that is just the case what I have noticed. All my clients likes the left-to-right idea. You start from left selection what folder you are (inbox, outbox etc). It is like the way how the mail has be on table in boxes or in drawers. Then you see right away the list of mails. Here comes the first biggest difference among users. Some prefer that newest comes bottom of list, but definetely most wants newest to be on top of the list. Then the second big difference is found, do they like that every email what they open gets opened to own window or is the preview integrated to the mainwindow. Very few likes the integration when they have small screensize (they use big fonts, they are old people) or monitor format like 5:4 (17-20" / 1280x1024) . Most likes that the email gets whole new window, but not on the fullscreen, only few of these people likes the letter is on fullscreen. They want to open multiple mails and process them in time just closing them. Now people have started to have widescreens (21-30", 1680x1050/1920x1200) and almost all of them likes the idea to have the preview integrated on mainwindow, side of it. So you end up to have mailboxes on left, list on middle and preview on right. Few are hoping that the preview would be on middle and list on right, I dont know is it possible to get it that way! But no one use preview bottom of the list because it is just so small space for it. They like the integrated sidepanel because it allows them to have only ONE click to go trought their mails. They see right away how many and what mails are not readed yet. Two have now since Mozilla's Email client Thunderbird 3.x to be enjoying about opening emails to tabs. But they still like the idea that new written email is opened to own window. Almost all (98-99%) of them wants the new email being opened on new window. Because they usually leave the letters open while answering multiple letters at time or editing them same time without saving them first. It just helps them a lot. And when it comes to better usability, oh oh... they just LOVE the KWin effect called "Presenter". Just swap mouse to top right corner and you can see all your emails what they are about to read and what they are writing. One thing what some do not like, those few who have two or even three accounts, is that the KMail UI freeze when switching account. (This is going to be fixed on KDE SC 4.5 if the KMail gets ported to Anakondi). So they like to use tabs for every account. It just slows down them because they need to do more clicking and they can not see right away where they are. (One fix for this would be using POP or offline-IMAP and sync only when ordered) We have developed very powerfull windowmanager and effects for it. same way as the email clients have be build among times to be logical way. Allowing multitasking. The breadcrumbs and tabs does not fit to email clients so well (this is just what I have noticed when thinking them) clients because it forces the usage to be a single-tasked. You can right now test it by making KWin rules to have every window on fullscreen without decorations and top of others. Then have the client configured to open every email to new window. And you soon notice you are more and more managing the views than actually doing the task, reading and writing emails. On home computer, I have the typical accounts \| list \| preview -configuration. And on netbook, I have accounts \| list. On the netbook, it is many times important to have multiple emails open same time and even on that for me, I have just need to understand that even the old people knows what suites best. And they are correct, the presenter effect is just awesome on that.