WebProNews

Tag: Gmail Labs

  • Go Enable Gmail’s ‘Undo Send’ Feature Right Now

    In what could be a lifesaver for many, Google has finally graduated a particularly helpful Gmail feature from Labs to primetime.

    Gmail on the web now has a formal “undo send” feature.

    So, you accidentally sent a racy email meant for your wife to your boss? Awkward. So, you just hit reply all and are about to let the whole office know how you feel about Jim? Yeah, Jim sucks. But you don’t want that email going to everyone.

    Or maybe you just made a typo. Either way, Being able to cancel an email’s departure is a very, very good thing.

    If you want to have the feature available to you, you’ll need to go turn it on in your settings:

    “‘Undo Send’ allows people using Gmail to cancel a sent mail if they have second thoughts immediately after sending. The feature is turned off by default for those not currently using the Labs version, and can be enabled from the General tab in Gmail settings,” says Google.

    You can choose a “cancelation period” of 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds.

    undo-send

    If you’ve already been using the ‘Undo Send’ Gmail Labs version, it should keep working as such. Sometimes, it’s the small things.

    Image via Matt McGee, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Gmail Gets New Preview Pane Feature

    Gmail Gets New Preview Pane Feature

    Google may have announced the impending shut-down of Google Labs, but Gmail Labs is still putting out new optional features for Gmail users.

    Google has released the “Preview Pane” as a Gmail Labs feature. This allows users to preview messages in their inbox using a layout similar to how Gmail looks on a tablet device.

    “When I check my email, I often rely on the message snippets to figure out which messages to open first,” says Gmail Associate Product Manager Maciek Nowakowski. “Sometimes, though, I want to see more than snippets, which is why I’m happy to announce that you can now preview messages in your inbox using a new feature in Gmail Labs called Preview Pane.”

    Gmail Preview Pane

    Like all Gmail Labs feature, you have to enable it in settings. Once you’ve done so, you’ll see a toggle button in the right corner of your message list. This lets you switch between preview and list views. The button looks like this:

    Gmail Preview Pane toggle

    “For those of you who have more vertical space you can also move the preview pane below your message list. You can enable this using the dropdown arrow next to the toggle button,” notes Nowakowski. “By default there is a 3-second delay in marking a conversation as read after previewing it. If that doesn’t feel natural to you, you can change the timing in the General tab of settings.”

    Google also announced the expansion of phone calls from Gmail earlier this week. Last week, they showed off a script that lets you hit the snooze button on email messages.

  • Gmail Labs Get Search Feature

    Gmail Labs Get Search Feature

    The point of a laboratory is to facilitate testing.  The average chemist might not get too far if he was just presented with a jumble of beakers, however, and similarly, Gmail Labs has been getting pretty messy.  A new feature promises to fix that issue.

    Greg Bullock, a software engineer at Google, explained the problem on the Gmail Blog.  He wrote, "Have you ever found it just a little bit tricky to find what you were looking for on the Gmail Labs Settings page?  Scrolling was ok when there were a handful of Labs, but now that there are over 50 it’s another story."

    Next, Bullock continued, "A lunchtime discussion made us realize that having to rely on the browser’s search function or endless scrolling makes it hard to find the Labs features you want.  So another Gmail engineer named Manu [Cornet] and I decided take an afternoon and address this.  The result is an addition to the Settings page which filters the visible Labs as you type."

    This should make it considerably easier for would-be testers to find the Gmail Lab that’s right for them.

    Google should then benefit as people provide feedback and help the company improve Gmail, which has in large part lost its "lots of storage compared to rivals" draw.

    We’ll just remind everyone not to get too attached to any given Gmail Lab, since the old warning about them breaking or disappearing at any point still applies.

  • Google Improves Video Chat Quality with New Gmail Feature

    Google introduced a new feature in Gmail Labs today for video chat enhancement. If you turn the feature on, your video chat experience will come with higher resolution. 

    Chances are, the feature will be automatic in the future. Google says by using it, you’ll be getting a preview before its turned on for everyone. 

    "The higher resolution video uses a new playback mechanism which enables widescreen VGA and frees up valuable resources on your computer," says product manager Serge Lachapelle.  "For it to work, both you and the person you’re chatting with will need to have the lab turned on. Remember that you can always revert to standard video chat by disabling the lab."

    Gmail Video Enhancement feature

    Google says it plans to add additional video chat enhancements to the lab in the future. Having the lab turned on will mean getting those features first as well. 

    The lab is simply called "Video chat enhancements". You can turn it on in the labs tab under settings in Gmail. 

    The feature is also available in Orkut.

  • Six More Features Graduate From Gmail Labs

    It looks like the people in charge of Gmail Labs have decided to do a little spring (or more accurately, late winter) cleaning.  They’ve removed a full 11 experimental features from Labs, with six of the bunch becoming regular Gmail features and the other five failing to make the cut.

    Many of the "graduated" features are ones you’re probably familiar with, or can at least guess the functions of.  Forgotten Attachment Detector, YouTube Previews, Custom Label Colors, and Vacation Dates all fall under this heading.

    The last two approved features are Search Autocomplete and Go To Label, and a post on the Official Gmail Blog covers the only tricky parts, explaining, "If you have keyboard shortcuts turned on, type ‘g’ then ‘l’ and instead of getting the old ‘Go to label’ pop-up, you’ll be in the search box with the ‘label:’ operator filled in for you.  Start typing the label you want to go to, and autocomplete will take it from there.  All you have to do is hit enter.  If you want to send your cursor to the blank search field, the keyboard shortcut ‘/’ will do it."

    As for the experimental features that’ve been dropped, they’re called Muzzle, Fixed Width Font, Email Addict, Location in Signature, and Random Signature.  And a lack of popularity is the main reason they didn’t make it further, in case you were wondering.

    Anyway, Google’s likely to introduce more Gmail Labs features to replace all of this stuff before long.

  • Gmail Search Becomes More Like Google Search

    Last year, Google released a Gmail Labs feature that added a search box for regular Google Search within Gmail. The lab is simply called Google search. However, it didn’t provide all of the features that the real Google search does. They have now taken steps to improve the feature’s capabilities in the following areas:

    – Dictionary definitions
    – Spelling corrections
    – Calculations
    – Local results
    – Weather
    – News

    Maps results in Gmail

    You can now enter "define" and a word in the search box to retrieve a definition. If you spell something wrong, it will ask you if you meant something else. If you type in a math expression, you’ll get the calculation. You can search for a specific place or for things near a specific place and get map results (although Google said this feature will become available in a few weeks). It will also show you the More Info link, which will take you to a place page.

    You can type "weather" followed by your city and state (or country) or zip code and get local weather results not unlike what you would get in a regular Google search. If your query matches something in the news, you may get some news results.

    The new features are available in all languages that Gmail supports. They have also added a search button to the toolbar when you compose a message. With this, you can select text, click the button, and it will search for that. If you don’t select text, it will just bring up a search box.

    Related Articles:

    > Gmail and Picasa Storage Can Be Used for Any File

    > Gmail Switches to Default Https Encryption Following Attack

    > Google Adds Way to Easily Merge Duplicate Contacts in Gmail