I've used html-mode gmail since way back when. it's really nice, fast and simple. Unfortunately at some point several months ago, google stopped respecting having set html mode as default. the only way to get it now is to append "/h" at the end of the gmail link manually (or click the "use html mode" button while it loads, but that usually leads to it registering the click just as it finished loading, trashing a random email because the trash button is in the same location of the screen)
it's genuinely so frustrating, especially because if you use the html-link and then have to log in, it sends you back to javascript gmail again. I think this might actually be the thing that'll get me to switch from gmail, which I've been too lazy to do, but meaning to do for ages now
the worst part I think is that you can't middle click to open new tabs. I don't know if it's just me, but I constantly find myself wanting to cross reference two things that require multiple tabs, and SPAs never let you open anything in a new tab (even though they could if they bothered to implement it).
SPAs never let you open anything in a new tab (even though they could if they bothered to implement it).
There's really nothing special about SPAs that prevent opening new tabs with middle click. All they need to do is use a href element instead of, e.g., a span with a click handler. For some inexplicable reason, gmail has opted for the latter even though most click targets update the url and navigate the user somewhere.
It's like everyone using these bloated JS front ends has forgotten that. Google, Reddit, Wells Fargo, Gusto, Twitter. They are actively breaking the built in browser features.
It's nowhere near as simple as that. Many SPAs don't even have URLs for referring to the items they display, so they'd also need to invent a complete URL for everything they might display and then also handle people visiting that URL. And if you change URLs in an SPA, you then need to interact with the browser history API, which, historically, has had a large number of disastrously bad bugs.
Things don't exist by default and every feature takes effort.
For gmail it is that simple. They've already solved providing unique URLs for all the internal app paths I bothered checking.
For SPAs in general, it's true that there is some extra work in gluing URLs and app state together, but there's no lack of libraries that make that process easy and painless.
Of course for GMail that would result in taking 30s to load the email. If it wanted to have reasonable performance for opening the message in a new tab they would need to do some magic to transfer just the state required.
I found a similarly great UI pattern the other day when leading a conference call. I clicked to toggle the attendee list, only to find that when I clicked a second time to hide it again, the controls had moved across so my mouse was over the hang-up button.
well, it still is around, it's just a hassle to get to these days, rather than loading automatically for those who opted into it. I doubt they even broke it on purpose, it's just one of those things that no one at google cares about, so it gets broken by something and no one notices or cares, and it'll never ever get fixed, because it's not like you can notify anyone at google who would care or have power to do anything.
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I've used html-mode gmail since way back when. it's really nice, fast and simple. Unfortunately at some point several months ago, google stopped respecting having set html mode as default. the only way to get it now is to append "/h" at the end of the gmail link manually (or click the "use html mode" button while it loads, but that usually leads to it registering the click just as it finished loading, trashing a random email because the trash button is in the same location of the screen)
it's genuinely so frustrating, especially because if you use the html-link and then have to log in, it sends you back to javascript gmail again. I think this might actually be the thing that'll get me to switch from gmail, which I've been too lazy to do, but meaning to do for ages now
the worst part I think is that you can't middle click to open new tabs. I don't know if it's just me, but I constantly find myself wanting to cross reference two things that require multiple tabs, and SPAs never let you open anything in a new tab (even though they could if they bothered to implement it).
There's really nothing special about SPAs that prevent opening new tabs with middle click. All they need to do is use a href element instead of, e.g., a span with a click handler. For some inexplicable reason, gmail has opted for the latter even though most click targets update the url and navigate the user somewhere.
It just seems lazy to me.
It's like everyone using these bloated JS front ends has forgotten that. Google, Reddit, Wells Fargo, Gusto, Twitter. They are actively breaking the built in browser features.
It's nowhere near as simple as that. Many SPAs don't even have URLs for referring to the items they display, so they'd also need to invent a complete URL for everything they might display and then also handle people visiting that URL. And if you change URLs in an SPA, you then need to interact with the browser history API, which, historically, has had a large number of disastrously bad bugs.
Things don't exist by default and every feature takes effort.
For gmail it is that simple. They've already solved providing unique URLs for all the internal app paths I bothered checking.
For SPAs in general, it's true that there is some extra work in gluing URLs and app state together, but there's no lack of libraries that make that process easy and painless.
a lot of SPAs do this already to make page refreshes not kill state though, but still don't bother with links
Of course for GMail that would result in taking 30s to load the email. If it wanted to have reasonable performance for opening the message in a new tab they would need to do some magic to transfer just the state required.
I found a similarly great UI pattern the other day when leading a conference call. I clicked to toggle the attendee list, only to find that when I clicked a second time to hide it again, the controls had moved across so my mouse was over the hang-up button.
Joy.
Ah that's a pity :( I got excited by the first sentence. Wish they had kept it around.
well, it still is around, it's just a hassle to get to these days, rather than loading automatically for those who opted into it. I doubt they even broke it on purpose, it's just one of those things that no one at google cares about, so it gets broken by something and no one notices or cares, and it'll never ever get fixed, because it's not like you can notify anyone at google who would care or have power to do anything.
You can use an IMAP client. But for me, the initial unsubscribe from everything irrelevant was painful.