Forwarding Address: OS X

Thursday, June 24, 2004

So I've been testing the dreaded Gmail for a week or two now. It's pretty good -- especially if you use it in a browser like Firefox that works with Gmail's keyboard shortcuts. It's like a Unix mailer in your web browser, sorta. I use it for high-volume mailing lists.

One of my frustrations with Mail.app, which I generally like, has been its lack of keyboard shortcuts for seemingly simple things like proceeding from an open message to the next message in the current mailbox.

I am now using a webmail app with better keyboard control than the desktop app it is competing with. Sigh.

P.S. I have a few Gmail invites if anybody wants to try it out. E-mail me there: paul.bissex at gmail.com. Update: All gone!

posted by pbx at 7:25 PM  

8 Comments:

  • Mail.app doesn't have a keyboard shortcut for Next Message??! That seems unpossible. Remind me to stick with Eudora for another decade...

    By Brian W, at 7:56 PM  

  • http://gu.st/code/Gmailto/

    By jack, at 8:23 PM  

  • To go to next message, use the Up or Down cursor keys. Focus does need to be on the message list section.

    By Dave, at 6:19 AM  

  • This post has been removed by the author.

    By pbx, at 6:57 AM  

  • This post has been removed by the author.

    By pbx, at 7:00 AM  

  • True. There are actually three sub-optimal ways to do it with the keyboard:

    1) leave focus in the message list all the time (page-up/page-down still scroll the message text)

    2) if you need to click on the message pane (e.g. to select some text), shift-tab will move focus back to the list

    3) if you open the message in its own window (by hitting return), you can then close it with cmd-W and return to arrow navigation in the list.

    But in Eudora and many other clients, you can simply spacebar from one open message to another. Want.

    (Sorry for the scribbles -- having reading and writing problems this morning!)

    By pbx, at 7:01 AM  

  • Just use the space bar. That will move you to the next page of the current message or, when you've reached the end, the beginning of the next message. Shift-space will go up instead. I regularly read high-volume lists in Mail without touching the mouse.

    By Brad, at 1:34 PM  

  • Well I'll be damned. Thanks!

    By pbx, at 2:52 PM  

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