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Gmail annoyances - can they be fixed using add-ons, Stylish and Userscripts?

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IainB:
Gmail used to have several annoyances and things that really were inefficient/ineffective or just downright ergonomically undesirable.
Slowly but surely, Google improved and tuned the thing, so that Gmail became pretty good and a breeze to use.
And where it wasn't so good, there were add-ons/extensions that you could get (in Firefox and Chromium at any rate) that made it better - e.g., and especially Lifehacker's Better Gmail add-on.

However, if you - like me - consider that with the latest changed and smartened-up Gmail, Google would seem to have completely screwed things up, then help may be at hand for some of us, as the user community starts to fix the screw-ups in Gmail. This help is in the form of:


* Userscripts (for which you need the Greasemonkey extension and scripts from http://userscripts.org/scripts/ )
* Style changes - for which you need the Stylish extension and the styles from http://http://userstyles.org
* Better Gmail (which is a time-saving bundle of userscripts and styles).
* Maybe some other add-ons/extensions
However, I am having problems getting these to work nicely on the current version of Gmail, and I assume that I am not alone in this.
It is so bad that it makes me wonder whether Google are not doing this deliberately - either as some kind of experiment, or to drive users away - e.g., rather than withdraw/abandon the service as they have been doing with so many of their products/services lately and that they had previously been so "excited to announce...etc." (or similar BS).

So I thought I'd start a discussion to see if we could pool our knowledge/experience to help each other.

Currently I am seriously considering that, if I can't get Gmail to work better and have better ergonomics, then I shall migrate to Hotmail (Windows Live) - which has been seriously improved and looks very nice. But there's the change inertia to overcome if I want to do that, and Google still have not made it easy to migrate so I may be locked in to some extent.

zridling:
...it makes me wonder whether Google are not doing this deliberately-IainB (November 13, 2011, 03:31 PM)
--- End quote ---

I don't think so. They've upgraded all their UI's across their services (YouTube really blows now). Thus, I think it's a move toward more consistency. Docs looks similar, but hey, still no control over styles! Thing is, without extensions, I don't Google is ever going to jazz Gmail too much. Sure, you can have the new HD themes, but jeez those are annoying.

I do hate that the text buttons were replaced with icons. At least give ME the choice! Also, the bottom row of REPLY/FORWARD/DELETE buttons of each email was removed. So I created a better keyboard shortcut for deletion (at https://mail.google.com/mail/#settings/shortcuts).

IainB:
My responses in bold following your comment text:
They've upgraded all their UI's across their services (YouTube really blows now).
...
Sure, you can have the new HD themes, but jeez those are annoying.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Well, YouTube is arguably the only decent Google interface now, but there's still the bad ergonomics, and all that white which makes you reach for a pair of snow-goggles - all of which is definitely breaking some cardinal rules for good layout design. You could put that down to ignorance, I suppose - they could make bigger mistakes - e.g., Buzz, Wave...     ;)

____________________
I do hate that the text buttons were replaced with icons. At least give ME the choice! Also, the bottom row of REPLY/FORWARD/DELETE buttons of each email was removed. So I created a better keyboard shortcut for deletion (at https://mail.google.com/mail/#settings/shortcuts).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yes, I can't understand them mucking about with the buttons/text like that - and that's just more breaking some cardinal rules for good layout design.
By the way, re those missing REPLY/FORWARD/DELETE buttons: I presume that you know that REPLY/FORWARD are now in the reply text field?
But the missing DELETE - that's another mistake IMHO. Even though I don't usually use it, it was handy (good ergonomics). I would usually use the standard "#" key (i.e., Shift+3 key combo) for DELETE anyway.
-zridling (November 13, 2011, 03:59 PM)
--- End quote ---

dragonmage:
It is my  hope that this unified design is in preparation for domain wide user selectable styles. If they make all of their sites conform to a standard then it should make it easier to develop styles to work through all sites. This is totally wishful thinking and I have not bothered to check the source of any of the redesigns.

J-Mac:
Oh, please don’t get me started...

The Archive/Spam/Delete icons at the top of the message list are terrible - the trash can for Delete is the only sensible one there. And they no longer have matching icons at the bottom of the list so you have to scroll up to the top all the time.

Worst though was removing a few other helpful links/buttons, such as "Remove Highlighting" and "Mark as Read"... Notice they are missing? They're now in a dropdown menu, which totally sucks.

Needless to say, I don’t like the new interface.

Jim

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