Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
Mail annoyances
Dave at The
Consultant has written a short
rant regarding what he calls "minor annoyances" in Apple's Mail. First, he misses being able to page down
from message to message with the space bar, Eudora-style. He also complains about Mail not warning him of invalid
addresses prior to sending.I'll add my own. I've only got two, and they are in fact minor, but they still irk me every time I use Mail. For some inexplicable reason, Command-O will not open a message. Also, I cannot use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move from mailbox to mailbox. It's the little things that drive a person crazy.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Molle said 3:39PM on 2-13-2006
Open message: Return, or ? + N if you want to write a new one.
Move between mailboxes: ? + 1, ? + 2, ? + 3, ? + 4, ? + 5, ? + 6
Greetings from Sweden
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Brian said 3:46PM on 2-13-2006
My big problem is that I have 8 accounts that I check with Mail.app and the only one that ever gives me problems is my .Mac address. The irony.
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dombi said 3:48PM on 2-13-2006
Make sure that you submit all these ideas to Apple through their feedback website:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
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scott lewis said 3:50PM on 2-13-2006
With Mail 2.0.5 (the version that came with 10.4.4), I can move between my mailboxes using the keyboard.
Hit the tab key, the keyboard focus will cycle through the message list, the search box and the mailbox list. You'll know it's in the mailbox list because the highlight will turn a different shade of blue. Then arrow keys will let you switch between mailboxes and expand and collapse folders.
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Billfred said 3:57PM on 2-13-2006
Obligatory question: What's so great about going command(+)o? I never saw the draw.
;)
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iomatic said 3:57PM on 2-13-2006
Command-O is reserved for opening files, mang.
To move from mailbox to mailbox (I assume you mean the Inboxen), make sure you're tabbed to the right pane. Then use arrow keys.
Space bar? How about the arrow keys; much smarter and more intuitive. In a text-centric application, the space bar should be reserved for um, space. And, actually the space bar does properly function that way, when you're in the list pane.
:)
Invalid addresses; yes. Perhaps this has something to do with internal domains or some such.
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Harsh said 3:58PM on 2-13-2006
holy geez, do i really need to see weekly Apple Mail complaints?? enough, please!
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Ben said 4:01PM on 2-13-2006
Well, the way Dave describes space-scrolling through the message list and content works exactly in the current version of Mail, as long as the view pane is visible. When it's not, space still works to go to the next message in the list; shift+space for the previous.
Also, regarding your irks: Why Command+O when you can just press Return? And, yes, you can use the arrow keys to select and move among mailboxes. You just have to tab to that area. I use Mail with no view pane and usually the message list is selected. Shift+Tab gets me to the mailbox hierarchy. My habit is to read from my inbox first, then cleanup junk mail (Command+6), and then read from my Unread Mail smart mailbox. I use this tabbing technique to get from Junk to Unread.
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phatmonkey said 4:10PM on 2-13-2006
http://www.phatmonkey.org.uk/2006/02/08/mailapp-mailbox-organisation-doesnt-work/
My little annoyance...
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Daniel Jalkut said 4:47PM on 2-13-2006
My FastScripts utility is perfect for addressing pet peeves like the Cmd-O one. While I personally tend to agree that Cmd-O shouldn't behave the way you describe (though the Finder sets a funny precedent for it), you can use FastScripts Lite to fix this once and for all:
1. Open a new script in Script Editor and paste this in:
tell application "Mail"
open selection
end tell
2. Save it to [Home]/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/Whatever.scpt
3. With FastScripts, hold the Cmd-Key while selecting the script in the menu (this is a quickie way of defining a shortcut for a particular script).
4. Type Cmd-O in the keyboard shortcut editor. Press return to end editing.
The keyboard shortcut will only be active when Mail is active, because the script is in the "application-specific" section of your scripts folder. I use this technique to eliminate pet peeves from several applications. You can even define a keyboard shortcut that the app already uses. For instance, use it to override the behavior of "Cmd-N" to create a particular kind of templated document.
FastScripts Lite is free. Hope this helps!
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Keith said 4:54PM on 2-13-2006
How about no keyboard shortcut for flagging a message as Junk Mail.
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Dave said 5:03PM on 2-13-2006
Flag Message as Junk = "apple + shift + j"
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Reid Ellis said 5:19PM on 2-13-2006
Ben, I think Dave means having messages opened in a separate window and being able to move to the next message by hitting spacebar. Hell, I'd like there to be *any* way of navigating to the next message from a message window.
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fra said 5:20PM on 2-13-2006
TUAW
The Unofficial bitch about mail.app that was created by Apple - Weblog?
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Nikhil Bhat said 5:49PM on 2-13-2006
My gripe--and I didn't see it above--is that when I scroll to the end of the message window, i can't use the up arrow key to scroll up. It just sticks, and I either have to use shift+space or {gasp} the mouse.
Small gripe, but still. . . it should work.
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jason mark said 5:57PM on 2-13-2006
Every few years I try mail, and it's just not up to speed with Entourage.
The problem with Entourage is that it stores all it's data in one database, which makes nightly backups of an office full of Macs expensive as people's mail folders get over a few gigs, but other than that it's a great, powerful, email application for people who are on all email all the time. Mail just isn't there (for me) yet. Biggest gripes are:
* autofill of names is SLOW compared to Entourage, so as I switched from Entourage to Mail I find I have to constantly go back and pause to have it auto-fill a name for me (1.67ghz powerbook).
* Received attachments (pdfs, etc.) showing up inline make it very hard to use
* Sending attachments aren't always visible to Windows users unless they're at the very end of message, which is embarrassing (oh you're sending from a Mac, no wonder it doesn't work... why don't you get a real computer).
* it takes 4 tabs to get from subject to body.
* no easy way to make bulleted and/or numbered lists, or indent.
* Apples spellchecker is slow. I find when jotting off short messages it flags known words as unknown, and I have to wait a little while for it to catch up.
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Jonathan Neil said 6:33PM on 2-13-2006
it bugs me that the scroll wheel on my mouse is locked to the message window. even if i click in the message list, the scroll wheel still scrolls the message, not the list.
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Jeffrey Kirk said 6:34PM on 2-13-2006
Slow attachment downloading is the most annoying feature of Mail for me.
It may only be a 2 meg attachment. Sometimes, it can take 10 minutes to download! All of this at cable modem speeds! Still 10 minutes.
Yuck!
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Grant Barrett said 7:04PM on 2-13-2006
Using the space bar may work with the Preview pane visible, but it doesn't work correctly. If I have my mail sorted with the most recent message at top, then hitting the space bar assumes I am moving up the mail folder instead of down it. I read my mail last in, first out.
This is, of course, on top of Apple stupidly assuming that people read their mail with new messages at the bottom (which is how new mailboxes are set to sort.) I don't and never have, since my way is the way I've been doing it since 1992.
My number one peeve, however, is the one that many people have: the absolutely retarded line breaks in outgoing plain text messages. Get rid of that stupid space! Don't force line breaks! Text messages should NOT HAVE LINE BREAKS INSERTED. Don't care about no RFCs or standards.
My number two peeve is that when I choose a sig file and then make edits to it in a message, if I choose a different "from" address, it completely deletes that changed sig file. That is very much counter to expectations.
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Rudy Rabbit said 8:00PM on 2-13-2006
I use Thunderbird 1.5 instead of Mail...no more annoyances.
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