Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools
Widescreen Plugin for Leopard Mail brings 2-line preview
A while back we posted about Letterbox, a plugin for Tiger's Mail.app that brought a widescreen format to Mail by moving the preview pane to the right of the subject listing. Letterbox isn't working in Leopard (though the author says he is working on it), but a new plugin for Leopard has been released that not only brings a widescreen 3-pane format to Leopard Mail.app, but also introduces a very useful two-row subject preview similar to Entourage.
WidescreenMailPlugin is a free download from daneharnett.com (though donations are requested).
[via Hawk Wings]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Absent One said 1:07PM on 11-07-2007
I was bummed when I saw letterbox wasn't working after I upgraded to 10.5.
I'll be giving this one a shot tonight.
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look said 1:15PM on 11-07-2007
perfect:):):)
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Chris Wanja said 1:14PM on 11-07-2007
Unhappy to not get GrowlMail working, granted I know they are totally different, I am going to give this a go!
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Gene Cowan said 1:26PM on 11-07-2007
Nice, but with the two-line format there is little distinction between the sender name and the subject. Wish the sender name was bold, more like the iPhone mail app. Makes it much easier to view. The list shading could be a bit darker as well to help the eye deal with this... but this is a common complaint with alternate-line list shading throughout Mac OS X. Too subtle.
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Adrian vG said 1:30PM on 11-07-2007
It ruined my Leopard Mail. Can't resize the window without makeing everything blank. Can't use the uninstaller. Had to do a manual uninstall.
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Adrian vG said 1:30PM on 11-07-2007
It ruined my Leopard Mail. Can't resize the window without makeing everything blank. Can't use the uninstaller. Had to do a manual uninstall.
Macbook, Core Duo.
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Joe Maller said 1:57PM on 11-07-2007
Works fine for me, but the two-line preview sort of defeats the purpose.
Widescreen mail helps me because it lets me see more messages. In a casual comparison with my current mail window I see 20 messages with the vertically split view, 21 messages with the two-line view, and 44 messages with the previous WidescreenMailPlugin I see 44 messages.
Two line previews don't really get me anything except the same info in a different layout. Single-line messages let me manage a bigger load of email simultaneously.
Either way though, I'm glad to have the widescreen option.
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scott said 2:23PM on 11-07-2007
The plugin is 16 megabytes. Doesn't that seem rather large for something that does what it does? Or is it just me?
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Dominik Hahn said 5:21PM on 11-09-2007
Very nice but my screen is not widescreen enough. :-(
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kakapo said 3:05PM on 11-07-2007
Great!!!
This is one thing I was missing from 10.4.
I really like the two column view!
thanks
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Andrew Harrison said 3:33PM on 11-07-2007
didn't work very well for me. all the text started under the "subject" field rather than at the very left of the screen, and highlighted [ie: related etc] emails had screwed up kerning.
uninstalled it straight away, i'll wait for a letterbox update.
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Dan S. said 3:52PM on 11-07-2007
Lemme guess, next up, you guys are going to talk about Cover Flow for Address Book and MiniMail...
You might as well admit that you're cribbing off of http://www.hawkwings.net
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Mat Lu said 4:16PM on 11-07-2007
@11: Wow you're brilliant. You caught us. If only there weren't a FREAKING attribution to Hawk Wings at the bottom of the FREAKING post.
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Rhywun said 5:49PM on 11-07-2007
Mat, I suggest you lay off the coffee for the rest of today.
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eyecandy.at said 6:24PM on 11-07-2007
adding these two lines at terminal enables letterbox on leo mail (functions much better than wmp):
defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles 1
defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion 3
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Chuck said 8:24PM on 11-07-2007
Eyecandy,
Please post more details on getting letterbox to work. I tried the terminal commands, Mail still disables the Letterbox 0.16 bunde....
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LittleJoe said 8:49PM on 11-07-2007
does work for me either. wont allow me to resize the window. when i grab the lower right corner the whole window goes white and freezes.
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Chris said 6:12PM on 11-08-2007
Looks like there's been and update since this article was posted. Check it out!
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radoon said 3:02AM on 11-11-2007
Worked great for about a day.... then mail crashed and I couldn't get it running again until I uninstalled it (using the included uninstaller). My mail is now back to normal and I don't think I'll try something like that again.
Macbook (black), Core Duo, Leopard
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GD said 5:54PM on 11-09-2007
I've been looking for the Letterbox update, but don't see one yet.
I like the single line preview.
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