Journal of a Tech Enthusiast

Gmail Labs Part 1

I mentioned in the previous post, that Google released Gmail Labs, a set of experimental features from Google’s developers. I am a big fan of Google’s product, I use Gmail, Google Reader, Picasa Web Albums, etc. I decided to look at the new experimental features Gmail added to their belt.

Quick Links

Quick Links adds a new menu to the left hand navigation area of Gmail. It allows you to add the current page, whether it is one of your mailbox, or one of your customised searches, to the Quick Links menu. It allows easy access for pages or searches that you access everyday. I find this feature very useful, if you can make good use of the powerful Gmail searches.

Superstars

This feature allows you to add new star icons to your Starred list. Once the feature is enabled, you can access the option to add/remove star icons to your “In Use” list, from the General settings page.

You can then set different stars accordingly by clicking on the star icon to mark a message as starred. To cycle through the different icons, keep clicking on the star.

Pictures in Chat

Pictures in Chat allows you to see your contact’s display icon when you are chatting with them, on Gmail.

Fixed Width Font

This is especially useful when source codes are being sent around in your emails. This new feature adds a ‘Show in fixed width font’ menu to the ‘Reply’ drop down, when you are reading an email.

Hide Unread Count

This feature hides the unread mail count on your left hand navigation menu.

Signature Tweaks

Instead of having your signature at the end of the email, this feature moves your signature before the quoted text. This feature does not co-exist with Random Signatures.

Random Signatures

This feature does not work together with Signature Tweaks. Random Signatures allows you to use random signatures in your emails. Random signatures can be fetched from a feed.

Custom Date Formats

This new feature allows you to change the format of date/time display, from General settings.

Here’s Part 1, I will look at the rest of the new experimental features soon, have fun with Gmail You can leave your feedbacks at Gmail Labs Google Groups.