I’ve just noticed a new tab in my GMail settings section, it’s a tab called labs where Google is adding experimental features to GMail.
So far I have:
Quick Links Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more - definitely a feature I’ll be using, it’s almost like a build in digg for Gmail.
Superstars Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature, you can choose which icons you wish to use in the “General” Settings page - finally, the boring yellow stars was starting to limit me.
Pictures in chat See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them - will give it a shot, actually prefer the minimalistic version of the chat box.
Fixed width font Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font - this will be great for viewing emails containing ascii art.
Mouse gestures Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows - never been a fan of mouse gestures.
Signature tweaks Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures. Can’t use this and the “Random signature” Labs feature at the same time - finally!!!
Random signature Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can’t use this and the “Signature tweaks” Labs feature at the same time - no thanks, I prefer my signatures static, boring and clean.
Custom date formats Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07) - at last, this feature is welcome anytime!!!
Muzzle Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages - might turn it on to turn of annoying status messages.
Old Snakey Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake-procrastination just became a lot easier.
Email Addict Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat - hopefully I’ll get some work done with this feature, haha.
Hide Unread Counts Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc - that’s what I use filters for, if I want email to automatically be marked as read, I’ll rather set it up in a filter.
Let me know if you find any new features, I’ll probably turn most of them on just to test drive drive it and leave the useful features on after beta testing all the existing features.
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Tags: features, Gmail. Labs, Google, Snake
The only feature I really use is the signature tweak.