I don't remember it this way, and my wife's email doesn't display the changes. Is it a browser thing - I run my stuff in Firefox, and she runs her's in Chrome.
"Move to" appears to apply the label and then archive it. "Labels" appears to ... label ... the email. Kinda dumb.... There's a search box at the top of each button to search through the list of labels, and a Manage labels link at the bottom....
Similar changes to the Inbox....
That's all the changes I can see right now....
Happens in IE 6 as well. And now in Chrome as well. (Signed out of wife's account and into mine.) And now that I've signed into my wife's account - it's there as well.
And here we go....
"But it's not always obvious how to use labels, especially for people
who are new to Gmail and used to using folders, and it hasn't helped
that some common tasks have been more complicated than they should be.
For instance, to move an email out of your inbox and into a label you
first had to apply the label using the "More actions" menu and then
click "Archive."
It looks like it's also supposed to have auto-complete. Okay, there we go. The little "search" box is the auto-complete feature; start typing and it winnows down the list to all labels starting with those letters. Sorta helpful, because I have like 10 million labels.....
And they've added some keyboard shortcuts: press 'v' to bring up the "Move to" button, and 'L' to bring up the "Labels" button.
Huh. Odd they should cater to "people who are new to Gmail" - and allow them circumvent the second best feature of GMail and return to the crappy old "folder-style" way of doing things.
Enjoy!
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Update : 2/4/09
It also looks like they got rid of the Search the Internet button, which I kinda miss.
And this is proving to be a bit of a learning curve, as well. I can't find the Delete button half the time, and I keep hitting More Actions to choose labels.
To boot, the new functionality of the Labels button feels weird. I had to pull up the old version because I can't remember now, but it felt smoother previously. I think it was because of two things. In the old version, if I clicked on the More Actions drop down I could simply run the mouse up and down the list. This was great if the label I wanted was in the first 25 or so labels. (Remember, I have like 10 million). If it wasn't, the slider on the list was right under the drop down arrow. So it was really easy to drop down half an inch and grab the slider and go to the bottom bunch. So really it only took like two clicks to apply most labels, maybe three clicks (or more appropriately, click, click-hold-slide, click) for the rest.
The new Labels button behaves like a menu - not a drop down - and shows only the first ten labels, greatly increasing the chance that I have to click-hold-slide. So just about everything means I need to take three clicks. Additionally, that slider is over to the right about an inch, and a lot smaller - so now I have to pay attention to grab it.
The auto-complete is a bit heavy, too. To use it, I need to click the button, let go of the mouse and move my hands to the keyboard, and start typing. If I can type a couple of characters and get to the unique label, I just hit enter - and I apply the label. But if I get to something that has a bunch of similar labels - for example, I have several labels that I lump together as Friends, Friends-Bob, Friends-Charise, Friends-Dennis.... - I then need to take my hands from the keyboard, move back over to the mouse, and point and click. I guess I can actually just use the up and down keys, but for some reason I feel like I have to click the label - maybe because of the checkbox doodad they have there now.....
I think it might take some getting used to, and then I'll think it's pretty nice. I just discovered something pretty cool, for instance. If I'm in auto-complete, I can start typing a new label name, and I get the option to create a new label of what I just typed at the bottom of the menu. The addition of the Manage labels link right there is welcome.
But they need to clean it up. There still seems to be some inconsistency with the Labels button if I don't have an email selected.
- If I don't have an email selected, I still get what appears to be the full functionality of the Labels button. I can start blithely typing away in auto-complete, get several good key strokes in, select the label - and get an error message.
- I get the Manage Labels link - which is good, but I don't get a Create Label link. That would be handy; I have gone into the old More Actions drop down specifically to get to the New label link to create a new label. These two would thus be the only reason to open this button if there was nothing selected. If you do it for one, why not the other?
- If I choose a label checkbox, I strangely get an Apply at the bottom of the "menu" - but it does nothing....
Okay, I see. If I click on the label name, I choose that label and that label only for the email I have selected. If I choose the checkbox, I can choose other labels as well. When I'm done, I click Apply or the name of the last label I want to apply. Handy.
But a better execution - when nothing is selected - is right next door, where the More Actions button options are greyed out if I don't have anything selected....
For the Move to button, Spam and Trash are redundanct - they didn't remove the old Report Spam and Delete buttons. That's not unwelcome - I like redundancy. I'd rather they remove the Report Spam button, since the Spam filters are so good, I need to use it like once in three months - and now my button bar is feeling a bit long, particularly if I add the Mark as Read button from Labs.
Like I said, these are largely nits, and I'll likely adjust to the learning curve. Just seems a little stange.
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