Comments on: Feedback on widescreen plugin? Apple is watching.

By: Kalvin

Kalvin — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 02:44:55 +0000

I switched from Windows to a MBP C2D last week. I love OSX, and Mail’s pretty good, but Outlook 2003’s vertical implementation is just way better. I’m using Letterbox but it doesn’t have the two-line header, which I’d prefer.

By: Lawrence Standifer Stevens

Lawrence Standifer Stevens — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 18:46:40 +0000

I’ve been using the Letterbox plug-in for Apple Mail for quite some time and, overall, I’m pleased with how it works. However, it does have one little quirk that drives me nuts.

When doing a search and then deleting the search term to return to the normal view, the column widths of the center column are just wacky. The attachments column becomes about 8-10 times wider than the min. width and the widths of all the other columns are narrower, leaving me with no other choice than to reset the widths of each column. P.I.T.A.!!! The only other way of getting back to my default view is to close the Message Viewer window and open a new one. Et voila!

Still a pain, though. I’d prefer not to have to do this at all. That said, it’s still not painful enough to quit using Letterbox and go back to the default Apple Message Viewer. (Blechhhh!!!)

I’m on a 17″ Studio Display at 1600 x 1200 most of the time. On this size monitor, even at this resolution, it doesn’t quite show all of the message; the right side is usually lopped off by an inch or so.

Since I spend a lot of time in email responding to my podcast listeners (OffTheDime.com), I can’t imagine going back to Apple’s default view.

By: neuralgia

neuralgia — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:51:16 +0000

i really like letterbox. i use it easily on my 20″ 1600 x 1050, and with a little squeezing on my 1280 x 800 MacBook 13″ screen. On the smaller screen I have to move many of the sender / subject bars over. Also Mail.app seems to “forget” my settings for all of those tabs between resolutions and after every quit. Annoying. But a great app. I have tried Entourage and Thunderbird a few times and even switched for 2 years to Entourage in the early days of mail but switched back due to Letterbox. I even prefer the letterbox on my 1280 x 1024 monitor at work, even though it isn’t widescreen.

By: Kevin Donahue

Kevin Donahue — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:47:01 +0000

Late to the game - but I love the Widescreen plugin.

By: Marcin

Marcin — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:31:57 +0000

I think with today’s popularity of wide screen displays, or eve simply with the size/resolution of displays available, a vertical preview pane is a must.

I have been using and loving it in Outlook at work and only found out about this plugin for Mail.app, and I’m installing it as soon as I get home tonight.

Marcin

By: Kiran Wagle

Kiran Wagle — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:22:59 +0000

I’m actually quite baffled by the love of one-window paned interfaces. If the mailbox list, message list and message each had their own window, you could arrange them however you liked, and close or minimize them if you wanted to do so.

(Eudora, for a while, would allow you to then stick them together so you couldn’t accidentally rearrange them–I have no idea if that feature still exists.)

~ Kiran

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:29:07 +0000

I’m using the Letterbox plugin on my 15″ powerbook and LOVE it. I have been craving this style interface since I started using Mail. It has made me more efficient in responding to emails and my inbox went from averaging 58 messages to 24 messages and has stayed there since loading this plugin. This is the hight of interface usability.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:55:14 +0000

As long as Apple offers it as an option along with the current layout, I don’t see why anyone should oppose it.

By: adam

adam — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:34:30 +0000

I’m with Michael (see above @ June 5th, 2006 at 12:02 am). Continuous reading of text on the right side of the screen gets uncomfortable. (Maybe I’m just way too used to the default setting.)

Oh, and since most of my emails seem to be under a paragraph or two, that’s a whole lot wasted space.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:10:09 +0000

I’m running a Mini with a nice big CRT at 1344 x 1008 or 1600 x 1200 and there’s no question - Mithras’ hack is very very nice indeed.

While it may seem like a waste of space if you have lorts of short text-only emails, if you’re handling stuff with images, html or pdf’s that Mail tries to render in the body of the message (over half of my messages do) this is a godsend.

I’m also not interested in the 2-line per message layout the way Outlook does it (subject + sender on the next line).