End of classical interface

[ReuvenNY]

Folks, please be civil and stay on the subject matter. Criticizing language skills in part of it.

[wakaba]

Originally Posted by ReuvenNY

Folks, please be civil and stay on the subject matter. Criticizing language skills in part of it.

Let me clarify, since my post seems to have stirred up quite some brouhaha, for which I apologize. In my initial post in response to Vivil, I wasn't criticizing his language skills -- I was criticizing the incoherency of his post. As has been borne out by his "corrected" post, it seems that the problem with his post wasn't that Vivil was a poor English writer, but rather that the post simply wasn't well-constructed.

For reference, here is my initial response to Vivil:

Are we supposed to put this through google translate? I've heard that their new algorithm does wonders.

I can certainly see why people would interpret this as an attack on Vivil's language skills. (Which, by the way, doesn't really make sense either -- he didn't write his post in French!) But really, the snarky interpretation I was going for was that perhaps google translate could convert vivil's post from "gibberish" to something more logically coherent.

[brong]

Back on topic, @vivil, can you please check if that bug still exists? I managed to reproduce it in my testing and we sat down together and came up with a way to avoid the browser sending the delete event a second time.

I have been unable to reproduce it since the fix.

[Terry]

Brong that's excellent service as I could not imagine someone in MS doing something that.

[andretchen]

I haven't used the new features much, am quite happy with the classic interface, but will now test out more seriously the seemingly inevitable transitions. Two features I like, which hopefully can be re-created somehow in the current interface:

1 - ability to insert pictures from a web link to the jpg instead of from a local jpg. That should be easy to provide by downloading the jpg to my user files and uploading from there, or am I missing something? This would be a great time saver. Once the jpg file is attached, it actually could be deleted from user storage.

2 - ability to use the web interface as a fast HTML editor*: sometimes I have found very easy and convenient to paste and html file in the "Source" version of the Composed email (and vice versa) to craft a nice email with all images/jpg in the body of the text - that without much knowledge of html really.

So, practically, provide and Import and Export feature for simple HTML pages in the email compose screen - I understand Fastmail Classic 's composer uses a very good small editor, if necessary provide it outside of Fastmail if necessary.

(*) For example sometimes I need to re-send an email to another recipient,with minimal changes - and of course I have not saved a separate Draft. In the Classic interface, no problem, I can just forward the sent email, and edit its source html by removing a couple lines, the ones containing blockquote and end block quote, and the blurb line about Me sent email at date time etc

[paul29]

Originally Posted by andretchen

I
1 - ability to insert pictures from a web link to the jpg instead of from a local jpg. That should be easy to provide by downloading the jpg to my user files and uploading from there, or am I missing something?

There is a hacky way to do that which I don't feel like figuring out right now. But basically you go to the Files screen, import the picture from the web link into your storage area through some confusing tool there, then go back to the mail screen, attach the pic from storage, send, and then optionally delete the pic from storage. It's still in your sent folder so you may want to delete the attachment from your sent copy if you're worried about space.

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by andretchen

2 - ability to use the web interface as a fast HTML editor*: sometimes I have found very easy and convenient to paste and html file in the "Source" version of the Composed email (and vice versa) to craft a nice email with all images/jpg in the body of the text - that without much knowledge of html really.

A "source edit" function is about the only thing I myself tend to find noticeably missing from the new interface. So, I'd love something like that in the new if possible.

[brong]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

A "source edit" function is about the only thing I myself tend to find noticeably missing from the new interface. So, I'd love something like that in the new if possible.

Most browsers have some form of "inspect element" - you can use that to manipulate the raw HTML, our editor works with that.

[misc]

Originally Posted by brong

Most browsers have some form of "inspect element" - you can use that to manipulate the raw HTML, our editor works with that.

Wow, this is cool! With my understanding of the inspector, I didn't expect this to work.

Thanks Bron

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by brong

Most browsers have some form of "inspect element" - you can use that to manipulate the raw HTML, our editor works with that.

While I'm used to writing emails in a text editor and pasting into a compose window, I'm sure I can figure out how to get the Inspect Element feature to do what I want.

Thanks!

[andretchen]

Originally Posted by paul29

There is a hacky way to do that which I don't feel like figuring out right now. But basically you go to the Files screen, import the picture from the web link into your storage area through some confusing tool there, then go back to the mail screen, attach the pic from storage, send, and then optionally delete the pic from storage. It's still in your sent folder so you may want to delete the attachment from your sent copy if you're worried about space.

Well, that is precisely what I suggested, better even to use a temp buffer, I don't even need that jpeg in my file storage since it's in the text now - it could be labelled hacky but it is a real convenience from the user's point of view if you think about it: I write a note and want to illustrate in-body a point, and I have just the photo in my public flickr stream (or other), then all I have to do is get the URL of that photo.. instead of downloading etc

I'd really like if that simple automation were done within FM, so we'd have the same quick functionality of Classic when we want to insert a picture from a web page - actually entering the URL of that original page in the exif comment of that image would be great too.

A default resizing to 800 pix wide would be nice, respecting scaling - there may be some problem with the Current interface, I never tested what it does in rescaling if it does, but I know is screws up a normally entered image (not rescaled) in Classic.

As an aside, inserting an image instead of via a link is preferred because most corporate systems will not allow an image in an email to be pulled off the web by the recipient. I've been using that out of ..uh convenience, and using the new interface to be OK with these corporate correspondents.

[andretchen]

Originally Posted by brong

Most browsers have some form of "inspect element" - you can use that to manipulate the raw HTML, our editor works with that.

Excellent, Firefox does fine for simple mods like deleting the blockquotes, I'll just have to get used to/ learn the new java infused concotions to get more complicated manips. Hmm I see that I can't just create some html in Seamonkey's editor, and (after wiping the java and html lines of an email) just paste that Seamonkey's html ... I get a blank page. So definitely need some learning there

Any suggestions for fastest way to get up to speed (tutorials, how tos) welcomed

PS. And: any way to provide a standalone web html editor, since most of the work is done anyway .. or maybe open source it?
OR if I like the way an email page is rendered in FM, how to render that page (once I open the inspector and copy the code inside) locally outside of FM, say if I want to archive /send it ..

[vivil]

Originally Posted by wakaba

But really, the snarky interpretation I was going for was that perhaps google translate could convert vivil's post from "gibberish" to something more logically coherent.

My level is B2/C1 in english. i speak an average of 30 minutes per day in english

but now, let me check again with my native correspondant and i will answer you.

[vivil]

Originally Posted by brong

Back on topic, @vivil, can you please check if that bug still exists? I managed to reproduce it in my testing and we sat down together and came up with a way to avoid the browser sending the delete event a second time.

I have been unable to reproduce it since the fix.

yes i saw something has changed... because i can see since 2 days some "no messages displayed" . ok in mobile viewer & in desktop viewer.

do not forget to do that to the others buttons like "archive" and "report spam"

And now ladies and gentlemen..... the third bug ^^

Since 2 days, with my 5 inches android device and a bluetooth keyboard, i can not use anymore the "D" keystoke to delete a message... i'm on a mobile viewer mode... still works on the classical tablet/PC mode with my PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXtwqqw2rlc

Why your recent changes did that ??? it worked well before. and also why only in the mobile version ???

first bug: no explanation.
second bug: corrected
third bug: just explained today

[pjwalsh]

Originally Posted by andretchen

PS. And: any way to provide a standalone web html editor, since most of the work is done anyway .. or maybe open source it?

https://neilj.github.io/Squire/
https://github.com/neilj/Squire/blob/master/README.md

Squire is an HTML5 rich text editor, which provides powerful cross-browser normalisation, whilst being supremely lightweight and flexible.
...
Unlike other HTML5 rich text editors, Squire was written as a component for writing documents (emails, essays, etc.), not doing wysiwyg websites. If you are looking for support for inserting form controls or flash components or the like, you'll need to look elsewhere. However for many purposes, Squire may be just what you need, providing the power without the bloat.