chaka chaka

i never pretended to be all cutting-edge techno-geek (although i did spend 5 hours finishing up time hollow in my second sitting) so i’m a little late (it launched in june) to start using the new gmail lab features.

it took ages to find, but i found the labs button – a little green beaker – located at the top right of the gmail screen.

clicking it takes you to the lab settings which you can activate

gmail labs is to be activated  at your own risk. since it’s still in beta, whatever that means to the google team. gmail has been in beta for-freaking-ever.

Gmail engineers come up with new ideas all the time. Gmail Labs is our place to try them out and get your feedback. None of these features are really ready for prime time yet, so they may change, break or disappear at any time.

If (when) a Labs feature breaks, and you’re having trouble getting into your account, there’s an escape hatch — just go to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0 and Labs will be temporarily disabled.

features listed for my own reference. as of now, i’m using tasks and right-side chat. the rest of the add-ons look like a right waste of time. signature tweak  nad random signature? geez.

Tasks
Tasks is a way to help you keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. Tips:

1. Manage your email workflow better by converting emails into tasks: “More Actions > Add to Tasks”
2. ENTER creates a new task, TAB and SHIFT-TAB indent and un-indent, CTRL-UP and CTRL-DOWN let you reorder from the keyboard, and SHIFT-ENTER toggles back and forth between the detailed view for a task and the main view
3. After turning Tasks on, turn on Keyboard shortcuts in “Settings > General” and then use “SHIFT-T” to create tasks from your emails – even faster than using the More Actions menu

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.

Superstars
Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature:
(1) Go to the “General” Settings page to choose which superstars you wish to use.
(2) Use either the keyboard shortcut (‘s’) or click to rotate through your selected superstars.
(3) Use the search operator “has:” to find all messages with your superstar (e.g. “has:red-bang”, “has:blue-star”). Learn the name of a superstar by hovering over its image in the “General” Settings page.

Pictures in chat
See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them.

Fixed width font
Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.

Custom keyboard shortcuts
Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions.

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.

Signature tweaks
Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures.

Random Signature
Rotates among random quotations for your email signature.

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).

Muzzle
Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ 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.

Email Addict
Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.

Right-side chat
Move the chat box to the right side of the inbox.

Right-side labels
Move the labels box to the right side of the inbox.

Hide Unread Counts
Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc.

Advanced IMAP Controls
Choose which labels show up in IMAP, turn off message auto-expunging, or trash messages when they’re deleted from IMAP.

Canned Responses
Email for the truly lazy. Save and then send your common messages using a button next to the compose form. Also automatically send emails using filters.

Default ‘Reply to all’
Make ‘Reply to all’ your default option for responding to emails.

Quote selected text
Quote the text you have selected when you reply to a message. This works best if you use keyboard shortcuts.

Navbar drag and drop
Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.

Mail Goggles
Google strives to make the world’s information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the “General” settings page.

Forgotten Attachment Detector
Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so.

Vacation Time!
Lets you specify starting and ending dates for the vacation autoresponder.

Custom Label Colors
Lets you create your own combination of colors for labels. Instead of choosing one of the standard colors from the label dropdown menu, click on Add custom colors. Pick your combination of colors, hit Apply, and enjoy.

Mark as Read Button
Tired of spending all that effort to click on the more actions menu every time you want to mark messages as read without reading them? Now just enable this lab and that is just a button click away!

Go to label
Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘g’ then ‘l’ to display a popup for selecting a label to go to. Also works with Quick Links.

Create a Document
Allows you to create a Google Document from an email conversation or a new blank document if your keyboard shortcuts are enabled by hitting ‘g’ then ‘w’.

Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat
Allows you to send and receive text messages (SMS) in Chat. US phones only for now.

Google Calendar gadget
Adds a box in the left column which shows your Google Calendar. See upcoming events, locations, and details.

Google Docs gadget
Adds a box in the left column which displays your Google Docs. Shows recent docs, starred docs, and has fast search.

Add any gadget by URL
Adds a “Gadgets” tab to Settings, where you’ll be able to specify the URL of any gadget. This gadget will show in a box in the left column.