GMail Beta Labs

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GMail Beta Labs

Posted by Boffill Monday, August 4, 2008

GMail labs are the testing ground of GMail Engineering team. On this feature, you can see all the experimental tools that Gmai engineers have made. Since all of this tools are in beta version, it is still subject to change or be removed permanently to Gmail. Listed below are the current available addons for your Gmail Account.

Quick Links
by Dan P

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
by Kai H & Julie W

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
by Dave C

See your friends' profile pictures when you chat with them.

Fixed width font
by Keith C

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

Custom keyboard shortcuts
by Alan S

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

Mouse gestures
by Erik A

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
by Keith C and Dave C

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.

Random signature
by Chad P

Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can't use this and the "Signature tweaks" Labs feature at the same time.

Custom date formats
by Emil E

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
by Chad P