And as a real desktop application, Mailplane can set itself as the default mail application on the Mac, accepting clicks on mailto links and other actions that would normally be sent to Mail or Eudora or whatever. That lets me map the F3 key on my keyboard to Mailplane, something I’ve done for my email program for more years than I can remember.
Most important is of course the separation of Gmail from the rest of my browsers and tabs. But I do want to touch on those that I’ve found to be a big win in my everyday use.
Uncomplex has a page comparing Mailplane to using Gmail in a browser, and I won’t list out the many ways in which Mailplane outdoes the browser experience. Mailplane is based on WebKit, like Safari, but developer Ruben Bakker of Uncomplex has done a truly amazing job of turning what is essentially a Web browser into a real Macintosh application. Prepare for Takeoff - Luckily, there’s a much better solution: Mailplane, a highly site-specific browser that’s just for Gmail. But my experience with both is that while they work for some sites, there are plenty of sites where they either don’t work or are clumsy to use for a variety of reasons, including authentication issues, tab-handling, lack of support for plug-ins or extensions, and so on. These can effectively turn any Web site into a standalone application that appears in your Dock and doesn’t mingle with other Web pages. One solution is a site-specific browser like Fluid (which uses WebKit, the technology Safari is based on) or WebRunner (which replaces Prism and essentially encapsulates Firefox). So unless you switch to Gmail by switching to your Web browser and then finding the open Gmail tab, you’ll be constantly opening and closing Gmail tabs, which is an annoying waste of time. But if your email program is just a bookmark to a Web page, any of those methods will create a new Gmail tab in your browser, and you’ll get another new Gmail tab every time you click it (this isn’t universally true Safari 5 sometimes reuses a tab, and Firefox 4 now features app tabs see “ Firefox 4 Improves, But Not Radically,” 2 April 2011). You might do so via an icon in the Dock, or via LaunchBar, or some other common mechanism. Just think about accessing your email program. That’s because we often think of and use Web applications in much the same way we think of and use desktop applications, and mixing them in with static Web pages that we open and close with abandon can be a recipe for frustration. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Web browsers for browsing the Web, but for the most part, Web browsers do a mediocre job of hosting Web applications like Gmail. (If you haven’t seen the earlier articles, check out “ Zen and the Art of Gmail, Part 1: Why I Switched,” “ Zen and the Art of Gmail, Part 2: Labels & Filters,” and “ Zen and the Art of Gmail, Part 3: Gmail Labs.”īut there’s a problem with a Web-based interface, which is that it requires a Web browser. So far in this series, I’ve said a great deal about Gmail’s innovations, which are available only through its Web interface. Zen and the Art of Gmail, Part 4: Mailplane
#MAILPLANE ALTERNATIVES PORTABLE#
Preview selections, portable power for a MacBook Pro #1618: M2 MacBook Air available to order, Lockdown Mode, Live Text vs.#1619: Stage Manager first impressions, Live Text in Preview redux, SMS 2FA failure fix, moving large folders with ChronoSync.#1620: OS updates, AssistiveTouch for iOS shortcut palette, Photos album sharing bug.
#MAILPLANE ALTERNATIVES FREE#
#1621: Apple Q3 2022 financials, Slack's new free plan restrictions, which OS features do you use?.
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