Thoughts About Sparrow UI

http://tumblr.charaveldesign.com/post/4729610738/thoughts-about-sparrow

by mynameisraj • 15 years ago

43 19 15 years ago

tumblr.charaveldesign.com

Dramatize• 15 years ago

My biggest pain is when you select an account on the side and it marks the first email as read.

I only want the email marked read once I click on it.

rawsyntax• 15 years ago

from the article: "While it worked fine with Tweetie because most of its users probably only use one or two Twitter accounts, Sparrow built it’s UI around it without thinking it through: What about people with several email accounts?"

Since it's a gmail client, I have setup one master gmail account that proxies to all other accounts (configured through the web browser client), and have setup aliases in Sparrow. It works great

kuroir2• 15 years ago

This is something I also do. I have more than 5 accounts proxied.

superchink3• 15 years ago

I also do this. Not everyone agrees with this method though. They like to actually login to separate accounts and have separate silos of email. Trust me, I've tried changing minds…

kuroir2• 15 years ago

Doesn't the icons on the bar limit the amount of accounts the user can have?

Also note that Apple has some kind of regulations (and they're very strict) regarding the UI.

I personally love the fact the docked mail listing expands to the right since I have a dual 27'' setup. So it would make me sad if they changed this.

The preview part basically breaks what Gmail has polished over the years, and to me it doesn't feel that useful to have the title on the messages, since most of them are RE:

I like the easier access to "tags"; but I'm concerned that the approach you're using would become problematic since I have many tags (I'm a gmail power user who gets around 50 mails avg. which get filtered through different tags via regexp).

But overall good job! I like when people expose their ideas. It's a good way to get lazy people like me to debate on decisions.

Kudos.

loganlinn• 15 years ago

Does Sparrow still force "Sent with Sparrow" to the end of signatures on outgoing mail?

Edit-- I just confirmed for myself that it does at least in Sparrow Lite http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7400069/sparrow_lite_signature.png

abredow• 15 years ago

You can change that. Like the iPhone, the signature just defaults to a promotional message.

foobarbazetc3• 15 years ago

Except that there's far less reason for Sparrow to advertise itself like that.

bjg• 15 years ago

Not in the paid version.

ddagradi• 15 years ago

That's so rough. The current UI scales kinda awkwardly for multiple accounts, and has definite usability issues. This makes it more unwieldy and potentially impossible to scale past small numbers for accounts or tags, while adding two levels of information above the main content you want to view in the app - your messages.

At the same time, it loses the clean and simple aesthetic of Sparrow, instead deciding to add superfluous iconography, colors and labels.

That's just the main window though. Some of the additions to the message preview view are quite clean and in keeping with the app's demeanor, though potentially unnecessary, as the current interface accomplishes the same clarity with fewer buttons and toggles.

kevin_morrill• 15 years ago

The lack of search across multiple accounts is a huge pain.

pdenya• 15 years ago

I used sparrow for months and really enjoyed it but eventually had to switch back to mail for exactly these reasons. I agree whole heartedly with all of the points against sparrow but I'm not sure about the solutions...not that I have better suggestions.

Either way, I won't bother opening or even updating sparrow until it gets a universal inbox. I love the UI for the most part and I'm anxious to switch from mail.app but for now the problems sparrow introduces are worse than the ones it solves.

jarin• 15 years ago

I have several email accounts and I'm overall pretty happy with the way Sparrow works. I generally know which mailbox to search in, since each email account has a definite purpose (personal, business, and one account for each client that I help handle support emails for).

As for some of the other complaints, maybe it's just the way I handle my email that prevents me from running into them. I use the keyboard shortcuts to inbox zero every time I check my mail (going down the list and either archiving, deleting, or starring emails for followup).

The only real gripe I have after using it since beta is the "All Mail" box being buried in the labels instead of in the sidebar where it used to be. Other than that, I can't say that any other gripes come to mind.

benwerd• 15 years ago

I bought Sparrow the first day I had a Mac, thinking, "this will be awesome."

Day four: I installed the offline Gmail app in Chrome, and Sparrow never, ever gets opened. I would dearly like a native app, because the web app does have its own issues, but this isn't it. I'll take functional over pretty any day.

Terretta• 15 years ago

My biggest issue with Sparrow is failure to support "Unread" count across a set of labels. Those with a high volume of mail often set up filters to pre-file that mail. I then use Apple Mail's "Smart Mailbox" to roll up the unread messages from only those labels that matter, while ignoring the labels containing mostly bulk content.

For me, any program that interacts with Gmail and doesn't support seeing unread count across labels, can't be used.

Disappointed. I paid for Sparrow, and wish it could be used. The update wasting more screen real estate to let you choose between Inbox and another label could so easily have been the killer feature it failed to be.

Thoughts About Sparrow UI

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