MailDroid back to basics

[EarlyMon]

Nothing looks mis-configured here. Keep in mind that the default Gmail app does not use IMAP Idle. They have a custom push server and work via a PIN over SMS (usually, but could be something else). Blackberry as well as ActiveSync will work like this as well (possibly Yahoo has a custom system also). IMAP Idle requires a network connection, that connection dies if the device is asleep. As such, I added in options in your 3rd screenshot to control this a while back. The default is what you have set and MD will wake up and restore that connection to make sure you get the push for IMAP. You can turn it off and it won't wake up, but then you won't get real push (or Idle Push). You obviously can also set it to never sleep (rare option but some people who have it plugged in all day do use this). Does this make sense as to why you may see wakelocks?

Yep, it does.

I'll have to think about my needs and those settings.

Thanks!

 

[maildroiddev]

Well, it is out, just released and should show up in the Play Store in a few hours. In general, focus was mainly put on the nav drawer and you can toggle away from that if you like, but obviously I'd like if you can try it out. It is not 100% done in terms of all the features I want (contact photos and reorder/removing sections for example are still not done as well as a few other things I'd like to change), but the bulk of it is there. Also, fixed a few bugs and added in a re-send mail idea. However, primary focus was on the nav drawer. I am going to tweak it for at least a month till I finally remove the current nav drawer and we have only the new one. During the next month I am also going to try and focus on little usability things that were brought up as well as third party plugins mentioned (like tasker). Hope you guys like it or at least have some feedback!

 

[Crashdamage]

I've only had about 5 min with it but...Better! More informative and visually pleasing, and best of all more intuitive. I don't have to stop and think so much about how to get to what I want to see.

Nice work!

But.it..I'm maybe not awake yet, but what is People? So far it doesn't do anything when tapped.

 

[maildroiddev]

I've only had about 5 min with it but...Better! More informative and visually pleasing, and best of all more intuitive. I don't have to stop and think so much about how to get to what I want to see.

Nice work!

But.it..I'm maybe not awake yet, but what is People? So far it doesn't do anything when tapped.

Just a note, I pushed 3.93, found a nasty bug for 4.x users which I had to fix. I am happy to hear that it is better, this is what I was going for. The idea with people was interesting, but it could also be it does nothing for you because of how you use email. Basically, the idea is to show the last xxx people who had emailed you and give you the ability to quickly click on that person and it would filter out like a custom inbox filter for that person across all your accounts. Think about it as a filter really. It is really basic now, but for sure I am adding contact pictures to it. The question is how intricate to get here. I can come up with some funky algorithm to show people who email more often higher or based on what time they email you show them higher in the list. I can perhaps allow you to create groups of users to put in and filter on that. All these are intricate details, but I wanted to start with a base first (the base was supposed to have contact pictures, but ran out of time). Now, if you always have a clean inbox and delete things, then this won't really work for you. Is that what you have?

 

[Crashdamage]

Ahhh...I guess I'm not so dense after all. I never would have guessed. Now I get what People is. Kind of a unique feature and I suppose some users will love it. Me not so much for the very reasons you mentioned. I filter mail on the server, and what that doesn't handle I manually sort. I like stuff organized, mail sorted and a clean inbox.

IMHO, for what little it's worth, you definitely have Maildroid moving in the right direction.

 

[maildroiddev]

Fair enough, yet I still may be able to find a useful way for you to gain something from it. Even with a filtered inbox, perhaps I can think of a use like clicking it will open up a compose to that person (think of it as a fast compose).

I hope it is, the key think you wrote earlier is: I don't have to stop and think so much about how to get to what I want to see.

That for me is huge and what I think was one of the biggest issues. Please let me know any other thoughts or things you think I can add. Side note, one feature planned is to hide parts of the nav drawer, so also in your case you would be able to hide the people section if you don't need or want it.

 

[Crashdamage]

...the key think you wrote earlier is: I don't have to stop and think so much about how to get to what I want to see.

That for me is huge and what I think was one of the biggest issues.

It was big to me, too. Hopefully others will consider it a major improvement.

Side note, one feature planned is to hide parts of the nav drawer, so also in your case you would be able to hide the people section if you don't need or want it.

That would probably be good. Like being able to show or hide it combined inbox, depending on whether you use it.

 

[Hadron]

I'm short of battery, so just a quick note for the moment on the "People" thing. I got one email I've never had before (from Tapatalk, an app that is very close to deletion right now), and immediately deleted the mail. But that sender is still in my "people" list. I don't know whether it's better for most people if deleting a mail should affect that list or not, but a way to remove a sender from it (temporarily or permanently?) might be nice.

 

[maildroiddev]

I'm short of battery, so just a quick note for the moment on the "People" thing. I got one email I've never had before (from Tapatalk, an app that is very close to deletion right now), and immediately deleted the mail. But that sender is still in my "people" list. I don't know whether it's better for most people if deleting a mail should affect that list or not, but a way to remove a sender from it (temporarily or permanently?) might be nice.

Yep, good feedback, will add this t fix or modify in some way (perhaps deleting will drop it down the list or add a function to remove it from that list).

 

[maildroiddev]

So what has the feedback been like? Well, it has been mostly good, but some comments from people, figured I'd share. I'll start off by saying that some users had an issue finding folders, I could not understand until I realized that POP3 folder (MD allows you to create them locally), were hidden by a bug...so granted, those users had a legitimate complaint on the drawer. However, moving on, feedback was:

1. I like to see all my accounts open
2. How do I show accounts. I had 5, now I see only one
3. Make it more flexible and allow us to hide sections
4. Make it clearer in the UI what account I am in

Most feedback has been positive, but to the points above I can say:

1. I am going to add state in here so that if you opened it and left it open (expanded), it will remain expanded the next time you open it, simple enough.
2. This person did not understand that the ... was to expand/collapse. Do you guys think that was an issue? If so, I can always change the icon, but I thought it was clear
3. Yup, this is going to happen for sure and was planned even before this release
4. So, still thinking on this, but this will be easy enough and I guess makes sense

Anyone else have any thoughts or comments?

 

[Hadron]

The new nav bar is interesting. As has been said, it's more attractive and a lot more functional than the previous version, but there is a bit of a learning curve - I can easily imagine that some people don't find it completely intuitive at first (and of course that's what you want it to be).

So for example, what if I select the combined inbox and then want to go to one of my accounts? I know that the trick is to press the 3 dot icon next to the words "combined inbox", then select the account that I want, but it wasn't obvious - at least for me there was an element of trial and error in discovering this. Now once you know this it probably becomes second nature, the question is whether that's sufficient? I don't think this is a matter of the icon, because I can't offhand think of an icon that would make it obvious. Maybe the words "expand" and "hide" would be a little more obvious, but I do actually quite like the icon once I've worked it out.

The tricky bit is that what's intuitive for one person may be obscure for another. For example, the first time I selected a folder then wanted to go back, and couldn't see what to do, my instinct was to try the back button. But I don't know whether that is something others would think of doing, nor what the correct behaviour should be if someone does that (go "back a level" from whatever was last selected I guess).

One that I did find a little odd: when I selected one address from the "People" list where I didn't have anything from them in the inbox (because I'd archived everything from that person) I was presented with an empty page. Is this a good choice, or should I also see archived mails from that sender? But if I do, that probably means that selecting that sender should give me a list of my most recent mails from that sender regardless of what folder they are in (except perhaps deleted/junk) - I can see the sense in that, but is it what others would want, or would most prefer only to see stuff in the inbox?

So yeah, sorry that I'm asking questions more than making suggestions, but since you want to find what works most easily for most people then I think that's probably best as I don't know how "typical" I am (except that I know I have more tolerance for complex UIs than the typical smartphone user, so in that respect I'm not typical).

In the process of this I also discovered that I can reveal the nav bar by swiping from the left-hand edge (while swiping right but not starting at the edge brings up the message selection options). That I like, as it means I don't have to reach to the top of the screen to bring the nav bar up, but I don't know how to make it more discoverable (apart from the fact that it's pretty common with sidebars, but somehow that wasn't enough for me!).

P.S. I noticed that the new options are only available in the free version so far, so currently have both so that I can test this!

 

[Crashdamage]

A couple of nitpicks to add...

Agree with Hadron about needing a way to make dragging the Navigation panel from the left more discoverable. A tab maybe? But that would intrude on the message list. Maybe at least a first-use tips pop-up. Something...

To add to what Hadron said about People:
It is a little odd to get a blank page if nothing is in the inbox from that sender. His suggestion about pulling list of recent mail unless in deleted/junk is a good one.

I have another. After making a selection in People, whether you get a blank page or a list of emails, tapping on the new email icon starts a blank, unaddressed email. Since you just selected a contact in People, wouldn't it make sense for a new mail started from a People selection to be addressed to them? I know, I know, you already mentioned doing this and you just haven't gotten that far with coding People yet, but I'm talking about even if you get a blank page.

Also, in the Navigation panel (doesn't look like a bar to me) you need to crank up the contrast a little, especially the icons. Kinda hard to see.

More color!

 

[maildroiddev]

The new nav bar is interesting. As has been said, it's more attractive and a lot more functional than the previous version, but there is a bit of a learning curve - I can easily imagine that some people don't find it completely intuitive at first (and of course that's what you want it to be).

So for example, what if I select the combined inbox and then want to go to one of my accounts? I know that the trick is to press the 3 dot icon next to the words "combined inbox", then select the account that I want, but it wasn't obvious - at least for me there was an element of trial and error in discovering this. Now once you know this it probably becomes second nature, the question is whether that's sufficient? I don't think this is a matter of the icon, because I can't offhand think of an icon that would make it obvious. Maybe the words "expand" and "hide" would be a little more obvious, but I do actually quite like the icon once I've worked it out.

The tricky bit is that what's intuitive for one person may be obscure for another. For example, the first time I selected a folder then wanted to go back, and couldn't see what to do, my instinct was to try the back button. But I don't know whether that is something others would think of doing, nor what the correct behaviour should be if someone does that (go "back a level" from whatever was last selected I guess).

One that I did find a little odd: when I selected one address from the "People" list where I didn't have anything from them in the inbox (because I'd archived everything from that person) I was presented with an empty page. Is this a good choice, or should I also see archived mails from that sender? But if I do, that probably means that selecting that sender should give me a list of my most recent mails from that sender regardless of what folder they are in (except perhaps deleted/junk) - I can see the sense in that, but is it what others would want, or would most prefer only to see stuff in the inbox?

So yeah, sorry that I'm asking questions more than making suggestions, but since you want to find what works most easily for most people then I think that's probably best as I don't know how "typical" I am (except that I know I have more tolerance for complex UIs than the typical smartphone user, so in that respect I'm not typical).

In the process of this I also discovered that I can reveal the nav bar by swiping from the left-hand edge (while swiping right but not starting at the edge brings up the message selection options). That I like, as it means I don't have to reach to the top of the screen to bring the nav bar up, but I don't know how to make it more discoverable (unless the initial documentation would have told me - I never read that stuff!).

P.S. I noticed that the new options are only available in the free version so far, so currently have both so that I can test this!

Thanks for the long post, I'll try and respond to it

1. I believe the 3 dots may be wrong, I had thought most people would get it, but I feel not everyone understands. I am going to follow the old style which is clearer for most people and that is an arrow down and up depending on what mode. The arrow down is timeless and used on webpages for a long time, so I think that may make it clearer.

2. Back button is hard to guess here, but that is my instinct always in this case. So far, have not head complaints about this, but then again back in Android is so confusing as there is no real standard.

3. People is something I am still playing with. I am trying to find the best approach to use this, so more ideas here would always be helpful. In your case it should look at other folders though, so that might be a bug. Will look into that.

4. Yep you can do that with the old or new nav bar.

While you are playing around with it, one thing added a long time ago that most people don't know about is that if you swipe in the flags/read and unread/checkbox you can swipe down to select many or swipe back up to unselect those.

Thanks for the great feedback!!

 

[maildroiddev]

A couple of nitpicks to add...

Agree with Hadron about needing a way to make dragging the Navigation panel from the left more discoverable. A tab maybe? But that would intrude on the message list. Maybe at least a first-use tips pop-up. Something...

To add to what Hadron said about People:
It is a little odd to get a blank page if nothing is in the inbox from that sender. His suggestion about pulling list of recent mail unless in deleted/junk is a good one.

I have another. After making a selection in People, whether you get a blank page or a list of emails, tapping on the new email icon starts a blank, unaddressed email. Since you just selected a contact in People, wouldn't it make sense for a new mail started from a People selection to be addressed to them? I know, I know, you already mentioned doing this and you just haven't gotten that far with coding People yet, but I'm talking about even if you get a blank page.

Also, in the Navigation panel (doesn't look like a bar to me) you need to crank up the contrast a little, especially the icons. Kinda hard to see.

More color!

I also thought of doing the pop-up, the problem is most people ignore them ... even if they are nice short tooltip pop-ups. It has just been my experience that people ignore it or close it too quickly.

Yep, with compose idea, makes perfect sense, I am going to try and do that!

It is a panel in essence, but Google calls it a navigation drawer. Which icons are you referring to here?

 

[Crashdamage]

I know pop-ups get ignored, but it needs *something* and I don't have a better idea.

The nearly invisible icons are mostly, anyway, along the right side of the navigation drawer.

 

[maildroiddev]

OK, so 3.94 was released earlier today addressing some issues, but I am far from done. I changed the icon of the ... a bit to more resemble arrow collapse/expand. I fixed some bugs and some other issues. No new massive features yet, but that will be planned for a release hopefully next Monday.

 

[Hadron]

Cool, look forward to it.

I admit that when you said you were thinking of up/down arrows I assumed this meant simple ∧ or ∨ rather than the 3 dots. I wonder whether that might be clearer?

Not tried it for very long so far, but have to say I enjoy the way the 3 bars rotate into an arrow as you flip the nav bar in and out (which it probably did before, but only caught my eye now) .

 

[Marlena131]

thank you, this is really helpful

 

[maildroiddev]

Been awhile since I posted here, but just released 3.96 which has some more changes based off feedback. Beyond some basic bug fixes:

1. Added a feature to show or re-order the folders and people section in the new drawer (under settings, general settings)
2. Fixed the people archive bug mentioned in an earlier post here where I had used to show only emails from the inbox and not other folders
3. Changed that when clicking compose after having filtered by someone in person, it will auto populate that address (also feedback on here I think from crashdamage)
4. Added contact photos to people section (not scaled 100%, still playing with this)
5. Added a * new mail idea to the expand/collapse accounts section

Still have a few more things to do on the navigation drawer like fixing contacts pictures, adding an idea of remember state so if the accounts drawer is opened it will be remembered and shown as open the next time you start the app up as well as a few other tweaks. Any more feedback, though not sure if anyone is still playing with it, hopefully you are

 

[VinkoR]

Hi there ... downloaded FREE version last night, played a bit today, and so far, this is THE BEST email app I've used up to now, and I've used a few. I also like how you correspond to your users, which gives me a lot of positivity towards ANYTHING in your app that is NOT there, or is missing, because I am sure, you want to work on that issue

Anyway, I will give more feedback, as I discover things within this app, but initially, I have a problem with opening a PDF file within my email?!

For example, I am flying on a holiday in a few days time, and email regarding my flight, has an PDF file with a schedule attached. I can see with my other email apps this PDF file within this email, and in addition to SAVE and SAVE AS, they have "OPEN", so it opens with my WPS Office app.

With a MailDroid, if I go and check that file, I can only SAVE or SAVE AS?! I've saved it, for a sake of checking how this work, within my Google Drive. I went thru my Mac to Google Drive and tried to open - I couldn't. Tried to add ".pdf" after the name of that document - it didn't work.

Any idea?! Thanks in advance

 

[Hadron]

Did you try clicking on the attachment name, rather than on the "save" button? That should give you the option to open it in your preferred PDF viewer.

 

[VinkoR]

Hi Hadron ... when I click on attachment paperclip, on next screen I have following:

ATTACHMENTS:
(check box) File Name
147KB (100%)

EMBEDDED IMAGES:
(check box) File Name.png
15KB (100%)

At the bottom of the same screen, I have following:

(check box) All
SAVE
SAVE AS

As you can see, I need, like in other email apps, in addition to 'Save' and 'Save As' - OPEN, so when I click 'Open', file will be opened in my case with a 'WPS Ofice' app that I use for my Word, Excel and PDF files

 

[maildroiddev]

Hi Hadron ... when I click on attachment paperclip, on next screen I have following:

ATTACHMENTS:
(check box) File Name
147KB (100%)

EMBEDDED IMAGES:
(check box) File Name.png
15KB (100%)

At the bottom of the same screen, I have following:

(check box) All
SAVE
SAVE AS

As you can see, I need, like in other email apps, in addition to 'Save' and 'Save As' - OPEN, so when I click 'Open', file will be opened in my case with a 'WPS Ofice' app that I use for my Word, Excel and PDF files

Thanks for your earlier feedback. What Hadron was saying is that when you click on the paperclip and get to that screen showing what you described, click on the actual File Name. That will pen it and ask you which viewer you would like to read it in.

I am aware that attachments need to be more robust and one of the things I'd like to do is remove the tabbed approach and instead show the attachments at the bottom or top of the email and not on a secondary tabbed control. Having said that, what Hadron said is the way to do what you want.

 

[Hadron]

Yup, and what happens if you click on the "File name" of the attachment? Because if I do that it opens the file.

Now the fact that this isn't obvious is I'm sure useful feedback for @maildroiddev, but in the meanwhile you can already do what you want by doing this.

Edit: ah, ninja'd!

 

[VinkoR]

Thank a lot maildroiddev and Hadron to try to help me ... I've created a short video clip of trying to do what you've told me, so you can see, I cannot do much. I fully support you maildroiddev regarding showing attachement below or above. I prefer above

Here is dropbox link to that video ... bare in mind, I have a problem to click even on a paperclip, but NO CHANCE to open File Name:

https://www.dropbox.com/photos/shared_space/wCje6mLj8QAkuPN