Google snubs Labs again with brace of Gmail features

Google released a brace of features yesterday that the company uncharacteristically slotted straight into Gmail without testing them out with its users in Google Labs first. Gmailers reading their email through a Chrome or Firefox 3.6 browser can now drag-and-drop attachments from their desktop directly into a message. A …

[rfdparker2002]

HTML5 in GMail

The most interest thing about this is that, considering it works for me in Chromium on Ubuntu (Chromium is the name of the open source project behind Chrome, and the name used for daily-builds, etc) - which lacks Gears - means this must be done using HTML5.

Back at the Wave launch at I/O, Google mentioned how such drag-and-drop functionality was possible with both Gears and HTML5 (Wave is all HTML5). Chrome/Chromium for Linux lacks Gears as the devs expected everyone to be switching to HTML5's local storage, yet until recently the only Google product to use HTML5 in place of Gears was Wave, but a few days back Google said they're transitioning Docs to use HTML5 for offline mode. GMail (on the desktop) however still uses Gears, with no announcement I've seen about HTML5 support - but this Drap-and-Drop being done via HTML5 is hopefully a sign they'll add HTML5 for offline mode to GMail soon (maybe they'll support both HTML5 and Gears so they can move IE6-using enterprise customers from Exchange to GMail).

[Anonymous Coward]

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[Craig M. Ling]

Looks good however ...

when will they implement sorting of columns such as sender?

[Ammaross Danan]

@Craig

"when will they implement sorting of columns such as sender?"

As soon as you realize Google is a search engine. Just start typing the sender's name/email address into that search box at the top and it will automagically suggest the sender's full name/email for which you tab+enter or click+click (depending on how tech savy you are) and you (almost) instantly get your email "sorted" by sender (and content, which can be just as handy).

I, for one, welcome our new drag-and-drop enabled, sometimes spotty reliability, email overlords. May their servers always contribute to global warming and my searches (almost) always come with at least one link to a phishing site. (but you love them anyway)

[Cliff]

Everyone?

I use Gmail on FF3.6.x, but the drag/drop doesn't seem to work for me - am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed...

You are indeed missing something Cliff... A decent mail client springs to mind ;)

[Forget It]

D&D

What a drag when it doesn't drop!

[Peter Murphy]

Title needs more context.

When I saw the title of this article, I thought "What does Google have against Gordon Brown"?

[chris 130]

Drag & drop attachments, Just an upgrade, not lab stuff

As said

Its an improvement on functionality of a core product and not a Labs issue.

ie not an add-in, its part of the core.

I for one am standing up applauding, the boss thinks its for her new daft initiative;

I am a true sneaky bugger!