git ssb

title: > The Gmail Web Interface and How To Avoid It date: 2004-06-19 20:21 status: published tags: Gmail, Thunderbird, Hotmail, Mozilla

<p>
I have one fairly major complaint about Gmail's web interface - you can't open multiple emails in tabs by middle-clicking. (Pot+kettle sidenote: one can't middle-click links in this weblog either, but that's an <abbr title="Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations">XSLT</abbr> fault in Gecko.) In fact, it seems the <q>links</q> one clicks to open emails aren't really links at all (right-clicking offers no <q>Open Link in New Tab/Window</q> options). This would put me right off using Gmail permanently. </p>
<p>
Other, minor complaints are: the clock is in 12-hour format; I prefer 24-hour format. Also, the ad-frame isn't Adblockable (but I don't expect Google to want to fix that :) ). The clock problem could be fixed easily, and neither of these are at all important (just nits). </p>
<p>
But I no longer have to use the web interface. Although it is much, much, much, much, much quicker, easier and better than Hotmail's, Yahoo's and mail.com's put together, I just don't like web interfaces. Not when I've got <a href="http://mozilla.org/thunderbird">an excellent email client</a>. </p>
<p>
For Hotmail I've been using <a href="http://sf.net/projects/mrpostman">MrPostman</a> as a web-interface-to-<acronym title="Post Office Protocol">POP</acronym>3 proxy. For the most part, it works well, although not flawlessly - if and when your account gets clogged up with emails, MrPostman is seemingly incapable of ignoring the <q>Buy More Space!</q> adverts added to the page, insists you have no new mail, and refuses to fetch the non-existant mail. But it's workable. </p>
<p>
MrPostman is aimed at Hotmail, Yahoo.com (not .co.uk) and mail.com - not Gmail. Bobbins. </p>
<p>
However, it's a good thing that I read an inordinate amount of Mozilla-related weblogs, and have the middle-click-every-link-in-the-text affliction (<q>tabbed-browsing syndrome</q>). For <a href="http://cheeaun.phoenity.com/weblog/2004/06/gmail-at-last.html" title="cheeaunblog: Gmail at last">cheeaun</a> led me to <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/djst/archives/005711.html" title="djst's nest: My Own Gmail Account">djst</a>, whose comments led to <a href="http://jaybe.org/downloads.htm">
<abbr title="Pop Goes the Gmail">PGtGM</abbr>
</a> - a web-to-POP3 proxy for Gmail! Incidentally, <a href="http://jaybe.org/info.htm">the blurb</a> mentions Thunderbird by name - extra marks. (It should also be mentioned that PGtGM is only for Windows.) </p>
<p>
How to set up Thunderbird (or even <span title="Boo! Hiss!">Lookout Express</span>) to use PGtGM isn't made obvious, but it's there - in the PGtGM interface, click <em>Help/About PGtGM</em>, then click the <em>E-mail Client Setup</em> tab to the left of the dialogue. If you're using MrPostman alongside (as I am), you may have to change the POP3 port setting in both PGtGM and <abbr title="Thunderbird">Tb</abbr>'s Account Settings for the appropriate account, to something other than MrPostman's. Et <span title="accent omitted due to character-encoding/character entity nastiness; pretentiousness should be inferred nonetheless">voila</span> - Gmail via Thunderbird! </p>