Webware

Gmail forsook folders for a more flexible idea, labels, but Google has begun making a change acknowledging that the older interface idea has its place.

The drawback of folders is that you must decide which one is the best location for a message you want to file--"family" or "travel," for example. With labels, you can apply both, and in Gmail, clicking either label will show that particular message.

But Google concluded that folders have one nice feature: when you move a message out of the in-box and into them, the message is filed. With Gmail today, you have to first apply a label, then separately archive it. But with the new feature, "move to," those two steps can be combined into one, according to a blog post by Gmail engineer Emil Eklund.

"It's not always obvious how to use labels, especially for people who are new to Gmail and used to using folders, and it hasn't helped that some common tasks have been more complicated than they should be," Eklund said.

Gmail added new buttons for "Move to" and "Labels."

(Credit: Google)

The Gmail interface is getting two new buttons across the top, starting Tuesday. One will be the "Move to" button, which lets people apply a label and archive the message; the other "Labels" button can be used just to apply one or more labels. If you have keyboard shortcuts enabled, the two buttons' functions are accessed with V and L, respectively.

Updated 12:47 p.m. PST to correct the "Move to" shortcut.

Google released a second beta of its toolbar software for Firefox that gives the browser a prominent feature of Google's own Chrome.

In Chrome, when you open a new tab, the browser displays a page with up to nine miniature versions of pages you visit often--a selection of what you've shown to be your collective home page. The new beta version of Toolbar 5 does the same for Firefox, including not just the miniature pages, but also the list of recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs that Chrome shows.

There are still no ads, though, which I wonder about given Google's new interest in improving its profitability.

Firefox can inherit Chrome's new-tab behavior using a new beta of the Google Toolbar.

(Credit: Google)

According to Google toolbar programmer Sergey Ryazanov's blog post on the subject, you can select the specific pages you want, and none of the information is sent back to Google.

I've found the new-tab behavior of Chrome handy, especially when I first launch the browser. It presents me with nine pages, and I middle-click on the ones I happen to want at that particular moment. It's still probably not enough for me to install the toolbar, though, since I hate bloat and the lost real estate of browsers. And Firefox can be set with multiple-tab home pages anyway.

Ryazanov warns that the feature doesn't work with Firefox 2 and may conflict with other Firefox extensions. It's curious he didn't mention Chrome in the post, though, especially given how proud Google is of its Chrome user interface research.

Call me fickle, but I switched my default browser back to Firefox for the time being. In doing so, I discovered the features I really miss about Chrome.

Why did I switch back so soon after lavishing praise on Google's open-source Web browser? Well, when Google added the option to use a cutting-edge "developer preview" version, I signed up, and guess what--it's not as stable. Specifically, both 2.0.156.1 and the newer 2.0.157.2 that I now have installed inexplicably become unresponsive for long periods of time--at least 10 seconds, which is about 9.5 seconds longer than my tolerance limit.

But I like some of Chrome's new features, so I didn't want to downgrade to better-tested stable or beta versions. Instead, I thought perhaps I'd see what my second-favorite browser felt like again while waiting for the newer Chrome features to settle down.

I was a little surprised. What got me to switch to Chrome two months ago was performance, but what I missed most upon heading back to Firefox was Chrome's user interface.

More than once, I found that even after a few weeks of Chrome, my muscle memory had been reprogrammed to expect different behavior. Switching back to Firefox wasn't just different, though--I wanted the old features. Here's a list of what I didn't even know that I'd come to like.

The location of new tabs
When you open a link in a new tab with Chrome (I often middle-click to do so), the new page shows up in tab immediately to the right of the current tab. This naturally groups related tabs, and for me at least, eases the process of switching among many.

When you open a new tab in Firefox, it appears to the far right of the list, and it's harder to get to it. It takes just that little extra bit of time to locate and navigate to the tab.

Good news, though: Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard pointed me to a blog post by programmer Mike Beltzner, which says the same behavior is coming to Firefox:

• tabs that are opened from links will open to the immediate right of the current tab
• new tabs created by the New Tab button or keyboard shortcut will open at the end of the tab strip
• if multiple tabs are opened (in the background) from links, they will open sequentially to the right of each other; as soon as focus changes, this sequential opening behavior will stop, and tabs will go back to opening immediately to the right or at the end of the tab strip as per the above

After typing 'g' into Firefox's awesome bar, it takes two more keystrokes to load Gmail.

(Credit: CNET News)

After typing 'g' in Chrome, hitting the Enter key will load Gmail.

(Credit: CNET News)

Searching from the address bar
I think Firefox's awesome bar does a better job digging previously visited links out of my history, but searching directly from Google's Omnibox, which adds online search into the mix, is more useful. I search dozens of times a day, and now I have to remember either to visit a search page or head over to Firefox's special search box (to do the latter faster, I hit Ctrl-L, then Tab).

Some folks are concerned about sending lots of juicy personal data to Google's servers, which monitors what you type so it can supply suggested search results. But except for typing in Web sites, it's the same stuff I'd type into a search page anyway.

One less keystroke
When typing addresses into the address bar, both Chrome and Firefox offer a list of suggestions in a drop-down box. But Chrome highlights its top pick, while Firefox puts it one entry below the box.

That means if the pick is right, I just have to hit Enter with Chrome, but the down arrow, then Enter with Firefox. It's a tiny thing, but I do this hundreds of times a day.

Launch speed
Technically this is more a performance issue than a user interface issue, but responsiveness does matter. Loading Chrome feels like loading Notepad, a program that hasn't changed much from the era of 386-based Windows 3.1 machines; loading Firefox feels more like the grindingly slow process of hauling Outlook into my machine's memory.

Don't get me wrong--there are plenty of things I like better about Firefox, including RSS feed discovery, extensions, the full-screen mode, color profile support, about:config for tweaks, and, I discovered a couple weeks ago, compatibility with McAfee's e-commerce Web site.

But I give credit to Google for coming up with actual interface improvements.