A GMail Annoyance
June 28, 2007 – 11:32 amI love gmail. Really, I think it is the best web based email software I have ever used. The keyboard shortcuts make browsing through emails and conversations a breeze. Everyone has their pet peeves, so here is mine.
The UI for navigating between links is quite standard - click on newer or older in the email header to navigate:
Google’s help center for keyboard shortcuts lists the j key to move an older conversation and the k key to browse newer.
Have you looked at your keyboard lately? If you haven’t, take a peek:
Notice that the j key is to the left of the k key. So according to those keyboard shortcuts, newer conversations are on the right of the keyboard, but unfortunately this is switched relative to the user interface, where a newer conversation link is on the left.
6 Responses to “A GMail Annoyance”
Your entry doesn’t make it clear whether you already know this, but…
J and K are the keys that VI (and more importantly, VIM) uses for moving down and up, respectively. I believe that Google set up its keyboard shortcuts to be familiar to VIM users. I couldn’t guess why, but… Yeah.
Oh my. I almost posted this having got my directions wrong.
By stefan on Jun 28, 2007
Those bindings come from oldskool vi, where j was down and k was up. It feels fine to me, but then, I learned to use an editor before there were any other choices (and none of those fancy “vim” editors with support for arrow keys).
By Benjamin Reed on Jun 28, 2007
Wow you have way to much time on your hands seb, really…
By Tony Whelan on Jun 28, 2007
I use GMail daily, but there is one fundamental thing that GMail is doing wrong and this is my “pet peeve”:
When replying using gmail, if you edit the subject, they (gmail’s MTA?) start a new conversation/thread and REMOVE the “In Reply To” reference from the header completely, which messes up the conversation even at the MUA end.
This to me is bothersome especially in mailing lists. I had ranted over this on the debian-user list a while back and even notified gmail’s support team. No response though, as expected.
By Kapat on Jun 28, 2007
Mmmm, Siemens keyboard. I like. Got my fingers on one by accident and kept it.
By Andreas on Jun 28, 2007
If you use google reader, the J/K keys move up and down just as in Vi. It only seems natural that they keep a consistent setup across all their applications.
By Trever Fischer on Jun 29, 2007