MefiMail Improvements

August 16, 2008 7:49 PM

Pony request: Would like more MefiMail options.

Specifically, the ability to save drafts, include html, spell check and preview. I'm assuming they are non-existent for security reasons. Can anyone elaborate? I would think there are reasonable solutions.

posted by sluglicker to Feature Requests at 7:49 PM (56 comments total)

They're really non-existent pretty much for explicit keeping-it-simple reasons. Whether any of these are things that Matt plans to budge on in the future is of course for him to say, but the very stripped-down nature of Mefi Mail at this point is by design.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:51 PM on August 16, 2008

I think another reason is that this is what email already exists for, and reinventing email for mefi alone is not really necessary, and I would guess that Matt does not want to create an email service.
posted by that girl at 8:07 PM on August 16, 2008

I would like a search function for the inbox.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:10 PM on August 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

They are not there because we're not trying to rebuild gmail, we just wanted a small simple lightweight message system. Building all those features would be a pain and we kind of stopped the moment it felt 1.0 enough to be considered a simple private mail system. I'm not really interested in replicating gmail so I like the stopping point we picked and think it serves us well, while at the same time not being a bear to maintain (maintaining a spellchecker carries with it just about the lowest joy-to-frustration ratio you could imagine).

And yeah, we do have search within mefi mail working in a test state, so we could roll that out to everyone.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:18 PM on August 16, 2008

Woohoo!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:20 PM on August 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

re: <div class="mefimessages">. pls set background-color:red when new msgs arrive. kthxbye.
posted by ryanrs at 8:28 PM on August 16, 2008

Firefox has spellcheck on every area where you enter text, unless you have disabled it somehow.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:37 PM on August 16, 2008

Pony request: Would like more MefiMail.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:11 PM on August 16, 2008

Pony request: would like revival of Pony Express. Damn soulless telegraph.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:15 PM on August 16, 2008 [6 favorites]

Pony request: Club sandwich, no mayo, please.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:25 PM on August 16, 2008

Club request: Pony sandwich, extra mayo, please.
posted by kyleg at 9:33 PM on August 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

Your computer doesn't have spellcheck? How does MeFi look on that Tandy, anyway?
posted by Mikey-San at 9:37 PM on August 16, 2008 [3 favorites]

I don't know which is worse: no mail or pity mail. Thanks folks, for lighting up my little envelope, though.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:58 PM on August 16, 2008

MeTa
posted by homunculus at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2008

I was a serious horse-loving girl when I was young, but I've pretty much gotten over it. Since someone brought this up though, the one thing I've ever wished for is that instead of the forwarded-to-mail signature having

"This message was sent via MeFi Mail. Read all your messages: http://www..."

it would have a direct link to reply to the particular message I'm readng e.g.

"RESPONSE LINK: http://www..."

Because if I'm visiting MeFi Mail from a MeFi Message in my email inbox, I most likely want to reply to it. No? I'm not sure the link to the MFMinbox is useless, so much as it doesn't fit into my behavior pattern. Maybe someone else has figured out a better system than I have, but I find this running through my mind every time I send a MeFi Mail, so maybe there's something to it.
posted by whatzit at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2008

I think another reason is that this is what email already exists for, and reinventing email for mefi alone is not really necessary

I like the convienence of site-wide private messaging (which is what it really is) as opposed to external email, for various reasons. Why is html stripped?
posted by sluglicker at 10:09 PM on August 16, 2008

All I want for MeFiMail is search. I also think whatzit's idea of a reply link is a good one.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:31 PM on August 16, 2008

Because if I'm visiting MeFi Mail from a MeFi Message in my email inbox

OK, I guess some people have used the option to have the pm forwarded to an email client. I thought about that, but decided against it. I can see the advantages/disadvantages of both. Probably the two things I would really want in a pm would be the retention of a thread in the messages and the ability to link (html) as we do with the rest of the site.
posted by sluglicker at 10:40 PM on August 16, 2008

All I want from MeFi is my two front teef.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:52 PM on August 16, 2008

Why is html stripped?

I seem to recall it was for the security reasons you stated in your original question. We didn't want a situation where someone figures out a way to route around our monster html regex cleaner and ends up mefi mailing everyone some hack (which could also affect your online mail clients if you have messages forwarded), so we just filter out all HTML so that never happens.

We auto-link URLs if you drop them into a message, which felt like a good compromise and how most people would use HTML (to share links).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:06 PM on August 16, 2008

We auto-link URLs

Yeah, that works. Just a little clumsy. Some simple tags like italics, strong, would be nice. Maybe this isn't the place for it, but don't you already have a php file that allows/disallows--or in this case strips all tags? And wouldn't an inclusion of a few common tags be OK? I'm no expert, just wondering. I'm a little familiar with Drupal and it seems to handle the problem fairly well.
posted by sluglicker at 11:16 PM on August 16, 2008

Mikey-San: "12Your computer doesn't have spellcheck? How does MeFi look on that Tandy, anyway?"

About the same, really. Text and bizarre-yet-somehow-endearing colors.

Or so I presume it would be using an i386 linux.

Does anyone else remember DeskMate, or am I just really old?
posted by SteveTheRed at 12:00 AM on August 17, 2008

What about a "mark as read" feature?

if only because I get an e-mail telling me I've got a message with the text of the message - which is great! - but then I just let the thing sit in my inbox because, well, why bother reading it again.

I guess I could just read it.
posted by dismas at 12:30 AM on August 17, 2008

mathowie: "We auto-link URLs if you drop them into a message..." Thank you for that feature.
posted by Cranberry at 12:38 AM on August 17, 2008

I would like more mefi mail options.

I don't care what they do.
posted by aubilenon at 1:40 AM on August 17, 2008

I kind of like the lack of HTML.

When someone wants to impress on me in a mefimail just how stupid I am, they're forced to get creative with capital letters, underscores, and asterisks.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 1:45 AM on August 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Maybe a better solution is build a pop3 interface to MeMail and then let the user worry about hooking it up to a client with the features they want.
posted by rdr at 2:13 AM on August 17, 2008

I don't care what they do.

WHAT THEY DO!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:13 AM on August 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Some simple tags like italics, strong, would be nice.

There are people on Metafilter who use something other than plain ascii for email? Who'da thought it? I wonder if they also correlate with the JibJab front page posters?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:22 AM on August 17, 2008

Yea, I doth demand all correspondence be sent forthwith in Unicode, sealed with a button-drop of the reddest wax of Olde Englande.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:17 AM on August 17, 2008

Ah, sock puppets. You have to love 'em!
posted by sluglicker at 3:49 AM on August 17, 2008

Ah, sock puppets. You have to love 'em!

Hey now.

We don't need another email client, we don't need more html mail and we certainly don't need another season of Project Runway. Just stop and let it die.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:52 AM on August 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Amen, brother.
posted by sluglicker at 4:03 AM on August 17, 2008

Here is the canonical list of things we don't need:

• html in Mefi Mail
• Mefiside spellcheck
• Russian imperialism
• high fructose corn syrup
• sandwiches containing pony meat
• walls smeared with poo

posted by Meatbomb at 4:51 AM on August 17, 2008

Not to mention: another hero, that fascist groove thing and, pivotally, no education
posted by Jofus at 5:26 AM on August 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

See also: steenkin' badges,
posted by Jofus at 5:27 AM on August 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was looking through an old notebook of mine from probably 1999 or 2000 for some half-remembered results I thought I had squirreled away. It was the following lines that caught my eye, though:

[blah, blah, blah] it would be nice to work out associativity data for all these.

It would be nice to know what the nonlinear representation is...

It would be nice to have standard bases for hom(m,mm) where m is the nonlinear representation.

It'd be nice to have a pony.

posted by Wolfdog at 6:00 AM on August 17, 2008

hom( Ѭ, Ѭ Ѭ )
posted by ryanrs at 6:18 AM on August 17, 2008

&BMpony;
posted by ryanrs at 6:19 AM on August 17, 2008

POP3: not want.
IMAP: want.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 AM on August 17, 2008

so we just filter out all HTML so that never happens.

He delivereth us from italics.
posted by Dave Faris at 7:13 AM on August 17, 2008

What about a "mark as read" feature?

I'd actually like a "mark as unread" button. I don't usually respond to messages as soon as I get them, and making them look new again is the only way I can keep track of which ones I need to get back to.

And then I can mark my entire inbox "unread" and feel really popular.
posted by phatkitten at 7:37 AM on August 17, 2008

Pony request: life beyond Thunderdome.
posted by katillathehun at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2008

Honestly, the one feature (that I asked for before, but it went over like a lead rock) is the ability to cc: an external account when sending MeFiMail ... by the simple virtue of such a feature then lets you offload the whole area of archiving your MeFi mail (plus searching it, etc.) to your main e-mail account. Since we're talking about our MeFiMail ponies. :)
posted by WCityMike at 7:59 AM on August 17, 2008

Man, I could go for a nice Russian Imperial right about now.
posted by box at 8:17 AM on August 17, 2008

Russian imperialism

ftfy
posted by Sys Rq at 9:11 AM on August 17, 2008

Some simple tags like italics, strong, would be nice.

Where your mail is going, it doesn't need tags.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:21 AM on August 17, 2008

Abandon all tags, ye who enter here.
posted by grouse at 9:46 AM on August 17, 2008

pony request: giddyup
posted by philomathoholic at 12:24 PM on August 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

re: <div class="mefimessages">. pls set background-color:red when new msgs arrive. kthxbye.

Seconded! I've gone weeks without replying to MeFi Mail in the past because I just never noticed I had it. Making the link much more noticeable would rock. (I'd even propose going further, and having a little 'infobox' drawn across the top of the page saying, "You have 2 new MeFi Mail messages" or something, though that may annoy more people than it pleases.)

Does 'forwarding' our MeFi Mail to an e-mail address replace sending it to our inboxes, or supplement it? (I've never tried, and I don't get much anyway.) I was going to propose adding the option to just send us a phpBB PM-style, "You have new messages at MeFi!" e-mail, but if 'forwarded' MeFi Mail also shows up here, that would be silly.
posted by fogster at 4:35 PM on August 17, 2008

Regarding the "new mail" indicator:

I also don't notice it, but I believe it's just poorly placed. If you had the indicator right above the "Posting as: " area where I'm presently typing this comment, I'd see it on a regular basis and quickly notice if I had new mail. I rarely look at the top corner of the main page.
posted by odinsdream at 7:06 PM on August 17, 2008

MeFi mail request: I would like more MeFi Mail.

I'm so lonely.
posted by baphomet at 8:05 PM on August 17, 2008

I don't care what they do.

I don't care what you do, I wouldn't want to be like you.

I used email for at least twelve years before HTML existed (as far as I knew), so I always have to wonder what's so frigging important about being able to use HTML in an email message. Unless you're a spammer.

Also, just fucking learn to spell, you lusers.

Pony request: three pony girls and a riding crop, please.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 8:23 PM on August 17, 2008

Does 'forwarding' our MeFi Mail to an e-mail address replace sending it to our inboxes, or supplement it?

Supplement. Sends the whole thing from (approximately) dontreply@metafilter as subject "[Mefimail]whatever the sender put" and at the bottom as a link to the sender's profile and your MeFi Mail inbox. I don't get *that* much either, but if it weren't in my regular mailbox, I would never get it. I am also blind to the little icon on the regular MeFi pages.
posted by whatzit at 3:19 AM on August 18, 2008

I rarely look at the top corner of the main page.

I have my messages forwarded to somewhere I will notice (i.e. my Gmail) so I don't miss anything. I don't see my failure to check my messages as Matt's problem.
posted by desjardins at 9:56 AM on August 18, 2008

...riight, is it snark week? I don't see it as Matt's problem either - but figured I'd put my two cents in since we're talking about the functionality. I'm not exactly losing sleep over it.
posted by odinsdream at 7:29 PM on August 18, 2008