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• Love
  June 10th, 2008 at 14:22

  Ever heard of IMAP? If not I suggest you look it up! It’s possible to read your gmail in any regular mail client, and you wont have any of the problems you write about.

• Stuart
  June 10th, 2008 at 14:57

  @Love - but where’s the fun in that!?

• Alin Mechenici
  June 10th, 2008 at 15:35

  Is a very interesting app. Unfortunatly, is not working with google apps email.

• Dana Kashubeck
  June 10th, 2008 at 19:15

  Pretty cool! I was using Fluid for Gmail, but I’m gonna try this. So far, it is working very well. My only complaint is that some fonts are really tiny (links under Gmail logo, buttons above message list).

• Robert Nyman - author
  June 10th, 2008 at 19:27

  Love,

  Absolutely, but that’s not always an option. On the main assignment I’ve had at works since September last year, certain URLs and ports were blocked, so IMAP wasn’t something I could use.

  Stuart,

  Thanks.

  Alin,

  Hmm, interesting. I don’t have any such account, so I can’t really test it. Do you get any sort of error message, or does it just go blank?

  Dana,

  Yeah, I used Fluid first, then went over to to Prism, and now I’m trying this. I have the same problem with the fonts. and I have absolutely no idea where that comes from.

  Problem is, I can’t affect the content of Gmail at all, but rather just its shell, so unfortunately I can’t manipulate the fonts or anything in the actual interface.

• Dana Kashubeck
  June 10th, 2008 at 20:17

  Ahhh, I haven’t worked with AIR at all yet, so I wasn’t sure. Perhaps this is something out of your control as well, but I did notice that some of the shortcut keys don’t work. Specifically, using *-a to select all messages.

  Still digging it, though!

• Robert Nyman - author
  June 10th, 2008 at 20:34

  Dana,

  Yep, same thing there. These things, though, are as far as I know only due to web browser adaptions and code; meaning, it should work.

  And thanks!

• Aaron Schmidt
  June 10th, 2008 at 23:31

  Installation:
  - Publisher: UNKNOWN, would be nice to put your name/company here if possible.
  - The title of the app says “GDMesk” not “GMDesk” (it does however install into the proper “GMDesk” folder.

  Usage:
  - The favicon needs to be something easily identifiable in my toolbar, preferably the Gmail red mail icon but if you can’t use this for reasons of copyright, perhaps a slightly altered version?
  - The small fonts I can live with but the extremely tiny action buttons (”Archive, “Spam”) are not usable.

  That’s my critiques. All in all, I think it looks and works great! If it wasn’t for those tiny fonts, there’d be no reason I wouldn’t use this.

• Robert Nyman - author
  June 10th, 2008 at 23:55

  Aaron,

  Thanks for the feedback!
  In regards to publisher, I discuss that in detail in Thoughts on developing with the Adobe AIR framework.

  Thanks for the typo find; I’ve pushed out an update with the correct application name.

  With the icon, it’s a delicate balance with what I think I will get away with legally, and at the same time give it its own identity.

  I think that the fonts are because of Googles code, and that the miniscule buttons is due to poor form element presentation with Adobe AIR, something which I sure hope changes in future version. I talk about that too.

• s1000
  June 16th, 2008 at 18:49

  Again, how does this in any way differ from a Fluid App? Something I haven’t thought of?
  Right, Windows-guys can play along, but really, who cares…

• Peter
  June 17th, 2008 at 6:51

  the fonts are waaaay too small for on my 14.1″ laptop (1400×1050). is there an option that I’m missing to change that? either way… it was so small I couldn’t even read. otherwise looks like an interesting app. nice work =)

• Colin
  June 17th, 2008 at 10:13

  The big question for me is does this force an https connection for viewing the email over? That’s the one feature that is always missing from any “gmail on your desktop” solution

• Robert Nyman - author
  June 17th, 2008 at 12:14

  s1000,

  Well, first of all, I care, since I want to be able to offer this ability to everyone.
  Second, as mentioned above, this is a complete application as opposed to, for instance, Fluid, which more or less is just an application that points to a URL.

  The latest version now has Google Apps support, so you can switch between those, and the next version (coming very soon) will be having some very interesting support for other Google services!

  Peter,

  Thanks! I know about the fonts, and I’m working hard to find a solution. The problem is that I, as a developer, can’t create the code generated from Google, and it seems like Gmail (as opposed to other Google services) has some special font scaling going on.

  Colin,

  The connection type Google seem fit will be used, and in those cases it redirects via https in the web browser, it will do that in GMDesk as well. In the end, though, it’s about security precaution.

• grimman
  June 20th, 2008 at 19:30

  Is it possible to have the links within the AIR app open in the system default browser rather than in the AIR popup style windows that are ~useless to just about anyone?

  The fonts being small I can live with, even the shoddy sub pixel anti aliasing which looks horrible on my off-monitor. Links not opening in my darling Firefox, on the other hand… why? :’(

• Inkpot
  June 21st, 2008 at 0:44

  Interesting little app. A few (hopefully constructive) criticisms:

  1. The application seems to have a huge memory footprint (a whopping 106mb on my Windows Vista system). Mozilla Thunderbird (which I use to access all my gmail accounts) uses 13mb. Can anything be done to reduce GMDesk’s memory footprint?

  2. As has been stated elsewhere many times, the font-size is miniscule. I recognize that you’re working hard on this issue, and I don’t envy the headaches its’ resolution must be giving you.

  3. This last one isn’t so much of a criticism as a cosmetic ‘want’. I would love for GMDesk to be able to be minimized to the system tray as opposed to taking up space on my already cluttered taskbar. Is this a possibility?

  That’s all I have for the moment. I love the idea and it looks like this could be a truly great application with a little more fine-tuning. Keep up the good work! =)

  Inkpot

• Robert Nyman - author
  June 21st, 2008 at 1:38

  grimman,

  If it were possible, I would really want that too! Unfortunately, as far as I know, this is only possible on a link-per-link basis with Adobe AIR, and only for content one can control (as opposed to the Google code which is beyond my control).

  So, at the moment I can’t make that happen, but if I find a solution, I’ll definitely implement it.

  Inkpot,

  Thanks! I’ll reply to my best knowledge:

  1. Completely Adobe AIR-related. As I’ve heard/seen with other Adobe AIR-based applications, memory usage does seem to be a bit of a problem for the moment.

  2. Yes, it’s extremely annoying, since it uses the WebKit rendering engine (same as in Safari, but a slightly older version), so everything should work just fine. At the moment, I’m clueless as to why Gmail, and only Gmail, fails to render fonts in a normal size.

  3. It is possible, but to accomplish it is somewhat a hack in my opinion, since you have to turn off an auto-exiting feature of the application, and handle it yourself. I might add this in a future release, but I’m not sure.

• Rodger P
  August 14th, 2008 at 3:48

  ok I got this, loaded AIR, installed both, and damn it’s good…
  thank you, though I would love to see a true standalone app of Gmail, this has got to be the next best thing to the Google Web App..
  in the short time I have been using this, I am nothing but impressed…

  on the Memory Usage issue highlighted above, take a look at any Adobe app and you will find a memory issue… I have never seen an Abobe App with a small Foot Print, and in any case, why would you be so worried about it, if you are running Vista, you should be running atleast 2GB of Ram..
  so a 100mb foot print is not that big, and really do you need to be running Email at the same time as all your other Apps??? I hope you are not one of the people who are answering emails while playing MMORPG’s and letting yer team down as they are squished by an Ogre……

• Rodger P
  August 14th, 2008 at 3:59

  OK I just ran the App on my 17″ CRT, and now I see the problem with the small font, on my LCD’s it was not an issue really as they are 21″ and the other is a HD/TV with PC support so the font looked fine on them,

  my 17″ is running 1024×768 and on this the font becomes blurry and tiny… other than that, I am impressed… in AIR Google looks better than in FF/IE

• Rodger P
  August 14th, 2008 at 4:32

  ok one last comment before you delete me for spamming, I have found that Google Maps runs much faster in your app than on IE/FF.. I don’t know why, but for me the load times are much better…
  aslo there seems not to be the same Font problem (I think maybe you know this though)

• Robert Nyman - author
  August 18th, 2008 at 23:12

  Rodger,

  Don’t worry.

  Yes, the font is only a problem with Gmail, and it works just fine with the other Google applications included. I guess Google Maps just works better with the WebKit rendering engine.

  Thanks for using the application!

• Danielle
  August 29th, 2008 at 19:59

  Any chance the Gmail/ Gcal redesigned skin will be available for it?

  Apart from that, I’m loving it! Thanx so much.

• Robert Nyman - author
  August 29th, 2008 at 20:46

  Danielle,

  I’d love to, but currently Adobe AIR (which GMDesk is built on) doesn’t offer any chance of manipulating the actual content. We’ll see in the future how it evolves…

• jeroen
  September 1st, 2008 at 18:33

  hi Robert,

  cool app. keep up the good work.

  i would like to say that i too would appreciate the following features, already mentioned above; minimization to system tray and possibility to use the Google Redesigned skins.

  Too bad it doesn’t seem to be easily implementable.

  Anyway, congrats and keep it up.

  j

• Robert Nyman - author
  September 1st, 2008 at 19:53

  jeroen,

  Thank you! I would love to make much more of GMDesk as well, but currently my hands are tied by limitations of the Adobe AIR framework.

• David Tarantula
  September 20th, 2008 at 19:28

  I noticed three small things/bugs with this App. The font size is too small, maybe in a future release add an option to zoom the page? Also in Windows XP there is discoloration on the menu bar. The text has a small white border around it and then when you hover over it and click let’s say on “help” for example the whole thing turns white and matches the color of the page. However when you minimize the window and then restore it, it returns to the text having a small white border around it.

• Robert Nyman - author
  September 22nd, 2008 at 20:07

  David,

  Those are things I’d love to fix, but unfortunately they’re beyond my control (my thoughts on the matter).

  So, basically, if I get the technical possibility to address those, I plan to have it done.

• John Angelana
  November 13th, 2008 at 15:34

  I just use soemthing like googles new web browser constantly open to gmail page and use firefox or IE to browse.

  If IE crashes then my google browser app is still running..

  The web interface is by far the most robust IMO

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