How To: Preview Email in List View on the Pre 59
Anyone intersted in a little email preview action? Forum member imop45 discovered [also noted at jkOnTheRun] that you can use a multitouch gesture to preview emails without opening them. It's a little tricky to do, but we found the most reliable way is to anchor one finger at the top of the screen and then slide down on the email you want to expand with your other finger. Zoom far enough, you can even preview the entirety of the message, all without ever actually opening it. Pinching inward (like you're zooming out) will return you back to the basic list view.
Update: as our genius commenters note, it's actually easier than we thought, per wynand32
An easier method is to perform the gesture _across_ the message. That is, start in the middle of the message and pinch out to the edges. Pinch in from the edges to minimize. That seems to work better than trying to pinch up-down or diagonally.
We were about to say that we would add it to our list of undocumented features in webOS 1.1, but DuStU has been using this trick since launch day.
Since it's a little difficult to achieve, we can understand why Palm isn't exactly shouting from the rooftops about it. One thing we can't understand: why the very useful Palm Pre landscape email trick is still stuck in "enter a secret word" land instead of being an option in the preferences.
Do you find previewing emails in the list view to be particularly useful?
59 Comments
nice little extra, who would of ever guessed it?
nice little extra, who would of ever guessed it?
i feel stupid. its not doing it for me
wow, so easy. just tried it out and sure enough no issues doing this.
i can guess why the landscape trick is hidden though. i have issues with it sometimes getting "stuck" in the wrong direction. then I have to rotate back and forth a few times until it gets unstuck and rotates the proper direction. Also sometimes it rotates a little too easy. seems like it just needs some bugs worked out before making it an option.
This feature just made me a very, very happy person. Kudos to imop45!
That would explain why some times it takes longer to open an inbox for an account. It is loading the email in the list view. Now all we need is a way to turn that off so we can get the list view to load faster.
this is such a cool feature and it was so easy to use, why is palm keeping all these away from us?
Sweet! Makes me wonder how many other little gems are hidden on this phone.
This is an awesome feature. To enhance it, maybe they should get it so a swipe with the second finger opens it a pre-determined amount, or adjust for a faster speed (accelerated a bit beyond finger movement). It is a little cumbersome in its current state. I love the Pre and all these nice surprises!
no i don't i would find it very useful. i'll just click on the email and read it. it takes about the same time.
Well even if it wasn't hidden how would the average user know about it? The little manual that comes with the Pre can only cover so many techniques. I would think that any user would have to learn about "undocumented" techniques from another source.
Hey, I have learned so much from this forum. I was actually starting to miss my treo 800w before reading on this forum on a daily basis. I wouldn't even think about giving up my pre now.
An easier method is to perform the gesture _across_ the message. That is, start in the middle of the message and pinch out to the edges. Pinch in from the edges to minimize. That seems to work better than trying to pinch up-down or diagonally.
thanks, updated story!
Nice! I was just about to suggest that this be the way it *should* have been designed. Now looky there!
I second that motion, the one thing I miss most is the directional control from my treo 700wx
Man this is brilliant !! .. will be a much used gesture... more productivity !!
Love the newly discovered feature but I'm still waiting for speed improvements. It also seems to me that the new message counter doesn't always reset itself. Sometimes I have to back gesture from my inbox and then back in for it to correct itself. Anybody else seeing this?
Same here.
I wish this functionality would work in text messages also. I'm tired of Facebook status updates ending in ... where I can't read the rest of their comments.
Am I the only one that thinks just opening the email is more convenient? It's a bit awkward to use multi-touch here because your two fingers (or thumbs) obstruct the preview's view and the motion is not very fluent.
If they wanted a way to add a preview, they could have implemented a small button on the right side of the email list item that opened up the preview with one tap.
I appreciate Palm trying to use multi-touch gestures in more applications; but I think this is one example where it's not as convenient as a single-touch solution.
I would like to see some multi-touch gestures that involve swiping with two fingers simultaneously. Like for instance if you want to copy text, instead of holding the shift key and swiping, you could swipe with two fingers. I'm sure there are many other uses for this type of gesture.
I've tried that and it doesn't work for me. The only way I can get text to highlight is to hold the shift key and swipe left or right to highlight it.
Of course not...but in combination with so many other cool gestures it might be the cherry on top of the sundae!
Nice little feature. This phone is truly amazing. I wonder what else the future holds? ;)
Agreed.
I agree with the others, very nice. A couple of thoughts:
1) I liked the GoodLink mini-preview (although, only one or two lines). It would be nice to have something like that, but let me choose the number of lines. Also, an intelligent reduction of whitespace to display as much as possible in the preview would be nice.
2) I wonder if a gesture like a two-finger double tap could be added to expand the preview (fully, user defined percentage, or user define number lines) within the message list view?
i just deleted a message i wanted to expand
How can anyone else who experienced the Pre ever want anything else?!
CoverFlow3D... wow! *Sarcasm
shoot -- I just did that and ended up deleting the message. Turns out the gesture area doesn't count as *anywhere* on the screen -- Doh! :-)
While I like this newly discovered feature, hotkeys to delete one or more e-mails would be more useful for me.
This works for whole webpages too.
TBS sends me a webpage like e-mail and I can zoom out the whole image of the webpage.
It's easier to just open it, why go through the gesture, am I missing something?
I discovered holding left side of screen with thumb (although I did it on message) also. It is very easy and the more you swip the more your message shows. Very slick.
I actually like this is landscape mode only... I just put both thumbs in the middle and expand out in both directions... this creates a "revealing" effect.
Wow.....love this one. thanks.
does this work on webos 1.3.1?
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