Letterbox 0.16
This is a bugfix release. I strongly suggest you install it.
Changes
- [bugfix] We now play nicely with the “Mail thinks this junk mail”, “This message has unloaded images”, and GPGMail banners.
Download
Download the disk image, and double-click on the installer:
Letterbox 0.16
Frequently Asked Questions
- I want an Outlook-style message list with each message on two rows!
- Yeah, me too. Patience…
- All I see is the message list — where’s the message pane?
- If your message pane is collapsed, move your cursor to the right side of the Mail window. Your cursor should change to a double-arrow cursor. Now double-click, and the message pane will appear.
- Does it work in OS X 10.3.9?
- Apparently yes. I haven’t tested it, but I’ve had a few reports that it works okay. I won’t put much effort into maintaining 10.3.x compatibility, though…
Todo List
Your feedback is very welcome. I plan on tackling the following items as time permits:
- Decent website and SVN access to the code for those who are interested.
- A more fool-proof installer.
- Preference pane to switch between ‘Message right of list’, ‘Message below list’, and ‘Message left of list’
- Menu items and keyboard shortcuts for same.
- Options for alternate-colored-rows in the message list, and a few other tweaks.
- (Eventually) An Outlook-style view with message subjects on a second row below the date and sender info. This will probably be tough & I’ll be recruiting helpers for this task.
Known Bugs or Issues
- [known-bug] After entering a search in the search field, the message list column sizes go wonky. Clicking on another mailbox resolves the issue.
- [known-issue] GPGMail’s banner inherits the dark gray background of the plugin. Not a big deal, but might want to clean this up somehow.
- [known-issue] The message pane collapses to the right side as soon as it’s less than 50% of the width. It should permit narrower sizes rather than collapsing all the way to zero.
June 7th, 2006 at 9:02 am
doesn’t this mean that you are trying to account for something which has already been accounted for? it is basically creating a problem that does not need to exist.
June 8th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Sorry, I don’t follow… Are we talking about the whole idea of the plugin, or this bugfix?
June 8th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Great mate! You really work hard on this one. Congrats.
June 8th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
ahhhh!
It was still buggy and slow 
Great look though!!
I tried to unistall it on 10.3.9 and it’s still there!
June 8th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
That’s a great app ! Very, very nice on my 20 inch flat panel iMac
Thanks a lot, I have recommended it !
June 8th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Fantastic, thanks! Did you include a copy of the .dmg inside the .dmg on purpose?
June 8th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Brilliant. An excellent use of space. Isn’t it always the way that the simplest ideas are the best?
June 8th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
whoops, no. thanks stereo.
-aaron, very much a newbie at this “releasing products” thing
June 8th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Fantastic app thanks. Been talking to my mac friends about how cool it would be if someone did this for ages - now the revoluion is here!
June 8th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
In 0.16 installing I get the error: “The operation cannot be completed because there is already an item with that name.”
Yet this is the first time I have ever tried this app. Any ideas?
June 8th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
Hi,
This plugin is a great idea and very much appreciated for widescreen Macs like my brand-spanking-new MacBook.
After using it for a few days, however, I think I’m going to go back to Mail.app’s default 3-pane view. Maybe this is just me, but I’m finding that after awhile I get uncomfortable reading emails on the RIGHT side of the screen. Is anyone else experiencing this, or am I just way too used to the default setup?
So — while I have no idea how challenging this would be for you — here’s a feature request if you please: an option to switch the positions of the header and content panes.
THANK YOU for your time and all your hard work–
a d a m
June 8th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
It looks best full screen, but since I don’t always want it to be full screen, it would be great to be able to toggle between the Mail.app view and Letterbox view. Or maybe the next item on your to do list - preference for message position - will take care of that. Great idea, I just need to get used to it.
June 8th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I think the only thing this plug-in needs is the Day separators that Entourage has. Having one big, long list of messages in that new column isn’t so easy on the eyes. The day lines in Entourage break it up nicely, and if you want to collapse the days, you get more room for new messages.
No idea if Mail could even support you doing that in the plug-in, but I’d pay money for this is you figure it out.
June 9th, 2006 at 4:56 am
Another bug… This had been happening for the last few days, but it wasn’t until now that I figured it was the Lettebrox plugin that was causing the problem.
The HTTPmail plugin (that lets you download your Hotmail using Mail) doesn’t work anymore; all my Hotmail messages have been moved (not copied) to another one of my mailboxes. So I disabled that mailbox, and tried to download all of my mail into my now empty Hotmail mailbox - while Mail says there’s I’ve got new mail (with the little red badge in the Dock), it doesn’t actually appear anywhere in Mail; my Hotmail box is still saying 0 messages.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Is there a way that using this plug-in could be tied to a particular network location? Reason being when I’m travelling I want the Mail default layout on my 12″ PowerBook, but when I’m home I want to use the plug-in with my 20″ monitor. It’s a bit of a pain to install/un-install when changing locations. Thanks!
June 9th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Don - please email me at (myfirstname)@software.harnly.net, or catch me on AIM (awharnly) or Jabber (myfirstname)@harnly.net. I’d like to get to the bottom of that mystery.
June 9th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
When I use the installer I get an error message saying “THe operation could not be completed because you do not have enough access privileges.” I am the admin of my computer. How can I work around this?
June 9th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Not only is this the best thing that ever happened to OS X Mail, it actually helped me clean out my inbox. My brain is more efficient with this plugin. Thank you soooooo very much!!!
June 10th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
HELP!!! I double-clicked on the vertical line between the second and third columns. Sure enough, the third column (message viewer pane) disappeared.
But when I double-clicked again on the vertical line, now between the first and second columns, the third column did not return.
HELP!!!
June 10th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
andrew, check the FAQ. the line to click on is not the mailbox/list divider, but on the right side of the window.
June 11th, 2006 at 6:47 am
The problem reported in a previous posting (conflict with GPGMail mailbundle) has disappeared, but not quite:
- Commands ‘Decrypt’ or ‘Authenticate’ are properly executed, i.e. an encrypted message is decrypted.
- But a signed message, although it is authenticated (or verified) does not display the blue icon that indicates a “good signature”. Again, this issue did not occur with Letterbox 0.11. This does not seem to be a functional problem, maybe a graphical issue.
June 11th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Ah. Yes, I see. In the words of Miss Emily Litella, “never mind.”
June 11th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
keep up the awesome job!
June 12th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Excellent work–thanks for the UI cleanups! Thank you!
June 12th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I’m using 10.3.9. When installed I get 2 columns rather than 3. Is the 3rd column the list of mailboxes and, if so, is there any way of making it appear with the other 2 columns? Thanks.
June 12th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
In 10.3.9, the list of mailboxes is in a drawer, rather than in the same window as the message list and message pane. So you can open the drawer (forget how in 10.3.x, probably in the view menu or a toolbar button?), but it won’t quite be the same…
June 13th, 2006 at 5:45 am
As soon as Mail.app is no longer the active app, the resize thing in the lower right corner disappears. Other than that. Great work! I enjoy it very much
June 13th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Looks a great app…but with version 0.16 install, Im getting a error message saying operation could not be completed because you do not have enough access privileges?!
June 14th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Travis: thanks for the heads-up.
Andy: you’ve got email.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I had reported that the GPGMail’s icons in messages’ windows were no longer visible. My mistake. After recalibrating the display (Powerbook G4 15″ 1.33GHz) the icons are visible. The ‘known issue’ GPGMail banner inherits the dark gray background… is there, but as noted in your web page, it really is not a big deal. Whenever you have the time. Sum-up: great, great work and great response. Take care.
Charly
June 15th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
When I launch the installer, I get the following message:
Can’t make ìclass cfolî “Bundles” of alias “Best PowerBook Ever:Users:max:Library:Mail:” of application “Finder” into type reference.
Running MacOS 10.4.6
June 15th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Great work, thanks.
Now if we could just figure out how to control the manner in which messages are marked as read. I don’t want my messages marked when I simply pass over them. Any way to create some sort of timer so that they’re not marked unless I sit on them for x seconds? Or better yet, turn on a setting that says they’re not marked as read unless I mark them?
June 15th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Looks promising… Alas Mail crashed the moment after I installed Letterbox and clicked on an email to view it. I hate to waste the space on here, but here’s the problem report that was generated for Apple. Hope it helps?
Date/Time: 2006-06-15 21:14:30.442 -0400
OS Version: 10.4.6 (Build 8I1121)
Report Version: 4
Command: Mail
Path: /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Parent: WindowServer [373]
Version: 2.0.8 (749.3)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: MailViewer
Source Version: 7490300
PID: 490
Thread: 0
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0×0001)
Codes: KERNINVALIDADDRESS (0×0001) at 0×302f3039
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.apple.WebCore 0×94faa0ab KWQFontFamily::KWQFontFamilyin-charge + 49
1 com.apple.WebCore 0×951c4ad6 khtml::FontDef::FontDefin-charge + 26
2 com.apple.WebCore 0×951ddf82 khtml::Font::Fontin-charge + 26
3 com.apple.WebCore 0×94faa02c khtml::StyleInheritedData::StyleInheritedDatain-charge + 62
4 com.apple.WebCore 0×951c5096 khtml::DataRef::access() + 54
5 com.apple.WebCore 0×951c5aee khtml::RenderStyle::setHorizontalBorderSpacing(short) + 38
6 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fbb16e khtml::CSSStyleSelector::applyProperty(int, DOM::CSSValueImpl) + 8540
7 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb8ff3 khtml::CSSStyleSelector::applyDeclarations(bool, bool, int, int) + 201
8 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb6e0d khtml::CSSStyleSelector::styleForElement(DOM::ElementImpl, khtml::RenderStyle, bool) + 1199
9 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb695c DOM::ElementImpl::styleForRenderer(khtml::RenderObject) + 46
10 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb6866 DOM::NodeImpl::createRendererIfNeeded() + 78
11 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb6808 DOM::ElementImpl::attach() + 18
12 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb5a2e KHTMLParser::insertNode(DOM::NodeImpl, bool) + 2152
13 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb3a18 KHTMLParser::parseToken(khtml::Token) + 486
14 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb16ee khtml::HTMLTokenizer::processToken() + 268
15 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb2a25 khtml::HTMLTokenizer::parseTag(khtml::TokenizerString&) + 4881
16 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fb1288 khtml::HTMLTokenizer::write(khtml::TokenizerString const&, bool) + 776
17 com.apple.WebCore 0×94fad80b KHTMLPart::write(char const*, int) + 815
18 com.apple.WebKit 0×94ddc8ef -[WebDataSource(WebPrivate) _commitLoadWithData:] + 100
19 com.apple.WebKit 0×94da5613 -[WebMainResourceClient addData:] + 82
20 com.apple.WebKit 0×94da550f -[WebBaseResourceHandleDelegate didReceiveData:lengthReceived:] + 72
21 com.apple.WebKit 0×94e06113 -[WebMainReso
June 15th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Charly: Thanks for the update.
Prosto: Bummer for the error. Could you send me an email and we’ll see if we can sort it out?
John: It’s a good idea; I’ll look into it.
Chris: You’ve got email.
June 16th, 2006 at 11:38 am
The less than 50% message window thing got me too. However I had been able to narrow the pane to about two inches whil I was rearranging my message list pane’s columns. It then nsapped to all the way closed, and double clicking it only repoened it to about 2″ again. But if I clicked on the divider bar to widen the message pane it just snapped closed (that happened on mouse button down-it wasn’t a click). I uninstalled/reinstalled and it came up fine, and I won’t mess with it any more.
June 16th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
This plugin looks really great but for some reason, after I installed the plugin, COMMAND+K doesn’t delete all messages, but instead it got remapped to Delete Messages in the selected mailbox, and even though I uninstalled it, it isn’t back to what it was.
Has anyone else experienced this?
June 19th, 2006 at 11:41 am
This is great. Thank you.
June 19th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
I’ve been enjoying Letterbox. At the moment, I have only two issues.
First, since updating to 0.16, the resize bar seems to have shrunk to 1px. I consider this a bit small ó much smaller than the standard, and hard to use with less-precise pointing devices like trackpads.
Second, the installer seems a bit… primitive, in several respects. Might it not be better to use a package (they do allow scripts which could kill Mail, and offer uninstallation and painless upgrades).
June 20th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
I like the new improvements to the plugin, keep up the good work. May I make a slight suggestion? Keep the 1px gray line divider the same shade of gray as the mailbox divider. You use RGB 128,128,128, but for consistency should be 165,165,165. I hope this helps.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:12 am
Sooo very nice. I’ve attempted to drag corners many times just out of wishful thinking. Thanks soo, soo much.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Aaron, this is a great plug-in. It really helps me get through mail more quickly. I thought I’d offer an enhancement request.
My resolution is 1680 x 1050 and I still find it a bit cramped with the reading pane. The reason is that I have a bunch of mail accounts, so I’ve found it necessary to add “Mailbox” as a column in my list view. (I don’t really work by mailbox, which would be another solution. I review all my mail at one time, but want to know where it arrived.)
Is there any chance for an option to display the mailbox name across the top of the Letterbox reading pane? I’m not certain how many people work like I do, but it would definitely make my life easier.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Sidney: The resize bar is intended to match the one between the list of mailboxes and the message list (on 10.4), though as Morgan notes the color is a little off, which I’ll fix.
I agree the installer is a little gimpy, but I definitely don’t want a .pkg installer — those annoy me. We could do a semi-manual install with the three steps of creating the folder, copying the bundle, and running a script are spelled out (with aliases) right in the DMG? Would that be better or worse?
Morgan: As I said in the email, you rock, and thanks.
Tom: Huh, for me, adding the “Mailbox” column still just shows all the mail (from various accounts) as being from “Inbox.” Another suggestion I’d make is doing some subtle coloring with rules? (You can choose a custom color, hopefully less garish than the ubersaturated ones that Apple suggests). Once I have some free time and put the prefpane together, though, I’d be happy to throw in that option. I see Letterbox becoming the ‘Making the message list work the way you want to’ plugin eventually.
June 27th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
OK, maybe I overcomplained.
I see the connection to the Mailboxes divider now. I’ll live with it happily.
I also think that the current installer is better for most users than a semimanual. I just wanted to point it out as an area for improvement.
June 28th, 2006 at 3:12 am
When you use the bar to search and then return to the normal window, all the display fields come back resized and its a pain. if theres anyway you could fix it in the next release thatd be great.
awesome work!
June 28th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
In 0.16 installing I get the error: “The operation cannot be completed because there is already an item with that name.”
Same here.
July 2nd, 2006 at 2:49 am
The one issue I have is that when I preform a search and click the little x in the search box to delete the search and go back to the standard window, the columns of the inbox are all messed upóOnly the “from” and “subject” part are shown, and the latter only partially. It seems to be a case of mail thinking it has the entire width of the screen to spread out the column, even when the right half is taken up by the reading window.
The way I’ve figured out to fix this is that if you add and then delete a column, then it snaps back to normal, but it would be great if it just didn’t do this in the first place.
I’m running 10.4.7 on the last G4 powerbook model to come out before the intels.
You can e-mail me if you need more info.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:22 am
hey man, you’re great. totally solved a huge issue i had with mail. now here’s two others! i see others are interested in the mail being displayed on two rows; count me in for that as well. also, is there a way to be able to group mails by folder, or just have grouping in general by any attribute, for that matter? if this were included, it would really make mail, completely competitive with outlook. thanks again for your work and help.
July 18th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Nice plug-in.
Is there any reason why console.log is filling up with lines like
2006-07-18 15:05:02.131 Mail[254] Container frame: {{727, 0}, {668, 841}}
2006-07-18 15:05:02.132 Mail[254] View: <NSScrollView: 0×5a539b0>
2006-07-18 15:05:02.132 Mail[254] frame: {{0, 0}, {668, 841}}
every time the mail app comes to front, is no longer the frontmost app, the window is relocated, etc.
Thanks again for the nice plug-in.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:14 am
Quote:
“The one issue I have is that when I preform a search and click the little x in the search box to delete the search and go back to the standard window, the columns of the inbox are all messed upóOnly the “from” and “subject” part are shown, and the latter only partially. It seems to be a case of mail thinking it has the entire width of the screen to spread out the column, even when the right half is taken up by the reading window.”
Having the same issue.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:11 am
Love it, working great on original Mac Mini, 1280*1024 res.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Love it, love it, love it. Any news on the outlook-style view (messages on a separate row from the sender and the date)? I would love to have that option (especially with the day dividers mentioned above).
That would make mail the single greatest email application ever.
Even without that, this is such a huge improvement. Everybody in the office is running it at this point.
Thanks for such a great tool!
July 28th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
How can I tell if I installed “Letterbox”? I have been using Mail since I got my MacBook (A couple of months ago) and I can’t remember if I installed this. My layout is horizontal like the patch/plugin is supposed to do.
If I am using this, I want to see my messages in the “Messages below list” mode, at least for a short while to see if I would like that better.
If I am using this, is there a way I can change the setting to “messages below list” without the preference pane you have on your todo list?
Thanks,
Dave
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Looks nice. One problem, that actually prevents me from using it, is that:
I get all the columns sized the way I want so I can see the information that I need. Nice. Works great.
Then I click in the spotlight search column, and it automagically resizes for my search and moves over when I select a result. Nice works great.
Then I go back into my normal view and all of my columns are resized like the spotlight view - and I lose all my work I did on resizing them… And some of the columns are flat out off the screen now.
Once it “retains” my column sizes after a search this mail bundle will be installed on my box for good!
August 7th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
when letterbox is active and you receive an email with mulktiple attachments, I cannot get the ‘SAVE’ button to pop up a dialogue asking for the destination. When I remove the bunde (sadly) from the folder and do the same thing on the same email it asks for the directory and saves the files there.
One other interesting thing is that when the mouse hovers over the files listed in the header they are marked as ‘downloaded’ but they are neither findable with spotlight or present on my desktop (my default mail download space).
One other issue is hat when you bundle is active and my mail is full screen and hidden and I click ‘new mail’ from the dock context menu OR drag a file to the dock icon the full screen main mail window is always lauched in the foreground preventing me from seeing the new mail composition window. only F10 or clicking the X on the mail screen fixes this and both are undesirable. This problem is does not disappear when your bundle is not installed so it’s probably and apple thing.
I’m running 10.4.7 on a macbook pro
please fix the attachemnt thing whenever you have a chance, and thanks for creating this cool bundle in the first place.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Thanks…. Makes moving from XP easier
August 11th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
I’ve been using this for a couple of months now and just wanted to say ‘Thanks”. Love it.
August 18th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
I like your plugin! Thanks!!!!!!!
I have had problems with the from/subject/mailbox/date received columns keeping my desired width. Often I experience completely losing date from view and need to spend time fiddling resizing everything.
Any ideas or a fix will of course be appreciated.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:05 pm
not getting it to work on my AlPB G4, mail.app Version 2.1 (752/752.2)
August 24th, 2006 at 6:56 am
Hi there,
This plugin works well but prevents DayLite’s Apple Mail integration feature from working. The DayLite sidepanel says “Email Text Area is Collapsed” if Letterbox is installed.
September 5th, 2006 at 2:47 am
wonderful! Thanks!
September 6th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Just to echo the complaint about the columns… Any sign of a fix in the near future?
September 16th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Congratulations, a great plugin
. Anyone with complaints needs to get off their backside and help out!
September 19th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Aaron, thanks for Letterbox - it’s already in my “can’t live without it” list.
November 5th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
I am having the same problem installing this as a couple of others in this thread. The system is telling me that there is already a file with that name. A spotlight search has turned up nothing. Have you solved this?
November 5th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Hi Aaron, Thanks for this amazing tool. I just found out while it’s already out for such a long time!
Some time ago I switched from Entourage to Mail, ·nd the only thing I missed was this three-column-overview, thanks for bringing that to mail.
One small question: In your preview images I also noticed these small blue-arrows which bring together mail-replies. I’ve noticed them somewhere before, but I cant find that function in Mail… Is this something you also developed? Or something else?
best+keep up the good work,
matthijs
November 9th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
If anyone knows a hack that lets messages reside on two rows or provides organization of inbox like Entourage, Please email me!
November 25th, 2006 at 11:48 am
For those of you getting that “The operation could not be completed because there is already an item with that name.” error should simply copy the file Letterbox.mailbundle into your ~/Library/Mail/Bundles and restart Mail.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
I, too, am getting errors in Console.log every time Mail is focused or blurred:
2006-11-30 20:17:24.650 Mail[1817] Container frame: {{637, 0}, {633, 865}}
2006-11-30 20:17:24.650 Mail[1817] View:
2006-11-30 20:17:24.650 Mail[1817] frame: {{0, 0}, {633, 865}}
December 5th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Any chance of releasing a version with logging turned off?
December 8th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I installed it, looks great, but how can I change the size of fonts, collums etc
Much appriated.
Bart
December 10th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
I just installed it. Very cool, very useful. Why Apple didn’t make this layout a preference option is beyond me.
December 12th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
This is great. I see that you did a lot on it in the summer? Any chance that you are going to have more up later
December 26th, 2006 at 10:19 am
The plugin writes too much in the console.log. It’s noise, in my opinion. Is it possible to suppress this?
2006-12-26 09:11:00.836 Mail[373] Container frame: {{565, 0}, {694, 887}}
2006-12-26 09:11:00.836 Mail[373] View:
2006-12-26 09:11:00.836 Mail[373] frame: {{0, 0}, {694, 887}}
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi all — I have a new version in the works with the logging bug fixed, a preference pane, and a (rather rough) two-row view. Should be up within the week.
So hold tight!
January 18th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Fantastic plugin!!
When some of the columns disappear, such as after a Spotlight search, I find that dragging the divider line all the way to the right and pausing, all the columns will reappear. Then, without letting go of the clicker, drag the divider to the left where you want it. Remember to pause after each movement!
January 19th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Any news on the update Aaron?
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Hi Aaron,
did you ever come up with an answer to Prosto’s comment?
I’m getting exactly the same message on my first attempt at installing.
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Great idea. Thanks much for sharing.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I love it! Coming from Outlook myself, this is a great addition to my MacMail! I have so far zero problems with it. I can resize the panel to almost any widht. I’m on 1680×1050, Macbook Pro 17″, 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 duo, OS X 10.4.8.
I mean it - so far NO problems like the ones others have described here.
Best/T
January 27th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I am new to Letterbox but I like the idea. Normally, in the list of messages, one could see the date, time sent or received, etc. With Leterbox list of message, time is not displayed. Any suggestion how this can be achieved?
Cheers
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:11 am
Hi aaron, thanks for a super plugin. Me too finds the logging level far too high and the column sizes after search problem is a bit disturbing too. Somehow I get the feeling you dont plan to fix this? Which is totally okay, but please let us know! Thanks again.
February 17th, 2007 at 4:30 am
Hi Aaron,
I really enjoyed the Letterbox plugin until I noticed that the Date received was being modified in the displayed lists of mail, both inbox and filed mail. I have screen shots if they would be helpful. The good news is that your uninstaller works great and nothing in the messages was actually changed.
I donwloaded and installed the latest version 0.16 on 9 Feb 2007. Let me know if you need further diagnostics.
BTW, I don’t recall seeing this initially, only in the last couple of days. I wonder if there was something in the recent Apple security and time updates that makes Letterbox see dates differently.
thanks.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:43 am
I have used letter box for a while and this morning I reduced too much the message pane by mistake. I do not know how to make it appear !!!! Thanks for your help
Jean-Michel Delisle jmdelisle@mac.com
February 21st, 2007 at 7:12 am
Jean-Michel, This can probably be resolved via FAQ #2 — move your cursor all the way to the right of the window, and it should become a double-headed arrow. Either double-click right there, or click and drag to the left.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I love this thing on my 23″ screen
Best plugin evar!!!!!!!!
March 7th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Hi Aaron,
I use your LetterBox more than any other Mail plug-in. It is great.
Please consider the following. When I search my mail boxes, the columns size change and I have to adjust it. But I have to do that several times everyday, columns become much wider so that after finding what I am looking for, only 1 or 2 columns will be displayed in the left handside column view. Please advise what I should do?
Cheers,
Noor
March 20th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Hello Aaron,
I just installed the latest version on a PowerBook running OS X 10.4.9 and it made Mail completely inacessible. I uninstalled it but there’s nothing I can do to open Mail, it crashes every single time, restarts don’t help. Any suggestions would be helpful as I’m out of ideas.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Mirko,
Sorry for your troubles. Make sure Letterbox is uninstalled by going to ~/Library/Mail/Bundles and checking whether there are any files (i.e. Letterbox.mailbundle). If so, remove the file.
After that, there’s no way Letterbox could be having any leftover effect on your system — it doesn’t make any lasting changes.
March 21st, 2007 at 4:49 am
Aaron,
thanks for the response. I’ve made sure that Letterbox is uninstalled and there are no files left, yet Mail still wouldn’t start. It may not have been the plugin’s fault, only a weird conincidence that Mail died on me after I installed it. In any case, I replaced the com.apple.mail.plist file with a backed up one and now everything works just fine
March 26th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Hello, The switching view optin is a must for this plug-in to be fully useful! Good job! please keep it up. If I can help somehow let me know. Regards Marco
April 1st, 2007 at 3:58 am
just luv it =) (..sorry for this unconstructive Comment…;) )
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 am
I’ve been using letterbox for a long time, and I like it, but…
allow me to offer a criticism/suggestion. My message pane collapsed, and I read this note on your website:
“If your message pane is collapsed, move your cursor to the right side of the Mail window. Your cursor should change to a double-arrow cursor.”
That’s true — it works, but it’s very hard to do. It seems the mouse must land within a single-pixel-wide column to get the double-arrow cursor to appear. Performing a double click without moving the mouse even one pixel to the left or right isn’t always easy.
Does the phrase “Fitt’s Law” mean anything to you?
If you ever get around to updating this, please consider making the target area bigger.
April 9th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Any progress on that update to kill logging? It’s been a few months since you announced it.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Are you still working on this plugin? Could you opensource it?
April 18th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Hi Aaron, you mentioned on Aaron January 3rd that you have a new version in the works with the logging bug fixed, a preference pane, and a (rather rough) two-row view, and that it should be up within the week. Is this version available? I have version 0.16. Is there a later one now available? I would be really keen to know if and when the bugfix for the documented known bug is released:
[known-bug] After entering a search in the search field, the message list column sizes go wonky. Clicking on another mailbox resolves the issue.
Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:14 am
Just to mirror Steven’s remarks - why has development on such a popular plugin been stalled since 2006???
April 25th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Yep, all very fair — life in PhD-land has been squeezing me pretty hard. I’m pretty much under the gun until the end of May, when we have a big evaluation by the DoD — after that, I’ll pour in some time to make some much-needed enhancements to Letterbox. Thanks for hanging in there!
~aaron
April 28th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Aaron, Trying to install Letterbox 0.16. Get the following error message: The operation could not be completed because there is already an item with that name. I’ve noticed others have had this problem with no explanation. Please help.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:17 am
HI there,
I really appreciate the work you have put into this and would like to pay you in some way for this. If you set up a way to accept donations, I will happily contribute.
Casp
June 14th, 2007 at 11:50 am
dear aaron, i think i’m not the only one checking daily this web-page and waiting for an update to your letterbox mail add-in. great work. thanks for your effort and for fiding the time working on this. we all hope this project will get just better and better. thanks.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Thanks Aaron for a fantastic plugin. I use it and I love it. All your work is appreciated and can’t wait to see what comes next.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Worked perfectly. Thank you very much!
July 5th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Something that would be could is that the content message column was in the middle of the window, not on the right. Is kind of annoyin to look at the right side of my big screen, instead of looking at the center.
So it would be like this:
[mailboxes] [message] [list of messages]
I know it’s kind of weird to have that separation between the mailboxes and the list of messages, but it’s the price to pay in order to have a pleasant (and centered) reading experience
July 5th, 2007 at 8:16 am
With “Something that would be could…” I meant “Something that would be COOL”
July 6th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
this plug-in would be wonderful to have as a default in the Mail app… But, until the known bugs are fixed, however, i guess it’s just not worth it the use for me… it’s to annoying to have the message list column size go “wonky” after each search. As other suggested in previous posts, I think Aaron wold do a great service to the Mac users community if he released this as open source. I’m keen to hear his reply on this matter. Thanks in advance!
July 21st, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I like letterbox. Is this freeware or shareware? reply requested
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 am
So, what’s the status of this? I really like it, but I find that the message pane keeps ‘popping’ to a much too wide size (like 50% of the entire window width) and then I can’t drag to make it smaller. I have to instead make the mailbox pane HUGE then shrink it back down. I’d love to be able to lock the message pane down to a set number of pixels, no matter what.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Excellent little tool indeed. I’d gladly click on the paypal ‘Donate’ link if there was any around!
August 14th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Hi guys. I’ve been using your very nifty plugin for some time now…However I recently installed Ilife08 and ever since then My mail.app has gone back to the old look (i.e the message viewing pane is no longer there). Are you getting similar reports from other people too? Cheers.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Will this plugin affect syncing with the iPhone in any way?
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Aaron, I have used your plug in on my old 15″ MacBook Pro, but now I have switched to a black macbook with 13.3″ widescreen. I cannot get your plug in to work. I would enjoy Letterbox on my little widescreen. Any suggestions? Chris
September 6th, 2007 at 1:47 am
great work, but may i request a version that does not fill up the console.log with debugging messages? i need console to debug my own stuff
thanks
September 6th, 2007 at 10:48 am
If you don’t have time to update this, release the code!
October 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I love your bundle and I have used it for years. I hope you will update it so it remains compatible with Leopard. Thanks for keeping it free. If you need to take time off occasionally from your day-job to maintain the app, you should consider charging a few bucks for it.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Love Letterbox, Please please please update if for leopard.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:54 pm
I entirely gave up on this! Don’t you guys see that this is a hopeless case? It is indeed a useful add-in, and we all start dreaming when seeing it. But unfortunately, it’s (still) full of bugs, and Aaron doesn’t seem to even look at these messages here. I don’t think he’ll ever update this, especially now, after he switched sides (he’s a Microsoft guy now, remember?). I hope he will at least release the source code, but we can’t blame him if he doesn’t want to - it’s ultimately his work! I also wish he will at least make this clear for us here. Hopefully soon enough we’ll have a replay from him here. Please Aaron, give us a sign you’re still alive!
Thanks in advance!
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Alive, not dead, and not working for Microsoft anymore (just a summer gig), and indeed working on the Leopard update. It will come out by the end of the week, really!
Sorry for being noncommunicative on the website — I’ve been answering individual emails assiduously, but haven’t paid good heed to the comments.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
This is a great modification to mail. Thanks.
One suggestion/request. When I search (for an email, for example) thru using the box at the top of the page is lists all the emails. I then choose one, and the emails content appears at right. When I then remove the name to cause all my emails to reappear, the column heads auto fit (as opposed to maintaining the sizing that I had done), causing the date and time to disappear behind the pane. I then need to drag the column headers manually to the left to make them small enough to have as many panes as I want.
It only takes a few minutes, but when I have to do it 30 times a day it is a pain. is there anyway to cause them to maintain my previous column size adjustment (like Eudora used to have)?
I hope my question is clear. if not, I could send screen shots with examples of what i mean.
Thanks.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Here’s another vote for that Leopard update! i’d be happy to kick a few bucks into the effort, if that helped.
Thanks for making Tiger mail so usable. Leopard mail needs a hero!