Improvement suggestions for Widgets

1

There are a few things I’ve got in mind for Widgets.

  1. POSITIONING

It seems as though the widgets want to follow each other. When I try to make one narrow, the other gets narrowed. The best way to describe it is a quadrant system. They do not retain their own size information. They are pinned to a quadrant.

We should be able to size and position them independently.

  1. MINIMIZE/MAXIMIZE

Having the ability to minimize (roll-up) the widgets would also be an improvement. Maximizing (expand) to fill the whole widget area would be, too. When in maximized mode, all of the visible widgets could be moved into tabs. That would make it easier than restoring one and then maximizing another.

  1. WIDGET LIST

The “Widgets” button on the left only serves to bring up the Widgets panel. Managing a widget is done by right-clicking in it. If we remove a widget, it can only be brought back through the Options dialog.

Instead, displaying a list of widgets with checkboxes beside them would make it easier to hide or display them. This would be similar to how the Calendar list functions.

It would also fix the odd display it does right now: the last active section remains “lit up” as if it was still displayed. “Widgets” does not become the active section.

  1. CONTEXT MENU TO BUTTONS

Instead of requiring a right-click and context menu selection, I’d like to be able to click a button in a Widget’s title bar for each of the options (Refresh, Remove, Delete [this would be new] and the options from #2 above). If the Widget is resized below a certain width, it could start hiding buttons or just hide them all.

  1. WIDGETS TOOLBAR

The primary toolbar shows the default “New” button and a “Refresh” button. I recommend adding a “New Widget” option when on the Widgets panel. It can display the same dialog that the Options window does when adding one. A “Settings” button should also be there that goes straight to the “Widgets” section of the Options dialog (same functionality as the “Widget Settings…” context menu option).

  1. MISCELLANEOUS

I covered this in other topics, but having ATOM added to the RSS Widget would enable display of that type of feed, and a Widget API would be really nice.

2

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. We will consider them.
Nevertheless in version 3.1 which will be released soon Widgets are changed to be more intuitive and user friendly.

3

Thank you for the reply. I look forward to the widget changes.

4

I hate widgets and tabs and all that crap so if you gotta have em at least allow some way to disable them. eM seems to be everything I want in an email client. Cudos to the developers, this was a nice suprise as I’ve been looking to replace thunderbird for the last 6 months.

5

I completely agree on being able to configure them individually.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I don’t care about Facebook add-ons or the like. I’m a software developer / consultant, so I like being able to enhance my productivity, link in related content, and so forth.

Any extensions, provided with the installer or downloaded separately, need to be individually configurable just like Chrome extensions. I enable or disable those things on an as-needed basis.

6

Please give us the possibility to place the widgets in the right panel

7

Hi, unfortunately this is not planned.

Jan