Also would love this feature, coming from Windows Live Mail, which has two-line message preview. I know postbox is based on Thunderbird, and this feature was pencilled in for v3.0 but seems to have slipped to 3.1. Not sure if we'll have to wait for Thunderbird 3.1 to come out, before this is incorporated into Postbox, assuming it's included in TB 3.1.

I agree. Column view is too narrow and busy right now. Maybe this might clean it up and clarify the users view

Thunderbird 3.1a doesn't have a two line feature. You'd think the developers would use their software on a 13" screen!

There are enough features in PostBox to hold my interest but please add this feature otherwise I'll just switch back to Mail with Letterbox.

Can't remember where I saw it might be in 3.1, but as I can't find the web-page I read this in, maybe it's not entirely accurate. For those interested, there is a bug logged for Thunderbird for this very feature:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945

I'm hoping it will show up as a feature in Postbox one day  (soon) though. (Although it's been logged on Bugzilla since 2003).

Is it ever likely to come out? Is it difficult to implement developers? I think Widemail for Apple Mail came closest but it's a bit buggy right now.

I'd consider moving to Outlook for Mac for this feature (as well as an integrated iCal calendar).

I don't know much about other mail clients - but I would love an Outlook style client, but with the beauty and intuition of Mac software. I know this software is on both platforms, but if it was a little more Mac-like in it's UI, that would be awesome.

But yeah, short term, larger inbox message list would be great. It's so small I have to sit forward to see my messages. A bit more separation, and maybe even some coloured flags and things like Apple Mail would be pretty awesome :-).

I definitely second this request. It would be very cool to have this feature!

With a snippet of the message as in GMail, would be just perfect

+1 Yes, this would be very nice to have. I am on a Macbook Pro 15" which is 1440 pixels wide and there are quite a few emails that are to wide to be visible using the wide layout. I have tried to minimize the columns visible in the list view, but my screen width is still a bit lacking. I use the following columns, in the following order:

1. Todo
2. Attachment
3. Date
4. Subject
5. From

Thanks!

+1

I agree. A two-line subject allows the subject column to be much narrower and the message view to be correspondingly wider when in vertical layout. Allows the user to take greater advantage of a widescreen display.

+ 1 This is a very useful feature for the three column view and I love it! It is available in Mail.app through WideMail (see attached), but the Outlook version is easier on the eyes and easier to scan through quickly.

Hey PostBox, if you want to see EXACTLY how it should be done, take a look at MobileMe's new beta mail app.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/news/2010/05/the-next-mobileme-mail-n...

If you can do this, I'm on board :)

This is a good idea.  I've been wanting this as well.

I don't see a "PLANNED" widget next to this topic.  I think you [postbox devs] forgot to add that.  ;)

@Michael - I think, like one of those pop talent contests, this feature needs more votes to get through to the next round (or to get to be a planned feature). At the moment, it's currently just outside the top ten requests. To all those reading, we need your votes :)

+1.

@Steven - Agreed! MobileMe's implementation of this is VERY attractive.

@Steven, Excellent suggestion!!

+1

We hear you loud and clear on this feature.  The challenge, however, would be to implement this in a way that scales to thousands of messages.  Some people have 10, 20, 40 thousand messages in the inbox, and this is a lot more information to have to process.

If we could get away with showing only the most recent 250 messages, then we wouldn't have to worry as much about performance.  But this introduces all new considerations as well.  

We'll continue to think about it!

Yes, technically it might be a pain.  I notice that there are lags as you drag the scrollbar in my large gmail inbox on Windows Live Mail....

Quick Poll... for everyone who is interested in this feature, is this primarily due to a desire to work in Vertical view?  Is there anyone who wants this in "Classic" view, and if so, can you chat a bit more about why?

+1 for Vertical View.

I use vertical view almost exclusively these days.

Vertical view for me.

For me the main advantage is the space saving. The more I use Classic view, the more I like it, but the message header takes up alot of space which means you only see a quarter of the mail before you have to scroll to see the rest. 

The current vertical view is way too cramped to be of any use. MS seems to implement it well in Outlook and would be great to have the option in Postbox.

+1 for Vertical view

+1 for vertical view.

I use LetterBox for Apple Mail for the vertical view. It allows more natural aspect ration instead of the stretched and squashed view.

It's probably become more popular as monitors have become flatter and wider.

You could collapse messages into groups such as:

• Last Week
• Last Month
• Last Year
• Archive

Or even have options to collapse into Sender or Conversation etc?

+1 for vertical view (Really works with today's wide screens.  I don't ever see myself going back to classic view.)

+1 for option for larger font sizes in the message list

+1 for two line column

Here's hoping this feature makes it to the final version of Postbox 2.0. I think it would go very nicely with all the new features introduced in 2.0.

I only would use this feature in vertical view, but there it is one of the features I miss most, because the table like view of mails is really hard to read even on a widescreen monitor.

In horizontal view the table view is quite fine, but I only use this view on 4:3-monitors (at work).

I like the idea of a customizable view (like with WideMail). I don't need a message preview (like with MobileMe), but some people might like to have this. I understand that this is a performance problem, but maybe you could allow users with a slower computer to switch back to the table view.

OK, I guess I'm not entirely clear on what Sherman Dickman is saying with regards to performance. All we're really talking about is displaying the subject and sender. I'm not seeing why this would introduce any additional performance concerns, as there aren't any additional attributes being displayed. Are you thinking of the MobileMe webmail view in which the first few lines of the message are also displayed? I can see how this might be harder to implement. It's not necessary though — it would be nice, but not at the cost of delaying implementation of this feature. I think most of us hear just want the subject and sender name stacked vertically. I mean, several people have implemented this in Apple Mail via plugins — it can't be the hardest thing in the world.

Hi Gordon...  the standard list views are often OS supported.  Not sure of the Postbox sources, haven't looked at the T-bird sources...  But the added row isn't handled directly as a UI widget/device.  On the other hand Postbox might do everything from scratch for all I know.

In Windows Outlook you have the option of a single row or the double row.  If you have a lot of email (as I do) and click the double row, it constantly has to refresh as you drag the scrollbar down.  If it is in single row you don't see the long refreshes (relatively long, long enough for you to notice a pause).  That's all.  I still want the feature, I just understand what he might be saying about the performance.

Oops!  I got some of my text out of order somehow.  Should have been:

it constantly has to refresh as you drag the scrollbar down (relatively long, long enough for you to notice a pause).  If it is in single row you don't see the long refreshes.

I don't see how the refresh rate can be any different. Outlook is bloatware and it has to consider a lot more than Postbox.

All we are asking is for two rows instead of one. Hardly needs a half gig 3d graphics card to accomplish.

Very true!  Hey, I am just offering my observations.

I understand what you're saying in regards to it being a non-standard UI element that would have to be implemented. I am still not clear as to how having to implement custom row/column widgets means that performance must suffer. Wouldn't that simply be a matter of how well the custom UI widgets are implemented?

From the developer:

"We hear you loud and clear on this feature.  The challenge, however, would be to implement this in a way that scales to thousands of messages.  Some people have 10, 20, 40 thousand messages in the inbox, and this is a lot more information to have to process."

You would suffer in memory usage which is, perhaps, why Outlook has to continually go back and fetch chunks when I scroll my mail.  Also, if this UI element is written from scratch you no longer have the direct tie-ins to the OS UI API.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you might actually write something very efficient.

I'm not arguing against this feature, if you read back, I voted +1 for it!  I am just sympathizing with the developer[s], being a developer myself.

Michael,

Outlook breaks down message by Today, Last 7 days, Last Month, Last Year and then everything.

I'm not entirely sure why there would be more of a hit on 40,000 message with two rwo presentation than one row. All we want is the From, Subject and Date etc over two rows.

I'm sticking with Mail with Midemail which works pretty well right now.

The difference is as far as I can say, that you need a class to list the items (the table) and an extra class which presents the two-line view. In the one line view this is implemented directly within the table view. Therefore the overhead is much bigger if there are complex views even if the amount of information stays the same.

Nevertheless I still would love to see this implemented as it is the only feature I really miss from Outlook.