Here is a brief rundown and commentary on the new applications and enhancements:

Mail

This is a surprisingly feature-rich and very useful POP/IMAP/Exchange multi-account email client. I use Gmail, and it auto-configures, connects, and syncs to my Gmail account very well. What's most useful is that it maintains a (user-selectable) number of messages offline, so you can read, reply to, and manage these messages while offline. All changes or sends get updated the next time you go online. Though it is not without its quirks, it is a very solid application. To me, one of the most useful feature is that the Mail app will download and let you view a number of attachment types including .PDF, Word, and Excel files in a viewer component that provides Multitouch zooming, panning and screen rotation. Can't wait for an eBook application to be developed? Just Email yourself a document, and you can read it offline.

Maps

This is an amazing application. It is a standalone Google Maps application that has some offline capabilities. You can view the map, satellite, and hybrid views as well as traffic if (available.) It uses Multitouch to zoom in and out of maps, and you can search for destinations as well as define routes. And once you have a route set and downloaded, you can easily and quickly step through the route while offline. It displays the route text as well as the map surounding each route point. Though Maps only provides for one offline route, it's still a very elegant and impressive application.

Notes

To me, this one application was worth the price of the cost of the upgrade (with a couple minor caveats.) Being able to quickly and easily add information into the iPod Touch on-the-go is very important to me, and is an essential PIM component. The Notes application is simple, yet very functional and fun to use. Its animation, though not necessary for function, was unexpected and is very pleaseing. Editing uses the fingertip keyboard entry, but it's very usable.

So far, I only have two complaints with the Notes application: The first one is minor–I would like to be able to control the sorting of the notes, specifically being able to sort alphabetically. Notes are sorted by last modification date which is really not a big deal, but as you get more and more notes, this could become cumbersome. My second complaint is that Notes does not sync with anything through iTunes. The files may be backed up, but they are not editable or accessible. I think this is a huge oversight on Apple's part, and I hope that Apple releases a version that will sync with Outlook or some such. (Hmmm…how about WiFi syncing with Google Notes?) I'd also like to see it optionally sync to and from .txt text files through iTunes. Being able to enter notes on a computer using a real keyboard is really essential for long text entry, and could leverage Notes as an extremely useful reference tool.

Weather

This slick little weather application is simple: Define one or more locations, and when you open the application while WiFi is connected, it pulls in the current and forecasted weather conditions for the location. The weather data comes from Yahoo, and is presented in a very clean graphic format.

Stocks

This little application will let you define several stocks to track, and like the Weather application, it will go out onto the Internet via WiFi and pull in the latest stock and index quotes with corresponding graphs.

Web Clips

This is an integration enhancement that lets you save a Bookmark of a Web page in Safari as an icon on your iPod Touch's Home page. This means that, for example, next to your Calculator icon, you can have a tappable link directly to the CNN home page. It works on any Web page, and makes access to your desired Web pages a snap.

Customized Home Page

This system enhancement lets you move around and order the icons on the iPod Touch's Home page. It supports up to nine pages of icon groupings, so you can more logically organize your applications and Web Clips. You can also customize what icons appear on the Dock.

Bottom Line

So the bottom line is that Apple has provides some excellent applications and enhancements. Is it worth your $20? That completely depends on your needs and wants, but for me, it was well worth it.

In the message list, any label that has a color assigned will display in that color. Labels with no color assigned will display as they always did. Here is an example:

To assign colors to a Label, click the Label selector on the left of any Gmail page to display the Labels. Hover your mouse to the right of the Label, and a small triangle will appear. Click it, and a color selector will appear. Select a color, and all messages with that Label will display the Label in that color.

As an added bonus, you can quickly and easily rename the Label using the new "Edit name" menu selection. Just be careful to double-check

(Note: Stephen uses his blackberry with a personal email account, not an enterprise server. -Jim)

"Here are two ways I’ve just started using Gmail to enhance my Blackberry:

(1) in order to have a running record of all sent messages, (a good business practice for me) I set up a BCC of all sent messages to a Gmail address.

(2) I find that there are some attachments which can’t be opened on the blackberry (for example, some .PDF files download but fail to open.) Also, if I want to forward an attachment, it usually arrives "corrupted" in the recipient’s mailbox.

My solution to both issues is to direct my domain and personal email addresses to a second Gmail address, place the Gmail quick access icon on my blackberry desktop, and use this on an as-needed basis either to forward an attachment directly from my Gmail account, or as a reader for some attachments."

Thank you Stephen for your input! ]]> http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-63-gmail-and-your-blackberry.html/feed 0 http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-62-enhancement-univeral-navigation-bar.html http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-62-enhancement-univeral-navigation-bar.html#comments Thu, 24 May 2007 10:04:14 +0000 Jim Barr http://www.barrweb.com/blogtest/?p=262 Google has recently enhanced some navigational features across most of
its offerings by providing a recognizable and (somewhat) consistent
"Universal Navigation Bar" at the top left of every page:

 

 

 

First, you need to have "Keyboard shortcuts" turned on. To do this, click the "Settings" link in the upper right of your Gmail screen, and look for the "Keyboard shortcuts:" section. Select "Keyboard shortcuts on", and than click the "Save Changes" button.

Now, while viewing a message, simply press the "#" key (that’s shift-2 on US keyboards) and the message will be deleted. But wait, it takes you back to the list, right? Not exactly what we want. But notice that the message prior to the one you just deleted is now "indicated" by the black arrow next to it. Now, simply press either the "o" key or the "Enter" key, and that indicated message will open up.

While this isn’t exactly the functionality we are looking for, and it does require an extra keypress, the end result is that you are where you want to be, and it is all be done from the keyboard without having to grab the mouse. It also opens up some other (hopefully) powerful functions making things more flexible. For example, to further expand on the above, once you are back at the message list after deleting a message, pressing the "k" and "j" keys will move you up and down respectively through the list of messages. You should notice the black arrow on the left of the list moving up and down when you press those keys. Pressing "o" or "Enter" will opens the indicated message.

Further, if you see a message in the list that you want to delete without opening, you can just delete it using the "#" key…well, almost. In this case, as with using the mouse, the message is "indicated" by the black arrow, but it is not "selected" (ie: the checkbox is not checked) so just first press the "x" key to select the message and the checkbox toggles. You can open it, delete it, archive it, or a host of other things.

Gmail packs a LOT of power, but unfortunately, not all of its functions are intuitive. That said, check out Gmail’s "Keyboard Shortcuts" help screen found here…

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594

…where you’ll find lots of useful (but not always intuitive) keyboard shortcuts.

Finally, if you feel that this functionality would benefit the Gmail community, consider suggesting it to the Gmail developers by following this link:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=suggest

Gmail is very powerful, and comparisons with competing solutions are inevitable. While not all features will ever match up exactly, there are often solutions that can provide similar function.

First off, let’s see if you have access to Mail Fetcher. Click on the Settings link and click the Accounts tab. If you see a section titled "Get mail from other accounts:" then you should have access. Click the "Add another mail account" link, and a window will open. Enter your email address, and click "Next". Fill in the required information about your POP account, and click the "Add Account" button. You can add up to 5 accounts.

You can specify if Gmail will leave a copy of the messages on the server or not. If you opt not to leave messages on the server, then they will be effectively "moved" to Gmail, clearing off of the server. This means you don’t have to manage email in two places. This is pretty standard.

You can also specify if Gmail connects using a secure connection (SSL).

Now comes the real power! You can define how Gmail will handle the messages once they are received. There are two additional settings that you can optionally configure:

Label incoming messages
If you’d like to automatically label all messages that are retrieved from your non-Gmail account, select this option. You can choose to use the predefined label (set to your email address by default), you can select an existing label, or you can create a new one from the drop-down list. If you are pulling from multiple accounts, this lets you nicely "flag" from accounts they are coming from. And if you decide not to use this option, then all messages seamlessly arrive into your Inbox unlabeled. It is unclear at this time if messages pulled in using Mail Fetcher are processed by Filters.

Archive incoming messages
Mail from this account can be archived directly, without showing up in your Inbox. You may want email from a specific account to be pulled into your Gmail account, but you may want it to bypass your inbox. An example might be a mailing list account. Just have it auto-Labeled and auto-archived, and the messages will nicely show up in that Label view, but they won’t clutter the Inbox.

Finally, once your account has been successfully added, you’ll have the option of setting up a custom "From" address. This allows you to compose messages in Gmail, but have them appear to be sent from your other email account. This is existing functionality, but can now be tied to specific Mail Fetch accounts.

Once set up, Gmail will check your other accounts on a regular basis (the frequency is unknown at this time.) New mail will appear automatically in your Gmail account (the location depending on the settings you defined.) At any time, you can always disable Mail Fetch for specific accounts from the Accounts tab of your Settings page.

Once again, Gmail provides new capabilities that really enhance and improve upon its already great feature set. This new feature is not revolutionary, but it helps make Gmail a more complete solution.

But having a Gmail account means more than just Web-based email. A Gmail account opens the door to many other excellent  Google-related applications and services. By creating a Gmail account, you will gain access to personalize other Google-based applications including Google Maps, Google News, Picasa 2, Google Pages, Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and lots of other goodies.

Admittedly, getting a Gmail invitation has not been a problem for most, but this should open up Gmail to a much larger audience. Oh, and as always, come here for your Gmail tips!

-Gmail On Your Mobile Phone
-Forward all
-Reply on top
-Embarrassment-reducing new message notifications
-Chat while your friends are offline

Read on to see the details of these new features….

Gmail On Your Mobile Phone
Point your phone to gmail.com/app, download it the app, and you can access Gmail on your phone with just a click or two.

Some neat features:

• It has the same Gmail interface you know and love
• Your account stays synchronized whether you access it from your computer or the phone
• You can easily view attachments such as photos, documents and .pdf files

To learn more about Gmail for mobile devices, visit this page: http://www.google.com/mobile/gmail/#utm_source=en-cpp-g4mc-gmnew&utm_medium=cpp&utm_campaign=en

Just be sure to check out the phone compatibility at their Supported Mobile Phone link at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50425 Not all phones are supported (mine isn’t.)

Forward all
When viewing a conversation, you can now click the "Forward all" link to forward the entire conversation instead of just one message.

Reply on top
Now you don’t hacve to scroll all the way to the bottom of a message to find the “Reply” link. Now there’s a Reply button right on top. It also has a nice dropdown menu with many other options. Just click the little dropdown arrow. And don’t forget that if you have Keyboard Shortcuts enabled, you can always press the "r" key to reply.

Embarassment-reducing new message notifications
Have you ever replied to a message only to find out that someone sent a reply right before you? Now, if someone sends a reply while you’re in the middle of reading or replying to a conversation, you’ll get a notification that a new message has arrived. Click "update conversation" to upate the view to see what you’ve missed.

Chat while your friends are offline
If you’re chatting with a friend who goes offline, your friend will be able to see whatever you typed the next time he or she goes online.

The solution turns out to be really simple, but not necessarily obvious. It appears that all Gmail Chat session logs are simply standard messages Labeled with a hidden Label of "Chat". So this means that many functions you use on Labels should work.

So, to exclude all Chat session logs from your Search Results, add the following text to your search string:

 -label:Chat

Likewise, if you wanted to include words found ONLY in Chat session logs, just add the following to your search string:

 +label:Chat

…making sure that it is the only "label:" string (unless you also want to include other Labels.)

Thanks to Ethan Lipman for the question!

One of the great annoyances of managing Gmail has been in dealing with Spam and Trash. When you had  more than screenful of messages, clicking "select all" would only select all messages on the current screen. Deleting numerous messages could mean navigating multiple screens just to select and delete.

The Trash view now displays the message "Empty Trash now (messages that have been in Trash more than 30 days will be automatically deleted)"  Here's a screenshot:

{mosimage} 

When you click on the "Empty Trash now" link, Gmail will display a confirmation prompt displaying the number of conversations it will delete. Click "OK" to delete, or "Cancel" to not delete.

For Spam, the Spam view now displays the message "Delete all spam messages now (messages that have been in Spam more than 30 days will be automatically deleted)" Here's a screenshot:

 {mosimage}

Clicking on the "Delete all spam messages now" link displays a confirmation prompt displaying the number of conversations in Spam to delete. Click "OK" to delete, or "Cancel" to not delete.

Yet another example of Google refining Gmail's capabilities.

What is Google Notebook?

Google Notebook is a Web-based application that lets you enter and manage notes. While that may sound simple, (and it is) it is a powerful and handy tool to let you store and manage countless bits of content that is easily accessible whenever you have Web access.

To better understand Google Notebook, think of the Google Notebook screen as a bookshelf. On that bookshelf, you can store one or more Notebooks, and within each Notebook, you can store one or more Notes. Notes can contain simple text content to complex Web page clippings. Notes can be ordered by moving them around, and they can be categorized by creating Section Headings. What content you include in your notes is completely up to you, as is how you organize your notes.

In later tips, I'll be discussing some simple operations such as selecting and moving Notes, how to clip Web pages, and some simple navigation and management operations. I'll also be including some tips on how to organize and make the most of your notes.

So, what's it good for?

Let's start with a short list of some things you can do with Google Notebook:

·    Store recipes
·    Store school notes
·    Create online shopping lists
·    Create a repository of your favorite movies
·    Plan a trip
·    Maintain a list of your favorite Web sites
·    Keep a journal
·    Write a book

This list is obviously not exhaustive–you are really only limited by your imagination. Just play around with it, and ideas should come to you!

But Google Notebook does have some limitations. Here is a list of some things that you cannot do with Google Notebook:

·    Store "objects" like programs, MP3 files, or standalone images
Google Notebook is not a file repository–it is a notebook. For storing things like programs and MP3 files, you will have to use other online storage options. For digital photos, check out Google's Picasa Web, a really nice photo album application that integrates with Google's Picasa2 Desktop application. It's at: http://picasaweb.google.com

·    Print individual notes
I do have a workaround for this, but by default, you can only print entire notebooks.

·    Make notebooks semi-private
A notebook is either private (viewable only through your Google account) or public (accessible to anyone.) There is no facility to restrict viewing Notebooks to specific users.

·    Email Notes or Notebooks
There is currently no facility to email your notes or notebooks. The best you could do is to make a Notebook public and then email the URL. Just remember that a Public Notebook is viewable by anyone.

·    Export Notes
Short of copying and pasting notes into another application, there is currently no facility to export notes. You could, however, select the "Print notebook" from the "Actions…" dropdown, to create a nicely formatted HTML page which you could save locally and than edit it using your favorite HTML editor.

Again, this list is not exhaustive. The Google developers continually work to improve all of their offerings, so I would bet that in the future, you will see refinements and additional features worked into Google Notebook. My recommendation is if you have suggestions for new features, feature changes, or to report bugs, go to the Google Notebook support page located at: http://www.google.com/support/notebook and log your request. Google will obviously not include every suggestion into Google Notebook, but they are noted for listening to their user base, so unless you voice your feedback, they won't know what you want!

How do I get started?

Point your Web browser at http://google.com/notebook and follow the instructions. IN short order, you will be ready to create new notes! But first, you have to complete a couple steps:

First, you must have a Google account in order to use Google Notebook. This provides authentication to keep notes private. If you already have a Gmail account, you are good to go. If not, just follow the instructions to create a new account.

The browser extension. Google wants you to install a browser extension in order to more efficiently create and manage notes, but this is optional. If you want to use the extension, by all means, download and use it. The extension works very well, and makes adding Web clippings a snap. I'll be posting a tip detailing its features and functions.

But for now, we want to skip this, so when you are prompted to download the extension, just look for the "Continue to your notebooks »" link and click on it. This will bypass the browser extension download and take you directly to your Notebooks. This is also useful for those times when you are using a public-access terminal. In that case, you won't want to install the extension (and probably won't have permission to do so) because you don't want your personal information to be tied to that device.

You should now be looking at the Google Notebook screen! Click on the "Add note" button, and you are on your way to creating and managing notes! I'll be posting more details about the functions and features of Google Notebook, so stay tuned for more Google Notebook tips and tricks!

Two Points Of Caution

Like any Web-based service, Google Notes is not necessarily a completely secure repository. My suggestion is that if you have sensitive information, you would probably be wise not to store it on Google Notes. This is not to say that Google takes security lightly–far from it. Just assume that anything stored online, especially if it is unencrypted, is simply not secure.

Second, please remember that, as with all online applications, many of Google's applications are still under development, and as such may occasionally be prone to bugs or problems. I recommend that you not store critical or irreplaceable information online unless you also have an alternate online or offline backup. Committing irreplaceable information to an online service–especially one still in development–is asking for problems.

First off, I need to step up on my soapbox for a moment…

I really never understood the draw of background images or stationery in email messages. Other than allowing you to inject a bit of individuality into a message, what purpose does it really server? I personally find them typically distracting, not so much the images themselves, but the content chosen. Some are elegant and pleasing to look at, but some are just plain distracting.

I would suggest you take a step back and really think about what you are trying to do with email. Many people get so hung up with the style or look of a message that they often overlook the actual content. While it’s true that a picture can be worth a thousand words, well-written words should never be overlooked. And a nicely formatted and well-constructed signature can convey a lot of good information.

…OK, off of my soapbox.

Gmail does not currently handle stationery or background images, so if you really have to have it or use it, I suggest that you configure your Gmail account for POP access and then use an email client (like Outlook) that handles stationery. You lose Gmail’s excellent Labeling and Search functions, but you can continue to use an email client that you are familiar with, while taking advantage of Gmail’s excellent Spam filtering and storage space. You will still always have Web-based access should you need it.

If handling stationery is important to you, then I suggest you contact Google and recommend it as a suggested feature. Click on the Help link in the upper right corner of any Gmail screen, click the "Contact Us" link at the bottom, and click the "Suggest a feature" link. Google may not implement it, but if you don’t tell them what you want, they’ll never know!

{mosimage}

Read on for a quick review….

To preface this review, I have to say that I have never installed or tested any other commenting Components in Joomla. I have used them on countless other Joomla-based sites, but I never actually researched and tested them out for myself for use on my site. There are a number of other commenting choices out there, so by all means investigate them, but Jom Comments really caught my eye, and it delivers.

Jom Comment is found at http://www.azrul.com/ , and adds very simple, yet elegant Web 2.0 style commenting capabilities to Joomla. While reading an article, a site visitor can read any existing article comments as well as write comments of his own. And because it uses AJAX, it all happens right within the page without requiring full page reloads between actions. This saves bandwidth for both the site and the user, and it makes the user experience much cleaner. In fact, Jom Comment can even be configured to "auto update" so that you can see new comments as they are posted! Very cool! It also includes an RSS feature letting your site visitors link to article comments through any RSS reader!

Jom Comment is a commercial addon, but don’t let that scare you off. The Standard verison only costs $8.50(US) and it is really worth every penny. The author jokes about the low price on his site, but the fact is that because it is so low in cost, even if it doesn’t work out for you, you aren’t out that much at all. A limited trial version is available, and there is a "Professional" version in the works, but the Standard version seems to have just what I wanted in a commenting addon.

What it looks like

When you are viewing an article, you see a new "Add Comments (n)" link below the article:

{mosimage}

When you open the article by either clicking the article link or the Add comments link, you see the article normally, but now, at the bottom is a comment section:

{mosimage}

 When you submit the comment, it immediately appears below the article vor you to view:

{mosimage}

So from the site visitor’s perspective, that’s about it. It’s clean, simple to use, and nicely implemented.

But what about the back-end? What kind of control does the site administrator have? Here is a look at the Settings….

The Settings

Jom Comment is very configurable letting you tailor many functions to your needs. For example, you can determine if guests can post comments or not, you can determine on which sections comments will be displayed, you can determine if the comments will be moderated or automatically posted, and a host of other goodies.

You can even configure Jom Comment to email you whenever a new comment is posted. This can be nice to help keep an eye on comments and to help to prevent abuse without requiring moderation. And here’s a tip: Use a "plus" email address as your notification address. For example, enter "some.user+comment@gmail.com". If you have a Gmail account (or any email provider that supports "plus" addressing), set up a Filter in Gmail to automatically label these emails. This makes managing frequent comment notifications a snap!

Here is a screenshot of the main Settings screen showing the main settings:

{mosimage}

Security

Unfortunatly, there are unscrupulous people who abuse open systems, so security must be addressed. Jom Comment provides several levels of security to help prevent or reduce comment abuse. Here is the "Spam" settings screen:

{mosimage}

Layout

Youcan also tailor the layout to your needs.  Jom Comment is template-based, so presumably, you could create some very interesting and flexible layouts for your commenting. Here is the Layout screen:

{mosimage} 

Captcha

You can also leverage Captcha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha authentication to help reduce automated comment spam. Captcha presents a graphic image containing a string of random characters. The user must correctly enter the characters to successfully submit the comment. One thing I like about this implementation is that the characters aren’t so distorted that they are too difficult to read–a problem with many Captcha implementations.

{mosimage}

Support

OK, so my initial install had some glitches. I installed the Component, and then said to myself, "Now what?" Unfortunatly, the .ZIP file did not contain any documentation, and seemed to be missing some pieces. So, I emailed Azrul, and literally within minutes, he replied with an appology and a fixed file. Apparantly, he was in the middle of updating some things, and a bad version of the distribution slipped in. Anyway, I uninstalled and re-installed the new version, and it has been smooth sailing since! Thanks to Azrul for your swift and effective support!

Bottom Line

Overall, I think Jom Comment’s strength is in its simplicity. It seems to embrace the "UNIX way of thinking": Build a solid, simple program that solidly and simply does what it’s meant to do. It was easy to install, easy to use, and best of all, it’s unintrusiveness fits very well into my site!

So check out Jom Comment and see if it is something that would enhance your site to provide your visitors a better experience!

Simply put, there is currently no way to simply "Delete all Spam" if the number of Spam messages exceeds one screenful of messages. You can, however, delete them one screen at a time. You first need to click on the "All" link under the "Delete Forever" button while in the Spam view. Next, click the "Delete Forever" button. This deletes that screenful of Spam. If you have more thatn one screenful of Spam messages, repeat this for all screens of Spam. Note that if you have hundereds of Spam messages (which is not unusual) this could take a short while to delete them all.

But here’s a tip: Just don’t forget that Gmail automatically manages Spam for you by deleting any Spam that is over about 30 or so days old. Even though you may accumulate lots of Spam, letting Gmail auto-manage it for you can have its benefit. For example, if you inadvertently mark a message as Spam, you can always go into the Spam view and move it back to the Inbox–this which "unmarks" the message as Spam.

Though you may have the urge to just delete all Spam as you get it, why not let Gmail manage it?

Gmail offers many keyboard shortcuts. To enable keyboard shortcuts, click on the Settings link at the top right of the screen, and click on the "General" tab. Look for the "Keyboard Shortcuts" entry and click on the "Keyboard shortcuts on" radio button.

Below is a table showing the current list as of 25-Jan-2006. Try ‘em out!

(For the most recent version, click here.)

Shortcut Key	Definition	Action
c	Compose	Allows you to compose a new message. <Shift> + c allows you to compose a message in a new window.
/	Search	Puts your cursor in the search box.
k	Move to newer conversation	Opens or moves your cursor to a more recent conversation. You can hit <Enter> to expand a conversation.
j	Move to older conversation	Opens or moves your cursor to the next oldest conversation. You can hit <Enter> to expand a conversation.
n	Next message	Moves your cursor to the next message. You can hit <Enter> to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’)
p	Previous message	Moves your cursor to the previous message. You can hit <Enter> to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’)
o or <Enter>	Open	Opens your conversation. Also expands or collapses a message if you are in ‘Conversation View.’
u	Return to conversation list	Refreshes your page and returns you to the inbox, or list of conversations.
y	Archive* Remove from current view	Automatically removes the message or conversation from your current view. From ‘Inbox,’ ‘y’ means Archive From ‘Starred,’ ‘y’ means Unstar From any label, ‘y’ means Remove the label * ‘y’ has no effect if you’re in ‘Spam,’ ‘Sent,’ or ‘All Mail.’
x	Select conversation	Automatically checks and selects a conversation so that you can archive, apply a label, or choose an action from the drop-down menu to apply to that conversation.
s	Star a message or conversation	Adds or removes a star to a message or conversation. Stars allow you to give a message or conversation a special status.
!	Report spam	Marks a message as spam and removes it from your conversation list.
r	Reply	Reply to the message sender. <Shift> + r allows you to reply to a message in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’)
a	Reply all	Reply to all message recipients. <Shift> +a allows you to reply to all message recipients in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’)
f	Forward	Forward a message. <Shift> + f allows you to forward a message in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’)
<Esc>	Escape from input field	Removes the cursor from your current input field.

Combo-keys – Use the following combinations of keys to navigate through Gmail.

Shortcut Key	Definition	Action
<tab> then <Enter>	Send message	After composing your message, use this combination to send it automatically. (Supported in Internet Explorer and Firefox, on Windows.)
y then o	Archive and next	Archive your conversation and move to the next one.
g then a	Go to ‘All Mail’	Takes you to ‘All Mail,’ the storage site for all mail you’ve ever sent or received (and have not deleted).
g then s	Go to ‘Starred’	Takes you to all conversations you have starred.
g then c	Go to ‘Contacts’	Takes you to your Contacts list.
g then d	Go to ‘Drafts’	Takes you to all drafts you have saved.
g then i	Go to ‘Inbox’	Returns you to the inbox.

updated 1/25/2006