Suspected PayPal Hackers Seek Deal To Stay Out Of Prison
Did A Google Earth Mistake Cause A Couple's Brutal Murder?
Google's HTML5 plans for Gmail include 1 second-to-Inbox startup
The Download Squad staff loves their Gmail, and so do our readers (according to Sebastian's recent-but-not-at-all-scientific poll). It's an excellent app, and I can't imagine ever changing back to a desktop email client.But Google wants to deliver a more desktop-like user experience in Gmail, and they're planning to lean on HTML5 to do it. Recently Google added drag-and-drop support via supported browsers, and it's a feature some of my less-technical friends love. Google is now working on reversing the process -- allowing us to drag files out of Gmail messages and drop them onto our local folders.
Apart from making user interaction in Gmail more like our desktop apps, Google also hopes to use HTML5 tech to turn on the afterburners. In a discussion with Technology Review's Erica Naone, Adam de Boor talks about possible performance leaps with the upcoming extension app support in Google Chrome.
Extension apps will further blur the divide between Gmail as a Web app and desktop email with permission to access additional local resources, and Boor hopes that it will eventually lead to Gmail startup times of "less than a second."
That'd be sweet... you know, if I ever closed my Gmail tab.
Stopwatch image by Flickr user Erika_Marshall
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsTaylor. Yes, Taylor.Jun 25th 2010 5:40PM
What about storing most of the inbox code locally with some kind of internal version number, and then only downloading an updated copy of the framework when a version changes? That way, when gmail hasn't changed, the only thing it needs to update is your e-mail itself.
Or does that already happen?
Also, for 1 second startup, I'd need to have Chrome startup in less than 1 second too...
-Taylor
JohnJun 25th 2010 5:54PM
My gmail starts in about 6 seconds. I think I can wait the five seconds....
NickJun 26th 2010 10:17AM
What Gmail really needs in my opinion is the HTML5 native menu feature, which takes away the less important stuff from your browser menubar.
This should give way more screen space, web applications like Gmail and Google Maps could benefit from this.
DonJun 27th 2010 11:55PM
"That'd be sweet... you know, if I ever closed my Gmail tab."
Exactly--which I never, ever do.
jValdronJun 29th 2010 3:58PM
Mine takes around 3 seconds to open (all that with my crappy 1GB of ram system)... don't really mind that at all ;)