Tim Gaden07 November 2006, 3:04 AM
Five Greasemonkey tricks (well, four Greasemonkey tricks and one extension really) can quickly make Gmail more pleasant and more powerful to use and better integrate it with GCal and Google Reader.
The Greasemonkey script for Firefox is one of the most powerful tools a serious Internet junkie can get their hands on. It lets you remove annoyances from web pages, rearrange how they appear and add the extra features you want but the web developers omitted.
In short, it gives you the power to make the Internet appear and work the way you want it to.
Five Greasemonkey tricks (well, four Greasemonkey tricks and one extension really) can quickly make Gmail more pleasant and more powerful to use. To use them, you will need to download and install Greasemonkey and restart Firefox first.
The tweaked interface will look like this:
Not impressed yet? Read on...
1. An ad-free Gmail
Even if you train yourself not to see the ads down the right-hand side of the interface, they are still annoying.
With the Greasemonkey Hide Gmail Right Ads script, you can make them disappear forever.
Some people argue, with some merit, that this cheats Google of the revenue it deserves for providing a great service. I'll leave it to you to make up your own mind.
2. Gmail-Google Calendar Fast-switching
Google's Gmail and Calendar work well together. Wouldn't it be great if you should switch between more easily?
The GCalQuickTab extension adds two new keyboard short-cuts for quickly switching between the two apps: 'g' for Gmail and 'l' for Calendar. If both are already open, it brings that tab into focus instead of opening the web app in a new window.
3. Gmail-Google Reader Integration
Bring your Google Reader RSS feeds into the main Gmail interface with the Greasemonkey script
Gmail + Reader Integrator. It provides a split screen view, with Gmail at the top and Reader feeds underneath as you can see in the large screenshot above.
Each can be expanded or collapsed and a quick edit of the script lets you set the height for each to balance the mix of email and feeds that you receive.
The script adds a drop-down box on the side that lets you view your feeds by tag or other filter like 'starred' or 'shared'.
When you've had enough of the Gmail-Reader mash-up, it also provides a keyboard short-cut 'v' to open the Reader in a new tab.
4. Add a "Mark as read' button
My greatest Gmail annoyance is the extra work needed to mark a conversation as read. Why it isn't a top-level button in the default interface, I will never know.
Luckily, Greasemonkey comes to the rescue again.
The Gmail Mark Read Button script adds the much-needed button to the right of the "More actions..." drop-down box. Excellent.
You can install a fancier mark read/unread button script instead if you need it.
5. Security and peace of mind
Lastly, the GoogleSecure script forces Gmail, GCal and Google Docs to use a secure https:// connection so that none of your data is transmitted over the internet unencrypted.
If that's not enough Gmail tweaking for you, the Greasemonkey script archive provides another 75+ scripts.
You can find out more about the coloured labels and other tweaks in the large screenshot in a previous post on Greasemonkeying up your Gmail.
A word of warning
In the past, Greasemonkey users have occasionally had problems with Gmail locking them out. It seems that Google's page code is built to detect modifications in the code that weren't intended by Google (probably as an anti-malware measure). Usually Greasemonkey script developers are able to avoid running into these problems, but when Google updates its Gmail code, Greasemonkey scripts sometimes break.