On or near 6/30/04 12:10 PM, Dan Frakes at [EMAIL PROTECTED] observed: > Allen Watson wrote: >>> It's not about the fonts, its about not being able to scan the list quickly. >>> The subjects and senders are lined up and alternate, and the visual cues >>> aren't strong enough to distinguish between them. They should indent one or >>> the other a little so they don't all line up. Or even better, squeeze it >>> onto one line, perhaps with a smaller font or fewer icons. >> >> Yup...send feedback. Personally I like it, and believe me, it went through >> scores of testers and feedback before they settled on this format, so you're >> likely in the minority. > > I don't know, Allen. Besides this list, I've heard a *lot* of complaints > about this. And personally, for all the things I like about Entourage 2004, > this is one I really dislike. When in "Preview Pane on the Right" view, the > current two-line message summary, with From and Date on the first line and > Subject on the second (both flush-left) is just bad interface, IMO. > > In think this view should provide the user with the same options as other > views: which fields (From, Subject, Date, Category, etc.) to view (perhaps > with a limit of three), and which of those fields should be shown on the > first line. The user should also be able to force the message list to > display one message per line (instead of two), if desired -- which might > involved a trade-off of only showing two fields. And if a second line is > shown, it should be indented so as to make it easier to scan messages by > whatever the first-line field is. > > (Yes, I've sent feedback :-) ) > Personally, I think this is one of the areas where it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to please even a majority of the people. During testing this went through numerous iterations and variations; complaints flew fast and furious, and the existing interface was the best they could come up with in the timeframe they had. Nobody--and I think this includes the developers--thought it was perfect, and a lot of people didn't like it. Strong personal preference in this area is probably one of the major factors in the existence of multiple mail clients.
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