[WARNING: Long Rant with swearing]
cross-posted to my multiply
Ever since Gmail came out, it's been my main online email client. I like the ease at which I can organize my mail. Emails organized as conversations instead of chronological, filters, labels, archive control, browser-based chat... It was a revolutionary take on the whole email system.
Needless to say, my Yahoo, Lycos and Edsamail (long long time ago) all became obsolete. I still maintain my Yahoo Mail, but only as a spam and yahoogroups dump. Even Yahoo Mail Beta's in-page tab system (however convenient it was) couldn't entice back to Y!Mail.
But that's not to say I was completely satisfied with Gmail. For me, and probably for every user with a slow internet connection, Gmail had one major flaw...
Attachments.
Gmail had a fucking lousy attachment system. If I ever tried attaching anything over 300kb I'd spend anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour, watching the page tab's spining circle and the yellow "Still working..." message up at the top of the screen. The worst case scenario is that the upload would time out, giving me the "Ooops! An error occured while attaching your files. Retrying..."
(The only indications that I'm uploading is the spinning thing at the Tab title and the "Sending request..." message on that browser's status bar. You'd expect there to be a progress bar beside the file attachment, but noooooo...)
Of course "Retrying..." never really meant anything. I'd watch the upload/download status of my internet connection. Two big fat zeros. Google was lying to me.
So then I'd disconnect, clear my private data (cache, cookies, history, etc), close the browser, reconnect, log-on to google again, reload my draft message, then go through the attachment process again.
Sometimes it'd work. Most of the time, I'd just be burning my life away with my eyes on that goddamn loading circle.
And it's not like the circle actually means that there's anything being uploaded. It's just an animated GIF that gives you an illusion that the thing is working. You have no idea how much you've actually uploaded unless you're diligently watching your upload statistic. Was it too much to ask for a progress bar?
There's a progress bar when you load Gmail, meaning they do have the code for it. Why couldn't they just implement it for the uploads?
Also, there was no way to "retry" your upload. If it failed the first time, you'd have to do the "Attach File" -> "Browse" process again. Now this wouldn't be a problem since the browser generally "remembers" what the last folder you accessed was. When you hit Browse, first thing you see is the folder and all you have to do is look for the file.
Unless, of course, if you've cleared your private data. Which you have to do. In that case, you'd end up back in your default folder (usually My Documents).
So, if the file you want to attach is nested ten folders deep (it happens) you spend another three to five minutes finding the file all over again. And that's not even a guaranteed upload. What a crock of shit.
To get around this stupid-ass problem, I use Yousendit for any attachment large than half a megabyte. Of course Yousendit limits you to sending only 1 file at a time, but that can easily be solved by packing your files into a .ZIP. Something you can do on your end without using internet time and without relying on the site's service. Once you choose an attachment, Yousendit shows you a graphical progress bar plus a text display of the percentage and byte count of the upload.
It was a relief that I could see if the upload was actually working. Information at a glance, instead of constant monitoring of my internet connections up and down speeds.
Yousendit also has an excellent resume system. If I get disconnected or if there's a connection error (network timeout), the Yousendit page gives me the following message.
"Error uploading. Retry?"
Retry. It's a beautiful word that brings tears to my eyes. All I have to do is reconnect and click "Retry."
And Yousendit would really try again.
The page would reload with a fresh progress bar. If I'm lucky, the previous upload would have cached on Yousendit's system and instead of starting from 0%, it'd resume from whatever percent the connection fucked up. Maybe it doesn't matter to the people who have 10+Mbps connections, but it's a God-send for us poor shits who have to make do with shitty ISP's.
So let's see, using Yousendit on my slow-ass wireless broadband (a.k.a. SmartBRO) I could upload 10 MB in about thirty minutes. On Gmail, I could only upload about 300kb in the same amount of time. That meant Yousendit is 30 times more efficient. That's such a huge difference that I completely disregarded Gmail's (supposed) capability for attachments.
Until now.
I've been working on a 3D rendering project and am required to send about 32MB worth of JPEGs to my client. Today, on a whim, I tried attaching one image to my Progress Report email.
To my surprise, instead of the usual pointless hypnotic whirling circle, I saw a big black rectangle to the left of my attachment... and it was slowly filling up with blue.
Holy Fuck. A progress bar.
Hmmm... I wonder if they've added a resume function. Let's fail an attachment on purpose...
1. Pick attachment.
2. Allow about 10% upload.
3. Disconnect my internet.
4. Wait for fail message...
Holy Double Fuck! Not only is there a "Retry" option, there's also a "Help" option. And "Help" actually helps. It opens up a new tab with a short guide saying you that you need to have the latest flash player installed... Flash? For a simple loading bar you could do with javascript? Whatever. The important thing is that it works.
Now let's test the "Retry" option.
1. Reconnect internet.
2. Click retry.
3. Wait for confirmation...
Holy Fuck in a handbasket!
Not only did it retry the upload without having to ask me to browse for my file again, it resumed from 10% instead of 0%! It's an actual, working resume function! I was able to upload a 7MB image without getting a single "Oops..." error. I'm so happy I could crap my pants!
Crap of pure joy!
Now, as I said, I haven't used the Gmail attachment feature for anything but tiny files (50kb or less) so I'm not sure how long this feature has been around. Maybe this is news to you, maybe it's old hat.
For me at least, it's renewed my faith in Google's services. Sorry, yousendit. Looks like I won't be needing you (as much) anymore.
