Mail + News + Calendar (Google … pains/ideas)

Everyday I have two Firefox tabs open permanently. One for Google Mail (Gmail) and one for Google Reader. Usually I will open another tab for Google Calendar. Occasionally I will open another tab, again, for Google Maps and/or Google Documents. That is 4+ Firefox tabs regularly running a Google Web Application, at least 3 everyday. Three Tabs!!! I would love to have one Web Application that managed my email, news and calendar. From a user interface point of view I accept Google Maps and Google Documents being separate, but the other three, surely a MashUp could be made. Still leaving them individually accessible, but, simultaneously, also delivering a combined interface where preferred.

Another thing? Why use frames? Really? Why use pseudo links that do not involve the anchor (<a>) tag? There are other issues too I would guess. To quote the Code of Conduct: “Our goal is to build products that organize the world’s information and make it accessible to our users”. The key word here is organize. Semantic nonsense is not organization. The information is definitely accessible, maybe not to everyone, but “our users” covers that. Not by much though. Organization implies there is some meta-data, and in this case the meta-data should be a semantically valid, preferably XHTML, document. But I digress.

There are other products that provide the above combined interface. Zimbra and Open-Xchange come to mind, and there would be many others. Also, I could use Greasemonkey to merge Gmail and Google Reader, but that is by no means a complete solution. My main issue with both Zimbra and Open-Xchange comes from the enterprise target. They are suitable for large scale deployment, not just for my personal use. Also, Google manages all of the server backend, Google looks after storage, etc… I don’t need to run a full blown infrastructure to manage and store my data.This is a weak argument, perhaps, but really, all I want is to access my information. Google wants to make information accessible to me, and I’m happy to let them. There is no need for me to compete. However, I would like to decide how to access that information, and I would also like it to be organized in a way that suits me.

While the analogy: Having my cake and eating it too; is apt, I would like to try and redeem myself. Here are some ideas that might move towards combining the three applications.

1. Ditch the frames. Each of the applications have a heavy dependency on JavaScript. Use AJAX/AJAH instead.
2. Make the applications more backward compatible, use anchors and real input buttons. Server side this may mean deciding how much the content needs to be wrapped, but it is possible.
3. Widgetize the interface. Let users reposition elements, similar to a the Personalized Home.
4. Better temporary offline support. If the user loses connectivity while writing an email, cache it locally for sending later. Naturally this will fail if the user closes their browser. Hmm, maybe not then. Make this the lowest priority.
5. User Interface: This will be hard!!!
   • Don’t want internal tabs, that defeats the purpose.
   • Question: How do you fit that much information into one screen?
   • Answer: You can’t! But you can fake it.

As a side note: libraries such as libgmail provide an interface to Gmail and Googles GData API interfaces with Google Calendar. A MashUp should technically be possible. I’m not sure if that violates Googles Terms of Service though. It’s definitely a very fine line.