Can verison 1.8 be configured to show as many messages as 1.7 in Message List?

[Julian]

Dear All,

I am a major fan of Aqua Mail, it's a great app and I have been using it for at least a few years. It's because of apps like this that I am sometimes able to show iPhone users what they are missing. For the money, the updates and work that seems to be put into the product by the developer(s) cannot be criticised.

The latest update, 1.8, in many ways, looks great. But, with most software upgrades, I am normally grateful that it is possible to recreate the way things looked before, even if that means the user might be missing a few of the benefits of the upgrade by doing so. Certainly, what you could do or set up before is, by convention, usually possible with an upgrade, before it is considered ready for release, because an upgrade is the sum of the past plus the new stuff.

I run the Aqua Mail app on two Xperia Z2s, one just on Wi-Fi and the other as my day to day mobile, so, often, when upgrades happen, I can compare the old to the new directly.

When 1.8 landed on my day to day phone, immediately, I had to make quite a few changes to try to get back to something similar to my old Message List view - the two first lines in Message List had been reversed from my previous settings, for example. Most settings I could set as before, because they appear extremely similar, but, while in the older version, with the fonts set to normal and first line email sender, second line subject and third line being one line of preview and my device screen zoom (volume down) at its lowest, I could get say 14 or 15 messages on the screen (with slim padding); with the new version and similar settings, I could see only about 9 messages. I tried altering the fonts to one level lower, but it doesn't really help much. The conclusion is that the way the Message List view is portrayed on the phone screen is not the same in this version (1. as before for the same settings and, for my personal Message List view, there are no settings that replicate the Message List view of the previous release.

I think this may be because the box to the left of messages seems to require more vertical space (above and below) than the tick in the previous version did and that the slim padding setting in 1.8 is much less aggressive, if not inactive. Are those the two reasons why I am getting fewer message on the same screen, or is there some other reason?

I have also noticed that the box to the left of messages is noticeably wider and so I see one word or so less of the first line of my emails seen as message preview on the third line, there being less space available.

I am so used to being able to see 15 messages rather than 9 or so, that I feel a real reduction in facility and so I have gone back to the previous version - which I hope I mentioned I think is excellent.

Please may I ask if there is perhaps someway to get the 1.8 version to display as much information in Message List as the 1.7 version does now, that I have been unable to determine? If anyone has any ideas, thank you in advance for your thoughts and help on this.

If nothing can be done now, may I respectfully ask the developers to consider that, at least for me, version 1.8 is not as good as 1.7, because I can't get as many messages onto my screen at the same time? Please may I also respectfully ask you to have a think about how you might be able to remedy this issue in version 1.81; I would be grateful.

Thank you for your time on this, please forgive me if I haven't posted correctly (it is the first time) or have missed previously posted information (I have searched) and regards,

Julian

[mikeone]

Thank you very much for your very detailed review:
...and you nailed the main issue with the new 'modern / fresh' design in version 1.8!

As far as I know, the design team at MobiSystems is already working on this.
However, I'm not sure if they are able (willing) to go all necessary steps in order to remedy all shortcomings.

[mikeone]

For example:
You will find an appropriate option to turn off 'contact images' and/or 'checkboxes' in the next build 1.8.2.205
 

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=5435.msg32377#msg32377
Modify message

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@Julian - please see app settings -> message list and be sure to turn on "slim padding" and turn off "group by date".

I'll take a look at font sizes, think we made some adjustments.

[Julian]

Dear Kostya Vasilyev,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I have already turned on "slim padding" - it seems, as I said, to be much less aggressive than in 1.7, it hardly does anything - is that not correct? Is there any reason why ver 1.8 needs more space between messages in the Message List view than 1.7? Is there any reason to have wasted space between messages?

I would be happy to turn off the checkboxes as mikeone says will be available in 1.8.2. Are they larger than the ticks in 1.7 for some reason, is that what keeps the messages much fatter than 1.7? Would help with the reduced width too.

I have group by date on in ver 1.7 and I did in 1.8 too, it seems roughly equivalent. It's not really an issue when you have a few hundred emails a day, its hardly ever on the screen.

Thank you again for your help and regards,

Julian

[Kostya Vasilyev]

I have already turned on "slim padding" - it seems, as I said, to be much less aggressive than in 1.7, it hardly does anything - is that not correct? Is there any reason why ver 1.8 needs more space between messages in the Message List view than 1.7? Is there any reason to have wasted space between messages?

The "slim padding" still does reduce top / bottom padding, but yes, it is less "aggressive" and yes there are reasons for that, design reasons.

I did register what you wrote about font size (at the smallest size "step") being larger than before.

I will take a look, think there was a change to that and it wasn't really necessary.

I would be happy to turn off the checkboxes as mikeone says will be available in 1.8.2. Are they larger than the ticks in 1.7 for some reason, is that what keeps the messages much fatter than 1.7? Would help with the reduced width too.

Even before 1.8, if you turned off contact images, there would be "checkmarks" next to each message, to provide a way to select messages. So the only change in 1.8 in this respect is that they're now checkboxes, not checkmarks.

And they're standard Android checkboxes, same as you'll see elsewhere in Aqua Mail or any other app on your phone.

No, they're not the reason why message list items are now somewhat taller. And there already is a build (under "Development builds") to hide both contact images and checkboxes.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The "slim padding" still does reduce top / bottom padding, but yes, it is less "aggressive" and yes there are reasons for that, design reasons.

I did register what you wrote about font size (at the smallest size "step") being larger than before.

I will take a look, think there was a change to that and it wasn't really necessary.

Tweaked things, just a little, but it seems to make a difference:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=5451.0

[GfE]

I've been served 1.8.1-193 by google play today, and am really disappointed by the loss of usability for me. On the good side, that's the first time since june 2015 when I purchased aquamail pro.

• The manual "mark as read/unread" button is missing in message view, despite being checked in settings.
  
• Instead of 21 messages in 1.7, my Galaxy S5 screen now fits mere 12 messages at once, along with a *lot* of uninformative screen estate a.k.a. padding. This is really annoying and the main reason I'm adding my 2 cts here.
  
• In 1.8, "tiny" fonts are far from tiny, everything is *much* bigger than before. WTH?!?
  

Pleeease, don't try to "know better" than your users/customers. Give us the choice.
Thank you!

GfE

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The manual "mark as read/unread" button is missing in message view, despite being checked in settings.
Instead of 21 messages in 1.7, my Galaxy S5 screen now fits mere 12 messages at once, along with a *lot* of uninformative screen estate a.k.a. padding. This is really annoying and the main reason I'm adding my 2 cts here.
In 1.8, "tiny" fonts are far from tiny, everything is *much* bigger than before. WTH?!?

Please update to the latest "1.8.2 - hotfix - not in Play yet" build from this forum's "development builds" section.

- It has smaller padding values when you enable "app settings -> message list -> slim padding"

- Uses smaller font sizes at the "default -1" and "default -2" size settings (I mean if you "volume down" once or twice relative to the default font sizes)

- Read/unread button - depends on how many *other* icons you've got selected in app settings -> message view.

[GfE]

Thank you, Kostya, for the quick response.

Meanwhile, I have tried the 1.8.2 hotfix version. Honestly, it does not really change a lot. It just fits *two* more mails into the mail listiing (using "compact" design, smallest fonts, "slim" padding). Alas, the resulting 14 mails view is still far from the 21 mails shown in 1.7, and I would be fine with 24.

Why disallow highly efficient size settings proven useful over years? Up to 1.7, users could simply chose what worked best for them. Agreed, the new theme is modern and beautiful, and if it is dcaled down to a factor of ca. 0.6, I would like it. The current, artificial size restrictions however impose a prohibitive price.

I would highly appreciate if they allowed a wider spectrum of users to stay comfortable with aqua mail. If the smallest and the largest size settings are so far apart that they don't seem to make sense to the average, they are most likely to suffice.

Regarding button counts: apparently also a padding issue, as there's now more space between the buttons and the button set was not changed by the upgrade.
I've managed to make the "read/unread" button visible again by removing "forward (anonymously)" to the menu instead - again, a loss for my finger tips. (BTW, in most apps that don't overly restrict user prefs, I put 10 to 12 buttons in the bottom row. See the attached screenshot of e. g. ghost commander for an idea.)

Regardless, thanks for your time and effort!