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Old 26 Jan 2021, 10:05 PM   #1
evfrson
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: London/Tokyo/Dubai
Posts: 149
Assigning labels to emails annoyance

In Fastmail webmail to assign a label to an email it is necessary to first select the label from the drop-down list and then click the save button.

Anyone else find this extra step of having to click save annoying ?

Why can't the label be applied as soon as it is selected ?

Or am I missing an option to change this behaviour somewhere ?

thanks,

Robin
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Old 27 Jan 2021, 10:56 AM   #2
pjroutledge
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Melbourne, Oz
Posts: 126
Best reason I can think of is so that multiple labels can easily and quickly be applied to individual emails.

If you only ever want to apply a maximum of one label to emails you'd probably be better off using folders instead.
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Old 28 Jan 2021, 10:02 AM   #3
n5bb
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Irving, Texas
Posts: 8,917
Arrow Labels Save requirement and useful keyboard shortcuts

I have been using labels mode since this feature was in early beta. If I remember correctly, the early beta version of this feature worked as you are wishing. By the time it was released to production, they fortunately added the requirement to Save before exiting the label modification dialog. Here are the reasons I believe they made this change. With the old system you are requesting:
  • If you removed the label corresponding to the label you are viewing, the message would immediately disappear, since it would no longer be assigned that label.
  • If you wanted to add more than one label, you had to repeatedly find the message and add the new label.
Here is a specific example: Let’s say you are viewing a new message in your Inbox and want to add the Friends and Space label and remove it from your Inbox.
  • If you removed the Inbox label first, the Label dialog immediately closed and the message disappeared from your Inbox. To find it you had to then look in All mail or search to find that message based on something you remembered about it. Then you could add the first label. You then had to find that message another time to add the second label.
  • So it would be much better to add the Friends label, then add the Space label, and finally remove the Inbox label.
In the current system, you execute the following steps making use of keyboard shortcuts:
  • When viewing the message you want to change, use the lowercase "L" keyboard shorcut to open the Labels dialog.
  • Then type "i" fo find the Inbox and press the Enter key to toggle the checkbox.
  • Then type fhe first few characters of the Friends label and press Enter to toggle.
  • Then enter the first few characters of Space label and press the Enter key to toggle.
  • Finally use CTRL-Enter to save your changes.
  • Of course, you can also do some or all of these steps with a mouse.
One way to improve your flow is to use rules to add the labels you desire to certain messages (such as messages from a friend or messages about space topics). Then when reading that message in your Inbox, just Archive that message using your mouse or the lowercase “Y” keyboard shortcut. This will remove the Inbox label and not affect those other labels which were added by your rules. This is a good way to read new messages from a source who sends you many messages a week but quickly get them our of your Inbox and into the desired labels with a single keyboard press.

Remember that keyboard shortcuts must be enabled in Settings > Preferences > Advanced > Keyboard shortcuts. The lowercase “Z” keyboard shortcut will undo the last action, so it can remove an accidental archive (lowercase “Y”) or delete (lowercase “D”) action.

Bill
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Old 28 Jan 2021, 07:20 PM   #4
evfrson
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: London/Tokyo/Dubai
Posts: 149
Thanks Bill.
You made some interesting and useful points there which I appreciate.
Certainly you have explained why the system is as it is, which of course would be much harder to use without the 'save' button.

Robin
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