Mail Preview Pane

wilder212 · 07-19-2005, 12:36 PM

Does anyone know of how to either change a setting or of a hack that will allow Mail to show the preview pane side by side with the email list instead of on top of one another?
This is an option in Entourage and not having it in mail is driving me crazy. What was apple thinking? Giving everyone widescreen monitors and then diving the screen horizontally? It makes no sense, so I gotta believe there is a way to change that setting within Mail.
Please help

camper · 07-20-2005, 12:47 AM

Hey, GREAT question. I'm with you. This absolutely drives me nuts. I sure hope someone has an answer!

shamrog12 · 07-20-2005, 12:51 AM

Looked around and found nothing that suggests it's possible. Horizontal alignment of those windows doesn't seem very conducive for reading long-winded e-mails or seeing information about attachments, From, Subject, Date Received

Raven · 07-20-2005, 08:04 AM

With wide screens I can understand ourr first poster's point of view. I use Entourage as well and would love to have a similar reading pane thats on the side... On wide screens, when you open it in entourage its more than large enough to accomodate most page widths that people use... After all the format is still on average 80 lines large in emails. So even if the pane is slightly narrower than one that would appear bellow the main window it still remains a very viable option to use...
And plus, Apple has always been on the edge of new, always making sure things are nice clean and pretty for their users... Why not add this option to choose the display position of the drawer ?

jbc · 07-20-2005, 09:27 AM

Fwiw, Gyazmail recently added the three-column, wide view under discussion. Doesn't help Mail.app users, though.

shamrog12 · 07-20-2005, 11:04 AM

I guess I just never thought of needing it. I have two 20" displays next to each other so I have close to 40" of horizontal real estate for a desktop but never made Mail that large on my screens I guess. Is there a way to send feedback about apps to Apple? That might be the first of many steps needed to get this to happen.

wilder212 · 07-20-2005, 12:33 PM

Over in the "Working with OS X" section under "Tweaking OS X / Wish List" there is a post called "Modifying mail.app in Tiger to support a 3-pane, widescreen mode." It's got a solution for this problem but it's also got it's drawbacks.

Here it is:
At first you should proceed like for Panther, going into the mail.app package, into the Resources folder and into English.lproj and modifying MessageViewerContents.nib with Interface Inspector, changing it from horizontal to vertical.

Then I was able to solve the problem pointed out by Xarvia by deleting the two images mainSplitterBar.tiff and mainSplitterDimple.tiff which are in the Resources folder. It is an experimental workaround but it works in my PowerMac.

Here is the drawback:
If you delete the graphics mentioned in the above post, you can't resize the right pane any longer.

Can anyone here fix this?

07-19-2005, 12:36 PM	#1
wilder212 Prospect Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 5	Mail Preview Pane Does anyone know of how to either change a setting or of a hack that will allow Mail to show the preview pane side by side with the email list instead of on top of one another? This is an option in Entourage and not having it in mail is driving me crazy. What was apple thinking? Giving everyone widescreen monitors and then diving the screen horizontally? It makes no sense, so I gotta believe there is a way to change that setting within Mail. Please help

07-20-2005, 12:47 AM	#2
camper Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 1	I sure hope someone has an answer! Hey, GREAT question. I'm with you. This absolutely drives me nuts. I sure hope someone has an answer!

07-20-2005, 08:04 AM	#4
Raven Hall of Famer Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Montreal Posts: 4,782	With wide screens I can understand ourr first poster's point of view. I use Entourage as well and would love to have a similar reading pane thats on the side... On wide screens, when you open it in entourage its more than large enough to accomodate most page widths that people use... After all the format is still on average 80 lines large in emails. So even if the pane is slightly narrower than one that would appear bellow the main window it still remains a very viable option to use... And plus, Apple has always been on the edge of new, always making sure things are nice clean and pretty for their users... Why not add this option to choose the display position of the drawer ? __________________ Waffled foreheads are a symptom of broken keyboards and inexperienced users

07-20-2005, 12:33 PM	#7
wilder212 Prospect Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 5	I found a fix - sort of... Over in the "Working with OS X" section under "Tweaking OS X / Wish List" there is a post called "Modifying mail.app in Tiger to support a 3-pane, widescreen mode." It's got a solution for this problem but it's also got it's drawbacks. Here it is: At first you should proceed like for Panther, going into the mail.app package, into the Resources folder and into English.lproj and modifying MessageViewerContents.nib with Interface Inspector, changing it from horizontal to vertical. Then I was able to solve the problem pointed out by Xarvia by deleting the two images mainSplitterBar.tiff and mainSplitterDimple.tiff which are in the Resources folder. It is an experimental workaround but it works in my PowerMac. Here is the drawback: If you delete the graphics mentioned in the above post, you can't resize the right pane any longer. Can anyone here fix this?

07-20-2005, 12:51 AM	#3
shamrog12 Triple-A Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 160	Looked around and found nothing that suggests it's possible. Horizontal alignment of those windows doesn't seem very conducive for reading long-winded e-mails or seeing information about attachments, From, Subject, Date Received

07-20-2005, 09:27 AM	#5
jbc All Star Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Chico, CA Posts: 686	Fwiw, Gyazmail recently added the three-column, wide view under discussion. Doesn't help Mail.app users, though.

07-20-2005, 11:04 AM	#6
shamrog12 Triple-A Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 160	I guess I just never thought of needing it. I have two 20" displays next to each other so I have close to 40" of horizontal real estate for a desktop but never made Mail that large on my screens I guess. Is there a way to send feedback about apps to Apple? That might be the first of many steps needed to get this to happen.