New Zenbe Features – July 28, 2008
July 28th, 2008 by Tom Alison · comments · http://blog.zenbe.com/ujynwWe rolled out some new features to zenbe.com yesterday. Here’s a breakdown of what’s new:
Better File Previews – Including Audio and Video
Did you know that you could preview file attachments without even opening the email? Click on the attachment icon in the email message listing and you’ll get a dialog box like the one below. You can tag, download, delete, star and even edit the name of the file. All of your changes will be reflected in the Files tab. You can also click on the image and get a larger preview.
You can also preview audio and video files right within Zenbe:
More Powerful File Attacher
When you attach a file to an email message, you can either upload a new file or choose one that you already have on Zenbe. Finding files to send as attachments that are already on Zenbe just got easier. Now you can search and filter your files in the attacher to quickly find the file you want to send.
Attachment Thumbnails
When you add attachments to an email you can now see thumbnails of the attachments you’re adding. This is a great way to preview the pictures you’re sending:
When you open an email with attachments in it, we’ll show you thumbnails of each of the attachments. Click on any of the thumbnails to get a file preview where you can do more:
If you don’t want to see the thumbnails, just click on the arrow to collapse them.
Basic Signature Support
You can now set a signature on all your outbound emails. Click on “settings” in the upper-right corner and then add your signature text to the Signature field. Your signature will show up at the bottom of the email composer when you create a new message.
International Calendar Options
You can now specify different date and time formats in the main calendar. Go to the Calendar tab, click on the settings icon on the right hand side of the toolbar, and click on “Time + Date Options”. Your settings will take effect when you refresh your browser.
Better Rules and Accounts UI
In the Mail tab, click on the settings icon on the far-right side of the toolbar to access your external email accounts and to create and edit rules. This icon replaces the “Manage Mail and Rules” button that used to be under your tags in the left-hand sidebar.
An Easier Way to Search By Tag
Click the pulldown arrow next to the search field in the mail tab. When you hover over the “tag:” menu item you’ll get a list of your tags that you can click on to easily search by tag. You can click on one tag or on multiple tags to construct a search.
Package Tracking
When you open an email with a package tracking code from UPS, FedEx, DHL or USPS we’ll link that code to the site where you can view detailed package tracking information.
New Users: Resend Your Confirmation Email
Some new users have told us they have not received their confirmation email, or they accidentally entered an incorrect alternate email address. If you are a new user, you can now login to the site and elect to resend the email confirmation or change the address to which the confirmation is sent.
More Ways To Add Users to a Network
Networks allow you to group contacts in order to email multiple people at once and keep your address book organized. You can now add a user to a Network simply by hovering over their name in an open email and choosing “add to network…”
“Zenbe This” Bookmarklet
We’ve created a “Zenbe This” bookmarklet that you can drag to your browser bookmark toolbar. When you click on the bookmarklet it will open up a email composition window in Zenbe with a link to the current page you are viewing. It makes it super simple to send links to yourself or to your friends.
To install, drag the link below to your browser’s bookmark toolbar.
What’s Next?
We’re getting ready to do an internal alpha test of our conversation view and IMAP server. Hopefully we’ll be able to offer this to our Beta users a bit later this summer.
Also watch for version 1.2 of Zenbe Lists for the iPhone which fixes many of the bugs users have reported on the forums.
We’re also fixing bugs, particularly with the contacts importer, and working on new user interfaces to make it easier to find email from the people that are most important to you.
Thanks again to all the users who continue to give us feedback. Sometimes we can’t respond to everything, but we are listening and incorporating many of your great suggestions.
Is it me or is the “Zenbe This” bookmarklet not working?
Nevermind I got it! lol. When I copied it straight from GReader it didn’t work but it does now.
Charnita,
What’s happening? Are you not getting a pop-up window?
Ah! Thanks for the update!
Great work !!! I love the ability to see pictures before opening an email. Also, now that a signature has been put in, now I no longer need to retype my info each time I send an email.
Thanks and keep up the great work.
Carter
NICE UPDATE!!!
PLEASE add HTTPS support. It allows me to get around my works corporate web filter. Gmail supports it!
OK, if “Zenbe this” thing could recieve “to” parameter (message recipient), users will get mailto handler for firefox3 like this http://lifehacker.com/392287/set-firefox-3-to-launch-gmail-for-mailto-links
P.S. I tried
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”http://www.zenbe.com/messages/init?enabled[]=viewer&enabled[]=composer&context=composer&message=draft&type=popup&subject=&body=&to=%s”,”zenbe”)
but it dont work as expected.
@maniac,
We actually have a FF3 protocol handler ready. The reason it didn’t work for you is that I believe the registerProtocolHandler call needs to be made from a page served by http://www.zenbe.com.
I’ll try to get a page put together with that on it so people can start using Zenbe to open mailto links.
Nice new features. Thanks! =)
@Tom,
It almost worked – it opened up a popup with message compose interface, but recipient field was not filled.
It would be great to have a page with instruction.
Keep up good work!
Nice features!
Now all I have to do is wait for the IMAP solution
-
RG
I’ve been following the forums for a while now and considering the outcry for IMAP functionality didn’t begin that long ago, you guys are doing a kick-ass job by being able to offer support for it so soon. It’ll be the clincher for me and I’m looking forward to it.
Excellent new features, too. Kudos!
The new features are excellent. Glad to hear that the contact import fixes are on your radar as well!
Thanks for the update! Keep up with the good work.
well kwl
Sorry, you guys. But I really liked the old thumbnails. Maybe you could combine them? I don’t want to have to download a file just to view it fullsize. I like the little thumbnails in the message, though. But really, you guys need fullsize viewing.
@Caremelita,
When you say you want to view the file in full size, do you mean in Zenbe? You can still do that by clicking on the magnifying glass?.
Or do you mean you want a one-click “open” functionality to open the file in your operating system without having to go through the browser download dialog?
Cheers,
Tom
Wow. I’m in love with zenbe this. I’m constantly sending links out to people, copying and pasting. Love it!
Props! You guys rock!
I tried unsuccessfully to create a rule to forward a message to a cellphone number, is this future not supported by zenbe or I just did it wrong. I guess the recipient cellphone number may has some restriction ( the mentioned cellphone is under a beta testing program with some restriction) I’ve experienced same thing trying to link same phone number with other services like jaxtr, rebtel, jajah and twitter.
Thx for them. I’m waiting for a good rss reader.
First of all: Thank you for an incredible email client. Suits me perfectly.
One question/request though.
Could you test the client with the Opera browser? I’ve yet to find any errors, but I still get the forced “Your browser is not supported”-message upon login, which is minor but still quite annoying.
Hey, nice update. Its nice to able to view attachments thumbnails. Keep up the improvements
Any hope of integration with Plaxo sometime in the future?
I love zenbe! We use this at work to access our work email accounts (which is POP based) One thing we really needed was the signature support, since, like i said, we use Zenbe for work! I’m really glad the signature feature is finally up. I wish it wasn’t so basic though. We need to bold our names in the signature, which at the moment isn’t possible to set yet. I can’t wait for you guys to add more signature power.
Can you amke tags that are in color and can be seen next to the email??
Kudos to you. Thank you for making my life so simple. I couldn’t handle Outlook or Thunderbird and hated incredimail with all its garbage and ads.
You have a true blue fan for life.
I would like to see an iPhone-version of the Zenbe-calendar, or at least to be able to synchronise my to-do list with the calendar, so that the tasks in my calendar could be identical to the tasks in my to-do list.
Can you add a feature to link my mail to my Treo?
Thanks.
I am having a problem with composing a new message. I have cleared cache and cookies. I am using Firefox, but get the same error when trying to use in Safari. Anyone have any suggestions?
@Tyler,
Can you send an email to our feedback at zenbe dot com address with more details about the error message?
Sure Tom! I will also attach a screen shot.
Hi There,
Zenbe looks great and promising, you did great work.
But I am wondering if there is a “group mails by conversation” feature planned? I love this feature and I am missing it right now at zenbe.
Thanks,
Daniel
Tom,
I just wanted to update you. I CAN get the email composer to work and send emails on a different computer using firefox. I don’t know what the issue could be. Could it have something to do with cookies?
@Daniel,
Yes we are actively working on a conversation view. Hopefully we’ll have something to show our users later this summer or early in the fall.
yeah. IMAP would be great. I’m discovering every day nice features of Zenbe, that I nicely can use for my workflow. The one and only feature I’m really missing is IMAP (ok not really the only one, but it is the most importang). So having IMAP (hopefully not in such a strange way as at GMail) would be great. If you want me for beta- oder alpha-testing, feel free to contact me (but I guess, that everyone want’s this
).
Please find a way to sub categorize lists and a better print function for the lists, as well.
Thanks so much. Love Zenbe Lists!
Renae
Love Zenbe Lists, integration with iPhone. Love Zenbe. Now, if we can get Zenbe Lists to be integrated into Zenbe proper, then I wouldn’t need to have two tabs open in my browser (one for each) to use both apps. If Zenbe Lists and Zenbe Tasks were integrated (and syncable with the iPhone), then we have a killer app going on here. Add IMAP, and goodbye Outlook forerver
@Michael,
Good news. We are working on integrating Zenbe Lists with the main Zenbe site – you’ll probably see the integration toward the middle to end of September.
The other good news is that we are pretty close on an initial IMAP offering. I’m using an alpha version to IMAP my email from Zenbe on my iPhone. Right now we’re finishing up some code and fixes and working on a few configuration issues.
I’m going to invite some people to be IMAP alpha testers via the forums sometime soon. If you’re not a forums member, go to http://forums.zenbe.com and set up an account.
Cheers,
Tom
I want a “Zenbe” toolbar. Please.
Any more information on a FF3 mail handler?
@Eric,
Coming up in the next release, which will be available either at the end of this week or early next week.
Thanks Tom. It’s been the ONLY reason I haven’t made a switch to Zenbe. I’m excited about the good news. Thanks so much. Keep up the good work!
@Eric,
Check out the FF3 protocol handler on the bottom of our Goodies page:
http://www.zenbe.com/welcome/goodies
There still may be some kinks, but let us know on the forums if you find issues.
Cheers,
Tom
I posted a bug at the link you provided… seems that when replying to an email with a subject to be sent/embedded that it gets added along with the email address instead of getting directed to the subject line. The compose page does open, I just have to manipulate the email address and subject into their respective places.
this is really really really relly really new & LOVE please
Zenbe looks great and promising, you did great work.
thank you for the bookmarklet !
Concerning the “Networks” option that “allow you to group contacts”, then why not call it contcat grouping, add to a group or something more discoverable ?
(from a french point of view)