New Gmail features

Google are trying out some new features on Gmail, to give users the opportunity to try them out and feedback to the company before they choose which features (if any) to deploy to their end users.

Gmail product manager Keith Coleman said of the new features:

"The idea is you can do whatever you want, get it out to tens of millions of people, and get feedback."

Trialled features include:

• A quick-link tool that lets people bookmark specific Gmail messages.
• Superstars, which lets people select custom stars to label mail.
• The "e-mail addict" tool that lets people lock themselves out of their e-mail account for 15 minutes.
• A fixed-width font option to view a message within a font whose characters are the same width--handy for some formatting challenges.
  Mouse gestures that let users take actions based on mouse movements.
• Custom keyboard shortcuts.
• Signature tweaks that let people automatically add a signature file above quoted text in an e-mail reply.
• "Muzzle," which conserves buddy-list screen real estate by hiding status messages.

The e-mail addict tool sounds like particular fun. The new options can be tried out under a 'labs' tab on Gmail's settings page.

The company is also thinking about opening up Gmail for 3rd party development in future, a model which has driven huge traffic to sites like Facebook.

Gmail is expected to finally come out of 'beta', which the company expects to do "soon" according to Coleman.