Part II: Keeping in Touch and on Time: Gmail, Talk, and ... - Developers

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<strong>Part</strong> <strong>II</strong>: <strong>Keep<strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Touch</strong> <strong>and</strong> on Time: Gmail, Talk, <strong>and</strong> Calendar
Figure 4-9:
You can
view
conversations
<strong>in</strong>
your Inbox.
Th<strong>in</strong>k of a conversation among people. One person starts talk<strong>in</strong>g, a second
person replies, another person chimes <strong>in</strong>, <strong>and</strong> so on. Gmail keeps track of the
messages, just like the back-<strong>and</strong>-forth of a conversation, to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> context
<strong>and</strong> relevancy.
Stack it up!
Gmail groups conversations by subject, mak<strong>in</strong>g each group of messages <strong>in</strong>to
a conversation stack. Gmail stacks replies, one on top of another, <strong>in</strong> the order
they’re sent. The most recent replies appear at the top of the stack.
Th<strong>in</strong>k of a stack as a pile of cards, each conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the next part of a conversation.
You can tell how many reply cards are <strong>in</strong> the stack by the number that
appears <strong>in</strong> parentheses after the senders’ names, as shown <strong>in</strong> Figure 4-9.
Conversations are automatically brought to the top of your Inbox when someone
replies to one of your messages. This list also displays each message’s
subject l<strong>in</strong>e, followed by a snippet of the message. These bits of <strong>in</strong>formation
give you clues as to what the conversation is about. (Writ<strong>in</strong>g a clear subject
l<strong>in</strong>e really helps you figure out a conversation’s topic.) You can also see the
date a message was sent at the end of the snippet. To view any conversation
<strong>in</strong> the stack, pick it from the list by either click<strong>in</strong>g on the sender’s name, subject
l<strong>in</strong>e, or date. Click <strong>in</strong> any of these places <strong>and</strong> you can open that portion
of the conversation. The conversation appears as a stack of messages, as
shown <strong>in</strong> Figure 4-10.
Not only does the conversational approach rem<strong>in</strong>d you of the context of a
new message, but you can also reply to any s<strong>in</strong>gle part of a conversation. For
example, say you have a conversation go<strong>in</strong>g with two recipients, <strong>and</strong> one
recipient replies directly to you <strong>and</strong> not to the other person. Reply<strong>in</strong>g just to
the sender doesn’t impact the rest of the recipients <strong>in</strong> the stack.