Have you ever seen a solution for the mailto: that opens Outlook Express when you want Gmail etc.?
I’m wondering if I should devote time and resources to building a solution I’ve named MailToPro that will detect mailto: links on any given page and when those links are clicked there will be a popup that will allow the user to effectively start the app on his computer or else redirect to Gmail, Hotmail, etc. — do you know of anything like this, or will I be bringing a good solution to market if I develop it? Thanks for any feedback.
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We can already choose the default mail program (or website) on our computers, and clicking Mailto: links already launches that default mail program.
What problem, exactly, is your solution solving?
There is no real solution to this. The procotol you see before a link (mailto, ftp, http, etc) is handed off to the operating system for it to handle. Since Gmail isn’t an application installed on your computer, the browser has to be taught to take you to your Gmail page whenever a mailto link is encountered rather than passing it off to the browser.
There’s an extension for Chrome that does this, and I’d bet good money there’s a pile of them for Firefox like this one. These only apply to Gmail, but with Firefox I’m sure there’s something similar for Yahoo and Hotmail.
Install the Gmail notifier:
http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/
Because it acts as a mail client, any mailto protocol links will open Gmail for you (even ones outside of your browser). You also get a notification on your toolbar when you receive new email.
While I wouldn’t discourage you from developing your own solution, this is the official Google one.
Hope this helps!
I use a thing called Mailfrom for Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6354
I’m not sure if this is the same thing as your visionary idea or not. Seems like its similar. I use it to press a mailto link and it automatically opens up my favorite email account with a letter to compose.
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