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Google’s Gmail team added two nice features to the Webmail application April 15: Drag-and-drop attachments and calendar invites.
Users can now drag-and-drop photos, documents, spreadsheets and other files from their computer to Gmail.
You have to access Gmail Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox 3.6 to enjoy all of this HTML5 goodness.
I dragged-and-dropped a photo, Word document and PDF in that order in seconds using this tool, which Google had automatically enabled. No Gmail Labs tenure here!
My blue arrows point to how the attachment I’m dragging hovers like a ghost or shadow over the attachment box, which turns green. Here’s what the final result looks like:
I don’t share files often from Gmail because I tend to use collaboration apps such as Google Docs for that, but some of the 176 million-plus Gmail users may only use their Webmail to share content. This is a nice, efficient way to do it.
Google said this feature will be supported in additional browsers “as soon as they support this feature.”
The other new, cool tool is the ability to add Google Calendar invitations right within Gmail. You’ll now see this Insert: Invitiation link option when you compose a Gmail:
See it here in the e-mail I just attached files to:
Click that link and see this window of availability for you and the folks you’re e-mailing, assuming you have permission to see their calendars:
After checking your contacts’ availability pick your time for the event, click the “Insert Invitation” button and a preview of the invitation will appear in your e-mail message:
Send the e-mail and the event is propagated across the calendars of you and your contacts. So, instead of switching back and forth between Gmail and Calendar to check contacts’ availability for an event, users can simply send them an invite from Gmail.
Like the drag-and-drop utility, this tool never was a student of Gmail Labs and is another great way to save time using Gmail, which has become increasingly integrated with Google Apps.