Gmail's Pop-Out Composer Is Now Default

Back on October 30, Google rolled out a new type of composer for Gmail: a small box fixed to the bottom-right corner of the screen that can be popped out. Some liked the change, and others decried it as being bothersome or insufficient for their needs. For the Gmail users among us, regardless of whether you liked the new box or grew fond of it over time (or still hate it months later), it is here to stay.

If you haven't dusted off your Gmail account in awhile, the new Gmail composer is designed to allow users to browse through the rest of their email without exiting from the composer box, something many users had apparently requested. For example, composing an email with quotes from past emails is easier with the new composer box because you can rifle through your inbox and various folders without affecting the composer.

The issues with it, however, are that the box is small and located in a slightly awkward location on the screen. This can be fixed by popping it out of the frame so that it becomes its own free-floating window, but then you have to deal with toggling between windows if you're messing around in your inbox, which may or may not be more inconvenient to you than switching between "Drafts" and "Inbox."

If you don't like the new composer, it would seem you're in the minority, at least according to Google, which has made it default for all Gmail users. If you haven't been using it up until this point, you'll be seeing it today (and forever after) or sometime in the next few days as Google rolls it out. What do you say? Is the new-ish composer box a keeper, or are you already grieving over the change?

[via Official Gmail Blog]