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Submission details

17 +19/-2 votes

[Windows Live Mail] Let users manage images images!

Submitted by pmbAustin on March 7, 2009 to Aesthetics, Annoyance, Usability

I absolutely hate the "Photo Email" feature. It robs me of any and all control, and never does what I want. The closest I can come to doing what I want is to save the image to disk (I can't just paste it in), and then select "Insert Image Inline".

I never EVER want a "photo email", and want to be able to completely turn that feature off. I don't want my images to be tiny thumbnails, uploaded somewhere else, requiring users to click on them in a separate step to actually see the photo. It's also highly unintutive, the way it works, how you format and control things like size and captions. Ugh. Just get rid of it. Or at least let me control it with some option somewhere so I can turn it off.

I want to be able to just hit "Ctrl-V" and be able to simply paste the image inline, just like I've always been able to do on every other email client in the universe, including Micorsoft's own Outlook and Outlook Express.

I also think you should just rethink the entire feature, as it just seems frustrating to use. It also violates the idea of the user being "in control"... it completely removes contorl and requires the user to jump through hoops to do what they actually want.

1) Provide an option to "turn off" the "picture email" feature, so that all photos are inline at full size by default

2) Let it be an OPTION to enable users to format the picture in different ways (resize it, add captions, add effects)... the DEFAULT should be "inline, fullsize, no bells and whistles"

3) Consider just eliminating this feature since it's so unintuitive and frustrating, and no other email client I know of behaves that way, which makes it feel very inconsistent.

High

High

Not fixed

Discussion (4 comments)

.Chris wrote on March 7, 2009, 2:43am

I agree. Microsoft must stop forcing features on its users

+11111111111111111111111111

FremyCompany wrote on April 7, 2009, 4:02pm

I don't like this feature too. It can be useful, I never said anything else, but it is currently too agressive, because you can't really choose !

Calum.Cook wrote on May 31, 2009, 2:04pm

I liked the frame effects at first, but they just annoy me now. +1

pmbAustin wrote on March 8, 2010, 3:03am

Sad to see the screen caps of wave 4 that "Picture Emails" have been promoted into a first-class up front feature. Ugh. I hope this means I have to make a conscious effort to trigger this feature... if I just drag-n-drop or copy/paste an image into an email, I hope it just does the right and obvious thing, and doens't "switch" to being one of those confounded "picture emails".

Such a horrible, unintuitive, frustrating "feature". The ONLY way it should work is after I paste a picture in, I should be given the option to format it and change it into one of those "picture email" things... though god knows why anyone would ever want to. I've never figured out what the purpose is, or why anyone thinks this is a good idea.

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