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Hotmail scrolling returns: negative feedback spurs changes

Dec 18, 2008 11:55 pm by Kip Kniskern | 9 comments

After thousands of comments and negative feedback about changes made last month to Hotmail, and after “reviewing how users at various monitor sizes and resolutions were using our product”, Windows Live Wire is reporting that the Hotmail has updated the new Hotmail to scroll like the old one did. According to the post:

To make your Hotmail scroll like classic Hotmail, you’ll need to turn the reading pane off:

Click the Inbox folder.

Click Options (upper-right, below the sign-out link).

Under Reading pane settings, click Off.

We’re also including other fixes. Here are a few highlights, and thanks for suggesting them:

When you’re done choosing contacts to send your message to, click anywhere outside the contact picker window to close it and go back to typing your message.

We fixed an issue where some users couldn’t select the last contact in the list.

Holding down the Shift key and clicking a message in the inbox now opens that message in a new window, as it did in the past.

We’ve changed the links in the header at the top to match the rest of Windows Live and point to more great Windows Live services.

Hotmail users are being greeted with a notice when they log on to alert them to the changes, if you haven’t seen it already, you should be seeing it soon.

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http://www.liveside.net/members/joeale/default.aspx joeale

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http://www.liveside.net/members/DeathSeeker/default.aspx DeathSeeker

Lameness, the new scolling was the thing I liked most about the new Hotmail. I can turn the reading pane on and then click Full View and get the scrolling back to the good way; but that’s to much effort and an eye sore. I’ll wait until they unrevert this change(which they are bound to knowing them) before I try to use Hotmail again.
http://www.liveside.net/members/DN2004/default.aspx DN2004

glad to see they have changed things. I wish they would allow you to select multiple messages one by one by holding shift like they used too.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars Slimy

Speaking of feedback, what have you guys done to the beautiful LiveSide? :(
http://www.liveside.net/members/CalumJR/default.aspx CalumJR

I agree with Slimy! While LiveSide needed to be updated and I hated the white, this new design is a bit messed up… :/

LiveSino looks amazing though! Why can’t you guys make an agreement with PicturePan2 and use that design?

On the subject of this Hotmail update they obviously need to include a few more changes though (holding shift and slecting multiple messages, recognising of dynamic themes, proper search button, allowing the changing to colours rather than themes across the whole of Windows Live, etc), but it is really good to see that they are listening to our feedback so often!

What was the scrolling problem? I fail to understand what was wrong with the scrolling before and how it has been changed? Please may somebody explain to me?
http://www.liveside.net/members/CalumJR/default.aspx CalumJR

Ooooo they also need the new Windows Live logo favicon and not that horroble old bevelled one, that’s an important update Hotmail, Account and People need to incorporate!
http://edkopp4.spaces.live.com edkopp4

I agree that they really need to go in and change the way that shift and ctrl work when selecting messages. I like that they added a way to easily open a message in a new window, but at the same time I really miss being able to hold down shift to select a whole bunch of messages at once (by clicking the last message of the group I want to select) as well as being able to hold down ctrl and select multiple non-contiguous emails. Whenever I try either one it just pops open the message in a new window. I could have sworn that I was able to properly use shift and ctrl in past versions of Windows Live Hotmail. I use these shortcuts all the time on my computer, and I expect to be able to use them in Hotmail as well.

Also, on a different topic, why can’t I resize the left hand (folder) column in Hotmail? My folder names are far shorter than the width of the column they’re in, and I could use that extra screen space for reading messages or for the message list.
http://www.liveside.net/members/CalumJR/default.aspx CalumJR

About ‘Ctrl-Shift’:

Isn’t Windows Live an extension of Windows? Surely certain behaviours, such as ‘Ctrl-Shift’ should function the same as they do in Windows?

Just a thought…
http://www.liveside.net/members/DN2004/default.aspx DN2004

My thought exactly edkopp4