Hands-On Report--Letterbox 0.16, A Really Cool Mac OS X "Application"

Actually, Letterbox by Aaron Harnly is not an application but a bundle that modifies the mail preview pane in Apple Mail to locate it beside the folder and mail list columns instead of under the mail list to better accomodate wide screens (see image below, courtesy of Aaron Harnly). Letterbox is free.

Version 0.16 is a bug fix. It now has an installer and its own icon rather than a generic folder icon. The installer is also an uninstaller in case one does not like the effect.

We have used Letterbox since the 0.10 release and despite being still a 0.1x release, it is stable. Aaron lists only three known minor bugs.

The only "secret" to using Letterbox is that the fine gray line at the right side of the scroll bar to the right of the mail list controls the size of the mail preview pane when the cursor changes to a double arrow. See image at right (Courtesy of Aaron Hanley). So,

• If the preview pane is closed, place the tip of the mouse cursor over the line and it will change to a double-arrow cursor then double click to open it.
• To resize the preview pane, click-drag to the left or right on the same line after the cursor changes to a double-arrow.

Aaron lists four to-do items to improve Letterbox that he plans to work on over the next couple of weeks:

• Preference pane to switch between 'Message right of list', 'Message below list', and 'Message left of list'
  
• Menu items and keyboard shortcuts for same.
  
• Options for alternate-colored-rows in the message list, and a few other tweaks.
  
• (Eventually) An Outlook-style view with message subjects on a second row below the date and sender info. This will probably be tough & I'll be recruiting helpers for this task.

Letterbox has worked great on our Mac mini Core Duo and 15" MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.4.6. We wish Aaron luck with this very useful mod to Apple Mail. [Bill Fox]