It’s great when developers respond to the genuine needs of users and produce something simple that makes a big difference to your working day. The development of Letterbox is one such application after a request by a user on an Ars Technica forum to create a plugin that allows Mail to take advantage of widescreen displays.
Letterbox makes using Mail a much easier experience. It’s ideal for those using Powerbooks, MacBook Pros and those with cinema displays although it’s appropriate for anyone with a widescreen monitor. Being able to manage your mailbox and organize it in widescreen can also increase your productivity by making everything clearer rather than squeezing it all into a small space.
Note that installation of Letterbox might be a bit tricky for the first time user as you have to do it manually. Firstly, you need to create the folder “~/Library/Mail/Bundles” if you’ve never installed a Mail plugin before. Secondly, you need to open Terminal and type “defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles 1”. Finally, copy the “Letterbox.mailbundle” into “~/Library/Mail/Bundles”. You have to quit and restart mail for these settings to take effect.
From here you can use a GUI to customize everything. You can customize Letterbox’s settings in the preference pane by select the menu item “Mail:Preferences”. You can also change the preview pane position which is useful if you regularly switch between a laptop monitor and an external monitor. Just go to “View:Preview Pane menu”.
Letterbox works by rearranging Mail into 3 separate columns. It removes the vertical nature of Mail and eliminates things such as placing the preview screen under the message list making it far more suitable for widescreen monitors. However, it would still be nice to be able to change order of the columns. For instance, it would be nice to see the message in the middle column because that’s where you naturally focus on your inbox.
Overall, Letterbox is a must have Mail plugin for anyone working on a widescreen monitor and will probably become a standard feature of Mail in future releases.
