Google Integrates Chat with Gmail

[Jeff]

Google has announced new features further integrating Google Talk with Gmail. Google Talk chat history can now be saved in your Gmail inbox, right with your emails. You can manage your logged chats just like an email. And later this month Google will be rolling out additional web chat features that let you chat directly from any supported web browser.

One feature that I like is the "off the record" feature. This let's you specify if a particular chat should not be logged by either party. According to Google:

"Going off the record applies to individual people, and is persistent across chats. That means once you go off the record with a particular person, you will always be off the record with him or her, even if you close the chat window."

Of course, this doesn't prevent your chat partner from using some other method of saving the chat transcript such as cut-and-paste to Notepad, but it does keep your Gmail archives clean.

I've tested this with my own Google Talk account and Gmail, and it works pretty well. Chat logs are stored in a separate section. It's a nice touch, and when the Google Chat option appears, it will be better still.

[MrEggsalad]

That's awesome, now just making it all the easier to chat, and I can use Gmail itself when I'm away and don't have GT with me to chat with my peeps.

[shifter]

Very handy place to store Gtalk logs! It will also be interesting to see how the live chat will integrate within Gmail itself.

[narayanan]

Here's a find from my friend Fred: Offline messaging exists, but in a hidden way.

Before you try this, you and your friend both should have chat archiving enabled, especially for that user. I dont know if it works with 'Off the record', it should'nt technically.

As your friend to logoff, try sending him a message now.

You will get an error message like: blahblah@gmail.com is offline and can't receive messages right now.

Now ask you friend to check his chat folder, he should find that as new entry.

[shifter]

It seems that Google is allowing some users a sneak peak at the integrated chat functionality. My boss was complaining this morning about an annoying new Gmail box that pops up over every contacts name. Having used Gmail this morning, I was confused as everything seemed normal to me. I logged into her account and sure enough, she has integrated chat abilities! She of course would like nothing to do with this, and promptly disabled it. I checked my accounts, and nothing. Here's a screeny of the annoying new chat infobox that appears over every single email contact (as you mouseover them).

[Jeff]

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they switched on the integration on my Gmail account yesterday.

You can see the "Quick Contacts" in the left hand column below the navigation menu, and a sample chat window in the lower right corner. It doesn't work if you're using an SSL connection (i.e. https://gmail.google.com), only the standard http:// site gives you the integrated chat functionality, at least for now.

The chat windows pop-up using AJAX within the browser window, but can be split out into their own browser window (and collapsed back in later, if you choose).

There's one thing I really don't like about this --- no notification! I typically run Gmail in Firefox, with about 10-12 tabs open. There's no notification of an incoming chat message, either visual or audible. Unless you're looking at your Gmail page, you might miss incoming messages. Other than that, it's pretty cool.

[shifter]

Ah so that's the trick, you need to lose the SSL! I use Gmail manager for FF and it uses the SSL by default, so I've been wondering why Gmail gave me a big announcement about having chat integrated and it was same ol' same ol. I switched to the regular http and bingo, I've got my integration I've been waiting so patiently to try out!