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Re: Android Mail Widget (again)

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In article <xn0k9gobnf1vvcy019@news.individual.net>, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> I'm getting a bit confused, does this depend on the version of
> Android or on what the supplier puts on the device?

It depends on all sorts of things.

First, understand that there are two separate apps that are relevant, 
here: the "mail" app and the "gmail" app.

The "gmail" app is Google's own EMail app that was designed for their 
own Google Mail (aka "gmail") system but which (now, at least) also 
works with other EMail systems. This one is provided by Google directly 
and is updated via their Play Store. If you update regularly you will 
always have the latest version (the latest that works on your version of 
Android, anyway) and it should be the same as anyone else's (on that 
version of Android).

The "mail" app is a general EMail client that was written by Google but 
is part of the Android Open Source Project. It was written for IMAP and 
POP3 accounts (including but not limited to accessing gmail using those 
protocols). This app may well have been customized by the provider of 
your hardware -- I certainly have an Asus-specific version of this app 
on my Asus devices. Some vendors have added a lot of functionality to 
this app, others ship it more-or-less as stock. The Asus version seems 
to be able to connect to an Exchange server, for example (not that I've 
tried) while the version on my Sony phone does not.

Different vendors may make different customizations in the "mail" app in 
different versions of Android -- it's entirely up to them.

The stock AOSP "mail" program is defective in a number of ways. One of 
the most irritating of which (for me) is that it fails to create an 
"In-Reply-to" header when composing an EMail reply, so the replies it 
sends break threading in clients like Thunderbird. For this reason I 
never use it, but install K9 Mail and use that instead (other mail 
clients are available -- including the "gmail" app).

> It would be useful if the widget would behave the same way on
> the Android 5.0 device.

Are your Android devices from the same vendor (OEM)? If not their 
widgets may not be compatible at all.

I'm not sure whether the various mail widgets I've seen are 
vendor-provided or part of the AOSP project. I had a mail widget on an 
old HTC phone that displayed the contents of the most recent EMail(s), 
and I've seen versions of something similar on different devices. The K9 
mail app has a companion widget that just displays a mail icon with an 
unread count superimposed which, when tapped, opens K9.

I hope this doesn't just muddy the waters!

-- 
Cheers,
 Daniel.
 

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Android Mail Widget (again) "Jeff Gaines" <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-08-07 10:01 +0000
  Re: Android Mail Widget (again) VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-07 23:15 -0500
    Re: Android Mail Widget (again) VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-08 00:08 -0500
      Re: Android Mail Widget (again) "Jeff Gaines" <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-08-08 13:54 +0000
        Re: Android Mail Widget (again) Nigel Wade <nmw@local.domain> - 2016-08-08 15:52 +0100
          Re: Android Mail Widget (again) "Jeff Gaines" <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-08-08 15:16 +0000
            Re: Android Mail Widget (again) Nigel Wade <nmw@local.domain> - 2016-08-09 09:30 +0100
  Re: Android Mail Widget (again) Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-08-09 13:43 +0100
    Re: Android Mail Widget (again) "Jeff Gaines" <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-08-11 12:32 +0000

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