Hacking Gmail
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Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. Used under license. All rights reserved. Gmail is a trademark of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
About the Author
Armed only with a PowerBook and some fine pipe tobacco, Faizan zafar is a
journalist, writer, explorer, and an errant developer and explainer of semantic web
technology. He’s also liable to spread his dirty, dirty words over at The Guardian.
As an Englishman of the clichéd sort, Ben’s angle brackets always balance, and his
tweed is always pressed. He’s not worn trousers for six months now. Ask him
about it sometime.
Contents at a Glance
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Part I: Starting to Use Gmail . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 1,2,3
Desktop Integration
Integrating Your Existing Mail
Gmail Power Tips
Part II: Getting Inside Gmail
Chapter 4: Skinning Gmail
Chapter 5: How Gmail Works
Chapter 6: Gmail and Greasemonkey
Chapter 7: Gmail Libraries
Chapter 8: Checking for Mail
Chapter 9: Reading Mail
Chapter 10: Sending Mail
Part III: Conquering Gmail
Chapter 11: Dealing with Labels
Chapter 12: Addressing Addresses
Chapter 13: Building an API from the HTML-Only Version of Gmail
Chapter 14: Exporting Your Mail
Chapter 15: Using Gmail to
Chapter 16: Using GmailFS
Contents
click to Every Chapter and wait 5 sec click to Skip Ad after click skip Ad you Read the Chapter.
Acknowledgments
Books of this nature are tremendously difficult to write.Without support from
Google (we didn’t ask, admittedly) and with Gmail being in perpetual Beta
throughout the writing process, we often found ourselves with chapters being
made obsolete overnight. Deadlines passed, were rescheduled, passed again.
Editors wept salt tears. Publishers, that sainted breed, were patient and handsome
and generally lovely. Chris Webb and Brian Herrmann, both of the Wiley clan,
stood by the project so faithfully that their names will be forever legend. Men of
the Far North will sing songs to their honor. Justin Blanton, the technical editor,
managed to combine a Law Degree with the task: there’s not enough beer in the
world to pay him back. Thanks to all of them, and everyone else at Wiley.
Introduction
Welcome to Hacking Gmail. Thanks for buying this book. If you haven’t bought it,
you should. It’s very good, and once you buy it you can stop loitering around the
bookstore stacks. Go on: Buy it, sit down, have a coffee. See? Comfier isn’t it? Ah.
Hacking Gmail. It’s a manly hobby, and this book will tell you how. Sorry? What’s
Gmail, you ask? Well, let me tell you . . .
What’s Gmail?
March 31, 2004. A watershed in human history. Google’s web-based e-mail service,
still now at the time of this writing in Beta, and available only to people
invited by other existing users, was launched. Offering a gigabyte of storage, an
incredibly advanced JavaScript interface, and a series of user interface innovations,
Gmail was an instant hit among those who could get access to the system.Today,
more than a year later, Gmail is proving to be one of the flagship applications on
the web—a truly rich application within the browser, combined with the serverbased
power of the world’s leading search engine.
Hacking Gmail?
Of course, all that power just begs to be abused. Power corrupts, as they say,
and hackers are nothing but a corrupt bunch: Almost as soon as Gmail was
launched, hackers were looking at ways to use those capabilities for other purposes.
They investigated the incredibly rich interface, and saw how much of the processing
is done on the user’s own machine; they burrowed into the communication
between the browser and the server; and they developed a series of interfaces for
scripting languages to allow you to control Gmail from your own programs.
This book shows what they did, how to do it yourself, and what to do after you’ve
mastered the techniques. Meanwhile, you’ll also learn all about Ajax, the terribly
fashionable JavaScript technique that Gmail brought into the mainstream.Two
topics for the price of one!
What’s in This Post?
There are three parts to this Post, each lovingly crafted to bring you, young Jedi,
to the peak of Gmailing excellence. They are:
xx Introduction
Part I: Starting to Use Gmail
Where you learn to use Gmail like a professional. A professional Gmail user, no
less. A really skilled professional Gmail user.With a degree in Gmail. A Gmail
ninja. A Gmail ninja with a black belt in Gmail from the secret Gmail training
school on Mount Gmail. You might actually be part Gmail. Perhaps you’ve named
your first born child after Gmail. You live in the Google Headquarters. You are
Larry Page. You get the idea.
Part II: Getting Inside Gmail
Where you find out how Gmail works, and how you can use modern scripting
languages to control it.
Part III: Conquering Gmail
Where you put these new skills to the test, wrangling Gmail into fiendishly clever
uses, totally unlike those Google intended.
Whom Is This Book For?
You. Of course it is. If you picked up a book called Hacking Gmail, you’re very
likely to want it. If you’re a programmer looking to use Gmail in wacky ways, this
book is for you. If you’re a power user looking to hack together scripts to do dangerously
efficient things with your mail, this book is for you. If you’re the parent,
best friend, or lover of someone who answers to that description, this book is for
them, and you should buy two copies. Really. It’s great. And the shiny cover looks
cool, no? I tell you, metallic covers are all the thing.
Hacking Carefully
It must be said here in plain English, and elsewhere by a battalion of scary lawyer
folk, that I take no responsibility whatsoever for anything anyone does after reading
this book. If you lose data; get folded, spindled, or mutilated; or have your Gmail
account suspended, it is not my fault. The fine folks at Google, it has to be said,
have played no part in the writing of this book, and most likely do not approve of
the contents within. They may have me killed. Either way, I take no responsibility
for anything. You’re on your own, kiddo. As am I.
Companion Website
For links and updates, please visit this book’s companion website at www.wiley
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