Make extra space to read messages by removing pin button and toolbar

Make extra space to read messages by removing pin button and toolbar

If you use a netbook or laptop, you might like to reduce the amount of space taken by the system so that you can see more of your email messages on the screen. This post explains how to get rid of the pin icon and how to do without the message-view toolbar. On my system (Acer Aspire One, running Opera 11.62 and Win XP, with the message list on top showing 5 messages) I get 21 lines for my messages instead of 17 lines - a gain of nearly 25%! You don't lose functionality because you can make your messages pinned by right-clicking them.

1. To get rid of the pin icon:
1a: Turn off Opera (so copy these instructions!).

1b: Find the Opera UI folder - something like C:\Program Files\Opera\ui and locate the file widgets.yaml.

1c. Make a backup copy of widgets.yaml in My Documents or anywhere you will remember to find it if you need to.

1d. Check that Opera is not running, go back to the Opera\ui folder and open widgets.yaml in Notepad (doubleclick the file and when the unknown file-type dialog opens click 'Choose from a list' and select Notepad).

1e. Search for FlagButton. It occurs 3 times. The first time is near the top of the file, in a section called Definitions. You can ignore it.

1f. The second occurrence is about one-third of the way down the file. Insert ## in 7 lines as shown:

type: StackLayout
                orientation: vertical
                elements:
                 ## - type: StackLayout
                 ##   orientation: horizontal
                 ##   preferred-width: fill
                 ##   elements:
                 ##     - *MailSubjectLabel
                 ##     - *MailDateLabel
                 ##     - *MailFlagButton
                  - type: DynamicGridLayout
                    preferred-width: fill
                    name: CustomHeaderGrid
                    vcenter: false

1g. The third occurrence of FlagButton is nearly at the bottom of the file. Insert ## in 10 lines as follows:

 - type: SkinElement
                    skin-image: Mail Window Feed Item Header Texts
                    preferred-width: fill
                    content:
                  ##    type: StackLayout
                  ##    orientation: horizontal
                  ##    preferred-width: fill
                  ##    elements:
                  ##      - type: Label
                  ##         name: hl_Author
                  ##     - type: Empty
                  ##       preferred-width: fill
                  ##      - *MailDateLabel
                  ##      - *MailFlagButton
            - *MailWindowToolbarGroup
            - *MailWindowBrowser
  - type: SkinElement

1h. Save the file, close Notepad and restart Opera. The pin button should have disappeared and the Mail Headers pane will be about 2 lines shorter. If it doesn't work, make sure that the file you edited was the one in the Opera\ui folder and not the backup in My Documents.

1i. If you have any problems with Opera as a result of these changes either go back and remove the ## or just delete the file and replace it with the backup version.


2. To remove the message-view toolbar - I'm referrring to the toolbar that appears immediately above the message headers:
2.1 Right-click the toolbar, choose Customise >> Appearance and then drag the buttons you want to keep (reply, read, label, spam, delete etc) to the bar above the message list, which is nearly empty (it has a search window on the left and two wrench buttons on the right).

2.2 Then make sure the lower toolbar is highlighted and set placement to 'off' (in the dialog box, toolbar tab). This should give you another 2 lines for your messages.

I hope it works well for you!
Tim

Originally posted by Trombone:

1. To get rid of the pin icon:

Thanks for figuring that out. I was only able to hide it via widgets.yaml and not actually get rid of it.

And today I gained an extra line by reducing the padding above and below the headers:

Close Opera and find the skin.zip file in the \skin subdirectory of your Opera installation.
Extract the file skin.ini and open in Notepad.
Search for Mail Window Message Toolbar and adjust the Padding Top and Padding Bottom values (default 15 and 10 resepctively). You could set them to zero, but the result looks horrible - I suggest you try setting them to 5 as in the example below:

[Mail Window Message Toolbar]  
Colorize		                            = 1  
Type		                            = BoxStretch
Tile Center         = backgrounds/mail-header-background.png  
StretchBorder       = 1  
Text Color	               	= #48494c  
Padding Left        = 30  
Padding Right       = 20  
Padding Top		      = 5  
Padding Bottom		= 5

Save and close skin.ini and drag it back into the zip file.
Restart Opera.

Good work. Thanks.

If you want, you can add a "How to Remove Pin Button on Message Header Bar" thread at here. If not, I'll add one later and give ya credit.

Thanks, that' looks like a really useful board you've put together. I'll be happy to post there in the next day or two (I'm still doing a bit of tweaking).

Originally posted by Trombone:

I'll be happy to post there in the next day or two (I'm still doing a bit of tweaking).

I see you made the post. Thanks.