[Macworld.com]

Letterbox lets you move Mail's preview pane to the right. [more]

[NaOH]

It is an open secret, in the Mac tech community, that Apple actually have a request and feedback email address.
If you want a feature added to an app.
If the way a particular app is designed irks you.
If there is a new technology out there that Apple really should put in the next edition of Mac OS X.
Tell them about it!
Email feedback@apple.com
The system operates purely on the basis of volumes of emails received with a particular topic.
So, if enough people tell Apple that they want the option of a three-column view in Mail.app, Apple will listen.
(Having that as an option makes perfect sense to me, as it simply takes the Finder's column view and applies it to Mail.app.)

[AppleHead]

I am about to take advantage of that fact. The problem with Mail's preview feature is that it doesn't preview, but rather opens the e-mail if the blue dot signifying unopened mail which goes away after "previewing" means anything. This means that when you check to see if something is junk mail or not, you encourage the sender to send more since it is marked as opened.

[Netizen_Kane]

What's the big deal about the preview pane not showing 30 lines of the message? It's a preview pane after all. It's like complaining that the graphic, PDF or video preview in the Finder's column view isn't full size. If you want to see the file in its full glory, you double click to open it. Ditto with mail. If you want to see a mail message taking up the full screen, double click on it (enlarge the new window as necessary). The only thing you sacrifice by opening the message in a new window is that you can't jump from message to message by using the cursor keys. But you make the same sacrifice after opening a file from the Finder.
Or you can just buy a nice, high resolution screen. With my 20", I can see most of a page in the preview pane.

[Dan Frakes]

Although it may be called a "preview" pane, it's clearly designed to let you fully work with messages within that pane; many people never open messages separately. And there are clear advantages to a right-hand preview pane; for example, being able to view more messages in the message list is a big one for me and why I use this option in Entourage and NetNewsWire.
As with many things in life, people have different preferences and different ways of working. Given that many people prefer a right-hand preview pane, I don't see the problem with third-party vendors (or, eventually, Apple) providing it.

[whitedog]

Thanks for the feedback link reminder. I'd forgotten about it. Anyway, I sent off an e-mail asking for the right-hand preview pane in Mail. Hopefully this article will generate enough additional feedback that Apple will take notice.

[mgmw]

The only plugin tragically missing from your list, Dan, is Mail Appetizer. The developer seems to have abandoned it since the advent of Leopard and it is sorely missed. Can you PLEASE use your influence to get some other developer to adopt and revive it?

[Dan Frakes]

Have you tried MiniMail? I like it a bit better than Mail.appetizer:

http://www.macworld....7/minimail.html