Getting Rid of Gmail Image Placeholders

A Former User

Hi All

Just switched to Opera from a very old, very beloved, but increasingly malfunctioning Firefox installation.

I've been delighted to discover how many of my "must have" extensions have equivalents or work-arounds in Opera.

I have really only two problems at the moment, both with gmail. In this post I'll inquire about suppressing the "placeholder" that displays when you have gmail set to not display images by default.

Background: I work exclusively on a laptop (i.e. smallish screen) and many people routinely send me huge embedded pictures in emails that can't be seen on one screen and push the associated text and important function buttons off-screen to the right. So I have to page left and right to read or to reply/forward, etc.

I haven't succeeded in persuading them to stop doing that: It's like whack-a-mole: I get person A to stop, then person B and A starts up again. People are so used to cut-'n'-paste there's no hope of gaining compliance from everyone I deal with.

In Firefox this was easily solved by not displaying images by default. The text would then flow/wrap properly and the button were again easily accessible. The image is completely absent.

Much of the time the image is extraneous but I could still view it once if necessary, then refresh my screen and for the rest of the life of the thread never have to be bothered by it again.

In Opera however a large "placeholder" (empty box) displays in place of the image and the size of the image, which leaves me with the same problem as having the image there would create.

I'm wondering if uBlock Origin could be configured to suppress the empty box (I'm just a user, not a programmer, so I would need guidance). Or maybe even some setting on Opera hidden somewhere in the configuration.

Any help would be appreciated.

A Former User

I've done some research on this and had partial success.

There's a Chrome extension called Gmail Inline Image Fit, which at least keeps the box within the screen's width, but there's still a huge empty box in the middle of the email.

The next thing I tried was applying a Stylish script that I found here (last post in the thread) - it's not designed for Opera but I thought I might get away with doing the Chrome version - I thought wrong. I don't know how to tailor it, as I'm just at the "cut and paste" level when it comes to scripts.

This Stylish script option appeals to me as it offers the possibility of being able to directly specify the height and width of the placeholder, which I would choose to make very small.

A Former User

Update:

Managed to find a barely acceptable work-around.

I tried and tried to get a Stylish script going that would reduce the box size, but although I could adjust the width nothing I did would reduce the height - in fact I think the height increased as instead of paging, paging to the right I found myself having to roll, roll down to get past the graphic.

In fact, I think this is a bug. If you elect not to show images in gmail, Opera should not show images, or boxes the same size.

Anyway, my work-around is clumsy but it will have to do. Since I had no luck with sizing I went for the nuclear option and did this script:

.h7 {
max-width: none;
}

p.MsoNormal > img {
display: none;
}

In other words completely suppress the image altogether regardless of the settings for each person in your address book. I have no idea if all that code is necessary - I just cut and pasted some other code and put "display: none;" in place of what was there (dimensions that didn't do what I wanted).

So, what happens when I do have to actually see the image? I toggle Stylish off and it magically appears, as long as I ALLOW images from everybody (ironic, huh?).

Only two clicks instead of one, so I can live with that.