6 ms·

Nylas N1 now has snooze, swipe actions, emoji, and more

90 points by eibrahim 11y ago

ultramancool 11y ago
Did they get rid of the extra middle server yet or integrate it at least? Seems really annoying when IMAP satisfies basically everything already... makes me think the whole thing is just a ploy to collect as many people's email as possible to be honest.
- vorotato 11y ago
  Additionally what does this have that thunderbird doesn't?
  - ultramancool 11y ago
    Just a pretty UI - although it's node-webkit or electron based I think.
  - r3bl 11y ago
    - Support - Nice design - Chance to make an impact because it's fresh - Pretty much everything stated in this blog post (including, but not limited to, swipe, snooze, emoji support, opportunity to schedule a reply) Don't get me wrong, I am using Thunderbird currently, but this thing really shines in some of the areas where Thunderbird does not. But, I'm going to have to wait until the PGP support is finished before I even consider moving to it.
- grinich 11y ago
  It's not a ploy-- just a design choice. The cloud sync engine does a lot of heavy lifting so N1 is faster and efficient. It's also open source free software so you can run it yourself! https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine (I work at Nylas.)
  - ultramancool 11y ago
    What sort of "heavy lifting" does this do that Thunderbird or Outlook don't? Certainly they're both performant enough. And more importantly, is there any compelling reason to introduce a 3rd party server to do this instead of doing it locally for better user privacy? I understand I can run it myself, however I have to question the design and motivations of the developers.
    - grinich 11y ago
      Probably the biggest thing is that it translates a traditional document-based data structure (mailboxes via IMAP) into a stateless, streaming transactional data structure. This allows N1 to be way more efficient and faster, and only load about 2% of the total data in your mailbox. The sync engine is essentially an abstraction layer for IMAP/SMTP/MIME/etc. This architecture has become pretty common in the past few years: Mailbox, Outlook Mobile (Acompli), Spark, Cloud Magic, Gmailify, and many more run similar systems. Although as far as I know, we're the only one who has open sourced our backend.:https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine We actually released the API layer before N1, and lots of developers use it for their own apps and pay us to run the infrastructure. If you're curious, the full docs here: nylas.com/docs/platform You can pretty easily set up the sync engine and run it yourself, either locally or on a VPC, and connect N1 to that instance. We do this ourselves when developing, and it's the best way to have 100% control over the entire stack. More info here: https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#running-against-open-source-sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#runn... There's a bunch of community developers than hang out in our chat room and can also give you some tips for getting started. You can join that here: http://slack-invite.nylas.com/ http://slack-invite.nylas.com/
      - ultramancool 11y ago
        > Probably the biggest thing is that it translates a traditional document-based data structure (mailboxes via IMAP) into a stateless, streaming transactional data structure. So why can't this be done on the client side? Are you telling me that to avoid storing more data on the clients, they should give up their privacy to whoever operates the server? Not like Outlook or Thunderbird take a substantial amount of time to do most operations. Is this a good tradeoff for them? I understand, yes, technically adept users can run the server, but there's still many who won't, who will use your server or someone else's server and be required to make this tradeoff. Of the products you mention - yes, yours is the only one I'd consider and for this very reason, I can run the middle server myself. I just have to think about those people who won't do it though.
grinich 11y ago
Hi folks -- I work at Nylas and would be happy to answer questions about N1. If you haven't seen it, the code for N1 and the sync engine are both open source available on our GitHub: https://github.com/nylas https://github.com/nylas
- colinramsay 11y ago
  I don't really have much of substance to add but I wanted to say that N1 is shaping up really well. The last two releases have introduced snoozing and unified inbox, which are both strong features. I've had a play around with writing an extension for N1 too and that experience was pretty sweet. So: thanks for your hard work, keep it up!
  - grinich 11y ago
    Glad to hear it-- thanks! :)
- z1mm32m4n 11y ago
  If I snooze on my desktop with N1, will it properly notify me on my phone if I subsequently shut down my laptop?
  - grinich 11y ago
    Yep!
    - z1mm32m4n 11y ago
      Is that still true if I'm self hosting the sync engine on that laptop? Or is it the kind of service that should be run on a separate server?
      - grinich 11y ago
        Ah unfortunately not. Unsnoozing is essentially a cron job that needs to run on a different service.
jwb119 11y ago
This is fantastic, snooze is essential to my email flow and I've been waiting for N1 to release this. Love the additional features like emoji too. Keep it coming.
emergentcypher 11y ago
Does it have encryption yet?
- spang 11y ago
  Not yet! You can track the issue here: https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/96 https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/96
rafael-rinaldi 11y ago
I'm really impressed with how fast this project is evolving. Been keeping up with it for a while and today is the best mail client IMHO. Kudos to all involved.
- spang 11y ago
  Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it. :) (I'm part of the Nylas team)
rmason 11y ago
Anyone interested in developing desktop apps with Github's Electron the folks at Nylas have done several presentations with lots of good information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO9e8r6RQhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO9e8r6RQhE
orky56 11y ago
Thanks for a great product. I like how you guys timed the release with the even of the Mailbox shutdown. I continue to document issues on Github and really appreciate the responsiveness. One thing I'm afraid of is that N1 is developing new features and immediately pushing them too strongly in the UI. Despite all these new features recently, the app's Preferences haven't changed much. Before continuing to push hard on even more new features, it would be great to focus more on the experience: bugs, customizability, design, and extensibility. Bugs: https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues It's hard to quantify but there seem to be pending issues that have been around for awhile. Customizability: As I mentioned, the App Preferences menu has been pretty static despite new updates. If I want to hide certain features from the UI, it should be as simple as doing so from here rather than doing it directly in the code (which is possible and much easier than any other client out there). Design: The ability to import & create own themes is great and makes it very usable. That being said the default themes have very little contrast and have too little white space. In addition, the new icons for Send later, insert email template, insert link tracking, and enable read receipts aren't very clean. Against a gray background in the Light theme they are hard to distinguish as button since they are just icons. Also, with their sketchy design style they add too much detail to support fast twitch reactions necessary for an email workflow. Extensibility: Although each theme is managed separately, I'm curious to learn how the community of developers stays on top of upcoming & new releases with regards to quality and timing. In addition, I haven't much change in the encouragement of plug-ins. I haven't seen new plug-ins recently. I understand it's all about the community and I'm one of them. Hopefully this post is more constructive than offensive. Feel free to reach out for any clarifications or justifications. I'm a diehard user and recommend the product to everyone who struggles with email.
- grinich 11y ago
  Definitely agree with all of the above, and most of these are next on our roadmap. Our next sprint is focused on polish and performance. Stay tuned! ;) Unfortunately GitHub has kind of become a catch-all for general debugging and support from users, so it's not necessarily bugs or feature requests (e.g. https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/1412 https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/1412). Still, it's probably the best place to open issues for suggestions or things you want to see! Thanks for the feedback and the kind words! You can also email me directly via mg@nylas.com
desipenguin 11y ago
I downloaded N1 after reading this post. I do not get such behavior. Instead I see snooze and archive buttons. I am using “self hosted” version, but I don’t think it should matter, since this seems to be “front end” feature. I have Version 0.4.10-4e3595b on OSX (El Capitan)

90 points by eibrahim 11y ago

Did they get rid of the extra middle server yet or integrate it at least? Seems really annoying when IMAP satisfies basically everything already... makes me think the whole thing is just a ploy to collect as many people's email as possible to be honest.

vorotato 11y ago
Additionally what does this have that thunderbird doesn't?
- ultramancool 11y ago
  Just a pretty UI - although it's node-webkit or electron based I think.
- r3bl 11y ago
  - Support - Nice design - Chance to make an impact because it's fresh - Pretty much everything stated in this blog post (including, but not limited to, swipe, snooze, emoji support, opportunity to schedule a reply) Don't get me wrong, I am using Thunderbird currently, but this thing really shines in some of the areas where Thunderbird does not. But, I'm going to have to wait until the PGP support is finished before I even consider moving to it.
grinich 11y ago
It's not a ploy-- just a design choice. The cloud sync engine does a lot of heavy lifting so N1 is faster and efficient. It's also open source free software so you can run it yourself! https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine (I work at Nylas.)
- ultramancool 11y ago
  What sort of "heavy lifting" does this do that Thunderbird or Outlook don't? Certainly they're both performant enough. And more importantly, is there any compelling reason to introduce a 3rd party server to do this instead of doing it locally for better user privacy? I understand I can run it myself, however I have to question the design and motivations of the developers.
  - grinich 11y ago
    Probably the biggest thing is that it translates a traditional document-based data structure (mailboxes via IMAP) into a stateless, streaming transactional data structure. This allows N1 to be way more efficient and faster, and only load about 2% of the total data in your mailbox. The sync engine is essentially an abstraction layer for IMAP/SMTP/MIME/etc. This architecture has become pretty common in the past few years: Mailbox, Outlook Mobile (Acompli), Spark, Cloud Magic, Gmailify, and many more run similar systems. Although as far as I know, we're the only one who has open sourced our backend.:https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine We actually released the API layer before N1, and lots of developers use it for their own apps and pay us to run the infrastructure. If you're curious, the full docs here: nylas.com/docs/platform You can pretty easily set up the sync engine and run it yourself, either locally or on a VPC, and connect N1 to that instance. We do this ourselves when developing, and it's the best way to have 100% control over the entire stack. More info here: https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#running-against-open-source-sync-engine https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#runn... There's a bunch of community developers than hang out in our chat room and can also give you some tips for getting started. You can join that here: http://slack-invite.nylas.com/ http://slack-invite.nylas.com/
    - ultramancool 11y ago
      > Probably the biggest thing is that it translates a traditional document-based data structure (mailboxes via IMAP) into a stateless, streaming transactional data structure. So why can't this be done on the client side? Are you telling me that to avoid storing more data on the clients, they should give up their privacy to whoever operates the server? Not like Outlook or Thunderbird take a substantial amount of time to do most operations. Is this a good tradeoff for them? I understand, yes, technically adept users can run the server, but there's still many who won't, who will use your server or someone else's server and be required to make this tradeoff. Of the products you mention - yes, yours is the only one I'd consider and for this very reason, I can run the middle server myself. I just have to think about those people who won't do it though.

grinich 11y ago

Hi folks -- I work at Nylas and would be happy to answer questions about N1. If you haven't seen it, the code for N1 and the sync engine are both open source available on our GitHub: https://github.com/nylas https://github.com/nylas

colinramsay 11y ago
I don't really have much of substance to add but I wanted to say that N1 is shaping up really well. The last two releases have introduced snoozing and unified inbox, which are both strong features. I've had a play around with writing an extension for N1 too and that experience was pretty sweet. So: thanks for your hard work, keep it up!
- grinich 11y ago
  Glad to hear it-- thanks! :)
z1mm32m4n 11y ago
If I snooze on my desktop with N1, will it properly notify me on my phone if I subsequently shut down my laptop?
- grinich 11y ago
  Yep!
  - z1mm32m4n 11y ago
    Is that still true if I'm self hosting the sync engine on that laptop? Or is it the kind of service that should be run on a separate server?
    - grinich 11y ago
      Ah unfortunately not. Unsnoozing is essentially a cron job that needs to run on a different service.

jwb119 11y ago

This is fantastic, snooze is essential to my email flow and I've been waiting for N1 to release this. Love the additional features like emoji too. Keep it coming.

emergentcypher 11y ago

Does it have encryption yet?

spang 11y ago
Not yet! You can track the issue here: https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/96 https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/96

rafael-rinaldi 11y ago

I'm really impressed with how fast this project is evolving. Been keeping up with it for a while and today is the best mail client IMHO. Kudos to all involved.

spang 11y ago
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it. :) (I'm part of the Nylas team)

rmason 11y ago

Anyone interested in developing desktop apps with Github's Electron the folks at Nylas have done several presentations with lots of good information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO9e8r6RQhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO9e8r6RQhE

orky56 11y ago

Thanks for a great product. I like how you guys timed the release with the even of the Mailbox shutdown. I continue to document issues on Github and really appreciate the responsiveness. One thing I'm afraid of is that N1 is developing new features and immediately pushing them too strongly in the UI. Despite all these new features recently, the app's Preferences haven't changed much. Before continuing to push hard on even more new features, it would be great to focus more on the experience: bugs, customizability, design, and extensibility. Bugs: https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues It's hard to quantify but there seem to be pending issues that have been around for awhile. Customizability: As I mentioned, the App Preferences menu has been pretty static despite new updates. If I want to hide certain features from the UI, it should be as simple as doing so from here rather than doing it directly in the code (which is possible and much easier than any other client out there). Design: The ability to import & create own themes is great and makes it very usable. That being said the default themes have very little contrast and have too little white space. In addition, the new icons for Send later, insert email template, insert link tracking, and enable read receipts aren't very clean. Against a gray background in the Light theme they are hard to distinguish as button since they are just icons. Also, with their sketchy design style they add too much detail to support fast twitch reactions necessary for an email workflow. Extensibility: Although each theme is managed separately, I'm curious to learn how the community of developers stays on top of upcoming & new releases with regards to quality and timing. In addition, I haven't much change in the encouragement of plug-ins. I haven't seen new plug-ins recently. I understand it's all about the community and I'm one of them. Hopefully this post is more constructive than offensive. Feel free to reach out for any clarifications or justifications. I'm a diehard user and recommend the product to everyone who struggles with email.

grinich 11y ago
Definitely agree with all of the above, and most of these are next on our roadmap. Our next sprint is focused on polish and performance. Stay tuned! ;) Unfortunately GitHub has kind of become a catch-all for general debugging and support from users, so it's not necessarily bugs or feature requests (e.g. https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/1412 https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/1412). Still, it's probably the best place to open issues for suggestions or things you want to see! Thanks for the feedback and the kind words! You can also email me directly via mg@nylas.com

desipenguin 11y ago

I downloaded N1 after reading this post. I do not get such behavior. Instead I see snooze and archive buttons. I am using “self hosted” version, but I don’t think it should matter, since this seems to be “front end” feature. I have Version 0.4.10-4e3595b on OSX (El Capitan)