MIT N1 Preview

A preview of N1, the open source extensible email client.

Transcript

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2. A sneak peek at an extensible mail client
   N1
   Evan Morikawa | evan@nylas.com | @e0m
   

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3. Why build a mail client?
   

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4. Email is massive
   

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5. ~200B Emails / day
   (Radicati Group April 2014)
   ~45B WhatsApp + FB (TechCrunch. Jan 2015)
   ~30B WeChat (Speculative. Equivalent DAU to WhatsApp)
   ~40B iMessage (Tim Cook 2014)
   ~0.5B Tweets (Twitter 2015)
   ~0.7B Snapchat (Verge 2014)
   ~0.01B Slack (FacstCompany, Feb 2015)
   

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6. Email is the “Database of your life”
   

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7. Email has hundreds of uses
   

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8. Email has hundreds of uses
   and old, inflexible interfaces
   

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9. Email is very valuable, but creating new
   email experiences is very hard.
   

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10. N1 Screenshot
    

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11. Sidebar Screenshot
    

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12. Composer Templates Screenshot
    

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13. N1 Screenshot
    

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16. 
    

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17. MessageStore
    
    Dispatcher
    

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18. 
    Re: ReactConf Europe
    To: ben@nylas.com
    

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19. Component regions in red
    

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20. Sidebar Screenshot
    

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21. Next week, we’re launching N1.
    Hack away! Lots of docs, sample code, etc.
    

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22. Next week, we’re open-sourcing N1.
    GPL v3 (Free for personal use)
    

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23. @e0m evan@nylas.com
    

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24. @e0m evan@nylas.com
    

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25. Nylas API Platform
    • REST APIs for email,
    contacts, and calendar
    • Gmail, Exchange, iCloud,
    Yahoo, and hundreds more.
    • Powers email integration in
    CRMs, mobile apps, etc.
    Making email easy.
    

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26. N1 Mail Client
    • Clean, minimal foundation
    with “must-have” features
    • Robust APIs for dealing with
    threads, messages, etc.
    • Cross-platform: Mac,
    Windows, Linux
    • Easy to extend with modern
    technologies
    Making email easy.
    Nylas API Platform
    

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27. Why Electron?
    • Mac, Windows, Linux support
    • Great APIs for desktop integration
    • Support for C/C++ code via native modules
    • Atom = open-source sample code and tooling
    • Large numbers of developers know JavaScript, HTML, CSS,
    can write extensions easily!
    

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28. Challenges
    1. NodeJS is single-threaded 

    2. Windows live in separate processes

    3. Platform-specific styling an exercise to the reader
    

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29. Party on the Main Thread
    • BrowserWindows render and run JavaScript
    on the same thread.
    • All work is created equal. Great for a web
    server, not so great for a desktop app.
    • (Web Workers don’t get NodeJS integration)
    

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30. Party on the Main Thread
    • Animations
    • Transitions
    • Scrolling
    • User interaction
    • Applying mailbox changes
    • Running spellcheck
    • Downloading attachments
    • Running mail rules
    

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31. Party on the Main Thread
    

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32. Windows are process-isolated
    • No shared memory between windows
    • Messaging between windows requires hops
    through the parent application process
    • Major conceptual barrier to multi-window
    app development
    

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33. Multi-window Flux Architecture
    Application Process
    Task Store
    ActionBridge
    QueueTask:
    Send Draft
    QueueTask:
    Send Draft
    ActionBridge
    DraftStore
    JSON via IPC
    

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34. 1. JavaScript is single-threaded 

    

    2. Windows live in separate processes

    

    3. Platform-specific styling an exercise to the reader
    Move CPU-intensive tasks to a worker window
    Bridge Flux stores and actions across windows
    Fine-tune CSS to match platform standards
    

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