MIT N1 Preview - Speaker Deck

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A sneak peek at an extensible mail client N1 Evan Morikawa | [email protected] | @e0m

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Why build a mail client?

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Email is massive

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~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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Email is the “Database of your life”

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Email has hundreds of uses

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Email has hundreds of uses and old, inﬂexible interfaces

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

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N1 Screenshot

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Sidebar Screenshot

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Composer Templates Screenshot

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N1 Screenshot

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MessageStore Dispatcher

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Re: ReactConf Europe To: [email protected]

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Component regions in red

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Sidebar Screenshot

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

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

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@e0m [email protected]

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@e0m [email protected]

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

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Party on the Main Thread

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

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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