so I've been building my own Gmail for the past few weeks and would like your feedback.
Find a preview here: http://i.imgur.com/UDz2y.png (Mouse cursor is over the "REPLY" button, to show the hover-effect)
The app you see in the screenshot is what I've been using in the past week and it starts to feel better than the gmail interface.
Just a quick explanation:
- It's conversation-based like Gmail. - Conversations with new emails are on the left. - Conversations may be labeled ... based on predefined filters or manually. - Every conversation stays in the left sidebar until marked "Done" or "Pinned". - Done emails are accessed through the "check"-button next to the "MailApp"-logo. - Pinned emails are moved to the right sidebar. This is basically a to-do list or for future reference. - Both sidebars may be filtered by attributes or labels. - The "list"-icon, next to the filter in the left sidebar, gives you the classic gmail list in the center-panel.
Some technical background:
- It's build with Rails and PostgreSQL. - E-Mail sending/receiving is based on the MailGun infrastructure. - Turbolinks (https://github.com/rails/turbolinks) and Memcache for a speedy UX. - All mail data is saved in a multi-tenant PostgreSQL db and for backup purposes in a IMAP mailbox on MailGun. - Hosted on heroku.
I'm quite happy with the app by now and only go back to Gmail for older emails.
So my BIG QUESTION right now: Would you even consider using the app, in case I'd make a commercial product out of it? Would you pay for it?
Searching HN yielded that quite a few people are looking each month to leave Gmail (for various reasons), but of course there are quite a few gotchas with my approach, especially considering trust-issues.
Let me hear what you think.