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Off-Topic: Alternatives to to Hey.com's "Focus & Reply" feature?
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 26, 2020 at 09:07 AM
To return to your original question, Lucas: I guess the closest thing to Hey is Readdle’s Spark (available only for macOS and iOS, unfortunately). You’ll find a description here: https://sparkmailapp.com/features
While it hasn’t got Hey’s “Focus and Reply” view, exactly, it does have a smart inbox, smart notifications, deferred replies, follow-up reminders and other rather nice features.
Unfortunately, although I’ve tried to use it multiple times, I’ve never been able to get it running satisfactorily on my various MacBooks. But others are full of praise!
Cheers,
Bill
Lucas wrote:
(I hope this question counts as being tangentially related to outlining
>insofar as it’s a question of the structured, visual display of
>information.)
>
>I tried out the new Hey.com email service, and the one feature that
>strikes me as uniquely efficient is the “Focus & Reply” view, which
>shows a vertical ribbon of emails (with body text) that need replies,
>and each email has a reply box to its right. This allows for a highly
>streamlined way of replying to a bunch of emails quickly. Does anyone
>know of any email programs that include a similar feature/view?
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 26, 2020 at 09:08 AM
Oops, sorry, I’ve just realised it’s available on Android, too!
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 26, 2020 at 09:49 AM
Another interesting option for Mac users is Canary Mail, which is also a single app (like Spark) – i.e. not an e-mail account aggregator (like Hey and others). Canary specialises in security, but has a number of other nice features, including a separate “Files” view that allows you to scope all the files you’ve been sent recently (just like Hey, in fact).
I currently use Airmail as my main mail app (having been increasingly irritated by Apple Mail), but my recent tests of Canary suggest it’s just as good, and also very nimble. However, it’s still early days. Like Airmail, Canary Mail is a one-off purchase.
Canary also has a deferred-reply (“snooze”) feature. What I particularly like about it is its very streamlined interface – nothing extraneous on there (unlike e.g. Airmail, which is a bit over-optioned to my mind). Canary is extremely easy to use. I don’t like the very latest version of Airmail (at all! I’m still using V4.0 in V3.0-compatibility mode), so I’m hoping Canary Mail will prove irresistible!
It’s fully cross-Apple (macOS, iOS, iPadOS), and they’re just about to release an Android version.
And yes, I think e-mail clients could very reasonably be regarded as “outliners”. Folding, threading, two/three-pane outlines, filters, search functions, in some cases even tagging – they match the definition. Indeed, Outlook tends to be used as a kind of omni-inbox by corporate clients (or at least, it was in the old days – but it’s been years since I used Outlook). Same applied to the now defunct Lotus Notes (great concept, flawed execution).
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by washere
Jun 26, 2020 at 04:06 PM
>>MadaboutDana wrote:
>>To return to your original question, Lucas: I guess….
said wants windows