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I've spent the last two years building a new email client

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Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#261

Post by wilsonnb »

Lio wrote: post #133
yani wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300MB of ram sounds like a lot to me. What are you storing in memory that is that large? If I dont use the app for 1 hour will it stop using the memory?

I'm sure that a client like Mutt would use much less but considering that many emails have embed HTML and would ideally use a modern web view to render correctly, how much overhead is there from from using Electron/chromium if you're going to load all of that anyway? I couldn't find exact figures for MS Outlook but Office 365 seems to require 1Gb as a minimum. A quick look at the Gmail tab I have open in Chrome seems…

Outlook is using 46MB for me at the moment. I don't have a particularly large inbox though.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#262

Post by ynniv »

I don't think this puts enough emphasis on the fact that it is a local client and not a web service. I see some people here griping about Electron, but the privacy implications of being a local app are way more important than the performance of the framework used.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#263

Post by billfruit »

jk2323 wrote: post #116
muszc-master wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During development of this client, I fully understand why there aren't more email clients out there. GPG is coming!

Also, Gmails search function is a blast. Much worse in Thunderbird, annoying in Evolution.

Gmail searching isn't really that great, it doesn't do stemming while searching, offline clients should be able to do better than that.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#264

Post by dotancohen »

justtopostthis3 wrote: post #252
dotancohen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP says that it uses "only 300 MB" of RAM. For an application that deals with primarily with downloading, uploading, and displaying text. How would you respond to someone saying "I raise small mammals, well small given that they are elephants"?

This conversation seems more analogous: "I raise elephants, but they are bred to be as small as possible." "They're _either_ elephants, _or_ bred to be as small as possible."

I'll accept that! Thank you for the perspective.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#265

Post by coldtea »

croon wrote: post #172
coldtea wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer VS Code over native alternatives. That's because, as the parent said, there are no good (e.g. equivalent) native alternatives. If there was a native editor with feature parity with VS Code (including the number of plugins and dedicated MS resources speeding up its development, and free), nobody would be using it.

> If there was a native editor with feature parity with VS Code (including the number of plugins and dedicated MS resources speeding up its development, and free), nobody would be using it. Is it possible that VS Code (for example) exists (in its feature specific incarnation ) only because Electron is a cost cutter in terms of portable development? In other terms: Maybe the portable native full featured VS Code is th…

>Is it possible that VS Code (for example) exists (in its feature specific incarnation ) only because Electron is a cost cutter in terms of portable development?

It could -- though I doubt it.

But I was concerned with a more limited question: if there was a good VS Code alternative that's native, would many still prefer an Electron version?

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#266

Post by muszc-master »

ynniv wrote: post #262

I don't think this puts enough emphasis on the fact that it is a local client and not a web service. I see some people here griping about Electron, but the privacy implications of being a local app are way more important than the performance of the framework used.

I agree with you. The discussion has somewhat de-railed off-topic into a discussion about Electron. While that is an interesting discussion, it is pretty off-topic.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#267

Post by coldtea »

rootlocus wrote: post #177
coldtea wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer VS Code over native alternatives. That's because, as the parent said, there are no good (e.g. equivalent) native alternatives. If there was a native editor with feature parity with VS Code (including the number of plugins and dedicated MS resources speeding up its development, and free), nobody would be using it.

> That's because, as the parent said, there are no good (e.g. equivalent) native alternatives. There is sublime text.

Which is what I use. But ST3 doesn't have the full power of a 20+ strong MS team behind it, but a single person (and another hired to help here and there), and so doesn't have the same momentum -- and it's getting behind in features as well.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#268

Post by bildung »

yani wrote: post #74
muszc-master wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's an Electron app, but it is built to use as little RAM as possible, when I run it on my old Macbook Air, it consumes only around 300mb of RAM maximum, which is less than what Finder consumes, and I consider everything over this limit to be a bug. 2. Currently not supporting Mbox/Maildir but downloading emails directly from the server, however an import of this is on the todo list 3. Re: turn off conversation v…

300MB of ram sounds like a lot to me. What are you storing in memory that is that large? If I dont use the app for 1 hour will it stop using the memory?

My Claws Mail currently uses 56M, multiple IMAP accounts configured, a few thousand mails, just visited all accounts before measuring. I disabled HTML display, though (most HTML is either spam or newsletter fluff in my experience). Claws is GTK2.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#269

Post by opencl »

dotancohen wrote: post #226
muszc-master wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's an Electron app, but it is built to use as little RAM as possible, when I run it on my old Macbook Air, it consumes only around 300mb of RAM maximum, which is less than what Finder consumes, and I consider everything over this limit to be a bug. 2. Currently not supporting Mbox/Maildir but downloading emails directly from the server, however an import of this is on the todo list 3. Re: turn off conversation v…

> It's an Electron app, but it is built to use as little RAM as possible It's _either_ an Electron app, _or_ built to use as little RAM as possible. I'm not an Electron hater, but if you are starting out with Electron then you are already at a far disadvantage both technically (see aforementioned RAM usage) and politically (many people won't use them, mostly for the technical reasons). FWIW I use the Telegram client…

The official telegram desktop client is Qt.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#270

Post by fenrisbear »

yani wrote: post #99
SquareWheel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an "all my friends voted for..." argument. Electron applications such as Slack, Discord, and VS Code have ballooned in popularity over the last year or two. Hacker News comments are not representative of the whole.

It is not about popularity, it is about the resources Electron apps use vs native. The apps that you mentioned do not have good native alternatives. I cannot see anyone preferring a native app over Electron app if both offer the same features.

An electron-apps can use and call native code. I see Rust getting some attraction being bundled with electron apps. This should be a thing every electron app maker out there. Rust or otherwise.
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