Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#41

Post by teacup50 » Thu, May 21, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

dkokelley wrote: post #30

squiggy22 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well rounded answer, but I'll pass for now. If Google really believed in your ethos of making the software more valuable via third parties, their platform wouldn't require dom hacks that could break without notice. i.e. they'd open up their own APIs to make building these sorts of apps themselves. I absolutely commend you for what you are doing, I just wouldn't be willing as a developer to dip my toes in that parti…

Sure Google could break this (maliciously or otherwise), but would you rather have to keep up with their changes on your own, or build something that works on InboxSDK, and let them play cat-and-mouse with the Inbox DOM? Worst case in the latter scenario is that a feature is down for as long as it takes for a fix to be released.

I'd rather target open standards, like client-side SMTP/IMAP.

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#42

Post by andreineculau » Thu, May 21, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

Well done! I just hope that proper alternatives to customer support services take the chance to surface. It's insane to see how they replicate 3/4 of gmail/another-email-ui functionality just because they add 10% extra functionality to streamline communication with customers (e.g. multi-language canned responses, etc).

Build on top, reuse, don't copy-paste!

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#43

Post by schmielson » Thu, May 21, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

Co-founder of DocSend here - we've been powering DocSend's integration into Gmail with the InboxSDK, and it's been a fantastic experience. So easy to use, and very robust - exactly what you look for in an API.

This is a total game-changer. Very excited to see what the inbox will become thanks to the Streak team.

Cheers!

And of course you can check out the DocSend extension here to get insight into page-by-page engagement with your document attachments :) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/docsend-extension-...

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#44

Post by kuschku » Thu, May 21, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

alooPotato wrote: post #38

slackstation wrote: post #21

You give the code in a .js file that you include in a browser plugin but, you don't state clearly whether this is or is not an open source project. The .js file has no license in it either. File: https://www.inboxsdk.com/build/inboxsdk.js Then I see the github page: https://github.com/InboxSDK/ There is no InboxSDK project but, just two example chrome plugins using the inboxSDK. All the trappings and mechanics of ope…

Thanks for this. We're adding licenses to our examples that we have on GitHub and we're also adding a pointer from our inboxsdk.js file to our terms of service. Over a longer time horizon, we plan on open sourcing the entire implementation of the InboxSDK but just not yet.

You do realize that any client-side code – especially with the universal right to decompile and adapt code in the EU – is essentially open source anyway?

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#45

Post by thyselius » Thu, May 21, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

Does this mean I can have a SIGNATURE in Inbox now? If so, how? (I'm using Safari, so there hasn't been any way that I know of to use a signature, which is the one dealbreaker for me to use Inbox, which I love)

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#46

Post by napoleond » Thu, May 21, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

alooPotato wrote: post #17

pbnjay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool wrappers, I've used Streak off and on for a while and definitely appreciate how well it integrates with gmail. Do you have any notion of how fragile things are when dom-hacking? Do you have to constantly keep up with google's updates or are things fairly stable? i.e. how often will I need to update and/or patch an extension to maintain support (in your experience so far)?

We have systems in place to make sure we catch any changes to the DOM. We usually see these changes before 99% of gmail users and can make any necessary changes within minutes usually. In the last 6 months we've seen 0 breaking changes, 1 in the 6 months before that (it was fixed before the change even reached users), and 2 in the prior 12 months (where our fix reached product in sub 10 minutes).

> where our fix reached product in sub 10 minutes

Wow. Nicely done!

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#47

Post by oneweekwonder » Thu, May 21, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #44

alooPotato wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this. We're adding licenses to our examples that we have on GitHub and we're also adding a pointer from our inboxsdk.js file to our terms of service. Over a longer time horizon, we plan on open sourcing the entire implementation of the InboxSDK but just not yet.

You do realize that any client-side code – especially with the universal right to decompile and adapt code in the EU – is essentially open source anyway?

I understand why this view point can be wrong. But instead of just downvoting him. Why not give a link or two, to correct him?

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#48

Post by conorgil145 » Thu, May 21, 2015, 9:49 PM UTC

alooPotato wrote: post #29

kartikt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creator of gmail.js here. Can confirm

Gmail.js is pretty great too. We're trying to take a slightly more higher level approach but there's def still a few things we're missing that gmail.js does have.

Any chance of collaboration between the two projects?

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#49

Post by olalonde » Thu, May 21, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #44

alooPotato wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this. We're adding licenses to our examples that we have on GitHub and we're also adding a pointer from our inboxsdk.js file to our terms of service. Over a longer time horizon, we plan on open sourcing the entire implementation of the InboxSDK but just not yet.

You do realize that any client-side code – especially with the universal right to decompile and adapt code in the EU – is essentially open source anyway?

I can't comment on EU law but the ability to redistribute the (modified) code is also a defining characteristic of open source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Re: Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail

#50

Post by icebraining » Thu, May 21, 2015, 10:12 PM UTC

Avalaxy wrote: post #28

Can anyone explain how this is different from Google's Gmail Contextual Gadgerts? https://developers.google.com/gmail/contextual_gadgets#what_... I'm looking to build a plugin that can automatically send a mail back under specific conditions and allows follow-ups, but I'm not sure what tech I should use.

In my experience (I've built a gadget for our internal use, to create tickets on our software from emails), the gadgets are fairly limited, both in terms of the content they can access (only the first 1000 characters, and no attachments) and in terms of UI (you get a small bar below the email - no integration with the rest of the interface).

Even for our simple use case, which is essentially a button that makes an HTTP request to a web service with the email fields, it felt limited.

It also suffers from poor debugging tools. They made some changes that broke our gadget (I think it was the deactivation of OAuth 1.0) and there's no way of knowing why it isn't loading, it just doesn't.