Hello! I have two very exciting updates for you:
- New mode for reading notifications ⚡️
- Call for early adopters to try out the first beta!
Tiny refresher, this is an email about Lotus - a Mac app for managing GitHub notifications to reduce maintainer burnout.
Read together
In the "Inbox" and "Reply Later" pages there's a new "Read Together" button, which, you guessed it, lets you preview and read many notifications at once.
Now you don't have to click back and forth between list and notification views to go through your queue. It sounds like a minor improvement, but trust me, you can get to Inbox Zero much faster that way.
When you click "Read Together" in the Inbox, you'll see the GitHub preview of your last 5 notifications and a list of actions you can take for each of them.
Lotus displays only 5 notifications at a time to make sure there's no infinite scrolling on that page. The idea is it will help you keep track of notifications you're reviewing right now and not get lost in the list.
When you've triaged a notification by, for example, marking it as read, Lotus will pull the next notification from your Inbox. That way you're looking at 5 notifications at most, yet still making good progress.
The UI is slightly different for notifications in the "Reply Later" category. Because you've already marked those notifications as "Reply Later", Lotus will show just 2 buttons - "Not Now" and "Mark As Read".
Clicking "Not Now" removes it from the "Read Together" list, but it's still going to stay in "Reply Later". It's going to be hidden only temporarily. It's useful when you're not ready to take care of something and you don't want it to take up space on the page and distract you.
When there are no more notifications left, Lotus will congratulate you and offer to take a break. I can't show you a screenshot of that UI yet, because I haven't come up with good ideas for it. I want something magical to happen there, like fireworks, confetti or something. People seemed to really like the balloon animation from Linkjar - my other side project, so I think something like this could work well.
I also want to acknowledge that this feature is heavily influenced by HEY and it shows how well HEY's ideas can be applied elsewhere, not just in emails. I'm so excited for the next generation of apps that prioritize your privacy and well being!
Call for early adopters
It's time! If you want to try out Lotus, let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on Twitter. If replying to this email doesn't work, you can reach me directly at vadimdemedes@hey.com.
I want to say upfront that it's far from perfect, but it's good enough to take it for a test drive. "Read Together" was the last major feature I wanted to build before publishing the first version. I felt it was necessary to add that feature to show a complete picture of the vision behind Lotus and offer you a powerful toolbox for tackling GitHub notifications.
While I do want to know about any rough edges you may encounter, I would especially love to hear whether Lotus has had impact on your life as a maintainer. Looking forward to learn from you and iterate on Lotus together!
Are you still postponing GitHub notifications until tomorrow? Give Lotus a try and let's find out.
– Vadim.
I'm building Lotus in the open and I'm sending out progress updates just like this one every Sunday.
I won't send spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.