It would be really handy to have an option to put the reply/forward into the the main window where the email reading panel is rather than always popping up in a new window.
This is the behaviour the old Outlook mail client uses and it’s much less cluttered for a quick reply. The option to then ‘pop out’ the reply into a new window is shown in the top of the reply panel.
Obviously, this won’t suit everyone, so making it something that can be switched on via the Settings seems like the best approach.
I can see that people have been asking about this for literally years - so perhaps there’s a significant technical issue that prevents this being implemented - but I thought I’d add a note to make it clear that this is still a desirable feature (We’re trialling this as a replacement for Outlook and this is the only config request from staff I’ve been unable to resolve)
I was under the impression that it would be part of a later update for v10, but it wasn’t. Then, I was under the impression that it would be for v11 and reading the changelog yesterday, I see that it wasn’t added nor is it priority for eM Client. How come? It’s a major feature that has existed in nearly all other systems for over 13 years.
This feature didn’t make it to v11. It will be added later. We need to prioritize our development and everybody has different priorities and wishes. And this specific feature has a lot of serious UI consequences.
Some of the features added don’t seem as high priority as I had hoped, though some are helpful for sure. I read the changelogs, so seeing development going toward AI features over core productivity enhancements is a bit disappointing as a paying user. It’s entirely your team’s decision, of course, but core workflow improvements are more important for your users.
Running software development companies myself, I do understand how complex features get postponed. But at the same time, it’s pretty clear when more tedious items get pushed back because nobody wants to tackle them right now. In-line reply is pretty much standard across every other email app at this point because it just works better. Others figured out the UI layout years ago.
This is affecting my daily usability of eM Client because when I have to open a new window to reply or view an email in eM Client, two times a day I have to sit there waiting 3 to 10 seconds for it to display the content, even if it’s nearly blank. I don’t experience this the rest of the times. I can’t type or do anything while waiting, even on a high-end laptop and after doing a clean reinstall and whitelisting eM Client. It’s a bug your team wasn’t able to yet fix even after I sent in logs and a video recording. Other email systems open new windows instantly. I believe in-line reply would resolve this. I hope the architectural changes in v11 help with the speed, but in-line reply is still what’s really needed.
My disappointment mainly comes from the fact that it looks like this may take another year or two, and it’s a feature that would really improve daily use. If it were just a few months away, I wouldn’t mind waiting, but waiting years for a helpful workflow feature is tough. I really hope you guys reconsider and bring this up your to-do list sooner.
Apart from Gmail online & Outlook desktop, its not really a standard at all across every other mail client, as most other mail clients don’t do Inline Reply.
Also reasons why alot of users globally don’t like Reply Inline
Quote:-
“The biggest problem with inline replies is that they disrupt the flow of conversation. Instead of having a clean back-and-forth, you end up with a jumbled mess of text. As you reply within the original message, your response gets mixed in with the previous message, making it harder to track what’s been said and who said it”.
“These conversations get fragmented too quickly, and you’ll likely find yourself scrolling back and forth trying to make sense of things”.