Mail in its own window, and notifications
Mail moves out of the sidebar into a window of its own, and a bell on every screen collects alerts, reminders, new mail and Sketchbook’s own events, with phone notifications on Android.
The request, on the morning of 15 October: “we need to put email in it’s own window and not take up space in the sidebar. I also need notifications in here”. Both shipped the same day.
Mail in its own window
On the web, mail now opens in a window of its own, titled “Mail · Sketchbook”, with no notebook sidebar, so it can sit beside the notebook instead of inside it. Opening mail again brings that same window forward rather than opening another. If the browser blocks the new window, Sketchbook says so and offers a button instead of failing silently.
The notebook’s sidebar keeps a single Mail row, with the total unread count across every mailbox, and no list of mailboxes.
On the tablet and the phone, Mail opens full screen, with a Notebook control to go straight back.
Notifications
A bell sits in the header of every notebook screen, with an unread count. Its panel collects:
- Alerts and reminders that the home systems already send to the phone.
- New mail, checked every two minutes for each mailbox. The first check only notes where things stand, so turning this on does not bury you in old mail.
- Sketchbook’s own events: a file saved from the file-share page, Claude asking for a sketch, a sketch request answered, and a page that printed or failed to print.
The journal never appears here.
On Android, real phone notifications
The app posts system notifications in five channels you can set separately: Alerts (quiet by default), Critical, Reminders, Mail and Sketchbook. While Sketchbook is open, new items arrive at once. In the background the app checks about every fifteen minutes, which is the shortest interval Android allows, and less often while the phone is idle. The first check after installing records where things stand instead of replaying everything. Permission to notify is only asked for when you open the panel or Settings, never out of the blue.
By the numbers
Every release is written up with its full automated test run. At 1.4.7 the server has 1,457 passing tests, the web app 644 and the Android app 1,078.