Microsoft is Building a New Outlook App for Windows and Mac Powered by the Web (windowscentral.com) 54
Microsoft is building a universal Outlook client for Windows and Mac that will also replace the default Mail & Calendar apps on Windows 10 when ready. This new client is codenamed Monarch and is based on the already available Outlook Web app available in a browser today. From a report: Project Monarch is the end-goal for Microsoft's "One Outlook" vision, which aims to build a single Outlook client that works across PC, Mac, and the Web. Right now, Microsoft has a number of different Outlook clients for desktop, including Outlook Web, Outlook (Win32) for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Mail & Calendar on Windows 10. Microsoft wants to replace the existing desktop clients with one app built with web technologies. The project will deliver Outlook as a single product, with the same user experience and codebase whether that be on Windows or Mac. It'll also have a much smaller footprint and be accessible to all users whether they're free Outlook consumers or commercial business customers. I'm told the app will feature native OS integrations with support for things like offline storage, share targets, notifications, and more. I understand that it's one of Microsoft's goals to make the new Monarch client feel as native to the OS as possible while remaining universal across platforms by basing the app on the Outlook website.
PR speak for (Score:5, Insightful)
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At one point, MsOffice apps on the Mac were (IIUC) required by Apple to have menus instead of the *@!$%# Ribbon. If this single code base would mean getting the menu back in Windows, I'd be all for it.
Of course I'm dreaming.
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It's worse. They're tossing Outlook and forcing everyone to use a web-page instead. That way we can all have the worst user experience, not just the people who don't have an Outlook license.
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Nope, they’re rebuilding their apps in electron-based web applications, and it won’t just be Outlook. They’ve been telegraphing this for a while, and it’s part of the reason they switched Edge to use Chromium.
It sounds like, basically they’re working on improving the Electron integration with Windows so that applications will use shared libraries that are part of the OS, instead of each app using its own integrated web browser. I don’t know the technical details, but t
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Well, this ought to drive the nail into the coffin of whatever new desktop programming paradigms they were pushing. Win32 apps will stay Win32 (unless ARM takes off, and they have to be tweaked to build for that target). Beyond that, everything's web (or iOS or Android). I suppose legacy GTK and QT apps will live on too, but nobody's going to learn any all new desktop toolkit. I suppose a new web paradigm could emerge some day, but if it's not already coded or cross/platform, it's not gonna happen.
support for things like offline storage (Score:2)
I guess if I needed to access mail from more than one place that would be a problem, but I don't have that problem and missing email for up to a day at a time from being out of the house is not a problem either.
-I pity those that that are glued to their phones.
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I was forced to use teams for the first time today.. This POS was designed for & by 7 year old girls. What a crock.
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Re: support for things like offline storage (Score:1)
Microsofts answer to Gmail, 15 yeas too late (Score:2, Troll)
Probably bloated with Microsoft Teams features and all kinds of unwanted advertising.
Don't forget to read the small print in the disclaimer as all your personal information will be available to Microsoft Trusted Partners (c)(tm)(r) for product improvements and related activities.
Outlook for Linux? (Score:1)
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I wonder if this means an eventual Outlook app for Linux, same way they did for Teams. What crazy times those would be!
You misspelled "Evolution" ... oh wait!
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Re: Outlook for Linux? (Score:2)
Yup, me too, and on my android phone too.
so... (Score:2)
So in other words: basically every app on every device is always going to use Google Chrome to deliver the experience, because front end programmers want to use JavaScript/TypeScript and they don't want to learn anything else. [emotion: neutral]
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This.
VS Code has proven it works, so why bother with anything else.
VS code works...just not very well + planetkiller (Score:2)
I suppose something that works mediocrely is better than nothing at all....that should be the motto of JavaScript, extreme mediocrity, but it technically works!
I would reconsider the environmental cost of terrible software. A
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Here's the problem: Apple doesn't let your Mac App Store app run third party code. (Exception: If you verify that the third party code was written by somebody with an Apple Developer license.) (Other exception: If your app has 1B+ users.)
Third party code trumps latency and power usage.
The best we can hope for is some subset of HTML and some subset of building blocks inside JavaScript that is valid for web and this is also guaranteed to compile down to something that works well natively.
But seeing how instal
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Re: so... (Score:2)
Seriously. They should just transition everything to .Net Core and be done with it.
dog shit (Score:3)
Re:dog shit (Score:4, Informative)
The Windows 10 Mail app is worse.
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OWA is already dramatically better than desktop Outlook (indeed, it would be difficult to be worse). I welcome our new electron-based overlords.
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Say what? I'll grant OWA works but better than a real Outlook Express install?
And I use a 2007 version as my regular drive, 2010 & 2013 at other work-stations.
Take the simple example of multiple mail-boxes as an example - my work uses lots of them!
Hope it wonâ(TM)t be electron (Score:1)
I really hope it wonâ(TM)t be an Electron app. Teams client is already such a mess with low security. It was just a short while ago session keys could be stolen from a Teams user by just sending a suitably crafted message.
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Monarch? (Score:2)
Are you sure it's not MHonArc?
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
<sarcasm>Well, there's no way this could possibly suck for users!</sarcasm>
Yaz
Smaller footprint? (Score:4, Interesting)
> It'll also have a much smaller footprint ...
My traditional (Win32) copy of Outlook consumes 100MB of RAM right now. Opening the same inbox via the web UI (outlook.office.com) spawns a browser process that eats 289 MB.
I don't see how a this same JS running in an Electron app will be more CPU/memory-efficient than a native Win32 desktop app.
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Assumes any computer sold in 2021 with come with a bare minimum 4GB of RAM.
Windows 10 consumes about 800 out of 1024 MB just for the OS on the netbook I inherited.
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The article just says "Web Technologies". You are probably right, but who's to say that they don't just recompile the current Outlook app as WebAssembly, using Uno Platform [platform.uno] as the GUI layer?
will we truly be free... (Score:2)
free from the living hell that is trying to get emails that look good on modern html5 mobile and on ancient MS Word tech that hasn't changed in 22 years at the same time?
So it's going to be an Electron app? (Score:2)
Electron isn't that bad, really, so this could be good.
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They can call it Outlook Express! (Score:3)
Where did they hide my cheese moment ... (Score:3)
File Save As can go to a local disk, a network disk mounted as a drive, or network location or to share point or sites or teams , in teams there are channels, each channel with its own file repository.
Today I spent half an hour looking for the email from John in purchasing in outlook, could not find it. I could swear I saw a message from John not Purchasing. Eventually I found it in a chat window of some teams meeting...
I get a shared file, and without any clear mental map of how to find that file in a future date, under what repository, what hierarchy....
Oh, greaaat... (Score:4, Interesting)
See, someone in Redmond is way too out of touch. Every time they "modernize" an application, they strip it of half its features.
Yes, the Slashdot crowd hates Outlook. Fine. You're not its target demographic, and you're not changing your mind after this reskin, are you? Didn't think so. Outlook isn't for you.
Outlook is a behemoth...but this is not the way to tame the beast. So, my one client who has a setup involving VBA macros...probably won't be the biggest fan of the fact that there will be no more VBA in Outlook. Progress sometimes has a price.
which aims to build a single Outlook client that works across PC, Mac, and the Web. Right now, Microsoft has a number of different Outlook clients for desktop, including Outlook Web, Outlook (Win32) for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Mail & Calendar on Windows 10.
I'm pretty sure that the feature gutting won't stop at VBA. Will it still import and export PSTs, CSVs, and VCFs? Will it support POP and IMAP and MAPI? Will it display shared calendars and contacts? There are no shortage of plugins, from the iCloud calendar and contact sync to spam filtering plugins from Barracuda and SpamTitan, to Citrix Sendfile and Nextcloud/Sendent, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Not that Outlook does well with stupidly-large mailboxes, but while it breaks around the 100GB mark, will this new variant handle 90GB local databases any better? I'm not holding my breath...
Microsoft wants to replace the existing desktop clients with one app built with web technologies. The project will deliver Outlook as a single product, with the same user experience and codebase whether that be on Windows or Mac.
And, this is why this plan is stupid. This experience "built with web technologies" already exists. MS already offers a halfway decent browser-based WebUI for Office365 and Exchange. Google obviously has GMail, Roundcube and Rainloop and Sogo exist for other mail servers...so, mail clients "built with web technologies" have existed for a very, very long time. Throwing an Electron wrapper around OWA does not, an Outlook Replacement, make...and if it did, there's BlueMail and MailPlus and AirMail and the existing Appy-App Windows 10 Mail client.
All this is going to do is make Outlook a lowest-common-denominator, minimum-viable-product appy-app that is now on even footing with all of the other mail clients out there. Really, all this is going to do is to make eM Client a fortune.
It'll also have a much smaller footprint
This absolutely isn't the solution to this non-problem. Zero percent of the Outlook users I know and support have OST/PST files smaller than the Outlook program file. Don't get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to see some Demoscene folks spend a month stripping down the source code and rebuilding it to be some 11MB single-executable, but anyone who's using Outlook on a desktop is choosing it over the use of a browser-based frontend, more than likely because of functions the browser can't do. They're using it on workstations that have enough storage and RAM to handle it. saying "yes, we took out many of the features you use regularly...but it takes up half the storage space!" isn't a tradeoff that's going to be helpful to anyone.
I'm told the app will feature native OS integrations with support for things like offline storage, share targets, notifications, and more.
Uhm, so...all things that current iterations already do? They're not making a very good case for this, except to make it seem like Microsoft is trying to streamline their code. This isn't a bad thing, but it is something that benefits Microsoft and doesn't benefit end users who leverage existing functionality.
Really, if MS thinks that this is a good thing that consumers will like, then all they have to do is give it a separate product name and see if it takes off. If it does, it's easy to unceremoniously discon
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Yeah it seems MS is oblivious to the way their office suite is a set of platforms that whole businesses are built on. Trying to forget Access even exists, and trying to replace VBA with JS plugins that don't live in the documents and have to be hosted on out on the web, and on and on... it's pretty crazy. They eventually caved and will grudgingly support Win32 OneNote for a few more years. I expect Outlook will get the same treatment once everyone realizes how much they can't do in the new version.
Oh boy another Electron app... (Score:1)
Please no (Score:2)
As much of a pain in the ass as Outlook for Windows is, the web version is worse. Starting with the big one: you can't use Outlook Web without an internet connection. Offline use has saved my bacon several times. On slow internet connections the Web version is annoying to use.
I also hate the way Outlook Web tries to hide messages e.g. by collapsing threads. In the Windows client you can disable most of this, not in the web version.
Not sharing research IS A CRIME. (Score:1)
It is harmful to all of humanity.
I don't care what the bought laws say, that makes it a crime.
Yes, the research *W O R K* should be compensated. By effort.
But nobody cares about your profit-robbery and imaginary property racketeering shemes. No work, no money. This is science! Our goal is a good life through wisdom, not pointless profit for profit's sake.
Ignore above. Misposted. (Score:2)
Somehow unintentionally switched articles...
Orange calendar redux (Score:2)
An agnostic. Microsoft bought Orange thencrickets. Outlook sucks but so does every other monopoly built calendar/email duo. Orange calendar replacement in lieu of Microsofts would be enough to ditch Apple sandbox of .apps. Productivity could jump synching across platforms on an agnostic cloud based abstraction.
Bullshit on that (Score:2)
So when I'm offline with my laptop on an airplane and want to read / respond to emails Microsoft suggests I do what exactly?
Also as someone else mentioned, what about those of us with multiple exchange mailboxes? In all these years Microsoft has not come up with a workable OWA solution for that.
Fuck that. This is the very reason I bought Office 2018 and shun that 365 bullshit. Hopefully I'll be retired by the time Outlook 2018 stops working.
Ditching the ribbon (Score:2)
With prolly no option to move the location of them. The four column view looks like a hack.
Who can recommend an Outlook Replacement? (Score:1)