Your Inbox, Your Way: Introducing Split View

Here’s something I noticed after watching dozens of people use their email.

No two people read it the same way.

Some open a message, read it, close it, move to the next — one thing at a time, full focus, full width. For them, an email deserves the whole screen. Anything else feels cramped.

Others never want to lose their place in the list. They glance at a message, jump to the next, compare two threads, scan and reply — all without that jarring “where was I?” moment. For them, side by side isn’t a nicety. It’s how they think.

And here’s the thing: both of them are right.

The trap most email apps fall into

Most apps pick a side. They decide for you how email “should” look, ship it, and call it opinionated design. If it matches how your brain works — lucky you. If it doesn’t, you spend years quietly fighting your tools, training yourself around a layout someone else chose.

We didn’t want to build that app.

When we sat down to design how reading should feel in Talanoa, the honest answer wasn’t “this layout is better.” It was “it depends on the person.” And once you accept that, the decision makes itself: don’t frustrate anyone. Build both, beautifully, and let people choose.

Meet Split View

With Talanoa v0.9.3, your inbox now comes in two flavors:

• Full View — the classic, distraction-free experience. Your list runs full width; click a message and a clean reader floats in over it. One thing at a time.
• Split View — your list stays pinned on the left, and messages open right beside it. Drag the divider to give each side exactly the space you want. Scan, compare, reply, and never lose your place.

Switching between them takes one click — a redesigned picker right in your inbox, with a little visual preview of each so you know what you’re getting. Pick one today, change your mind tomorrow. Talanoa remembers.

The details that make Split View feel right

Building a second layout is easy. Building one that feels like it was always meant to be there is the hard part. So we sweated the small stuff:

• A list that gets to the point. In Split View, every conversation shows you what matters — subject, preview, who’s involved, how many messages — and hides the rest. Avatars and counters only appear when they actually tell you something.
• A sender panel that knows when to disappear. Need more room to read? Collapse the contact panel with a single click. Want the context back? It’s one click away.
• Compose that follows you. Tuck the sidebar away and the “New message” button quietly reappears in your header. Writing is never more than a click out of reach.

This is the whole philosophy, really

Split View isn’t just a feature. It’s the clearest expression of what we believe email software should be: calm, fast, and shaped around you — not the other way around.

Your email is personal. The way you read it should be too.

Give Split View a try, then switch back to Full and see which one feels like yours. There’s no wrong answer — that was the whole point.

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