I would prefer a modal/dropdown with backdrop I can use to click back into doing what I was doing before. This would allow me to silence the notification indicator without having to go to that page and then back.
I like this idea, but wonder how it would handle showing any tasks you click on while in the inbox. I often need to click the task associated with a notification to remind myself of the overall task. If the whole modal layer came up like when you click on a task from a board, but you got both the left and right panes, it would probably do what I’d like. Then click the X or off the window to dismiss the inbox.
As it is, I tend to keep two tabs in asana open as a workaround. One for my inbox and the other for work. This makes my inbox notification (the black circle in the tab) get out of sync where one will have a circle and the other not, which triggers me to believe I maybe didn’t see all my notifications and I check again.