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Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

blog.whatsapp.com

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Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really treat cmd+tab and cmd+` very differently, sorry. On my OS, both work: I can alt-` to cycle through windows of same application and alt+tab to cycle through each individual window (grouped by application); maybe that's given me the habit of treating alt+` merely as a filter on alt+tab. Oh! This is perhaps also why I get annoyed by cmd+tab on Macs!!

Next tme on mac try cmd+' to cycle between windows of the same app(although im not sure, because it really is muscle memory). Cmd tab cycles through wndow groups? Or does it cycle through each window? Which wm on which os do you use? gnome kde or something else?

> Next time on mac try ...

I do know how it works on Mac, it's just my muscles don't.

> Which wm on which os do you use? gnome kde or something else?

Kwin (from the KDE suite) on Arch Linux.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#223

It seems to be nothing more than https://web.whatsapp.com/ in a web view. So I can't really see interest.

I previously created my own "native" app from this by wrapping https://web.whatsapp.com in an Electron wrapper so that I could have WhatsApp live separate from the browser, with it's own Dock icon. Some ways in which the official app is better: * The official app extends to the edges of the window, whereas the web app has a "window on a background" design, which takes up more space. * The official app has keyboard sh…

I discovered https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat

A couple weeks ago. One thing it does better than the official app is that on Mac the red window button hides the window rather than terminating the process.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#224
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many. It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here: 2014 talks by Rick Reed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c…

> It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. So are you saying that a desktop PC's hard drive can't handle storage of some text messages but a phone can?

No, he's saying that in order for the messages to be available, they have to be stored locally and since most people need access to the messages from their phones, it makes sense to do it this way to ensure that all messages are stored on the phone, instead of users ending up with some messages on their phones and some on their PCs.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same way iMessage does

Keep in mind that Whatsapp still supports pretty old devices (Nokia S40/60), where you may not want to encrypt every image N times. Edit: remove some stuff.

Actually iMessage doesn't encrypt each image N times. It encrypts once, upload it to a server, then encrypts the image encryption key N times.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#226

Why is the app closing completely if I press 'x'? wouldn't be much better to stay in background mode like Slack does (well and many other chat clients)? It's annoying... I'll keep using my custom wrapper with NW.js (apparently this uses electron) until this behaviour is implemented...

For mac users there's ChitChat[0], it behaves as expected. In fact I'm not switching to the official WhatsApp desktop release until this issue is properly fixed. [0] https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat

ChitChat is great but is not _exactly_ like a mac app. You can't drag it from desktop to desktop. No big thing though.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#227
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be possible on desktop with create application shortcuts, but this feature seems to be gone now :(

Still there: Hamburger Menu -> More Tools -> Add to Desktop

This capability was removed from the OS X version of Chrome some time back.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still there: Hamburger Menu -> More Tools -> Add to Desktop

This capability was removed from the OS X version of Chrome some time back.

Interesting. I saw it work as recently as a few weeks ago. Looking at the support article (here: https://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/answer/3060053?hl...) it looks like OS X is the only platform where it no longer works. How strange.
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