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Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

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Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#411
I actually like the new backtick to codeblock style. It is three backticks instead of six. I do agree the overall input box could be smaller.

My personal pet peeve is threads. The feature I didn't ask for, but can die in a fire. Or they could make an option to have it auto flatten all threads.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#412
post #411

I actually like the new backtick to codeblock style. It is three backticks instead of six. I do agree the overall input box could be smaller. My personal pet peeve is threads. The feature I didn't ask for, but can die in a fire. Or they could make an option to have it auto flatten all threads.

We do three backticks at keybase and it feels natural.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#413

Amusingly, for https://riot.im we just shelved our WYSIWYG editor efforts after trying two completely separate implementations over the years (one via Draft.js, the other via Slate.js) because: a) it's a nightmare to get right, b) nobody used it anyway (it was optional), c) chat isn't a wordprocessor, d) markdown (commonmark) + floating formatting toolbar is good enough. Our current editor was written from scratch (c…

It's even sadder because Org-Mode demonstrated how to do WYSIWYG right. Apply the styling in real time, but then also show the formatting characters around it! That way you lose all of the weird WYSIWYG edge cases (will this character I type at the edge of a bold segment also be bold?), and you also teach WYSIWYG users Markdown in a natural way.

Ugh. No. This really breaks up the flow of the text.

I’m sure it’s fine for org-mode’s intended audience, but for people not from a coding background, it’s horrid. And there’s no need to “teach WYSIWYG users Markdown” when WYSIWYG is fine for them.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#414

Amusingly, for https://riot.im we just shelved our WYSIWYG editor efforts after trying two completely separate implementations over the years (one via Draft.js, the other via Slate.js) because: a) it's a nightmare to get right, b) nobody used it anyway (it was optional), c) chat isn't a wordprocessor, d) markdown (commonmark) + floating formatting toolbar is good enough. Our current editor was written from scratch (c…

The fact that this industry turned to a proprietary low-quality solution like Slack when Riot/Matrix have already existed tells the full story about what a bunch of incompetent idiots we all are.

Everyone frustrated with the new Slack input box deserves what they got. Me included.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#416
post #322
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this ladies and gentlemen is the over reaction of the year!

In my company (not a small one) and in any previous ones, I’ve never even thought that people could be afraid of giving honest feedback. I’ve seen internal feedback causing change, I’ve also seen it being ignored (sometimes to be listened to later after all, sometimes it turned out that things weren’t as bad as they seemed), but I’ve never perceived any potential for negative repercussions. So if that is indeed the c…

Sure, my point is that it makes little sense to jump to these conclusions with so little information, especially since this is not the point of the article.

I’m amazed that I’m still talking about this :)

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#417
Slack is quickly becoming the kind of enterprise software I hate having to use.

If you’re on multiple Slacks, as is becoming increasingly common these days (I have 23 Slack accounts, five of which I’m logged in to on a daily basis), the UX is terrible. Whenever you switch from one Slack to another, you have to wait for the whole UI to reload, often takes several seconds.

You’d think all that VC money would make them able to afford building a proper desktop client instead of this Electron shovelware crap.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#418
post #114

The exact same happened with the draft feature. The importance of habit forming UI is very well documented, going back at least as far as Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface and the draft feature completely breaks it -- if you as much as accidentally leave a character in there, you can't find the channel/DM at its normal place. Despite repeated calls to make it optional, nothing. Threads are also broken, has always bee…

What's wrong with the drafts feature? I tend to use it if I'm messaging someone and I don't have all the info yet or I might have forgotten to reply :)

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reminds me of Atlassian's god-awful WYSIWYG editor. Oh my goodness: triggered. I've barred the use of Confluence at our company specifically because of this. "But, but, we used it at blah company." "Yes, so did I at blahblah company, and it was unbelievably crappy and made me angry every time I had to edit a document: we're not using it." I DO NOT want to have to use what amounts to an extremely buggy, caprici…

Yeah, the very first time I used Confluence I was in shock of how developer's at one time could have thought this was a good or useful product for discussing/planning code changes. For ticketing software, I find Clubhouse to be much better than JIRA. Normal markdown that doesn't drive you insane. Much slicker all around.

Was super skeptical about all those Jira replacement SaaS’s out there. But Clubhouse is actually pretty good. For people on the fence, give it a try.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#420

Slack’s old formatting syntax was Markdown-like but not exactly Markdown, just similar. In case anyone from Slack is paying attention to their technical users here, this is a great opportunity to move to CommonMark formatting for technical users and wysiwyg for non-technical users: just make this optional and switch the format syntax for the non-wysiwyg mode to CommonMark. I can understand that changing the formattin…

I am in a similar position. It is almost always the technical people in a company that sets this stuff up, thus you are losing the goodwill of the decision-makers, which is unfortunate.
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