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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

#471

Post by greggman2 »

I'm guessing they are copying medium? Which also sucks for code. Sure, do whatever is best for non-coders but please give coders a markdown option as it's what we're using every place else.

I recently did my first post on medium. I wrote the post offline in markdown, copied and pasted it in. Was first disappointed medium didn't support markdown so I had to go reformat all of it. That sucked and had several of the same issues mentioned in the linked article, like for example putting the cursor at the start of a `inline-code-block` and typing puts what you're typing outside the block. The only way to edit the start of the block is put the cursor between `i` and `n` in `inline`, type your new text including a new `i` and then delete starting `i`.

Another issue is it changed all '' and "" to ‘’ and “” which I didn't notice and made all the code blocks not copy and pastable from the article.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#472

Post by Roark66 »

aero142 wrote: post #250
ajkjk wrote: post #47

The funny thing is that I am sure most of the people who work at slack know it's terrible, but no one asks them. There is a small cohort of product managers who probably have a plausible-sounding reason to do it, and they need to do something to justify their jobs, so they alienate everybody else because no one stops them. I am, to put it lightly, familiar with this in other companies.

I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical programmers and hip startups, but the market is so much bigger. shows Office 365 revenue numbers vs Slack revenue numbers . We have an opportunity to take this to the next level. We need to make this the goto office communication platform. cheers . Markdown may seem…

>I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical programmers and hip startups, but the market is so much bigger. shows Office 365 revenue numbers vs Slack revenue numbers. We have an opportunity to take this to the next level. We need to make this the goto office communication platform. cheers.

You're probably right. However, Slack will never be _the_ goto office communication platform until it integrates with AD and that will not happen because MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync).

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#473

Post by jackweirdy »

paulddraper wrote: post #277
guessmyname wrote: post #46

This is funny because I work across the street of Slack’s office in Vancouver, Canada and two Slack engineers who I frequently chat with during our daily commute already told me they —and a handful of other employees— hate the WYSIWYG input box too, but were afraid to express their feelings because their role is irrelevant compared to the people who made the decision to ship it.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to create two adjacent but separate code blocks. ``` one ``` ``` two ``` I've tried and tried.

The flow of pasting such strings is not great either. Previously you could paste a string with backticks and it would be formatted correctly on send.

Now the behaviour is to ask you every time to apply formatting. There is an option for "don't ask again" which I tried assuming it would make autoformatting the default, but it turns off the behaviour completely with no way to get it back!

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#474

Post by greggman2 »

Plyphon_ wrote: post #464

In their defence (not the defence of the WYSIWYG box itself) - they quite likely have done lots of user testing that has shown clear desirability, improved value to user, improved usability, etc etc. You have to remember Slack's target persona is probably no longer the Engineer (If it ever was) - it's more likely a much less tech-savvy employee who finds WYSIWYG editors very handy to create rich text inputs. I guess…

> they quite likely have done lots of user testing that has shown clear desirability, improved value to user, improved usability

I have never worked at a company that did user testing or if they did it was always done in a way or interpreted in a way to back up the designer's opinion. I don't think I've once in my entire 40 yr career seen a designer test with users, find out something was bad, and change their design based on the test.

Has any one else?

To be clear I have seen a designer test themselves and re-design but I've never seen them test with users and re-design. I've also seen them change a design, put it out in limited release, then claim "we didn't get any/many complaints so it must be okay" without a thought that the majority of users never complain (either don't know how, can't be bothered, never considered it might be useful, clicked the feedback but that doesn't actually make it back to the designer, combinations of all of the above)

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#475

Post by thecupisblue »

kelseydh wrote: post #358
goostavos wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet a large percentage of Slack people _tried super hard_ to stop that cohort of PMs. However, you can only fight upwards so much before you just check out completely, cash the checks, and halfheartedly build whatever nonsense they're forcing through.

It's common for ambitious employees in not-so-ambitious tech companies to lose their jobs over not realizing that the optimal strategy for keeping their job is to just do their work as told, collect a pay cheque, and not innovate. In these companies, the fastest way to get canned is to believe you are there to help the company succeed by trying to innovate, and in the process of doing so, imply there are flaws with h…

>It's common for ambitious employees in not-so-ambitious tech companies to lose their jobs over not realizing that the optimal strategy for keeping their job is to just do their work as told, collect a pay cheque, and not innovate.

Also known as optimal strategy to get your soul crushed and die inside.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#476

Post by tiborsaas »

I'm maybe a superhuman, but it took me a few seconds to figure out how to paste code as normal.

   backtick backtick backtick command-v
You can still use the create new > code or text snippet feature which I most of the time I pick to share code.

It doesn't seem perfect but come on, it's isn't terrible either. I do see however it as the perfect storm for HN crowd :)

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#477

Post by hatfortguy »

alexis_fr wrote: post #399
kelseydh wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Concerning Clubhouse.io, it looks great, is there a download version? I know “Cloud is the way to go”, but I work in Men’s Rights (DV abuses, etc) and it is usually something that cloud companies don’t want on their platform, so we’re constantly at risk of being revoked.

Have you tried something git based? That way the tickets, etc, exist on your machine and there's no real risk of being de-platformed.

Whilst not an actual answer to your question, I thought it might be a good direction for you to look into.

Also, I've seen Redbooth (formerly Teambox) we'll recommended and since it's OSS it can be self hosted pretty easily.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#479

Post by jraph »

baby wrote: post #275
_jal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad sign. If the rank and file are afraid to give honest internal feedback, they have a management problem. At least for me, that's a time-to-leave signal.

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

Nice self-reference :-)
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