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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

#741

Post by crtlaltdel »

Nextgrid wrote: post #637
bishalb wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand why this change can be annoying to the tech savvy folks of hackernews, it can be quite helpful for those who aren't that tech savvy and want easy ways to bold, italicize texts (that make up majority of the slack user base). Heck I am sure most of the slack users wouldn't even know it was possible to bold, italicize on slack using markdown.

Why does everything need to cater to idiots instead of making them learn? If we continue down this trend we’ll end up with keyboards with a single button to cater to some monkeys out there who can’t manage to use a proper keyboard, at the expense of everyone else’s productivity. Is this the future we really want?

in my experience it is not uncommon for product development to involve assertions that “some of the users are not the most tech savvy”. i’ve seen this as justification for cutting scope, which i can agree with in many situations even if i disagree with the reasoning. over all, cutting scope had been the right move.

that said, i take exception with these claims that the user is “an idiot”. it comes off as arrogant to me.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#742

Post by peterwwillis »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #615
TeMPOraL wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Personally, I recommend switching to Ripcord as a Slack client. That's what I did some time ago, and I couldn't be happier.

Thank you! I didn't know about Ripcord, and so far it is great. I am amazed how fast it is. I'm also depressed that this amazes me, as it basically does what mIRC did for me over a decade ago. This is developed in QT by one person, and it looks pretty feature-complete to me. I really don't understand why a company the size of Slack invests all their development effort into such a subpar platform as Electron, when a n…

> I really don't understand why a company the size of Slack invests all their development effort into such a subpar platform as Electron, when a native solution is clearly doable with very limited resources.

A lot of reasons... a solution 1) grows to match the size of its budget constraints 2) becomes more complicated the more people with long titles have a say in it 3) becomes more difficult to implement the more people that are working on it 4) becomes less useful the more people there are that can dictate what it does and how 5) fulfills more of the letter than the spirit of its requirements as more hierarchies of people manage it 6) becomes less user friendly as fewer typical users are involved with its development

Though the actual answer is "somebody with power just wanted electron for personal reasons and nobody had the power to turn the ship once it started on its course"

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#744

Post by apetresc »

slimed wrote: post #333
apetresc wrote: post #253

Using wee-slack instead of the official Slack client is an easy win on multiple levels, including this one. I sincerely hope they never go out of their way to break/block it.

Please don't post about this here

Huh? Why not? It seems completely relevant.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#745

Post by plopz »

asdf21 wrote: post #719
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the Windows 95 interface was so much better than what came before it was because Microsoft did loads of user testing and changed their design heavily based on it.

And imo it's still basically the best design. 98 and XP were basically just flavors of win95 and those were everyone's favorite, UI wise.

I'm still using Windows 7 with the classic theme because its just such a good design.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#746

Post by kup0 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #578

What is currently driving me crazy about slack is that: 1) Slack constantly makes subtle changes the UX that always takes a bit of time to figure out, I don't want to read update notes to find out how a critical comms tool has changed eg. yesterday the mac chat became psuedo wysiwhg and it broke my muscle memory and stuff bounces around while I'm typing, eg2. Drafts: FU, I didn't ask for you to reorder my UI around s…

The automatic menu reordering is infuriating

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#747

Post by rgrau »

sambe wrote: post #495

This is not one of those "oh, that's annoying, i'll have to remember that and learn to work around it" issues. It's more like "I want to immediately stop using this software but have no choice". Its driving me crazy - Slack is all text input. Don't break text input dummy!

Another one for the lists in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21480590

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#748

Post by jeffp17 »

bishalb wrote: post #608
sambe wrote: post #495

This is not one of those "oh, that's annoying, i'll have to remember that and learn to work around it" issues. It's more like "I want to immediately stop using this software but have no choice". Its driving me crazy - Slack is all text input. Don't break text input dummy!

While I understand why this change can be annoying to the tech savvy folks of hackernews, it can be quite helpful for those who aren't that tech savvy and want easy ways to bold, italicize texts (that make up majority of the slack user base). Heck I am sure most of the slack users wouldn't even know it was possible to bold, italicize on slack using markdown.

The problem is not the change, but that it is not backwards-compatible with the way that the "tech savvy folks" have been doing it for years.

There is no way to opt-out of this change, essentially forcing everybody into entering text this way.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#749

Post by latexr »

darkcl wrote: post #528

I have contacted them, and they replied me with this Lucas (Slack) Nov 20, 9:15 PM PST Hi there, Thank you for taking the time to write in and provide this feedback. I apologize for the disruption to your existing workflows. Our aim is to build an editor that works for all Slack users to better format their messages and clearly communicate in channels, regardless of their technical expertise. While we are taking all…

> We are committed to doing what we can to improve the new experience for you

What an insincere message.

If they were committed, they’d offer the option. They don’t want to and that’s their right, but implying they value feedback and just doing what they want is throwing sand in the user’s eyes.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#750

Post by phicoh »

bandrami wrote: post #655
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I didn't know about Ripcord, and so far it is great. I am amazed how fast it is. I'm also depressed that this amazes me, as it basically does what mIRC did for me over a decade ago. This is developed in QT by one person, and it looks pretty feature-complete to me. I really don't understand why a company the size of Slack invests all their development effort into such a subpar platform as Electron, when a n…

> as it basically does what mIRC did for me over a decade ago When Atlassian finally pulled Hipchat last year I was tasked with finding the replacement. Turns out the one that met everybody's needs best was a local IRCd and whatever desktop client for it people liked. Some problems have been solved correctly for a while; chat is one of them.

I'm curious, how does IRC handle history and multi-device sync?

How does IRC handle end-to-end encryption in groups?

How does IRC handle editing messages?

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