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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

#761

Post by scoutt »

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…

> If it ever was

This video[1] from slack.com front page has 3 chat windows. 1 of them is about two engineers chatting about a git pull request, so I guess 1/3 of their target persona is a developer?

[1] - https://a.slack-edge.com/085e3/marketing/img/channels/vid/ch...

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#762

Post by dclowd9901 »

Fiahil wrote: post #675
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.

It's genuinely hard to make a good design for something, but if you put the time and effort required, that's the difference between Atom and VS Code. The only way I know how to make a good design, is to have a good Product Owner. Prototyping helps a little bit, User testing absolutely not. You can have five different PO working on the same epic and still get a bad design, but it only takes one to find the perfect sol…

That seems pretty confusing to me, as now you’re left wondering which will actually render, and which text won’t...

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#763

Post by EGreg »

We have to move the Web from a feudal society to a free market. To do that we need a some platforms and micropayments systems that work across borders to unify identity, social networking and commerce. Otherwise Facebook, Amazon et al will do it!

Here are some ideas: https://qbix.com/token

Note: the token described there is optional to the system, but without a native micropayment system we have to bolt on various payment solutions like Patreon or live with ad-supported platforms. The original Xanadu vision was hypermedia with micropayments.

I wanted to mention an interesting bit of engineering outside the pure programming space. It is not enough to design the web-based payment system, but we must take regulations into account as well. In order not to be encumbered with securities laws, the token must be designed in such a way that no one rational would purchase it for speculative purposes. In Switzerland, there is a FINMA legal framework for classifying tokens as securities or not. In the US, this is achieved by fitting within no-action letters of the SEC:

https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-noaction/2019/turnk...

In short, a lot goes into a system like this, and it has to be in place to allow a free market by small entities able to compete with feudal lords. (Open source is a free market with a huge gift economy, ie many things are produced without a profit motive.)

Remember AOL, CompuServe, MSN? That was a Feudal society. You had to have AOL keyword Facebook, Amazon etc. The Web browser and HTTP invented by Tim Berners-Lee is what disrupted those centralized networks so you could simply use DNS and build on your own domain. Now you could have Facebook.com, Amazon.com and that is how they were even able to get their start. Do you think AOL would have allowed “keyword GMail” as an alternative email?

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#764

Post by c12 »

I am so glad I am not the only person this enrages. I have all but stopped using Slack for the time being simply because its too painful to use the input.

Sure roll out a WYSIWYG editor but make it optional via a config flag.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#765

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…

> Anyone know how to reverse engineer Slack desktop client?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21593098

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#766

Post by tux1968 »

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…

It's such a common problem with graphical interfaces in general. If only we gave our users the same affordance we give developers with versioned API's. We shouldn't be breaking interfaces haphazardly, and that includes the visual interface.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#767

Post by theedwood »

e12e wrote: post #574
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.

There's also wee-slack: https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack

Wee-slack was my go-to for the longest time but can no longer use it and it makes me sad... The problem with it now is that they had to migrate off the legacy API tokens. You now need an administrator to authorize wee-slack as an application for your organization. Not all organizations are willing to do this.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#770

Post by pitaj »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #720
CloudNetworking wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need OSS in this case, we need open protocols so anyone can use any other client, proprietary or not.

We've had a perfectly good open chat protocol since... gosh, I don't even know. It's called IRC and it's so simple you can implement a server or client in python in under an hour. This is what happens when you over-engineer things.

IRC has many drawbacks not shared by more modern protocols. Slack works when you're offline, saves history, has notifications, search, etc.

IRC is not perfectly good or it would still be used.

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