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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

#881

Post by chx »

baddox wrote: post #330
city41 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The draft feature positively boggles my mind. The intention seems to be to collect all your drafts into one location. But that comes with the assumption people will have multiple drafts for ... chat channels? Do people really work that way? If the actual intention is to remind you you have a half written message, seems some kind of indicator on the channel would suffice. Having my channel “disappear” on me is maddeni…

It’s so simple. They could add the channel/DM to the Drafts list while also keeping it in its normal spot. I cringe with sympathetic embarrassment just thinking about how ridiculously obvious this is and how easy it would be to implement.

Hold on, if you have a dict like structure with the channels as keys then no, implementing that is not so easy.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#882

Post by ss3000 »

greggman2 wrote: post #461
new_here wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used ProseMirror to build our editor at https://able.bio/new We chose ProseMirror after doing a lot of research (TinyMCE, Slate, Draft, Medium toolbar) and have been very happy with what it’s enabled us to do so far. We’ll probably write a blog post about it at some point.

ProseMirror has many of the problems the linked article described.

Could you please be a bit more specific?

I looked through all of the links in the original post and couldn't really find any mentions of specific limitations.

Just trying to learn more about this space.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#883

Post by 0xffff2 »

phyzome wrote: post #718
livueta wrote: post #50

Specific bug gripes aside: I see this editor as emblematic of Slack's broader shift away from what I think it should be (primarily synchronous chat; irc with a friendlier ui and integrated bouncer features) towards what many people seem to want to use it as (async-heavy pseudo-replacement for email where I get to sit and watch the "...is typing" indicator flicker while somebody writes an essay at me). My rule of thum…

« My rule of thumb generally is: if I need significant rich text formatting in a message I'm writing, it should probably just be an email. » Italic and bold I can do without. But code blocks are absolutely necessary for my day job, especially during a production incident. (Email won't cut it for that!)

Why not? I have my email client set to default to plain-text and I just write markdown in plain-text emails. Other developers don't seem to have any problem parsing it.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#884

Post by ascagnel_ »

jonahx wrote: post #810
ninkendo wrote: post #801

Did Slack ship a buggier version of this yesterday? I have it on one of my workspaces, and it's fine . I can still type `backticks` in the editor, with the exact same combinations of keystrokes I used before, it's just that they render as they will on the channel, rather than showing me the backticks (and only when I type the closing backtick. GIF here: https://i.imgur.com/o3wPWN0.gif ) Triple backtick does the same,…

Many edge cases are different. To name one: You realize after finishing your code block that the first two lines of it actually shouldn't have been part of the code block, but should have been normal text above. Go ahead and try to make this change with the new system. Compare that to what you would have done with the old, plain-text system.

Worse than that -- let's say you start typing in a code fragment inside backticks, but your code fragment includes a constant variable name like MY_COOL_VARIABLE. Because Slack doesn't evaluate the backticks until you add the closing backtick, the WYSIWYG editor turns MY_COOL_VARIABLE into MYCOOLVARIABLE, converting the "COOL" in the middle in italics... and then applies the monospaced styling _on top_ of the italics, so you have a really bizzarre output.

Oh, and you can't easily get the underscores back -- you'll need to retype the variable name.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#885

Post by eirini1 »

ailideex wrote: post #569
chris_wot wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Microsoft Teams is literally an existential threat, they really want to listen to feedback internally!

Microsoft Teams is pretty horrible

really? I find it rather great. Whats wrong with it?

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#886

Post by zaphar »

ilikepi wrote: post #839
jonahx wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many edge cases are different. To name one: You realize after finishing your code block that the first two lines of it actually shouldn't have been part of the code block, but should have been normal text above. Go ahead and try to make this change with the new system. Compare that to what you would have done with the old, plain-text system.

> To name one: You realize after finishing your code block that the first two lines of it actually shouldn't have been part of the code block, but should have been normal text above. * move the cursor to 0,0 * hold shift and hit down-arrow twice to highlight the first two lines * continue holding shift and hit left-arrow once to deselect the EOL on the second line * use the keyboard shortcut for toggling code blocks…

Yeah, It works. That is not high praise though. That is like the opposite of high praise.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#887

Post by testtesttest »

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…

slack --inspect=4444 //will let ya connect to main electron process via chrome remote debug

Then run this

require('electron').BrowserWindow.getAllWindows()[0].webContents.executeJavaScript(` javascript:(_ => { const redux = slackDebug[slackDebug.activeTeamId].redux; const {wysiwyg_composer, wysiwyg_composer_ios, wysiwyg_composer_webapp, ...payload} = redux.getState().experiments; redux.dispatch({ type: '[19] Bulk add experiment assignments to redux', payload }); })(); `)

to disable rich text editor. Going to hack together a node launch script for slack here in a little bit :P

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#888

Post by eutropia »

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…

Boy they can fuck right off with that corporate doublespeak bullshit.

Commitment to users means respecting that people have different preferences, and options let you respect that.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#889

Post by mbauman »

userbinator wrote: post #674
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…

You should point out how blatantly contradictory these two sentences are... Our aim is to build an editor that works for all Slack users disabling the new formatting tool isn't an option that we will be offering ...unless their goal is to reduce "all Slack users" to "only those who don't need the option"...

It's particularly amusing/frustrating/enraging because they have already shown that it's possible! Up until today, I've had some workspaces with the old (and functional!) text entry, and some with the new one — in the same app!

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#890

Post by bluehatbrit »

epanchin wrote: post #577
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.

Please ask them what they think of the ‘drafts’ section. I’m so fed up of losing chats to that section.

I find it very ironic how much slack is moving towards an email UI, given their "goal" to eradicate email a while ago.
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