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The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

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Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#71
I was never a fan of their pseudo-markdown (it’s so close, but the minor deviations are annoying), but it’s a great to have it back instead of that other train-wreck of an editor. At least you can now edit text without regularly wanting scream in frustration.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#72

It's pretty incredible to think that for all the billions of dollars around Slack it's still fundamentally the same product with the same value add that it was when it first launched. Sure, maybe it's faster or more efficient or whatever now, but what it is at heart is the _exact_ same thing it was on Day 1.

A Tesla Model S is fundamentally the same product with the same value add as a Ford Model T. Sure, the Tesla may be faster or more efficient or whatever now, but what it is at heart is the exact same thing as the Ford was 111 years ago.

Not quite the same.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#73

It's pretty incredible to think that for all the billions of dollars around Slack it's still fundamentally the same product with the same value add that it was when it first launched. Sure, maybe it's faster or more efficient or whatever now, but what it is at heart is the _exact_ same thing it was on Day 1.

A Tesla Model S is fundamentally the same product with the same value add as a Ford Model T. Sure, the Tesla may be faster or more efficient or whatever now, but what it is at heart is the exact same thing as the Ford was 111 years ago.

For people who aren't interested in cars, this statement is quite true.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Tesla Model S is fundamentally the same product with the same value add as a Ford Model T. Sure, the Tesla may be faster or more efficient or whatever now, but what it is at heart is the exact same thing as the Ford was 111 years ago.

Not quite the same.

How so?

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it need to change? I don't want Slack to be a different or more comprehensive tool.

Yes, in order to provide a competitive advantage over the numerous clones that are already coming along, Slack must continue to innovate.

And become what, Microsoft Teams? Everything for everyone ... executed badly?

Staying focused is orthogonal to continued innovation.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#76
post #48

It is interesting to me that the rant post about Slack's WYSIWYG editor was the 18th most upvoted HN post of all time. No idea what conclusion should I draw from it, if any at all, but surprising for me at least.

lots of hn readers use slack

lots of hn slack users disliked the feature

lots of hn slack users who disliked the feature went straight to hn to vote up any post complaining about it

that's how communities around tech broadly tend to work

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I wish I could disable "threads" so nobody else can use them...

We have a culturally enforced strict rule of moving literally ALL new conversations into a subthread and I absolutely LOVE it. This means that if you want to respond to a comment, you never do it in the channel but in the subthread of _that_ comment. This means that when you browse the channel itself, each individual line represents a conversation on a specific topic. You can essentially browse the "headlines" of the…

This is how I imagined threads working when they were announced, but it seems they are never used consistently. How exactly do you manage to enforce that rule?

Even if this worked, it's just a nice step toward a full comment tree (like HN or reddit). I get the impression some people find that format confusing, but I think it's vastly superior. I assume programmers generally prefer it.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#78

In case anyone's interested, here's the Chromium bug(s) that's one of the main reasons the WYSIWYG editor has such issues in Chrome(/Electron): - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=102937... - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608393 - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608162 The gist of it is that they "canonicalize" the DOM selection when you have two adjac…

It's mystifying, absolutely mystifying, to me that Slack shipped that editor when both electron and chrome show such obvious problems.

What sort of out of control process let this get out, and also let them ignore bug reports for so long?

This significantly lessens my opinion of Slack and their internal culture. In prior threads there were rumors that Slack employees were hesitant to give negative feedback internally, due to culture. I don't put much stock in rumors, but I'll be paying attention now to that possibility.

Re: The latest version of Slack has a setting to disable the WYSIWYG editor

#79
This is a good reminder that sometimes complaining about companies on social media like Hackernews and Twitter does actually help. Not always, maybe not even usually. But Slack went from, "no, we have no plans to adjust this", to "yes, we'll include a toggle", and the reason was that a bunch of people publicly complained and wrote a bunch of messages to support.

It is a very, very, very small victory, and if I was going to choose a victory, Slack's Markdown editor would not be very high on my list of priorities -- but I'll take it.

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