Live data from Hacker News

HipChat releases native app for Mac

hipchat.com

11–20 of 129 posts

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#11
post #5

We switched from Campfire to HipChat about 6 months ago and it's been awesome - apart from the Adobe Air client crashes whenever someone posts a GIF. Hopefully this'll fix it :D

A quick test by one of my coworkers confirms that it does fix the GIF crash.

The gif issue was an Adobe AIR bug, so it's definitely gone now. It was incredibly frustrating having them break functionality that many of our users love, especially because it wasn't possible for us to work around the issue. Sorry about that!

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#14
post #9

Hrm, we've just moved to Flowdock, which is pretty nice. But has just got bought up by a large company. This makes me wish I'd gone with HipChat.

You do realize that HipChat is owned by... a large company, right?

I do now. I thought Atlassian had built it in-house. My worry with these is that acquisitions change the product priorities. For example I was sceptical of the recent Crashlytics acquisition by twitter but they've already gone and improved the experience for everyone by offering enterprise features for free. Its hard to tell who's going to be absorbed and fade out in these kinda things.

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#15
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick test by one of my coworkers confirms that it does fix the GIF crash.

The gif issue was an Adobe AIR bug, so it's definitely gone now. It was incredibly frustrating having them break functionality that many of our users love, especially because it wasn't possible for us to work around the issue. Sorry about that!

awesome. this has been a huge thorn for a while now. so good to see it's gone. Now if only we had custom sounds support!

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#16

Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?

Among other things, not having to set up your own XMPP or IRC server.

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#17

Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?

It makes everyone feel they're a hip startup. I mean, my IRC client has been doing drag and drop file sharing and image URL inline thumbnailing for... 10 years. The HipChat client is nice, but let's be real, it's just a nice client for a handicapped implementation of XMPP. I'm forced to use HipChat at work and use Adium to connect. I've even got the emoticon set, and message styles to match.

They can't even program a mobile app that reconnects me automatically (unless that's changed recently).

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#18

Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?

Not having to maintain your own server. Slightly better integration with other things (e.g. messages sent when you're offline can be emailed to you) - nothing you couldn't do with a bunch of client plugins, but it's there and set up for you already. A very nicely polished in-browser client, nicer even than irccloud, which makes it much easier for non-technical folks to use.

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#19
I know people are happy as the infamous GIF bug is fixed, but seriously this is one of the worst 'beta' apps I have tried.

This mac app has been in development for ages, then been in closed beta and now finally it's available to everyone to try.

Our team just switched to the beta native app, and already found several critical bugs with the app within minutes.

Sorry guys, this is really poorly put together and the number of obvious bugs makes me think that you don't even use your own product!

Re: HipChat releases native app for Mac

#20
Immediately noticed one short coming: I can't resize the font any more. In the AIR version Cmd/Ctrl+Plus/Minus just worked (perhaps as a result of the AIR implementation, not a product decision), but in this native version it doesn't and there are no preferences for it, either.

If the HipChat guys see this, please consider it as feature for an update soon?

Post reply on HN