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Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

shrugs.app

131–140 of 236 posts

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof, I feel like just one of those would be a deal breaker for most, but all those missing together makes it feel more like a proof of concept than anything else. A $20 proof of concept.

Gotta start somewhere.

The problem is that according to the FAQ it's more in maintenance mode than in active development.

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#132
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't it fair? They run the service. What gives other people the right to tell them how to run it? If you don't like their terms, there are about 100 alternative projects you can use. There are pretty clear, practical reasons you might want to control the client of a commercial network service.

There are reasons, but it's also not smart. Organizations that pay for Slack pay for the service, not the shitty client.

You want to reduce Slack Inc to an API provider. They want to be a client provider too and they own the API server. Do you see where this won't work?

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#133
post #97

Maybe I'm just jaded but as someone that used to be gungho about alternative, native clients like these. I've just given in and used the official clients. I'm tired of being the person who doesn't have specific feature or w/e. Anyone else in a similar boat?

Yeah, same boat here!

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#134
post #43
post #4

It looks nice, but if you plan to try it as you default Slack client be aware it is lacking many features: - Edit posted messages (big one, TBA) - Authentication w/ XOXC tokens - Loading older messages - Typing indicators - Starring & Pinning things - Search - Sharing messages - Screensharing and Calls (aka Screenhero) - Joining and creating channels

Yeah, but multiple windows! OMG! I find managing multiple conversations with Slack so incredibly challenging. Having multiple windows open for active conversations is sooo good.

Multiple windows I look at the screenshots and think "we're living in the ~future~ 1996"!

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#135
post #97

Maybe I'm just jaded but as someone that used to be gungho about alternative, native clients like these. I've just given in and used the official clients. I'm tired of being the person who doesn't have specific feature or w/e. Anyone else in a similar boat?

Yeah, same here!

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#136
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but multiple windows! OMG! I find managing multiple conversations with Slack so incredibly challenging. Having multiple windows open for active conversations is sooo good.

It's funny to see how basically all the official mainstream IM clients like AIM, MSN, ICQ, etc. used to be 1-window-per-conversation, but then in some odd wave of "modernity" (for lack of a better term) that was all dispensed with, and then now, multiple windows is somehow heralded as a new feature again. To me, it's just common sense that each conversation should be in its own window, instead of stuffing them all in…

Slack is more like IRC and as I recall most IRC clients had single windows.

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#137
post #100
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but multiple windows! OMG! I find managing multiple conversations with Slack so incredibly challenging. Having multiple windows open for active conversations is sooo good.

If you use a browser as your client, this can be done. No need for electron either :)

On Macos Chrome you can still do hamburger menu -> More Tools -> Create Shortcut... and enable "open as window", and Chrome will create a .app file that, when you run it, opens that site as a PWA. Additionally it gets the favicon of the site by default as its app icon (you can change that) and then it shows up in the cmd-tab list as an app completely separate from Chrome. This works really nicely with Slack, especially if you're usually only in a few slack teams. Inside the PWA Chrome apps you can do cmd-N to create a new window if you want to see multiple channels / threads side-by-side from the same slack team. It's a great user experience and pretty much the only reason I keep Chrome around.

Firefox devs removed its PWA / "site-specific browser" support in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682593 .

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#138
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use a browser as your client, this can be done. No need for electron either :)

On Macos Chrome you can still do hamburger menu -> More Tools -> Create Shortcut... and enable "open as window", and Chrome will create a .app file that, when you run it, opens that site as a PWA. Additionally it gets the favicon of the site by default as its app icon (you can change that) and then it shows up in the cmd-tab list as an app completely separate from Chrome. This works really nicely with Slack, especial…

There's a GitHub project that enables you to run PWA's with Firefox as distinct apps (with thier own icons etc): https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox.

Disclaimer: Haven't tried it out myself.

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#139
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this user's top post on HN: > Over the years I've found writing on HackerNews, Reddit and other online sites has given me an outlet to get creative and engage with folks in a way that will shift discourse towards something I'm more interested in. I regularly lie and pretend I know about topics and areas I have zero experience in. I began noticing I received more upvotes and engagement

How do you see top posts?

Click on the username => submissions

Re: Shrugs.app – A native Slack client for macOS

#140
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it sucks that you could be sued if you are using a "public" api like this to write a client. I would like to think that as long as you do not brand yourself as slack or violate any trademarks, you should be able to write an app like this. Things like email clients would fall into this category.

It's not public as in an utility. It has its own Terms of Service.

I assume your argument is that Slack has the "freedom of contract", the right to create and offer you contracts of their choosing (and you are free to accept or decline them). That right is not absolute. Workers rights limit it, sanctions limit it, cartel and competition laws limit it. There is no reason society can't agree to limit the options of keeping an API locked down in such contracts, especially for well established companies like Slack.

And I think the advantages of such a law are very clear: More competition on front-ends could very likely create much better user experience (better organization of chats, better message and image editor, better notifications, show users whether messages have actually been sent).

Laws are made to serve the public [1]. Being nice to companies is a means to an end, not the goal itself, and the discussion about whether API should be legally accessible to third party vendors (or devices/cars/… should be legally repairable by third party repair shops) should focus on whether we get better user experience, service, and so on, and have the question of whether companies will still want to offer backend-service like Slack under such a law as a facet.

[1] At least they should be and everybody complaints when they aren't.

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