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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

#191

Post by lonelappde »

ryandrake wrote: post #168
ajkjk wrote: post #47

The funny thing is that I am sure most of the people who work at slack know it's terrible, but no one asks them. There is a small cohort of product managers who probably have a plausible-sounding reason to do it, and they need to do something to justify their jobs, so they alienate everybody else because no one stops them. I am, to put it lightly, familiar with this in other companies.

Isn’t this how all UI redesign projects happen? The next step that also seems to happen more often than not: Despite user outcry, the company digs in, becomes defensive, and dismisses complaints with platitudes or snark like “you’ll get over it”. See also: Slashdot redesign, Fark redesign, Reddit redesign, Digg redesign, and so on.

I accidentally clicked a slashdot links yesterday. They show comments by default, sorted by New, despite having invented the best user-enforced moderation system ever seen on the web, and the #2 comment was 10 screenheights of screeenwide ASCII art swastikas. Hooray for UI redesigns to chase the next million dumber users.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#192

Post by freedomben »

harshalizee wrote: post #55

I wish Enterprise software or anything where I have to pay money to use had strict contracts about changes and mandatory opt-ins. It's ridiculous that in this day and age, we have to be worried about some PM deciding for large swathes of users what's best for them. I just want my tools to be predictable and usable and not have to relearn every bit of quirk someone fancied.

Could not agree more. I hate the world we are building with SaaS type software where the user (me) has no control at all over versions, when/where, etc. I honestly think I may prefer the old "buy a shrink-wrapped copy" approach. Back then it was rare to run into bugs, and nobody ever "upgraded" me without me knowing and radically changed the UI. Maybe I'm just being grouchy and "get off my lawn"ish, but dang.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#193

Post by DavidHull »

howdydoo wrote: post #59
jakebasile wrote: post #19

Reading their non-replies on Twitter feels like I'm reading something specifically designed to piss me off. Smarmy apologies, low empathy, cocksure of how correct their vision of a chat service should be. This one in particular[1]: > The goal is for workflows to evolve, but we realize change can be a bit of a pain. "Stupid peasant, we are only here to help you. Once you see the glorious vision we have you will thank…

> You can use Cmd/Ctrl + Z to undo the format rendering within the text box, if that helps? This is the one that got me. Yeah thanks, I've been using text boxes since the 90s, I know how to undo. Now we'll get to find out if _they_ know how to undo.

Actually, the cmd/ctl-z advice is actually moderately useful. If you type it immediately after the closing formatting character it undoes the wysiwyg formatting. (I'm not arguing against a way to turn the wysiwyg input window off, however.)

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#194

Post by [deleted] »

ben_jones wrote: post #165
danShumway wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal is for workflows to evolve This exchange is a pretty good summation of one of the biggest purely practical reasons why I'm so obsessive about tools, and why I'm so willing to put up with the initial cost of learning systems like Linux and Vim/Emacs. Outside of fundamentally better workflow improvements, most professional fields don't randomly change their tools. If you gave a professional artist a new penc…

Your comment is a punch to the gut for me, I've been developing an internal CRM for two years that embodies many of the philosophies you describe. But while it is somewhat depressing, I'm left with questions about how bad it really is. First, is it possible to develop software without inconveniencing business users with temporary (let's assume the ultimate products are better then the linux/vim/emacs they are superse…

[deleted]

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#195

Post by rurounijones »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #125
james_s_tayler wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahhh the HIPPO strikes again.

What’s that stand for? I’m guessing something along the lines of: High Importance Person Pushing Own (desires??)?

As others have said it means "Highest Paid Person's Opinion" but as a little extra.

It is usually used when a company has no actual data to work on and therefore goes with the "obvious" as defined by "the boss" (Hippo).

Not that it is necessarily true. There could be lots of data that some people are not aware of and that only senior people are privy to, but if that is not shared with the team developing the software then that is in itself not a great sign.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#196

Post by nh2 »

StavrosK wrote: post #39

At the risk of sounding like a shill, I'd like to shill Zulip. We started using it instead of Slack, and it has been amazing . It's fast, everything is designed to help you get to conversations quickly, keyboard accessibility is second to none and the streams is a much better default than rooms. I can't recommend it enough, it's well worth the money even though they have a nice free tier and are OSS so you can self-h…

What's keeping me on Slack instead of Zulip is its inability to mark messages as unread [1] (Alt+Click on Slack).

I think that's critical for a communication app when you want to ensure that you've answered all things that need answering.

[1] https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/2676

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#197

Post by EGreg »

jakebasile wrote: post #19

Reading their non-replies on Twitter feels like I'm reading something specifically designed to piss me off. Smarmy apologies, low empathy, cocksure of how correct their vision of a chat service should be. This one in particular[1]: > The goal is for workflows to evolve, but we realize change can be a bit of a pain. "Stupid peasant, we are only here to help you. Once you see the glorious vision we have you will thank…

Wow, pretty egregious.

How do you like this reply to tweet: https://twitter.com/qbixapps/status/1197332922807865344

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#198

Post by Baeocystin »

hazz99 wrote: post #171
ghostcluster wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude to their rollout reminds me of the recent rollout of Twitter's maligned new desktop UI, the new YouTube Studio Beta, and reddit's new UI. There is almost a meme of online platform service providers not understanding their users and their workflows, and rolling out new revisions that hamper or outright remove functionality that those users rely on. I guess the canonical example would be that one Digg red…

> online platform service providers not understanding their users and their workflows In regards to the Reddit redesign, I think the people complaining that "they ignore their users" are stuck inside a bit of a bubble. I have a lot of friends who recently discovered the site, and they much prefer the redesign to the old one. I forgot where I read it, but I vaguely remember stats backing this up, or at least increase…

What are they using reddit for, though? Serious question. You can probably find 10x-100x the number of people who would use a site just for amusing cat GIFs vs. a location for actual discussion, but the users of each are looking for fundamentally different things. Reddit built itself on being a text-forward group of forums. The new redesign is, frankly, a dark-pattern horrorshow designed for eyeballs at the expense of deeper engagement. They're keeping old.reddit around for a reason.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#199

Post by jabagawee »

This article reminds me of a recent post on HN titled "Text Editing Hates You Too" [1]. WYSIWYG text editing is never easy, and I am sad to see another instance of it taking over a spot where plain text (which still is not immune to the issues in [1]) used to be.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384158

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#200

Post by baroffoos »

llampx wrote: post #3

I've given up entirely on the Slack desktop app and use Ripcord exclusively. Much faster, more responsive and easier to use for 99% of my time spent on slack.

I just tested ripcord and it didn't seem to work very well on Gnome. Didn't do dpi scaling so it looked tiny on my main monitor and the notifications showed up pretty broken.
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