6 ms·

Heim – A real-time community platform

85 points by tvvocold 11y ago

renke1 11y ago
I kind of like the idea of threaded chatting. Is there any other chat program that uses this idea?
- andresmanz 11y ago
  Does IRC count?
  - Gracana 11y ago
    It does not. "Threaded" in this sense means "hierarchical chat messages," like the comment threads here on HN.
- sonnyp 11y ago
  XMPP protocol has an extension for that http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0201.html http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0201.html IIRC oneteam[0] supports it. [0] http://oneteam.im/ http://oneteam.im/
  - aw3c2 11y ago
    Is that bound to their servers or can I use any standard XMPP server?
- aravindet 11y ago
  Scrollback ( https://scrollback.io/scrollback https://scrollback.io/scrollback ) does, but in a different way (just two levels threading, each thread displayed as a card). I don't think HN-like multi-level threading would work very well with chat - you expect chat messages to be chronological.
- 0x4a42 11y ago
  Facebook Wall.
- fmargaine 11y ago
  Not threaded per se, but miaou has a "conversation flow" through a visual helper -- see https://dystroy.org/miaou/intro https://dystroy.org/miaou/intro
- mlinksva 11y ago
  Wave
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  It has the same problem every other threaded system has: notification of updates. How do you know what's changed and what hasn't? At least with linear chat you can draw a line on the screen and everything below it is new. Slashdot wasn't bad in that it greyed out everything you'd already seen and only show you the new messages, but even then you had to scroll all the way up and down the page to see what's new. If you could tag threads to follow... WOAH. I just found the hidden side pane that organizes all conversations by date, the most recent changes at the top. You click on it and it shows you the whole thread. Then you click on 'new pane' and it opens just that thread in a new window!! Well done, gentlemen. Well done.
  - chromakode 11y ago
    Designer/frontend dev here -- thank you! Helping users understand what is going on in the tree has been a core challenge. However, exposing too much right away is very overwhelming, especially to people who are unaccustomed similar chat interfaces. I've been learning a lot about how to get the UX for this right from user feedback, but there's much more to explore. If you are interested in chatting about this problem, feel free to ping me in &heim. :) One amusing anecdote. We very recently rolled out two bits of functionality: auto-collapsing long threads, and defaulting to replying to your own thread you started. Many of the people who jumped in and started spamming today didn't realize they were confined to their own collapsed threads. :)
- kawsper 11y ago
  Yes. Flowdock ( https://www.flowdock.com/ https://www.flowdock.com/ ) a Slack competitor, we use it at our company. I have a hard time going back to IRC and Slack because it is so difficult when two or three conversations goes on at the same time in busy rooms. Flowdock only lets you go one conversation deep, though.
planetix 11y ago
Looks like the IRC on my other monitor..
- andygmb 11y ago
  There's a trend of seemingly reinventing IRC and just putting it into the browser with a "hip" UI as of late.
  - mbrock 11y ago
    By "reinventing IRC" you mean "making any kind of chat software"?
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Making any kind of chat software without compelling improvements over IRC. Familiarity itself doesn't count.
      - unhammer 11y ago
        Threaded replies does seem nice to have, but not nice enough that I'd be willing to give up on the other features of IRC. One thing that'd be nice to have with IRC is if there were a cheap host somewhere that easily let people run their own weechat instance; too many of the people I talk with keep disconnecting because they don't have / can't be bothered with having their own server with a bouncer. (There's stuff like http://blinkenshell.org/wiki/Start http://blinkenshell.org/wiki/Start but I was thinking something that one can recommend to complete newbies.) ----- What else would be nice to have in IRC?
        PopeOfNope 11y ago
        The interesting thing about IRC is that it can be modified to suit any individual's taste. But, that takes time and expertise. That guarantees IRC will stay within a niche audience of people technical enough to bend it to their will. What I'm liking about these new chat systems is it has some of the best features of IRC made available to all users with an interface they can understand and use.
fiatjaf 11y ago
I see a picture of a cat, a bad drawing of an orange and a not-handsome guy. Only that.
sergiotapia 11y ago
Looks like a more confusing version of IRC.
Gracana 11y ago
I've been a user on the site for a few months now. There's a lot you can imagine would be difficult with threaded chat, but in practice it works pretty well, to the point that I generally miss having the ability to reply to a specific message on other chat platforms.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  Seems interesting - is the site invite-only for now? Care to invite your ol' pal fit2rule from HN? :)
  - Gracana 11y ago
    Some of the rooms are private, but you're welcome to check out https://euphoria.io/room/heim/ https://euphoria.io/room/heim/ (the dev chat) and https://euphoria.io/room/welcome/ https://euphoria.io/room/welcome/ (where most newcomers end up.) There's also an xkcd chat, which was very active for a while, but I'm not sure what it's like now.
DoubleMalt 11y ago
But does it federate? (Honest question, did not see a documentation for that)
- Arathorn 11y ago
  It should be trivial to federate it via Matrix.org if they felt the urge :)
  - jbi 11y ago
    How does Matrix compare to xmpp? I do not see a lot of differences (however, xmpp is kind of mature)
corn13read 11y ago
https://euphoria.io/room/dev/ https://euphoria.io/room/dev/
willpearse 11y ago
I get a message saying it's not ready for Hacker News yet, so I can't even see what's going on :-(
- willpearse 11y ago
  ...not anymore. Thanks!
delqn 11y ago
This is like IRC and FB posts fused together. I love it. In traditional IRC you have many topics intertwined - very distracting / waste of time if you only care about a single topic and don't have time to sift through everything typed. Slack very much suffers from that same problem - you care about something important - and there's all that noise. With the introduction of threaded conversations you could collapse and ignore threads you don't care about and drill into the details of the things you want/need. Love it! Congrats Max and team!
gamekathu 11y ago
amazing stuff, pushing React to its limit! flat chats will never be the same again!
jbi 11y ago
I like that you can host it yourself. I'ld like to guide my company away from email+phone but it is a long way to go. And in Europe there are still a lot of concerns if you can't host something in your own environment. I don't see any FOSS / paid modern solutions similar to slack, flowdock, scrollback, .. ready to be hosted in your environment. HipChat seems to be the only solution with a standalone server available. There are some open source competitors but they are far from production-ready. Am I missing something?
- ValentineC 11y ago
  Have you checked out Let's Chat? http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/ http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/

85 points by tvvocold 11y ago

renke1 11y ago

I kind of like the idea of threaded chatting. Is there any other chat program that uses this idea?

andresmanz 11y ago
Does IRC count?
- Gracana 11y ago
  It does not. "Threaded" in this sense means "hierarchical chat messages," like the comment threads here on HN.
sonnyp 11y ago
XMPP protocol has an extension for that http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0201.html http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0201.html IIRC oneteam[0] supports it. [0] http://oneteam.im/ http://oneteam.im/
- aw3c2 11y ago
  Is that bound to their servers or can I use any standard XMPP server?
aravindet 11y ago
Scrollback ( https://scrollback.io/scrollback https://scrollback.io/scrollback ) does, but in a different way (just two levels threading, each thread displayed as a card). I don't think HN-like multi-level threading would work very well with chat - you expect chat messages to be chronological.
0x4a42 11y ago
Facebook Wall.
fmargaine 11y ago
Not threaded per se, but miaou has a "conversation flow" through a visual helper -- see https://dystroy.org/miaou/intro https://dystroy.org/miaou/intro
mlinksva 11y ago
Wave
PopeOfNope 11y ago
It has the same problem every other threaded system has: notification of updates. How do you know what's changed and what hasn't? At least with linear chat you can draw a line on the screen and everything below it is new. Slashdot wasn't bad in that it greyed out everything you'd already seen and only show you the new messages, but even then you had to scroll all the way up and down the page to see what's new. If you could tag threads to follow... WOAH. I just found the hidden side pane that organizes all conversations by date, the most recent changes at the top. You click on it and it shows you the whole thread. Then you click on 'new pane' and it opens just that thread in a new window!! Well done, gentlemen. Well done.
- chromakode 11y ago
  Designer/frontend dev here -- thank you! Helping users understand what is going on in the tree has been a core challenge. However, exposing too much right away is very overwhelming, especially to people who are unaccustomed similar chat interfaces. I've been learning a lot about how to get the UX for this right from user feedback, but there's much more to explore. If you are interested in chatting about this problem, feel free to ping me in &heim. :) One amusing anecdote. We very recently rolled out two bits of functionality: auto-collapsing long threads, and defaulting to replying to your own thread you started. Many of the people who jumped in and started spamming today didn't realize they were confined to their own collapsed threads. :)
kawsper 11y ago
Yes. Flowdock ( https://www.flowdock.com/ https://www.flowdock.com/ ) a Slack competitor, we use it at our company. I have a hard time going back to IRC and Slack because it is so difficult when two or three conversations goes on at the same time in busy rooms. Flowdock only lets you go one conversation deep, though.

planetix 11y ago

Looks like the IRC on my other monitor..

andygmb 11y ago
There's a trend of seemingly reinventing IRC and just putting it into the browser with a "hip" UI as of late.
- mbrock 11y ago
  By "reinventing IRC" you mean "making any kind of chat software"?
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Making any kind of chat software without compelling improvements over IRC. Familiarity itself doesn't count.
    - unhammer 11y ago
      Threaded replies does seem nice to have, but not nice enough that I'd be willing to give up on the other features of IRC. One thing that'd be nice to have with IRC is if there were a cheap host somewhere that easily let people run their own weechat instance; too many of the people I talk with keep disconnecting because they don't have / can't be bothered with having their own server with a bouncer. (There's stuff like http://blinkenshell.org/wiki/Start http://blinkenshell.org/wiki/Start but I was thinking something that one can recommend to complete newbies.) ----- What else would be nice to have in IRC?
      - PopeOfNope 11y ago
        The interesting thing about IRC is that it can be modified to suit any individual's taste. But, that takes time and expertise. That guarantees IRC will stay within a niche audience of people technical enough to bend it to their will. What I'm liking about these new chat systems is it has some of the best features of IRC made available to all users with an interface they can understand and use.

fiatjaf 11y ago

I see a picture of a cat, a bad drawing of an orange and a not-handsome guy. Only that.

sergiotapia 11y ago

Looks like a more confusing version of IRC.

Gracana 11y ago

I've been a user on the site for a few months now. There's a lot you can imagine would be difficult with threaded chat, but in practice it works pretty well, to the point that I generally miss having the ability to reply to a specific message on other chat platforms.

fit2rule 11y ago
Seems interesting - is the site invite-only for now? Care to invite your ol' pal fit2rule from HN? :)
- Gracana 11y ago
  Some of the rooms are private, but you're welcome to check out https://euphoria.io/room/heim/ https://euphoria.io/room/heim/ (the dev chat) and https://euphoria.io/room/welcome/ https://euphoria.io/room/welcome/ (where most newcomers end up.) There's also an xkcd chat, which was very active for a while, but I'm not sure what it's like now.

DoubleMalt 11y ago

But does it federate? (Honest question, did not see a documentation for that)

Arathorn 11y ago
It should be trivial to federate it via Matrix.org if they felt the urge :)
- jbi 11y ago
  How does Matrix compare to xmpp? I do not see a lot of differences (however, xmpp is kind of mature)

corn13read 11y ago

https://euphoria.io/room/dev/ https://euphoria.io/room/dev/

willpearse 11y ago

I get a message saying it's not ready for Hacker News yet, so I can't even see what's going on :-(

willpearse 11y ago
...not anymore. Thanks!

delqn 11y ago

This is like IRC and FB posts fused together. I love it. In traditional IRC you have many topics intertwined - very distracting / waste of time if you only care about a single topic and don't have time to sift through everything typed. Slack very much suffers from that same problem - you care about something important - and there's all that noise. With the introduction of threaded conversations you could collapse and ignore threads you don't care about and drill into the details of the things you want/need. Love it! Congrats Max and team!

gamekathu 11y ago

amazing stuff, pushing React to its limit! flat chats will never be the same again!

jbi 11y ago

I like that you can host it yourself. I'ld like to guide my company away from email+phone but it is a long way to go. And in Europe there are still a lot of concerns if you can't host something in your own environment. I don't see any FOSS / paid modern solutions similar to slack, flowdock, scrollback, .. ready to be hosted in your environment. HipChat seems to be the only solution with a standalone server available. There are some open source competitors but they are far from production-ready. Am I missing something?

ValentineC 11y ago
Have you checked out Let's Chat? http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/ http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/