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I can't recommend Zulip enough. It made remote communication many times easier, it's a dream to use because it's faster than Slack (though that bar is so low yo

I can't recommend Zulip enough. It made remote communication many times easier, it's a dream to use because it's faster than Slack (though that bar is so low you have to dig to find it) and Riot, and its keyboard navigation is second to none. The mental model might take an hour or two to click, but you can think of it as Slack rooms where the only thing you can do is open new threads (can't post messages in the room itself, only in the threads). I really really think everyone should try it, it's a big improvement.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
> The mental model might take an hour or two to click, but you can think of it as Slack rooms where the only thing you can do is open new threads (can't post messages in the room itself, only in the threads). I've used both Slack and Zulip, and I wouldn't describe it that way. Slack threads feel more "isolated" by default, hidden away from the conversation, and you have to go look at each one; a Slack channel where you can only create threads doesn't feel like it'd be as appealing a UI as Zulip. On Zulip, you can look at the entire stream to see messages from different threads in real-time, or you can look at just one thread and see only the messages from that thread.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Oh, yes, the UI is fantastic in how it handles this, but I was describing the general data structure. Some people had trouble grasping the mental model initially, and I found thinking of it in those terms helpful for figuring out what's going on.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    Part of the reason I brought this up was that this is roughly how Zulip was first described to me, and my experience with threads in Slack made that sound really unappealing, which led me to avoid trying Zulip for quite some time. Once I finally tried it, it was completely different than I expected, and much better.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      Oh, yes, that makes sense. I'm definitely not trying to entice people with that description, I more intend to help them understand what they're looking at when they do try it.

JoshTriplett 6y ago

> The mental model might take an hour or two to click, but you can think of it as Slack rooms where the only thing you can do is open new threads (can't post messages in the room itself, only in the threads). I've used both Slack and Zulip, and I wouldn't describe it that way. Slack threads feel more "isolated" by default, hidden away from the conversation, and you have to go look at each one; a Slack channel where you can only create threads doesn't feel like it'd be as appealing a UI as Zulip. On Zulip, you can look at the entire stream to see messages from different threads in real-time, or you can look at just one thread and see only the messages from that thread.

StavrosK 6y ago
Oh, yes, the UI is fantastic in how it handles this, but I was describing the general data structure. Some people had trouble grasping the mental model initially, and I found thinking of it in those terms helpful for figuring out what's going on.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  Part of the reason I brought this up was that this is roughly how Zulip was first described to me, and my experience with threads in Slack made that sound really unappealing, which led me to avoid trying Zulip for quite some time. Once I finally tried it, it was completely different than I expected, and much better.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Oh, yes, that makes sense. I'm definitely not trying to entice people with that description, I more intend to help them understand what they're looking at when they do try it.