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Recently had to start using MS Teams at work. What a terrible UX: truncated message widths, even for code. No syntax highlighting, markdown-ish syntax only work

Recently had to start using MS Teams at work. What a terrible UX: truncated message widths, even for code. No syntax highlighting, markdown-ish syntax only works when you type it in their little editor—when you paste it in it doesn't format, isn't smart enough to auto-start a new message when I start typing, hides bottom of message—even when there's only one line left, etc. Just a bunch of little stupid things that add up to one, in the immortal words of Strong Bad, suckquake of a user experience. In short, I would have loved to have the option of using Element to chat with my team instead of MS Teams. Thank you for making this!

chrisweekly 6y ago
Yeah, it's astonishing how bad Teams is.
Jtsummers 6y ago
The markdown formatting doesn't even work consistently. Some days things show up bold, some days they don't, some days I get inline code, some days I don't. It's very random and seems to be based on my typing speed at the time. That is, type ` and then wait a moment before typing the next bit and it works more reliably, but if I type like normal (around 100 wpm) it rarely registers properly.
- danmur 6y ago
  Yes! What is with that inline code thing? The only time single backticks seem to work is when I don't want them to.
- ridethebike 6y ago
  Microsoft Teams Cons: slow, consumes lot of memory plus all of the above Pros: not as buggy as Skype for Business
  - sandrone 6y ago
    that's exactly my thought, despite all the suckiness, the experience is still better than skype for business
    - corty 6y ago
      The customer group for teams seems to be used to the likes of Cisco Webex, Skype for Business, Lync and similar crap. Compared to those, Teams is a step up.
  - driminicus 6y ago
    My $employer is still on skype for business. I usually liken the choice between SkypeFB and teams between having a broken leg (Skype) or a stubbed toe (teams). Of course given this binary choice I would prefer a stubbed toe, but can we just move to something that is actually pleasant? Thanks! Given this bridge moving to element seems like a no-brainer for anyone on teams.
- felipelemos 6y ago
  And the backstick only works if you start by the left one.
- thrower123 6y ago
  The markdown formatting renders differently in the desktop client depending on whether you are in the main application window or a popped-out chat window... Which are both different than the formatting that the browser version of Teams shows.
- igitur 6y ago
  I'm now in the habit of typing the opening backtick, ctrl+shift+v to paste some line of code, then having to WAIT a second or 2 and then type the second backtick. That usually formats it correctly. But I'm also very quick on the backspace and retyping the closing backtick, which is sometimes necessary. Starting a new chat with someone in your organisation that you haven't chatted to is also annoyingly slow. This one I keep forgetting. So I search their name in the search bar, choose the hit from the dropdown and immediately start typing, only to notice that my initials 10 keystrokes didn't register, because the new chat was still initialising. I'm curious, do you touch type? I'm also at about 100wpm, but only thanks to learning to touch type.
pitterpatter 6y ago
I hate search in Teams. It is the worst I've seen in a chat app. The search result will only show you the single message it matched but not all the other messages around it! The only option is literally scrolling up but the performance just degrades as you go further back. Like I can tolerate a lot but damn. That always frustrates me to no end.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Search in teams is completely useless. Slow, no easy way to filter/organize results, and scrolling is the only way you can go through results with extremely slow load times. It's a joke.
felipelemos 6y ago
And to add to the list: there is no way to reply to a message, although they have this implemented in the mobile client for ages.
- unicornporn 6y ago
  This. Seems they will never fix it.
totetsu 6y ago
Sometimes messages are displayed out of order, or not at all untill you restart the app. Scrolling up unloads the bottom messages so you can copy. It's impossible to quickly go back to look at a conversation last week, the API throttles you from seeing your own discussion. Opening the camera from the android app frequently crashes
vladvasiliu 6y ago
There's also the lag. Basically every action in the interface needs to redraw everything... slowly. There's a noticeable reaction time between clicking on a person's image in the left bar and the screen being updated. Even when going back and forth between two contacts, even with 64 GB of RAM, so you'd think they'd cache it somehow. Sometimes when scrolling up in the chat, it goes back down then continues scrolling up (even when the contact is offline, so nothing changes the history). Even the buttons on the left side (activity / chat / teams / etc) lag when the mouse just passes on top of them. Also for some reason there are regular CPU spikes (on the order of 20% of an 8th gen desktop i5) even when I'm not actively using it. I find it so stupid that this same computer can run fairly new games at 4K resolution with all settings at the max and nearly 60 FPS, but it somehow struggles to update a chat application.
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  If you think the lag in teams is bad try using slack, especially on a lower-end laptop! Used to be relatively snappy 4-5 years ago and I swear it gets slower with every update now.
spoonjim 6y ago
I find that the upside of having switched from Slack to Teams is that Teams is so astonishingly terrible that I find myself not getting stuck all day in it like I used to in Slack. With Teams I get in and get out. My colleagues do the same so I get ~10 Teams messages a day, while my wife in Slack gets hundreds. It’s the perfect example of “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
denysvitali 6y ago
If you want to get partially read of the Teams UX / UI, check my project. I'm working on providing a Teams library and a Teams CLI: https://github.com/fossteams/teams-cli https://github.com/fossteams/teams-cli
fuzzy2 6y ago
On code blocks, you can have syntax highlighting. However, inserting them is a pain and you have to manually select the language. Ich course, everything still sucks, yes.
filmor 6y ago
There is syntax highlighting, just takes a few clicks as it's hidden in a sub-menu ("code snippet").
christkv 6y ago
I cannot for the love of life even figure out how to make a simple group chat with a couple of people without creating a calendar entry, even less with external users.

chrisweekly 6y ago

Yeah, it's astonishing how bad Teams is.

Jtsummers 6y ago

The markdown formatting doesn't even work consistently. Some days things show up bold, some days they don't, some days I get inline code, some days I don't. It's very random and seems to be based on my typing speed at the time. That is, type ` and then wait a moment before typing the next bit and it works more reliably, but if I type like normal (around 100 wpm) it rarely registers properly.

danmur 6y ago
Yes! What is with that inline code thing? The only time single backticks seem to work is when I don't want them to.
ridethebike 6y ago
Microsoft Teams Cons: slow, consumes lot of memory plus all of the above Pros: not as buggy as Skype for Business
- sandrone 6y ago
  that's exactly my thought, despite all the suckiness, the experience is still better than skype for business
  - corty 6y ago
    The customer group for teams seems to be used to the likes of Cisco Webex, Skype for Business, Lync and similar crap. Compared to those, Teams is a step up.
- driminicus 6y ago
  My $employer is still on skype for business. I usually liken the choice between SkypeFB and teams between having a broken leg (Skype) or a stubbed toe (teams). Of course given this binary choice I would prefer a stubbed toe, but can we just move to something that is actually pleasant? Thanks! Given this bridge moving to element seems like a no-brainer for anyone on teams.
felipelemos 6y ago
And the backstick only works if you start by the left one.
thrower123 6y ago
The markdown formatting renders differently in the desktop client depending on whether you are in the main application window or a popped-out chat window... Which are both different than the formatting that the browser version of Teams shows.
igitur 6y ago
I'm now in the habit of typing the opening backtick, ctrl+shift+v to paste some line of code, then having to WAIT a second or 2 and then type the second backtick. That usually formats it correctly. But I'm also very quick on the backspace and retyping the closing backtick, which is sometimes necessary. Starting a new chat with someone in your organisation that you haven't chatted to is also annoyingly slow. This one I keep forgetting. So I search their name in the search bar, choose the hit from the dropdown and immediately start typing, only to notice that my initials 10 keystrokes didn't register, because the new chat was still initialising. I'm curious, do you touch type? I'm also at about 100wpm, but only thanks to learning to touch type.

pitterpatter 6y ago

I hate search in Teams. It is the worst I've seen in a chat app. The search result will only show you the single message it matched but not all the other messages around it! The only option is literally scrolling up but the performance just degrades as you go further back. Like I can tolerate a lot but damn. That always frustrates me to no end.

ekianjo 6y ago
Search in teams is completely useless. Slow, no easy way to filter/organize results, and scrolling is the only way you can go through results with extremely slow load times. It's a joke.

felipelemos 6y ago

And to add to the list: there is no way to reply to a message, although they have this implemented in the mobile client for ages.

unicornporn 6y ago
This. Seems they will never fix it.

totetsu 6y ago

Sometimes messages are displayed out of order, or not at all untill you restart the app. Scrolling up unloads the bottom messages so you can copy. It's impossible to quickly go back to look at a conversation last week, the API throttles you from seeing your own discussion. Opening the camera from the android app frequently crashes

vladvasiliu 6y ago

There's also the lag. Basically every action in the interface needs to redraw everything... slowly. There's a noticeable reaction time between clicking on a person's image in the left bar and the screen being updated. Even when going back and forth between two contacts, even with 64 GB of RAM, so you'd think they'd cache it somehow. Sometimes when scrolling up in the chat, it goes back down then continues scrolling up (even when the contact is offline, so nothing changes the history). Even the buttons on the left side (activity / chat / teams / etc) lag when the mouse just passes on top of them. Also for some reason there are regular CPU spikes (on the order of 20% of an 8th gen desktop i5) even when I'm not actively using it. I find it so stupid that this same computer can run fairly new games at 4K resolution with all settings at the max and nearly 60 FPS, but it somehow struggles to update a chat application.

cmeacham98 6y ago
If you think the lag in teams is bad try using slack, especially on a lower-end laptop! Used to be relatively snappy 4-5 years ago and I swear it gets slower with every update now.

spoonjim 6y ago

I find that the upside of having switched from Slack to Teams is that Teams is so astonishingly terrible that I find myself not getting stuck all day in it like I used to in Slack. With Teams I get in and get out. My colleagues do the same so I get ~10 Teams messages a day, while my wife in Slack gets hundreds. It’s the perfect example of “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”

denysvitali 6y ago

If you want to get partially read of the Teams UX / UI, check my project. I'm working on providing a Teams library and a Teams CLI: https://github.com/fossteams/teams-cli https://github.com/fossteams/teams-cli

fuzzy2 6y ago

On code blocks, you can have syntax highlighting. However, inserting them is a pain and you have to manually select the language. Ich course, everything still sucks, yes.

filmor 6y ago

There is syntax highlighting, just takes a few clicks as it's hidden in a sub-menu ("code snippet").

christkv 6y ago

I cannot for the love of life even figure out how to make a simple group chat with a couple of people without creating a calendar entry, even less with external users.