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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) - Authe

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

iLoveOncall 4y ago
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.
- azinman2 4y ago
  Gotta start somewhere.
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    The problem is that according to the FAQ it's more in maintenance mode than in active development.
st3fan 4y ago
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.
- Groxx 4y ago
  I frequently just use slack in the browser because it has tabs and windows. And generally performs much better.
- pxc 4y ago
  That's interesting. I find managing Teams' multiple windows cumbersome and confusing, but find Slack very natural and efficient. Do you end up sending messages in the wrong chat often? Or missing messages or both? What do the main frustrations of a single window setup look like?
  - st3fan 4y ago
    I lose stuff all the time when I switch between conversations and channels.
    - aeyes 4y ago
      try the back button to jump back to where you were before
      - pxc 4y ago
        I just navigate Slack entirely by search and redirect all conversations to public channel as as much as possible, and I find that pretty natural. CTRL+K to navigate between convos and channels, CTRL+F to find things based on content (if I don't want to think about whether something was in a DM or a channel, and just go back to the same one).
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    > Do you end up sending messages in the wrong chat often? Yup. It’s probably my most frequent mistake (and can be embarrassing). I make the same mistake with messages. What I have done to mitigate the issue, is give each workspace a different color theme. At least, it helps me to avoid crosstalk between organizations. I’m not a “native slacker,” so I’m probably not a particularly good candidate for a focus group.
    - pxc 4y ago
      > What I have done to mitigate the issue, is give each workspace a different color theme. At least, it helps me to avoid crosstalk between organizations. Ok yeah the different workspaces in one window is more of a pain than just different channels and chats in one window for me, at least the way it's done in Slack. I haven't felt that way on IRC, for whatever reason.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  +1 It's painful to keep multiple active discussions in threads (or anywhere else for that matter).
- baby 4y ago
  +1, I basically go back to the DMs page all the time to find recent convos, that's the only way I found.
- heretogetout 4y ago
  I'd love to have multiple windows. At some point in the last few months Slack broke the command-up/command-down shortcuts that would take you to the next conversation with an unread message -- if you restart it'll work for a short while and then break again. Having multiple windows would resolve this and other annoyances.
- userbinator 4y ago
  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 into one window that only shows one at a time. There's another comment here about how Teams' multiple windows is confusing, but I think that's more to do with it being Teams than anything else; as I mentioned above, all IM clients were originally multiple-window and people certainly didn't have trouble using them.
  - kaidon 4y ago
    Oh, this brings back lots of fun memories comparing developing SDI apps and MDI apps in Windows.
  - ace2358 4y ago
    I remember when a lot of software had heaps of windows. Like graphics editing apps, logic, Final Cut etc. Been a huge cutting back on windows for apps.
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    Clients like Adium (on Mac OS) and Pidgin (elsewhere, but honestly nothing is as nice as Adium), had a great solution for this. A window with tabs, but you can just drag tabs out and have more than one window. Plus you could style messages client-side. Nice and easy, better than anything popular today.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      Adium was everything an IM client should be. I wish it would return to relevance, but with the dominance of closed messaging protocols that seems unlikely at best.
      - ungamedplayer 4y ago
- wryun 4y ago
  If you use a browser as your client, this can be done. No need for electron either :)
  - philsnow 4y ago
    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 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682593 .
    - avggeek 4y ago
      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 https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox. Disclaimer: Haven't tried it out myself.
      - philsnow 4y ago
        Thanks, that's interesting but I'm not so anti-Chrome that I'm going to use a "custom modified Firefox runtime" just for PWAs. I don't even use the above trick these days; I've gone back to just using Slack.app.
- elpescado 4y ago
  Multiple windows <3 I look at the screenshots and think "we're living in the ~future~ 1996"!
- tokamak-teapot 4y ago
  I haven’t tried this but… if you use Slack in a browser can you open new tabs for conversations?
wpietri 4y ago
I would also expect the authors are going to have a hard time keeping up with Slack. One of Slack's goals in picking their architecture was to allow for experimentation, iteration, and expansion. Reverse-engineering an API inevitably means being behind. And given the number of engineers Slack has, it could well mean being further and further behind over time.
- ungamedplayer 4y ago
  When you're building on someones platform, you take a risk. When you're actively integrating with a fast moving platform, you add more risk. When you build on a platform which doesn't want you there, you add even more. When you're having to reverse engineer a platform to build something, you're asking for a special kind of hell.
crollywood 4y ago
Oof, while I highly value multiple windows - not sure I am ready to give up on some of the things you listed (especially edit & calls)
zild3d 4y ago
missing search is a non starter. "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge" rings true in my experience

iLoveOncall 4y ago

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.

azinman2 4y ago
Gotta start somewhere.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  The problem is that according to the FAQ it's more in maintenance mode than in active development.

st3fan 4y ago

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.

Groxx 4y ago
I frequently just use slack in the browser because it has tabs and windows. And generally performs much better.
pxc 4y ago
That's interesting. I find managing Teams' multiple windows cumbersome and confusing, but find Slack very natural and efficient. Do you end up sending messages in the wrong chat often? Or missing messages or both? What do the main frustrations of a single window setup look like?
- st3fan 4y ago
  I lose stuff all the time when I switch between conversations and channels.
  - aeyes 4y ago
    try the back button to jump back to where you were before
    - pxc 4y ago
      I just navigate Slack entirely by search and redirect all conversations to public channel as as much as possible, and I find that pretty natural. CTRL+K to navigate between convos and channels, CTRL+F to find things based on content (if I don't want to think about whether something was in a DM or a channel, and just go back to the same one).
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  > Do you end up sending messages in the wrong chat often? Yup. It’s probably my most frequent mistake (and can be embarrassing). I make the same mistake with messages. What I have done to mitigate the issue, is give each workspace a different color theme. At least, it helps me to avoid crosstalk between organizations. I’m not a “native slacker,” so I’m probably not a particularly good candidate for a focus group.
  - pxc 4y ago
    > What I have done to mitigate the issue, is give each workspace a different color theme. At least, it helps me to avoid crosstalk between organizations. Ok yeah the different workspaces in one window is more of a pain than just different channels and chats in one window for me, at least the way it's done in Slack. I haven't felt that way on IRC, for whatever reason.
gtirloni 4y ago
+1 It's painful to keep multiple active discussions in threads (or anywhere else for that matter).
baby 4y ago
+1, I basically go back to the DMs page all the time to find recent convos, that's the only way I found.
heretogetout 4y ago
I'd love to have multiple windows. At some point in the last few months Slack broke the command-up/command-down shortcuts that would take you to the next conversation with an unread message -- if you restart it'll work for a short while and then break again. Having multiple windows would resolve this and other annoyances.
userbinator 4y ago
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 into one window that only shows one at a time. There's another comment here about how Teams' multiple windows is confusing, but I think that's more to do with it being Teams than anything else; as I mentioned above, all IM clients were originally multiple-window and people certainly didn't have trouble using them.
- kaidon 4y ago
  Oh, this brings back lots of fun memories comparing developing SDI apps and MDI apps in Windows.
- ace2358 4y ago
  I remember when a lot of software had heaps of windows. Like graphics editing apps, logic, Final Cut etc. Been a huge cutting back on windows for apps.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Clients like Adium (on Mac OS) and Pidgin (elsewhere, but honestly nothing is as nice as Adium), had a great solution for this. A window with tabs, but you can just drag tabs out and have more than one window. Plus you could style messages client-side. Nice and easy, better than anything popular today.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Adium was everything an IM client should be. I wish it would return to relevance, but with the dominance of closed messaging protocols that seems unlikely at best.
    - ungamedplayer 4y ago
wryun 4y ago
If you use a browser as your client, this can be done. No need for electron either :)
- philsnow 4y ago
  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 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682593 .
  - avggeek 4y ago
    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 https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox. Disclaimer: Haven't tried it out myself.
    - philsnow 4y ago
      Thanks, that's interesting but I'm not so anti-Chrome that I'm going to use a "custom modified Firefox runtime" just for PWAs. I don't even use the above trick these days; I've gone back to just using Slack.app.
elpescado 4y ago
Multiple windows <3 I look at the screenshots and think "we're living in the ~future~ 1996"!
tokamak-teapot 4y ago
I haven’t tried this but… if you use Slack in a browser can you open new tabs for conversations?

wpietri 4y ago

I would also expect the authors are going to have a hard time keeping up with Slack. One of Slack's goals in picking their architecture was to allow for experimentation, iteration, and expansion. Reverse-engineering an API inevitably means being behind. And given the number of engineers Slack has, it could well mean being further and further behind over time.

ungamedplayer 4y ago
When you're building on someones platform, you take a risk. When you're actively integrating with a fast moving platform, you add more risk. When you build on a platform which doesn't want you there, you add even more. When you're having to reverse engineer a platform to build something, you're asking for a special kind of hell.

crollywood 4y ago

Oof, while I highly value multiple windows - not sure I am ready to give up on some of the things you listed (especially edit & calls)

zild3d 4y ago

missing search is a non starter. "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge" rings true in my experience