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I love IRC but Slack/hipChat has some features IRC can't provide. Especially, the "formatted"/"preview" (images, videos, URL preview, tables) messages. Even if

by wut42 12y ago

I love IRC but Slack/hipChat has some features IRC can't provide. Especially, the "formatted"/"preview" (images, videos, URL preview, tables) messages. Even if the IRC client supports some of theses features, the protocol is just text, you can't add meta/structured data to a message.

valarauca1 12y ago
Circa 1994: Even if the web client supports some of these features the protocol is just text, you can't add meta/structured data to a page. HTTP and TCP are just plane text too. Its what you do with that text that matters. Somebody just has to find a way to shoehorn it in. I'd propose using a basic system built on top of the basic AK meta-protocol for serial communication.
- wut42 12y ago
  Yeah, sure. So let's add some headers directly in the message! … How do you update all IRC clients to your new spec ? :)
  - acous 12y ago
    There's specs[1] for a third version of the irc protocol that seems to accommodate this. [1] https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/specification/message-tags-3.2.md https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/sp...
wlesieutre 12y ago
Along with the image previews, being able to just paste an image into chat (and have it automatically upload to S3) is a huge deal if you're working on anything visual.
- morganherlocker 12y ago
  Limechat shows image links inline, which is good enough for me anyway. In some ways it is even preferable to tying things to one particular storage solution like s3.
  - avree 12y ago
    You have to upload the image yourself, then. In a workflow, this is a time-waster.
    - mnutt 12y ago
      There's no reason Shout couldn't accept HTML5 copy-and-paste, upload locally or to s3, and the send a link to the uploaded image.
      - avree 12y ago
        Which is what Slack does, the ideal use case I was describing. The person I was replying to inquired as to why uploading the image and pasting a link was a problem. He said: "Limechat shows image links inline, which is good enough for me anyway. In some ways it is even preferable to tying things to one particular storage solution like s3."
    - nacs 12y ago
      An IRC bot in the channel could solve this problem easily (grab any image/binary link and mirror to a predefined location).
      - wlesieutre 12y ago
        But you have to put the image online somewhere before the IRC bot can mirror it, so I don't see how that helps. Here's how I see the comparison: Hipchat: 1) Paste image Imgur + IRC: 1) New browser tab/window 2) Paste image 3) Click "Start Upload" button 4) Wait for upload + redirect to new page 5) Right click, copy image location 6) Switch back to IRC 7) Paste URL I use this somewhere from 10-100 times a day, so it adds up. And it doesn't interrupt the flow of whatever I'm working on, just a single action that doesn't require any thought or aiming my cursor to click on things. Could I write an automated tool that takes my clipboard, uploads it somewhere, and replaces the clipboard with an image URL? Probably. Or I could use a chat platform that supports images. Edit: Trimmed one step with copy image location instead of actually navigating to the image
- rdtsc 12y ago
  I've pasted both text and images to a either a private (in-house) or public image/text pastie and then sent the link. I find the message history mixed with images in-line a bit annoying.
ChiperSoft 12y ago
Well... You can, you'll just piss off anyone not running your client.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> I love IRC but Slack/hipChat has some features IRC can't provide. Especially, the "formatted"/"preview" (images, videos, URL preview, tables) messages Those are all features of the client UI, not of the protocol. All can gracefully degrade to plain text for people whose clients don't support them. Image/video/URL preview is an UI feature over plain link. Tables... those you can either send as ASCII-art tables, or upload to whatever paste service you like (or host) and use the same preview mechanism to show a nice table on your rich UI client.
Franciscouzo 12y ago
You can actually add metadata to a message, the new ircv3 version lets you do this. https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/specification/message-tags-3.2.md https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/sp...

by wut42 12y ago

valarauca1 12y ago

Circa 1994: Even if the web client supports some of these features the protocol is just text, you can't add meta/structured data to a page. HTTP and TCP are just plane text too. Its what you do with that text that matters. Somebody just has to find a way to shoehorn it in. I'd propose using a basic system built on top of the basic AK meta-protocol for serial communication.

wut42 12y ago
Yeah, sure. So let's add some headers directly in the message! … How do you update all IRC clients to your new spec ? :)
- acous 12y ago
  There's specs[1] for a third version of the irc protocol that seems to accommodate this. [1] https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/specification/message-tags-3.2.md https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/sp...

wlesieutre 12y ago

Along with the image previews, being able to just paste an image into chat (and have it automatically upload to S3) is a huge deal if you're working on anything visual.

morganherlocker 12y ago
Limechat shows image links inline, which is good enough for me anyway. In some ways it is even preferable to tying things to one particular storage solution like s3.
- avree 12y ago
  You have to upload the image yourself, then. In a workflow, this is a time-waster.
  - mnutt 12y ago
    There's no reason Shout couldn't accept HTML5 copy-and-paste, upload locally or to s3, and the send a link to the uploaded image.
    - avree 12y ago
      Which is what Slack does, the ideal use case I was describing. The person I was replying to inquired as to why uploading the image and pasting a link was a problem. He said: "Limechat shows image links inline, which is good enough for me anyway. In some ways it is even preferable to tying things to one particular storage solution like s3."
  - nacs 12y ago
    An IRC bot in the channel could solve this problem easily (grab any image/binary link and mirror to a predefined location).
    - wlesieutre 12y ago
      But you have to put the image online somewhere before the IRC bot can mirror it, so I don't see how that helps. Here's how I see the comparison: Hipchat: 1) Paste image Imgur + IRC: 1) New browser tab/window 2) Paste image 3) Click "Start Upload" button 4) Wait for upload + redirect to new page 5) Right click, copy image location 6) Switch back to IRC 7) Paste URL I use this somewhere from 10-100 times a day, so it adds up. And it doesn't interrupt the flow of whatever I'm working on, just a single action that doesn't require any thought or aiming my cursor to click on things. Could I write an automated tool that takes my clipboard, uploads it somewhere, and replaces the clipboard with an image URL? Probably. Or I could use a chat platform that supports images. Edit: Trimmed one step with copy image location instead of actually navigating to the image
rdtsc 12y ago
I've pasted both text and images to a either a private (in-house) or public image/text pastie and then sent the link. I find the message history mixed with images in-line a bit annoying.

ChiperSoft 12y ago

Well... You can, you'll just piss off anyone not running your client.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

> I love IRC but Slack/hipChat has some features IRC can't provide. Especially, the "formatted"/"preview" (images, videos, URL preview, tables) messages Those are all features of the client UI, not of the protocol. All can gracefully degrade to plain text for people whose clients don't support them. Image/video/URL preview is an UI feature over plain link. Tables... those you can either send as ASCII-art tables, or upload to whatever paste service you like (or host) and use the same preview mechanism to show a nice table on your rich UI client.

Franciscouzo 12y ago

You can actually add metadata to a message, the new ircv3 version lets you do this. https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/specification/message-tags-3.2.md https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/blob/master/sp...