THIS 100 times! I don't have anything personally against slack - though when given a choice i vastly prefer FOSS options (and yes, including stuff like Riot, which is one of many apps over the...
THIS 100 times! I don't have anything personally against slack - though when given a choice i vastly prefer FOSS options (and yes, including stuff like Riot, which is one of many apps over the matrix protocol/network). Also, for my dayjobs, all my employers (unfortunately) have used proprietary systems (e.g. MS Teams, Skype for business, etc.)...so I get that there will be loads of users who use the proprietary stuff, and i understand that slack might simply be a private company trying to run a business without being evil...but i very much dislike when marketing and/or PR teams use false and/or hyperbolic language - e.g. "...the silos of email..." - which could brainwash potential users in such a dastardly way. My reflex is to get upset with the Slacks of the world...but then, i wonder, hey, maybe as the Riot or other matrix apps of the world get better and gain polish, maybe users will get frustrated enough with the Slacks and move over to FOSS options - sort of self-inflicted business suicide? ...hmmm, i guess we'll see. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my freedoms and liberty and truths/non-hyperbole with FOSS options.
Nice to see they ars finally doing a bit of spring cleaning. The ability to have folders is great. The ability to have a BACK and FORWARD button are phenomenal and make so much since (the history...
Nice to see they ars finally doing a bit of spring cleaning.
The ability to have folders is great. The ability to have a BACK and FORWARD button are phenomenal and make so much since (the history button as well).
I just hope the FOSS alternatives follow suit, (Matrix especially)
Still waiting for them to let me create notes to follow up on Slack comments. I always lose track of where someone asked me a question if I don't answer it immediately. I end up having to "star"...
Still waiting for them to let me create notes to follow up on Slack comments. I always lose track of where someone asked me a question if I don't answer it immediately. I end up having to "star" an individual comment, but it's easy to lose context in that since people tend to ask questions like this:
Them: Hey
Me: What's up?
Them: Got a second?
Me: Yeah
Them: Can you do [thing]?
Them: Also include [thing]
Me: By when do you need it?
Them: And also a a secondary [thing] with it
Them: And make sure you run it by [person] to review for [stuff] first.
Them: Tomorrow by 3
Me: Ok
[20 minutes later]
Them: Oh schedule got moved around. Can you actually do it by 4:00 today?
If I'm starring a comment I'd end up starring either "Tomorrow by 3" or "Can you do [thing]?" But then whenever I check on the request I have to jump back to whatever channel it's in to find it. And if it's an active channel I might be losing more current takes on the issue, like the later note on the updated deadline. The /remind function doesn't work great for this either.
I guess, on some level, I'm basically asking for a ticketing system to help encapsulate and track requests so they don't get lost in the discussion shuffle.
Incidentally, I really hate the "got a second?" Shit. It's asynchronous communication. Just ask me the question and I'll get to it when I get to it! If you want instant responses call me on the phone. (And I'll get annoyed because you've distracted me over something that wasn't urgent. But at least I can convey annoyance by voice in ways I can't do by text without sounding like I'm going way overboard.
OMG, so much this! It's like 20 years ago when someone would send you an email, and then walk over to your desk and ask, "Hey, did you get my email?" I don't know. I'm not sitting here waiting to...
Incidentally, I really hate the "got a second?" Shit. It's asynchronous communication. Just ask me the question and I'll get to it when I get to it!
OMG, so much this! It's like 20 years ago when someone would send you an email, and then walk over to your desk and ask, "Hey, did you get my email?" I don't know. I'm not sitting here waiting to see what comes in. I'm #$%@! working, you @#$!
It's not great, but something you can do is send "direct messages" to yourself (possibly including a link to the message) and then delete them when you're done with them. It's usually easier...
It's not great, but something you can do is send "direct messages" to yourself (possibly including a link to the message) and then delete them when you're done with them. It's usually easier overall to just keep track of it externally though.
Yeah I've tried to instill some discipline in my team around emailing requests for anything more complicated than a short reply off the top of someone's head. But I haven't had much luck. It's...
Yeah I've tried to instill some discipline in my team around emailing requests for anything more complicated than a short reply off the top of someone's head. But I haven't had much luck. It's hard to establish a more within a small team of 9 when the rest of the org doesn't follow it.
And it's always the business development people. . .
The web client is categorically superior to the Electron client. If you tolerate text interfaces and/or are nostalgic for the old days of IRC, wee-slack (a plugin for the weechat IRC client)...
The web client is categorically superior to the Electron client.
If you tolerate text interfaces and/or are nostalgic for the old days of IRC, wee-slack (a plugin for the weechat IRC client) provides massively improved performance and a highly customizable interface over any UI Slack provides.
It's been hitting my machine pretty heavy, but two hours seems way too brutal, you sure there's nothing else going on? As a sidenote, there's a reverse-engineered native app for Slack, called...
It's been hitting my machine pretty heavy, but two hours seems way too brutal, you sure there's nothing else going on?
As a sidenote, there's a reverse-engineered native app for Slack, called Ripcord, you might want to check it out.
It's a work machine so I'm pretty limited on what I can get access to in the logs, etc. But through some pretty blunt testing if Slack is running, I get 2 hours battery. If it isn't I can go all...
It's a work machine so I'm pretty limited on what I can get access to in the logs, etc. But through some pretty blunt testing if Slack is running, I get 2 hours battery. If it isn't I can go all day.
Looks like it's doing what Chrome (used to?) does where it's dominating _windowserver to run the GPU at max all the time it's running.
I like how the first feature on the website is "Not made from a web browser". Why have people stopped writing native apps? Too many platforms to support?
I like how the first feature on the website is "Not made from a web browser". Why have people stopped writing native apps? Too many platforms to support?
Seeing how we're going to stretch the limits of Moore's Law really soon, I hope focus on performance is coming back. There's no reason for a chat app to be this bloated.
Seeing how we're going to stretch the limits of Moore's Law really soon, I hope focus on performance is coming back. There's no reason for a chat app to be this bloated.
Isn't that kind of a chicken-and-egg problem though? If that's what everything is in, that's where all the innovation is going to happen since that's where people are applying their creative energies.
Isn't that kind of a chicken-and-egg problem though? If that's what everything is in, that's where all the innovation is going to happen since that's where people are applying their creative energies.
None of the features described in the post are working for me. I've checked for updates (I have the latest version) and did a hard refresh inside the app... no change. Are they doing a slow...
None of the features described in the post are working for me. I've checked for updates (I have the latest version) and did a hard refresh inside the app... no change. Are they doing a slow rollout or do I have to enable a setting somewhere to see it?
Yeah, sorry, having a bad day. Basically, it's bloated. It takes up double the memory of the previous chat tool we were using. The first time I opened it I was assaulted with a candy-colored array...
Yeah, sorry, having a bad day.
Basically, it's bloated. It takes up double the memory of the previous chat tool we were using. The first time I opened it I was assaulted with a candy-colored array of flashing, swirling animated icons. It looked like a unicorn had shit on my screen. (I figured out how to turn off animations, but what an unwelcoming way to introduce users to your product.) Most of the functionality is difficult to find. It uses all kinds of hidden shortcuts to send messages to certain groups of people, none of which are intuitive or discoverable. It encourages interruptions from a much wider group of people than our old chat client did.
Slack works best if your organization has a dedicated killjoy who enforces rules around usernames, avatars, and on-topic ness in channels. At least at my company, names MUST be your actual name....
The first time I opened it I was assaulted with a candy-colored array of flashing, swirling animated icons. It looked like a unicorn had shit on my screen.
Slack works best if your organization has a dedicated killjoy who enforces rules around usernames, avatars, and on-topic ness in channels. At least at my company, names MUST be your actual name. Either your first name or firstname.lastname. Always lower case unless the capitalization is important (e.g. MacGregor). No generic avatars allowed, and no animated images in avatars.
Also gotta mute notifications on all but the urgent channels and direct messages and make sure your dedicated killjoys make sure no idle chatter happens on the channels people aren't allowed to mute. And also force all images and attachments to be auto-collapsed so you have to click on them to open. People cannot be trusted to use the /giphy extension responsibly.
THIS 100 times! I don't have anything personally against slack - though when given a choice i vastly prefer FOSS options (and yes, including stuff like Riot, which is one of many apps over the matrix protocol/network). Also, for my dayjobs, all my employers (unfortunately) have used proprietary systems (e.g. MS Teams, Skype for business, etc.)...so I get that there will be loads of users who use the proprietary stuff, and i understand that slack might simply be a private company trying to run a business without being evil...but i very much dislike when marketing and/or PR teams use false and/or hyperbolic language - e.g. "...the silos of email..." - which could brainwash potential users in such a dastardly way. My reflex is to get upset with the Slacks of the world...but then, i wonder, hey, maybe as the Riot or other matrix apps of the world get better and gain polish, maybe users will get frustrated enough with the Slacks and move over to FOSS options - sort of self-inflicted business suicide? ...hmmm, i guess we'll see. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my freedoms and liberty and truths/non-hyperbole with FOSS options.
Nice to see they ars finally doing a bit of spring cleaning.
The ability to have folders is great. The ability to have a BACK and FORWARD button are phenomenal and make so much since (the history button as well).
I just hope the FOSS alternatives follow suit, (Matrix especially)
Still waiting for them to let me create notes to follow up on Slack comments. I always lose track of where someone asked me a question if I don't answer it immediately. I end up having to "star" an individual comment, but it's easy to lose context in that since people tend to ask questions like this:
If I'm starring a comment I'd end up starring either "Tomorrow by 3" or "Can you do [thing]?" But then whenever I check on the request I have to jump back to whatever channel it's in to find it. And if it's an active channel I might be losing more current takes on the issue, like the later note on the updated deadline. The /remind function doesn't work great for this either.
I guess, on some level, I'm basically asking for a ticketing system to help encapsulate and track requests so they don't get lost in the discussion shuffle.
Incidentally, I really hate the "got a second?" Shit. It's asynchronous communication. Just ask me the question and I'll get to it when I get to it! If you want instant responses call me on the phone. (And I'll get annoyed because you've distracted me over something that wasn't urgent. But at least I can convey annoyance by voice in ways I can't do by text without sounding like I'm going way overboard.
OMG, so much this! It's like 20 years ago when someone would send you an email, and then walk over to your desk and ask, "Hey, did you get my email?" I don't know. I'm not sitting here waiting to see what comes in. I'm #$%@! working, you @#$!
It's not great, but something you can do is send "direct messages" to yourself (possibly including a link to the message) and then delete them when you're done with them. It's usually easier overall to just keep track of it externally though.
Yeah I've tried to instill some discipline in my team around emailing requests for anything more complicated than a short reply off the top of someone's head. But I haven't had much luck. It's hard to establish a more within a small team of 9 when the rest of the org doesn't follow it.
And it's always the business development people. . .
I'd like to see them address the maxed-out CPU usage on Macs. My MBP lasts less than 2 hours on battery when Slack is running :/
Are you using the Mac app? If so, you could try it inside your browser to see if it helps.
Good call, actually. Might be worth switching to the browser-based version!
The web client is categorically superior to the Electron client.
If you tolerate text interfaces and/or are nostalgic for the old days of IRC, wee-slack (a plugin for the weechat IRC client) provides massively improved performance and a highly customizable interface over any UI Slack provides.
It's been hitting my machine pretty heavy, but two hours seems way too brutal, you sure there's nothing else going on?
As a sidenote, there's a reverse-engineered native app for Slack, called Ripcord, you might want to check it out.
It's a work machine so I'm pretty limited on what I can get access to in the logs, etc. But through some pretty blunt testing if Slack is running, I get 2 hours battery. If it isn't I can go all day.
Looks like it's doing what Chrome (used to?) does where it's dominating _windowserver to run the GPU at max all the time it's running.
Thank you for the link to Ripcord! Trying it out now.
I like how the first feature on the website is "Not made from a web browser". Why have people stopped writing native apps? Too many platforms to support?
At this point I think it's mostly training. A generation of developers haven't learned any better. That's just the default way of doing things.
Seeing how we're going to stretch the limits of Moore's Law really soon, I hope focus on performance is coming back. There's no reason for a chat app to be this bloated.
Isn't that kind of a chicken-and-egg problem though? If that's what everything is in, that's where all the innovation is going to happen since that's where people are applying their creative energies.
None of the features described in the post are working for me. I've checked for updates (I have the latest version) and did a hard refresh inside the app... no change. Are they doing a slow rollout or do I have to enable a setting somewhere to see it?
From the article.
Ah, thanks for that.
I've just been forced to start using Slack this week. What a piece of crap. I pretty much loathe it.
Can you... elucidate on your reasoning? Instead of just calling it a 'piece of crap' without justification?
Yeah, sorry, having a bad day.
Basically, it's bloated. It takes up double the memory of the previous chat tool we were using. The first time I opened it I was assaulted with a candy-colored array of flashing, swirling animated icons. It looked like a unicorn had shit on my screen. (I figured out how to turn off animations, but what an unwelcoming way to introduce users to your product.) Most of the functionality is difficult to find. It uses all kinds of hidden shortcuts to send messages to certain groups of people, none of which are intuitive or discoverable. It encourages interruptions from a much wider group of people than our old chat client did.
We all have them! If ya' want I'll delete my comments and you can just repost that as your top level comment :)
Feel free!
Slack works best if your organization has a dedicated killjoy who enforces rules around usernames, avatars, and on-topic ness in channels. At least at my company, names MUST be your actual name. Either your first name or firstname.lastname. Always lower case unless the capitalization is important (e.g. MacGregor). No generic avatars allowed, and no animated images in avatars.
Also gotta mute notifications on all but the urgent channels and direct messages and make sure your dedicated killjoys make sure no idle chatter happens on the channels people aren't allowed to mute. And also force all images and attachments to be auto-collapsed so you have to click on them to open. People cannot be trusted to use the /giphy extension responsibly.
Yeah, that definitely seems to be the case. Our org is huge and does not have such a person, unfortunately.