Competitor analysis: good things

[marek-saji]

Before I start writing anything, let’s analyse what we like in other messaging interfaces (so no protocol features).
I am mostly interested in things that cause you to prefer one app over another.

One comment per feature. Vote on already added features with 👍

Template:

### Competitor: Feature summary

Description (optional)

Image (preferred, but optional)

[marek-saji]

Slack: Custom emojis

[marek-saji]

Slack, Telegram et al.: Bots

[marek-saji]

Slack: collapsing things

Every embedded image / page preview has a toggle to collapse it. One can also use /collapse to collapse everything in the channel.

[marek-saji]

Slack, fb Messanger, Telegram: Message attachment buttons that disappear when you start typing

[marek-saji]

Pretty much everything, but IRC over ssh: share target

On (mobile) OSes you can share an image to messanger app to share it with someone.

[marek-saji]

Slack, Telegram: Edit last message with ↑

[rkujawa]

Slack, Telegram: Edit last message with ↑

Personally, I am not a big fan of editing messages that were already sent. Although I understand usefulness of such feature.

Also, as far as I am aware, this feature increases the complexity of potential encryption/signing of individual messages (though we should have a separate issue to discuss problems like this, since this one should stay purely UI-related).

Nevertheless, even if this feature is implemented, there should be an option to turn off editing with ↑, so it can be used to go back to previously sent message, like in IRC clients.

[marek-saji]

Personally, I am not a big fan of editing messages that were already sent. Although I understand usefulness of such feature.

Also, as far as I am aware, this feature increases the complexity of potential encryption/signing of individual messages (though we should have a separate issue to discuss problems like this, since this one should stay purely UI-related).

Nevertheless, even if this feature is implemented, there should be an option to turn off editing with ↑, so it can be used to go back to previously sent message, like in IRC clients.

I can’t see myself implementing edit feature without ability to see edit history. Don’t think that any messanger does that, but GitHub comments do: 🙂

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Posting features here do not mean they will ever be implemented, I just want to start off by listing features that define nice UX. So far I’m coming up with features that:

• allow customization / provide playfulness
  • custom emojis / stickers
  • gif search
  • chat backgrounds
  • changing nicknames
• reduce clutter / give control
  • collapsing things
  • editing messages
  • threads (slack, google wave 🕯️)
    Personally I’m not a great fan and prefer quoting original message, but they may make sense in bigger rooms.

[marek-saji]

fb Messanger: Muting conversation notifications for a time

Useful on channels with more people when there is a discussion you are not participating in.

[rkujawa]

IRC: tab completion of user names and commands

Makes typing faster for people used to command line environments.

[rkujawa]

IRC: command line-like navigation

Allows using key combos that are familiar for people using shell (i.e. ctrl+a to get to beginning of the line, ctrl+e to get to the end of the line, arrow up to access history of previous messages, etc.)

[marek-saji]

(i.e. CTRL+A to get to beginning of the line, CTRL+E to get to the end of the line, arrow up to access history of previous messages, etc.)

This one is an bit tricky, because some of them conflict with non-terminal shortcuts (ctrl+a, w…), but maybe shell shortcuts may be an option.