
Show HN: Use Slack for Everything - JCBarry
https://operator.im
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bluetidepro
I'm not sure if this service specifically requires full access permissions or
not, but I do know a ton of these (awesome/neat) plugins like this popping up
require a company to give the plugin full write/read permissions. And for that
reason, it's stopped our company from being able to use them.

I'd be curious to see how many companies would actually allow a 3rd party
service to have that full amount of permissions. It's sort of like GitHub and
how some services require the access to private repos. I'm not sure of a
solution, but am just curious how it really holds back awesome services like
this when companies don't feel comfortable giving it the level of access it
has to have (but may not use that full access).

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lwhalen
Run an IRC server, configure a hubot. Yes, 'cloud'-based chat is pretty, but
it's a new coat of paint over something that's been around for decades (IRC).
For a company less than several thousand people, running your own singleton
IRC server is about as complicated as setting up a basic 3-tier web
application (i.e., a little fiddly, but not hard at all)

~~~
danpalmer
Clients on the other hand are somewhat lacking for IRC.

We use Slack in a company of ~30, and while all the devs could easily use IRC,
most of the rest of the company would struggle with it, and certainly wouldn't
be able to communicate in the wide variety of ways (uploaded files,
images/gifs, videos, code snippets, etc) that they do now. Slack is great at
making all those rich media types 'just work', and while it was possible with
plugins to some IRC clients, the UX was prohibitively bad in my experience.

~~~
cballard
On one hand, you're completely right, on the other, I wish I could block all
GIFs from Slack (or just not get notified about them). That kind of thing
doesn't help me get work done, which is what I'm at work to do - not to share
funny pictures.

~~~
thomastuts
That seems more like a Slack setup issue than an issue with Slack itself, to
be honest. We have a separate #random channel for stuff like that and have
turned off notifications for it. It's still there, but it's much less
intrusive.

You might also want to check out the settings in the Messages & Media section,
specifically "Expand links to images, video and audio from external sources".
That might help to disable the inline GIFs, although I haven't tried it
myself.

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criddell
This is neat, but I guess I don't really understand the problem this is
solving.

The company I work for uses Slack and I like it a lot. However, I've never
found myself wishing that I could get a stock quote (or do a trade!), map an
address, or play hangman there. Similarly, I think I could do a lot of that
stuff from Emacs, but I never have. I use Emacs to edit text and I use Slack
to chat.

It might be because of the number of times I've been burned by plugins that
break after I upgrade the host application, but I'm a little conservative when
it comes to extensions and plugins. I tend to stick to default settings. The
Slack instance we use has only one integration enabled - Giphy (animated gif
responses).

For the people here that are excited about this, is there a function in
particular that is a killer function for you?

~~~
ksenzee
The stock quote and hangman plugins are really just demos. Where services like
this really shine is when you integrate them with your existing systems.
Starting a Jenkins build from your Slack channel is pretty nifty.

~~~
nixgeek
But this would need setting up to interact with Jenkins? Assuming yes, at that
point, why not just hop on over to the Slack App Directory and pick up
something there?

e.g. [https://slack.com/apps/A0F7VRFKN-jenkins-
ci](https://slack.com/apps/A0F7VRFKN-jenkins-ci)

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mcantelon
Slack mania reminds me of Twitter mania before Twitter decided to throw out
the sharecroppers.

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d0m
Looks like risky business to me since this is exactly what Slack is trying to
do (Marketplace for commands)

~~~
bdcravens
Will we have the inevitable Twitter moment when Slack closes things up, and it
becomes a crisis of unfairness for companies that built upon another?

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kedean
I'm going to say yes. I thought it was common knowledge at this point not to
base your entire service on the good will of another service? They're also
banking on Slack not changing their API without telling them.

~~~
bdcravens
There were quite a few startups that built upon Twitter's API, and when access
was taken away/limited, many pitch forks was raised here and elsewhere (to
pretty much no effect)

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dominotw
I've never used slack but how does it compare to hipchat's new connect api?

[https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/12/going-way-
beyon...](https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/12/going-way-beyond-slash-
commands-with-uber-and-hipchat/)

~~~
rrggrr
We left hipchat for slack for several reasons. First, we saved some money.
There were more integrations for slack. The result has been mixed with my more
technical users embracing slack, and my less technical users revolting.
Hipchat is easier on the eyes and the UI is more intuitive. Both have a long
way to go.

There are too many chat clients around and far too many methods to communicate
period. Aggregation is badly needed.

~~~
taurath
Aggregation is badly needed in the whole of technology, but big corporations
have all decided that having proprietary cables, closed APIs and locked-in
platforms is better for their bottom line than what would be good for the
consumer. Also open source/free software advocates are pretty terrible at
making cohesive user experiences.

When it was AIM/YIM/MSN, etc, Trillian and Pidgin came in and made the
experience usable. Now its Gchat, Telegram, Hipchat and Slack. Some of these
have XMPP interfaces (all?) but frankly both companies will keep their APIs as
closed as possible because they want to make money on their own platform.

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davexunit
Remember the time you could already do all of this with IRC?

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vineet7kumar
There's a minor typo in the About section. It says "...We use Slack all the
_time wanted_ to...".

~~~
JCBarry
Thanks!

~~~
nickjackson
Should also move your CSS include to the head.

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lordnacho
Heh, can I use this as my bash shell? It would actually be useful to have my
bash on one of my VMs in a chatroom where I can discuss things with a
colleague.

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joemaller1
What happened to the website icon fonts? They work in Chrome, but are giant
Times New Roman text on Safari, both desktop and Mobile.

~~~
joemaller1
Looks like they trusted Google's recommendation and used WOFF2 which doesn't
work anywhere but Chrome and Firefox.

\- [http://google.github.io/material-design-icons/#icon-font-
for...](http://google.github.io/material-design-icons/#icon-font-for-the-web)

\- [http://caniuse.com/#feat=woff2](http://caniuse.com/#feat=woff2)

~~~
JCBarry
You nailed it! Fixed. :)

~~~
joemaller1
awesome :)

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fourstar
No way in hell this specifically will take off. Slack will integrate this
eventually (given their new App marketplace).

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sgibat
why limit this to slack? make it a general purpose text command workflow.
terminals, email, anything.

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zyxley
FYI, on iPhone this shows up at maybe 2/3rds width of the screen with the rest
as white space.

