In my opinion, it doesn't matter if it looks like Slack. What matters is that I can deploy it on an existing infrastructure and still have control over the service instead of handing over control to a third-party.
The very first sentence irks me:
"[…] for the only standardized chat protocol [XMPP]"<p>Haven't they heard about IRC (RFCs 1459, 2810–2813)?
No mention of OTR. :-( When your client is a Web app on a trusted server (i.e. OTR key on the server), you could avoid multi-client issues by having only that on XMPP client that you connect to from multiple browsers.
Note that the same team also offer a Trello clone and an Evernote clone. Draw your own conclusions.<p><a href="http://digicoop.io/products" rel="nofollow">http://digicoop.io/products</a>
There has been a deluge of web chats lately (which is a good thing).<p>Has anyone tried Let's Talk, Shout, Echoplex, and/or Kaiwa in practice and have some experiences to share? Stability, searchability, general functionality?
If you disabled or drastically resized the avatars and put the usernames not in a separate line, the window could hold a lot more content for single-line conversations like that.
screen + ssh + irssi (+ bitlbee, if you need xmpp) > any web based solution. Why? Because I can see it on my phone and on my laptop, and it's as lightweight and simple as a `ssh -t irssi.myDomain.foo screen -DD -R` and I'm all caught up.<p>This is, ofc, my $0.02. Stuck in the old way of doing things, I guess.<p>Still pretty cool, particularly the deploy on DO.
A slight tangent, are there public XMPP servers?<p>Are there open source projects that use XMPP for their public channels?<p>I'm a little dismayed by how many Slack accounts I'm acquiring.
I am glad projects like these are being worked on. Desktop XMPP programs are terrible. I have had a hard time hosting my own chat service for friends,family and work because the clients never work together for file transfers.<p>I just wish these were easier ''FOR ME'' to install on FreeBSD.
What prevents me from adopting XMPP for my team is the lack of push notifications to my phone. I don't want to have an app constantly maintain a connection and slowly drain my battery.
It's not hard to get a UI like Slack's. The actual chat window is just like what IM clients have used for decades. One side has the contact and chat room (channel) list combined instead of in a separate window. Like in IRC instead of XMPP and other chat systems. Put the settings and away management in a header or footer and you've got slack.<p>It's not like it's revolutionary. They put two and two together in the only reasonable manner for a single-page application.
I'm curious how E2E encryption (OTR e.g.) could be implemented with a client like this (preferably without having the keys leaked all over the place), it's the only interesting feature I miss from a quick glance.
I'm planning on setting this up for myself later today but a few questions before I do that:<p>- Will this stay connected to my account and the history will be there if I close the tab / browser / computer in the meantime?<p>- Is it possible to replace certain strings with images? This is not at all an important feature but just something I got used over the years. (Example: :string: replaced with image.png and displayed inline. That's possible with Adium but I'd really like to replace Adium)<p>Thanks!
I think this is great. If there were more people pushing clients like this, not only will it push the guys who already make money off of it, but we can do a better job coming up with new communication ideas as a whole.<p>I'm ONLY using Hangouts because they don't allow group messaging in any other client. I'd like to see that change!
Wow! Nostalgia.<p>If I remember correctly, "Kaiwa", was the codename for the first Macromedia's Flashcom Server (before Adobe's acquisition).<p>Flashcom Server at that time made it possible to run 2+ ways multi-threaded communication (audio/video) via the Flash Player (2003-ish).
As a freelancer today i need to use a plethora of different messaging apps like skype, hangouts, slack, hipchat, irc + a couple of others for private messaging like iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram. It is really becoming somewhat annoying.