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Comment by Falkon1313 | Hacker News Reader

>desktops and laptops, while theoretically more powerful multitasking tools, have been left behind

>Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message

Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser. Seems like a solution looking for a problem. What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages?

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> Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser.

Except that - unless you're on a tiling WM on Linux - your window manager sucks, and solution like this is barely usable (hard to keep the windows properly aligned, hard to have them simultaneously on the foreground when other windows come into the mix, etc. etd.).

I agree that solutions like that shouldn't be in browsers. But it's cheaper this way for the app vendors...

None of your windows have to be big enough for alignment to be a problem. Even on my small netbook I can fit three 80 column windows of text next to each other easily.

I'm on OSX and it magnetically snaps windows together as they get close. Makes it easy to divide ad hoc.

As for messengers, what would be revolutionary is if you could actually use all these fragmented messengers in a single app.

This. So much this.

I want an app that remembers which of the messaging apps each of my friends prefers, and routes messages appropriately.

If I block someone, it blocks them on all the apps I've ever talked to them on.

I think I use over 5 messaging apps (including sms) on a regular basis. Too many.

Considering most apps these days are a closed api that sounds terrible to code.

Terrible to code? Possibly. Terrible to maintain? Definitely!

Look at Pidgin's struggles.

I second this.

And no, just because on mobile those messengers are all "apps" doesn't make it any more bearable. In fact, switching between messaging apps all the time is simply annoying.

Until messenger apps start using the same, open, protocol, we won't see this.

That is, until they go back to using similar and open protocols, we won't see this again. That's the sad part, there was a concerted push away from this by quite a few of the major players (either initially, or in response to others, or for technical reasons, or a combination thereof). :/

"Technical reasons" such as vendor lock-in ...

> "As for messengers, what would be revolutionary is if you could actually use all these fragmented messengers in a single app."

http://meetfranz.com/ does this in a maybe user-friendlier way than Pidgin (at the cost of a more shallow "integration" due to most of the supported services being non-standard, basically you're running all the clients in one place). It doesn't "remember which of the messaging apps each of my friends prefers, and routes messages appropriately" as requested below by marcus_holmes, but maybe it can start scratching your itch.

I have slack (via their irc gateway), facebook messanger, and google chat/hangouts unified in pidgin. I could pay pushbullet to get sms in there too!

I mean... there is Franz.

https://meetfranz.com

Or if you don't trust it and want an open source alternative compatible with more services try Rambox: http://rambox.pro/ And maybe even donate.

> As for messengers, what would be revolutionary is if you could actually use all these fragmented messengers in a single app.

That's what Matrix is trying to address. https://matrix.org/ Try it out with https://riot.im/

> what would be revolutionary is if you could actually use all these fragmented messengers in a single app.

We used to have this. There were multiple clients that could do this (including Pidgin, an open source one). Then some major players entered using or shifted to proprietary and harder to decipher protocols, and others responded by doing the same lest they be at a disadvantage. Now it's just as bad as it was two decades ago.

So much for progress.

As for messengers, what would be revolutionary is if you could actually use all these fragmented messengers in a single app.

Since you're on macOS, that would have been the built-in iChat app that could do Jabber, AIM, Yahoo!, and some other protocols I've forgotten. It might still work in modern day Messages, dunno, pretty much no one uses them anymore so I can't check.

> Except that - unless you're on a tiling WM on Linux - your window manager sucks, and solution like this is barely usable...

It's like everyone's forgotten what makes desktops great. There are tons [1][2][3][4] of tools you can install today that solve this problem for you. No need to wait for browser vendors to integrate everything.

[1] https://mizage.com/divvy/

[2] http://magnet.crowdcafe.com

[3] http://lightpillar.com/mosaic.html

[4] http://windowgrid.net

Thanks for that list! I wasn't aware that this space developed. I guess Cunningham's Law is still pretty useful :).

Recommendation? (for Windows)

The first 3 are for macOS only, so I guess the last one?

Divvy also seems to be available for Windows: https://mizage.com/windivvy/

Windows Radeon drivers have a tiling manager I think: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/HYDRAVISION-F...

Otherwise:

http://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap

http://www.soulidstudio.com/

https://github.com/ZaneA/HashTWM

http://jgpaiva.dcmembers.com/gridmove.html

http://palatialsoftware.com/plumb/

WinSplit Revolution can be configured to have shortcuts to place your windows in any position you want. Out-the-box it has numpad shortcuts for a 2x2 or 3x3 grid and you can add as many as you want it the keys will cycle through them.

http://download.cnet.com/WinSplit-Revolution/3000-2072_4-109...

You have to download it from cnet because it's not maintained any more and the original website redirects to a paid-for alternative, but it still works for me with Windows 7.

Divvy is great. I was a heavy Divvy user. These days I swear by https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

> Except that - unless you're on a tiling WM on Linux - your window manager sucks

Isn't the solution to that to not use systems with poor usability? Linux exists; it's capable of doing everything many (maybe most?) people need — why not just use the superior system?

You don't always have a choice.

At this point your browser is your OS(with Blink as the kernel, Chrome(ium) as the init/package manager and Opera as the DE), so something like this does makes sense. I just wish that web developers would realise how terrible of an idea this trend is.

It's almost always some ass hole above the developers. We're not idiots and we know what does/doesn't work. But we don't always make the decisions.

> Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser.

And have all links from external app open in a window depending on which was the last one you've used, and having to open links from chat and then drag them to the main browser window. No thanks.

>What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages?

I highly doubt third parties have access to the messenger tab.

It's a neat addition that works well for people who browse in one fullscreenized window.

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