2018-07-17 17:07:25

@25, exactly. I don't get why people (ahem, sited people) are so in favor of web apps on the desktop. That's not how the desktop platform is supposed to work. What eally should be happening are we should have adaptive apps coming out: it adapts to the platform its being executed on, so if its running on a desktop, it displays a desktop UI; if its running on a tablet/phone, it displays a web UI, etc. And while I get that that would be harder to code, developers could do it.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2018-07-17 18:33:33

And - so - I installed this masterpiece of a modern user interface and what do I conclude: bloody hell, now they must fix and update this thing fast, as in a current state it's a complete mess and almost unusable.

2018-07-17 19:07:31

This is exactly what I'm trying to say. ACtually, dare I say it, a true, honest to goodness scaleable ui would be really nice. I'm sick of this let's getting everyone on mobile shit. Desktops have their place as well as mobile, that includes mobile/web interfaces. Especially when things like voiceover have become as effective as windows 7 narrator. I"m sorry, but dare I say it, us Apple users better enjoy what's left before the walled garden kicks us right the fuck out. Seriously. Both Apple and Microsoft have bigger fish to fry when it comes to what to work on, but Microsoft, at least most of the time, still prioritizes accessibility more than ever, and Apple's just using it as a marketing ploy. I haven't seen voiceover get any love on the mac side as far as updates, and we have to wait until Apple's big theatrical brouhaha every year just to get the depressing news. Plus speaking into the so-called feedback assistant is like speaking into a void. Microsoft actually listens to their users, and most of the time they know when they screwed up and are quick to backpedal, where as Apple won't admit defeat *seriously, I'd get frostbit before I ever use the new silicone-filled butterfly keyboard. Lol. This is a roundabout way of saying that voiceover, again, can't be scripted, so if skype does die off, voiceover users are thoroughly screwed, possibly even more than windows users.

2018-07-17 19:09:38

I don't know how they'd have it adapt based on what it's being used on with Electron, but then I don't know everything it can or can't do either. Heh.

2018-07-17 19:15:49

Don't develop it in electron, plain and simple. Have a separate, full development team for each platform. IT would open more friggin job opportunities at least.

2018-07-17 20:16:19

I may be wrong on this, but I was under the impression that the new skype and Skype for Web are the same thing now, it's basically a hook into SfW now.

I, actually like the Skype for Web layout. Hear me out. Hear me the fuck out before you all start jumpng on me.

The recent conversations menu instead of the contacts by default is handy and it has your favorites at the top in order of who messages you last and it lists X unread messages.

I like the fact it's one list of messages in a conversation and you only have one open at a time. I appreciate that.

I actually....dare I say it, like the slimmed down options, caveat: In a browser, it works quite well. I'll admit, I use Pidgin with a plugin for Skype IMs and other stuff for calls given how godawful Skype's audio is now........

But from a purely layout view. I like it. Admittedly I like the idea of okay, your menu's on the left side, your messges in web skype take up the majority of the screen and you can scroll through them....

So if they just bring the web skype interface to an updated Skype I'll be very, very fine with that.Or I'll stick with web skype. Either one works for me.


Go on, shout me down, argue how I'm wrong, I know you all want to bitch at me for daring to like Skype's layout..../rant

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-07-17 20:19:38

Keyboard shortcuts, can't take your default audio output/input within the skype app at least not yet, and can't change the sounds. Numbers 1 and 2 are most important hence why 3 was last as a minor nuisance.

2018-07-17 21:57:32

Hey, if you like the new Skype's interface, awesome. You won't find me jumping on you for that. Lol.

2018-07-17 22:08:59

I as  Jace I like the new web ap. No need to get an other interface and stick with it! But web UI haters, I really don't get why are you complaining about that interface that for me means clarity?

73 Wj3u

2018-07-17 22:20:20

Apparently people are either exaggerating a little, or my info is dated. You can at least change your input/output, but the point about keyboard shortcuts/system-wide shortcuts still stands, along with the scoop on the mac.

2018-07-18 00:54:22

Skype has become irrelevant enough now to where to many people it won't matter if the classic version is discontinued. Additionally, I'm seeing the same sentiment here that I saw when Microsoft introduced ribbons in place of the classic menu bars, and eventually we all adapted to ribbons.

So, a deep breath is warranted here as all will be okay in due time. We'll adapt, just like we always do, and far enough into the future most of us will forget about the classic Skype altogether xD.

One thing working to our advantage in today's world is that the word "accessibility" has become commonplace, and the "modern app" version of Skype is far more accessible than a new interface of its kind would have been just five years ago.

2018-07-18 02:54:56

Uh...Not all of us adapted to ribbons. That's why things like Ribbon Disabler exist. that was made by a sighted person, as was Classic Shell, so clearly there are people who are more comfortable with older interfaces. And I'm damn glad they do, too.

At 32, right on, thumbs up. I think it's only the store app which doesn't allow you to change your audio device at this point, though. The Elektron app does, thank God, otherwise I'd be going Hulk smash. But the lack of keyboard shortcuts is very bad. At the same time, I feel like I'm backed into a corner, as others have said. I don't know of any other IM clients that work the same way as classic Skype does. First AIM folded, which sucked, but was kind of understandable, and now this.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-07-18 03:03:01

JaceK wrote:

I may be wrong on this, but I was under the impression that the new skype and Skype for Web are the same thing now, it's basically a hook into SfW now.

I, actually like the Skype for Web layout. Hear me out. Hear me the fuck out before you all start jumpng on me.

The recent conversations menu instead of the contacts by default is handy and it has your favorites at the top in order of who messages you last and it lists X unread messages.

I like the fact it's one list of messages in a conversation and you only have one open at a time. I appreciate that.

I actually....dare I say it, like the slimmed down options, caveat: In a browser, it works quite well. I'll admit, I use Pidgin with a plugin for Skype IMs and other stuff for calls given how godawful Skype's audio is now........

But from a purely layout view. I like it. Admittedly I like the idea of okay, your menu's on the left side, your messges in web skype take up the majority of the screen and you can scroll through them....

So if they just bring the web skype interface to an updated Skype I'll be very, very fine with that.Or I'll stick with web skype. Either one works for me.


Go on, shout me down, argue how I'm wrong, I know you all want to bitch at me for daring to like Skype's layout..../rant

jack wrote:

And once again Skype screws us all over and forces us over to their shitty new tablet interface. Like someone so rightly said before, desktop is for desktop apps, not this. What's even worse is that on the mac there's absolutely nothing that can be done other than changing the interface back, because fuck it, voiceover can't be scripted. oh well. If we remember skype for power pc, that stopped working a long time ago but there's a hack to convince it that it's running a later version when really it's not. If the same trick can be pulled for this I'm sure that skype7 on the mac will work at least, but windows is going to harder to convince.

No, no, no, you people don't get me. Microsoft is deprecating the entire API that ran Skype Classic, and the Pidgin plugin, and the Miranda NG plugin, and everything else we used to use. We will be *forced* to either adopt or go. That's the prerogative Microsoft is giving us.

The Beast continued its studies with renewed Focus, building great Reference works and contemplating new Realities. The Beast brought forth its followers and acolytes to create a renewed smaller form of itself and, through Mischievous means, sent it out across the world.
from The Book of Mozilla, 6:27

2018-07-18 03:08:06

So, my biggest issue with this was lack of keyboard shortcuts. Fortunately, there are keyboard shortcuts for most common actions like muting, hanging up, calling somebody and so on. They are not global meaning you will need to focus Skype for them, but check this link out: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/fa1202 … m-in-skype

2018-07-18 03:28:07 (edited by Drewin 2018-07-18 03:29:52)

@37, you can actualy change the input/output devices, and even the camera on the w10 app.
It is not perfect, it needs and probably will get a lot of updates and fixes, but it's usable and i honestly can't understand, after having used both the w10 ap and the electrom one back when i was with windows 7 on this machine, why people are complaining so much about it.
Even in skype classic, I never used keyboard shortcuts, never bottered with changing the sounds.
The new interface Takes some time to get used to, but it's not this huge monster everyone is making it out to be.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

2018-07-18 04:34:05

You can? Huh, a few months back when I tested it, you couldn't, but I suppose that could have changed. I much prefer the Elektron app if I have to adapt, though.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-07-18 04:43:29 (edited by TheGreatCarver 2022-04-26 01:47:35)

OK guys, so we are almost all in agreement that this sucks. No group moderation commands, no sounds, no split window view, no quick message review, no global hotkeys, ETC.

So what do we do about it? I feel that if Skype won't serve our needs, then we should find something that does. So let's put our heads together and figure something out. After all, how hard can it bee? If we have to, we could create our own apps around something like Matrix, or anything else. But let's redirect our efforts from complaining, to doing something.

The Beast continued its studies with renewed Focus, building great Reference works and contemplating new Realities. The Beast brought forth its followers and acolytes to create a renewed smaller form of itself and, through Mischievous means, sent it out across the world.
from The Book of Mozilla, 6:27

2018-07-18 05:17:34 (edited by Draq 2018-07-18 06:54:35)

Unfortunately, I don't have the knowhow to do anything about it, heh. If I did, I would. But even if I did, there's the challenge of getting people I communicate with to give up Skype to use some new thing. I also don't have a smartphone so I can't use these things like WhatsApp, and I'd rather not have to use a web interface. That'd just be trading one horrible interface for another.

In the end, we'll just have to deal with it or move on. That's what it boils down to. I'm sure the new skype is... useable. People wouldn't be using it if it wasn't. I only wish it wasn't such a royal pain in the butt.

2018-07-18 05:27:44

To be honest, I never even used the new versions at all. Anytime my OS 10 and Windows 10 skypes were auto-updated to the new versions, I would go to try it and give it a chance, and i can only sign in with a Microsoft account. I can't just use my plane old skype username and password. Unless I'm missing something. But i don't want to make a Microsoft account if i don't have too, I feel like they just want you to use all their services just because you happen to use one of them. Luckily i have a bunch of time machine backups with the regular OS 10 app and I turned the internet upside down to find classic skype since i can't even find it on MS's site anymore..... Currently, everyone I talk too uses skype or Facebook, and I've tried Discord, it's horrid in it's current state. And if there is something we can turn too as an alternative, I want a stand-alone program for it, I don't want firefox open just to message and talk to people, that's a waste of resources in my opinion, i know that's picky. And I understand that web skype has it's place. Who even had a problem with classic skype anyway??? I NEVER had issues with it, aside for maybe like 2 or 3 times i didn't get a message rite away, but i've been using skype for 5 years and that could've just been a shit internet connection.

NevEd.NDO#4838
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https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa

2018-07-18 06:13:06

I'll admit when I first updated the new interface was dautning, and I do like the old one better, but saying it's inaccessible isn't true and a litle harsh.  It's still better than Discord lol.  Like I've been using it for the past few days and kind of like the new interface, you can still read through the entire chat log like a webpage and if you go into forms mode  in the chat log and scroll down it reads just like the old read the last ten messages keystroke wth older skype.  That's the only thing I majorly miss, but this version of skype looks more streamlined and it's easy enough to bounce around the single window with typical NVDA commands once you realize how it's layout is done.

Is it a new learning period?  Yeah, but it doesn't bother me.  Microsoft is still keeping accessibility in mind which at the end of the day is all I care about.  Was really jarring when first upgrading, I will say that though.

2018-07-18 06:57:16

This is why I'm on their forum asking why this is even a thing and trying to be as constructive as possible. I know they're trying to do their best, but I think there's a very large disconnect between users and developers.

2018-07-18 08:23:02

Hi.
The app interface seems to be usable and accessible, and I think it's something which people can get used to if they want.
I'm glad to see the app is being improved that fast. Months ago, Skype was totally inaccessible and not usable at all on the Mac. First it crashed Voiceover, then Skype crashed and finally the whole OS, which don't happen often in Mac OS. Because of those issues, I stopped using Skype a while ago, and if I had to use it, then I used my iPhone where it works quite well.
I just briefly tested the newest Skype for Mac before I wrote this post, and I'm so glad to see that things has been improved. Is it perfect? No, not at all. Is it usable? Yes, it seems to be usable. So, things are not that bad as I thought.
A really cool thing is that Skype is even accessible on the Xbox. big_smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
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2018-07-18 09:28:13 (edited by CAE_Jones 2018-07-18 13:21:48)

We didn't get use to ribbons. We realized they weren't going to listen when we pointed out how bizarre and unintuitive they are for nothing more than a desire to change things up, and tolerate them. Just like people tolerate all sorts of things that are worse than they could be, rather than just different. For example, I had an iPhone4s. It could no longer handle what I needed it for, but I still had to tolerate it for a year or so before I could get a 6s. Windows Vista is crap, but I had to tolerate it after my XP laptop died, until I could get something better. ... which I also tolerate, although admittedly nothing since Vista has been Vista bad.
Then I got sick of tolerating it and wrote a shell I can actually stand to use casually.
I'd write an IM client, except that requires servers, and security, and a big network of users, and that's why Teamtalk can't compete with Skype, even if the interface was somehow simplified. (It can't really be, because it's based around arbitrary user-run servers.)
Writing a text chat program is easy. Writing a text chat program that enough people will use to be worth adopting... that's hard. Just like competing with Apple, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Amazon is hard. They have enough servers, infrastructure, experience, funding, employees, and users to try just about anything. I have a trio of laptops, the youngest being 6 years old, an iPhone, and a PACMate. So I'm not going to be the one to fix this. Someone who can actually compete in terms of resources and marketing has to do that.
See, it feels decreasingly like users have much influence over the products. True, we aren't entitled to influence over the products. But, in theory, products succeed and fail based on what's best. If none of the choices are as good as they need to be, the MARKET™ is supposed to correct that because it'd be free money for whoever does it right. But the barrier to entry is way too high for that, now.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
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    George... Don't do that.

2018-07-18 10:41:00

NevEd wrote:

To be honest, I never even used the new versions at all. Anytime my OS 10 and Windows 10 skypes were auto-updated to the new versions, I would go to try it and give it a chance, and i can only sign in with a Microsoft account. I can't just use my plane old skype username and password. Unless I'm missing something. But i don't want to make a Microsoft account if i don't have too, I feel like they just want you to use all their services just because you happen to use one of them. Luckily i have a bunch of time machine backups with the regular OS 10 app and I turned the internet upside down to find classic skype since i can't even find it on MS's site anymore..... Currently, everyone I talk too uses skype or Facebook, and I've tried Discord, it's horrid in it's current state. And if there is something we can turn too as an alternative, I want a stand-alone program for it, I don't want firefox open just to message and talk to people, that's a waste of resources in my opinion, i know that's picky. And I understand that web skype has it's place. Who even had a problem with classic skype anyway??? I NEVER had issues with it, aside for maybe like 2 or 3 times i didn't get a message rite away, but i've been using skype for 5 years and that could've just been a shit internet connection.

Is it really true, that you can't use your old Skype account anymore? Do you have to create a Microsoft Account now? I created my account about 10 or 11 years ago, and never had problems, signing into skype. But I also disabled Auto-Update...

2018-07-18 11:22:44

Is it really true, that you can't use your old Skype account anymore? Do you have to create a Microsoft Account now?

That's half-true. You do require a Microsoft account now, however it looks like if you already have a Skype account, you have a Microsoft account. Because yours is 10-11 years old, you just may need to finish the process. There are ways, fortunately.