Rael G.C.
Rael G.C.
Jul 28, 2017 · 1 min read

In the time Slack was missing a Linux client, I’ve created a simple client using qtwebkit for Linux: https://github.com/raelgc/scudcloud. It was a bit popular on that time, then Slack released the official client, and I thought that my simple client was dead. For my surprise, it’s still alive for all people complaining about resources usage.

Sure, still a web container running the web version with desktop integration, but at least is using directly a web engine, not an entire browser. The reason is because Slack has no messaging API at all.

Two downsides: Slack keep changing their JS all the time, so it’s a cat and mouse game. And qtwebkit itself keep breaking small stuff, so, last month I got 2 major issues: Arch Linux got the newest qtwebkit version, and it was crashing with a dump, not even a python stack (fix was downgrade. Ubuntu 16.04 faced the opposite: Slack upgraded their CSS and qwebkit version included in Ubuntu 16.04 was no more properly rendering the CSS (I pointed people to a package that upgraded 16.04 webkit.

After this, I contacted Slack at least 2 times offering helping on Linux as a volunteer, as their client is just a “compiled” JS and I told them I can help with: issues fixing; help on testing; improve integration with major Linux desktops, but most of the times I have no answer or the traditional “we appreciate, but no”.

    Rael G.C.

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    Rael G.C.