This is the main point of contention, I feel.
Right now, threads can be one of two things:
- Purely just a conversation in a channel
- A subthread created by replying to a comment
Subthreads solve our problem partly, in that they allow us to continute discussion about a topic in a thread dedicated purely to that topic (based on the parent message about that topic), but they have several problems:
- They do not display well (in my personal opinion) - they take up part of the screen while leaving the main conversation going in the background, leading to splitting your attention between two (or more) conversations
- Notifications are hard to find
- Which leads me to my next point - threads are difficult to get back to after you've left them
- You can either scroll back in the channel the thread was in, find the message, and click on the thread to open it
- Which may be hard or imposible if the message is very old or the channel history has been cleared (because we're on the free tier of Slack - this is also potentially a problem in Twist, but price per user is $5 instead of Slack's ~$7)
- Or you can go to the "All Threads" button and scroll around until you find the thread you're looking for
- This has other problems as well
- When new messages are sent in the thread by other users, the thread does not automatically scroll to them like in a channel
- The full thread history is hidden behind a button
- This has other problems as well
- You can either scroll back in the channel the thread was in, find the message, and click on the thread to open it
- Which leads me to my next point - threads are difficult to get back to after you've left them
In Twist, everything is threaded.
When someone wants to talk about a new topic, they go to the channel they want, click "Start a new thread", give the thread a topic, and write the message they wanted to send. This also has the potential to be more long-form than Slack allows (with it's tiny message box). Then the thread can be posted to the channel where people can respond to it.
The way threads are displayed in channels is more akin to an email client than a chat client, where you click on the channel and are presented with a list of all the threads in that channel. This lets you easily see all of the points of discussion in a channel, and find (even very old) topics quickly.
You also have an "Inbox", where threads that pertain to you will live. This way you can easily keep track of what you are participating in.
Slack's method of group chat leads very quickly to fast, informal, light discussion about every topic, both serious and fun. Twist can help alleviate this by structuring conversation in a long form, topic-oriented way. (Like email, but not old and gross!)
Slack is based entirely around DMing and group chatting. Everything in Slack is set up this way. You are already familiar with this, and how it leads to more informal and quick discussions about both serious topics and jokes.
Twist does have support for both of these things, so if we still want to have a code/music/random/general chat/etc. channel, then we can!
Twist supports almost everything that Slack does, barring a few minor comfort features (that, since Twist is so new, will probably be added in the future) such as custom emoji, some keyboard shortcuts (like pressing up to edit a message, or Ctrl + K to open the quick switcher), and probably a couple other things. Nothing really major, though!
Last, but not least, Twist has giphy support. <-- this is the real kicker