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Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Saturday July 15, 2017 @02:52PM (#14778264)
Hi,

eul is a very lightweight and fast native desktop client for Skype, Slack, Gmail, VK, FB, Jabber, Telegram, and Signal. Right now only the first four are supported, and the rest should be done by the end of August.

Why did I create this? To solve two big problems I see with the current IM solutions: there are too many of them, and the clients are ridiculously bloated for what they are built to do. For example, everyone knows what a huge resource hog the Skype client is. Even the Telegram client, which is supposed to be lightweight, is using 1.3 GB of RAM on my desktop right now.

I'm obsessed with performance. The entire application is about 4 MB, and it's never going to be more than 10 MB. In fact there are still many things to optimize. It's native, so you don't need to download a 100 MB browser just to use your IM client.

eul can display thousands of messages in one conversation without the constant page fetching. The scrolling is instant and smooth. You can jump to any message without waiting. I've tested it with 50 000 messages in one chat. No lags, instant scrolling to any point, instant search. That should be enough for most :)

This is a very early alpha release. A lot of essential features are still missing (for example, images and other attachments are not supported yet). Automatic updates will be released every day. There's a built in contact form, please use it to submit bugs and suggestions.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback :)

Thanks

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by Veratyr on Sunday July 16, 2017 @03:59AM (#14781058)
Three things:

- THANK YOU! It's near impossible to find a client that isn't either run in a console (admittedly not the worst problem) or horribly bloated (what the hell are people thinking when the bundle a browser to show a single page!?).

- What do you think of adding Matrix (https://matrix.org)? The protocol is HTTP + JSON based and well documented.

- Have you thought about open sourcing? My guess is either you want to sell this eventually or your coding standards are quite high and you doubt people can contribute too much while meeting them. In the case of the latter, I'd still like for it to be around, even if your standards for PRs would be too high for me to meet.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by ptman on Sunday July 16, 2017 @05:48AM (#14781301)
I have to agree about matrix. In fact I think at this point effort should be focused on bridging protocols to matrix instead of each different client implementing support for protocols by themselves. Then the client can only implement matrix support.
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by ge0rg on Sunday July 16, 2017 @06:44AM (#14781439)
Protocol bridges always only provide a subset of the original functionality, mostly because it's impossible to fully map one protocol to another.

Of course, the same problem can happen for a multi protocol client as well, but at least it's not inherently impossible to solve it there.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Sunday July 16, 2017 @06:28AM (#14781392)
Ideally yes, that's what should happen. But it's very unlikely...
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Sunday July 16, 2017 @06:33AM (#14781407)
Thanks!

Matrix will definitely be implemented at some point. Not within the first 2 months unfortunately.

Yes, my standards are pretty high, but like I said before here, I do consider open sourcing it.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by noloblo on Sunday July 16, 2017 @03:02PM (#14783588)
Is eul an electron app?
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by OJFord on Monday July 17, 2017 @12:59PM (#14790352)
No, OP said:

> I'm obsessed with performance. The entire application is about 4 MB, and it's never going to be more than 10 MB. In fact there are still many things to optimize. It's native, so you don't need to download a 100 MB browser just to use your IM client.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by nicolaslem on Saturday July 15, 2017 @03:19PM (#14778407)
The in browser Slack is getting slower each day. If I don't do a full refresh of the page after about an hour, the interface is so slow that even typing text is painful.

So having a lightweight client is definitely appealing to me. However Slack keeps adding features often and every one using Slack assumes the recipient runs the same version of Slack as his.

I wonder how can your unofficial client can deal with this problem the next time Slack releases the next update that is as big as adding threaded conversations for example.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Saturday July 15, 2017 @03:44PM (#14778536)
Good point. I'm planning to make sure all protocols and latest features are supported.

I came across the new threaded conversations yesterday, and they can be implemented in one or two days.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by 52-6F-62 on Saturday July 15, 2017 @09:52PM (#14780089)
My coworkers and I have been looking for something exactly like this, and we've been let down by numerous Electron projects like Franz that don't really offer any different, simplifying experience.

I will definitely be trying this out.

However a question essential for our pending use is: any plans to support HipChat? That would pretty near seal the deal for my current group.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Saturday July 15, 2017 @10:26PM (#14780174)
Hi,

Eul's target audience is primarily professionals, so it's silly of me to forget about HipChat. I just had a look at its API, and yes, it will absolutely be supported. In fact, most likely this is going to be the next protocol implemented.

Should be done by mid-August.

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by 52-6F-62 on Tuesday July 18, 2017 @07:58PM (#14801057)
Hi again! That's great news. I passed the app around to my coworkers already, however we can't actually use it!

If it's at all possible, we'd love to have a build compatible back to macOS 10.10. Right now, it can only run on 10.12 and we work in a large enterprise where updates are withheld for mostly software-compatibility reasons (a lot of media software relies on older systems).

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by dyu- on Sunday July 16, 2017 @05:14AM (#14781225)
Hopefully you'll make your gui mini-framework opensource.

Though I would think it would be similar to something like https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by riccardoforina on Sunday July 16, 2017 @03:50AM (#14781034)
Nice idea. FYI I just tried it on my Mac (10.12.5) with Safari as a default browser and Safari crashes every time it's opened to do the login to any service. After a couple try also eul crashed.

Will stay at the window for updates :)

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Sunday July 16, 2017 @06:35AM (#14781412)
Thanks for testing it. Strange that it crashes on Mac, I'll check the logs and investigate.
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by Existenceblinks on Sunday July 16, 2017 @10:45AM (#14782170)
Sir, what's the obstacle for supporting El Capitan, I think it is not too old?
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by alex-e on Sunday July 16, 2017 @11:14AM (#14782304)
It doesn't run on El Capitan? What kind of an error do you get? Can you send more details to [email protected]?

Thanks

Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by Existenceblinks on Sunday July 16, 2017 @01:02PM (#14782914)
I sent you a report. Thanks for addressing. Looking forward to using your app!
Re:Show HN: Eul – a lightweight desktop client for Skype, Sl... by noloblo on Sunday July 16, 2017 @04:04PM (#14783872)
added gmail and Skype just Skype shows up added slack too but nothing happens !!! theres an empty shared window whats that