Slack Client

flohack

Hi,

turns out that I am now using Slack at my workplace and I am definitely interested in getting this one ported to UT. They have an open API, but it needs significant amount of effort.

We will make a call for devs and interested people, maybe we can set up a team like for Linphone.

BR Florian

vpzom

My current solution is piping everything to Matrix through https://github.com/matrix-hacks/matrix-puppet-slack

dobey

Seems like https://github.com/vladest/slaq might be a good place to start from though.

L-00011

This post is deleted!

bhdouglass

If there is a team being put together for this, sign me up! I'm also in need of a slack client for UT.

advocatux

@vpzom have you tried https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack?

dobey

@advocatux It might work for some, but in my experience, bridges are pretty awful alternatives to having a real client.

advocatux

@dobey yes, of course, and even worse with incomplete bridge implementations, but I suggested that bridge to @vpzom because they're are using one now and I've heard that matrix-appservice-slack works better than matrix-puppet-slack.

flohack

@bhdouglass Hmm sorry overlooked this. Well currently no team there, but we could start spinning up smth and catch interest ^^

agrucza

Hey guys,

as i have switched to UT a few weeks back and use Slack quite often (personally and for business) i was also thinking about creating a Slack client. The main problem was the way slack is constructed its not directly possible to have a fully standalone client.

I was following the approach of an Slack App and quickly realized that those apps can only communicate within the workspace they have been created for.

I decided to reach out to Slacks tech support, the support was quite informative and as they understood what i wanted to do they told me that its not possible to create a fully fletched standalone client with the current APIs they provide. As the API seems to be centered around the slack apps. Which according to the API documentation does not have a single endpoint for switching workspaces.

I was able to create a prototype to have this whole OAuth2 token generation part and the Connection to the RTM/WebAPI ready but was bound to the workspace my slack app was created for.

On the other hand the app department of slack was quite interested in providing an UbuntuTouch client. They told me they will discuss this and have put this on their feature requests.

I mean possibly there could be a way to have this running without slack or the endpoints. But i believe this involves heavy reverse engineering and network sniffing in order to get the correct communication to be able to get this working as a standalone client.

The support team told me they would get in touch again which should be this week to have me informed about possible progress. But i would not count on this.

Bests,
Alex

flohack

@agrucza Sounds interesting. Tell them we can give them probably also a device for development if needed. (For sure its needed xD )

agrucza

Hey @Flohack, i have relayed the offer to slack but have not yet received anything new. I will share anything i get from slack.

AppLee

@agrucza I am also creating a prototype for a slack client.

Great idea to contact slack and suggest the creation of a native app.
If any project is started, I would gladly join and contribute.

If I make any progress, I will share my findings with you all.

Regards,

A Former User

I was just reading about an Open Source alternative: Mattermost

https://itsfoss.com/mattermost-funding/

(Just thought I'd throw that in...)

agrucza

@3arn0wl Please do not take this as an offense but the whole point was to get Slack ported as its quite common to be used within companies.

E.g.: In my company slack is used for global communication between departments.

I have not yet heard anything new from Slack, beside that they appreciate the offer of assistance in the development. I will try to reach out to them again but to be honest i doubt that slack is investing resources in the Ubuntu Touch version.

I am a software developer myself and it's quite hard to push projects in the lanes when there is no solid return of the investments.

A Former User

I completely understand, @agrucza, I'm just an evangelist for a better approach. I realise that it's an idealist standpoint and totally unfeasable in many circumstances

vladest

@agrucza it is possible to log in to workspace using Slaq client
So far it is supports desktops only, but I see no reason why it will not work on UBports with recent Qt version

agrucza

@vladest Well, it depends on how you define workspace. Using the official slack API it is necessary to create a "slack app" in a workspace you want to connect to. With the app token, you will then be able to log into the slack RT API and the Web API into this workspace. You cannot switch workspaces to have a general client to connect to different workspaces the slack app is bound to the workspace it is created for.

bhdouglass

I did some hacking today on Slaq to see if I could get it running on Ubuntu Touch. I was able to get it to run in clickable desktop, but it crashes almost immediately on a phone. I pushed up my changes to https://github.com/bhdouglass/slaq if any one wants to take a crack at it (warning, it's super hacky!). On the desktop I was able to login by manually setting the tokens in here: https://github.com/bhdouglass/slaq/blob/master/qml/dialogs/WebLoginDialog.qml#L80

flohack

@bhdouglass Cool! But does it use their services API or the real client API? As far as I could see only the services API is made public, so to write bots and such stuff.