Hi Rose, I think there's a reason why we've been seeing a lot of posts about the way Skype 5 works recently, including the thread Mike Busboom started about accessing the camera. A lot of people really don't like the new version. Here's a link to the recent article at TidBITS: "Skype 5 for Mac: a Huge Step Backwards" by Lukas Mathis (TidBITS April 2, 2011): http://tidbits.com/article/12088?print_version=1
I've linked to the print only version of the page (which includes links to images of the screen menus, but is text only). This is a really long article, and I've excerpted some of the main premises (but not all the details). The major premise is that Skype 5 is not only less flexible in its organization, layout, and operations for casual users, but it also offers less to advanced users, and now requires them to get all the information from a single window. HTH. Excerpt begins below my signature. Cheers, Esther <begin quote> A while back, when Skype’s group video chat feature was still free, a friend of mine sent me a Skype message asking whether it was possible to do video chat with more than one person in Skype. “Sure,” I replied, “you can do that, but you need to install the new Skype 5 beta.” I sent her the link. A few minutes later, she went offline, and came back shortly thereafter, apparently having updated to Skype 5. The first message she sent was: What the hell happened to Skype? Is this some kind of joke? Apparently, it is not. At work, we use Skype to communicate. A lot of the people here use Windows computers. More than once, a Windows user has walked by my Mac, seen my version of Skype, and said something to the effect of “Wow, this looks so much better than the horrible mess we have on Windows!” It seems Skype has noticed that there is a discrepancy in quality between the two versions, and has decided to make the two versions more similar. Unfortunately, instead of making the Windows version of Skype better, they’ve decided to fix the discrepancy by making the Mac version of Skype more like the Windows version. <snip> …I really don’t like Skype 5. [Editor’s note: And neither do we at TidBITS, which is why we’re republishing Lukas’s article. We were planning to write something very much along these lines, but he did such a good job that we didn’t see any reason to pile on independently. -Adam] The previous version of Skype was a very good piece of user interface design. In its initial state, it was extremely basic. This is what Skype used to look like: [image link] [1] It had a simple window showing a search field, a counter for unread notifications, and a list of your friends, with the ones who were currently online at the top. It was easy to understand, didn’t take much space so I could always keep it visible, and it showed me all the information I needed to know. Who’s online? Did I miss something? Is it okay to contact a friend, or does he not want to be disturbed? With an active chat, Skype used to look like this: [image link] [2] Again, simple and easy to understand, but still giving me everything I might need. I could add more people to the conversation, go back to earlier messages, or call people. But the previous version of Skype wasn’t just simple; it was also flexible enough for advanced users. <snip> Let’s fast-forward to Skype 5. This is what it looks like: [image link] [4] The sidebar on the left has a Contacts item and then a list of your chats. Clicking Contacts shows all your contacts in the main pane; clicking a past chat shows information about the chat (start and end time, and any text messages that went back and forth). Clicking a live chat shows the participants and any text or video associated with the chat. Immediately, there are problems with this. And not just problems for advanced users, but also problems for casual users. It’s Too Complicated for Casual Users -- The window no longer looks simple. Instead, it’s overwhelming. On the plus side, it’s now easier to add a new contact (not something you do that often), and I can decide whether to call somebody or start a chat by hovering over a contact. On the minus side… everything else. Since every Skype feature is crammed into a single window, that window feels overloaded. No longer do I see a simple list of contacts. Instead, I have a complex multi-paned window whose main pane shows entirely different things, depending on the application’s mode. No longer can I easily see who’s online. Instead, I probably see only the people I’ve talked to most recently, regardless of whether they’re online. More than once, I’ve waited for a friend to show up in the sidebar, expecting it to work like the old buddy list. It doesn’t. Unless you switch to the Contacts screen, which then causes Skype to show two lists of contacts next to each other (the past chat contacts in the sidebar and the Address Book contacts in the main pane), you don’t actually see who’s online. And those two lists behave entirely differently. There’s too much extraneous stuff in the main window. For example, right next to the important Add Contact button, there’s a button that allows you to see the pictures of the people in your address book in a Cover Flow view. What is this good for? Why would anyone ever want to do that? Making this view even more useless are both the inscrutable avatar pictures many people use and the generic icons Skype inserts for those who lack pictures. <snip> It’s Not Flexible Enough for Advanced Users -- Skype 5 isn’t just harder to use for casual users, it’s also less flexible for advanced users. Earlier versions of Skype were simple to understand and easy to use, but they allowed users to grow. As users learned more, they were able to make use of Skype’s advanced features. Skype 5, on the other hand, is a shallow app that doesn’t give its users room to grow. With Skype 5, I can’t see two chats at the same time. At first, I thought that I must be missing something. Surely, chatting with two people at the same time is a common use case. I can’t be the only person who does that, can I? Skype seems to think I am. There’s no way to see two or more chats next to each other. The default window is too large, and it can’t be made small without destroying functionality. I like to keep Skype running all the time. The older version’s window was small enough that I could fit it at the edge of the screen; if I need to know if somebody is online, I can see that at a glance. Skype 5’s window is way too big. Even if I don’t hide the app intentionally, it eventually gets covered by other windows. I can’t see who’s online when a chat is active, unless I open a second window with a list of users. Now I’m duplicating functionality across two windows; I end up with three different user lists in two different windows that all behave in slightly different ways. I guess it’s good to have the option, but why replace something that works perfectly well with something that doesn’t work particularly well, and then, to cover the fact that the new version of your feature doesn’t work well, also re-introduce the earlier version? <snip> <end quote> On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:24, Rose Morales wrote: > Wow, there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding Skype conferences in > Skype 5. Recently I've found it necessary to be involved in a lot of them, > and it gave me a chance to really play around with Skype 5 conferencing. So I > thought I'd chime in here. To make a new conversation, hit command-n, or go > to file, new conversation. You will have a blank conversation. Now, hit > command-shift-a or the add people button in the conversation window. You will > see an edit field and a table here. Interact with the table to see your > entire contact list, online contacts first. Hit enter or space on each person > you wish to add to a conference. Alternatively, in the edit field, type the > name of a person you wish to add. This can be a display name or a Skype name. > So if you wanted to add me to a conference, you'd type Rose. The results of > your search will show up here. So if you have Rose Kline and Rose Morales, > you would then pick Rose Morales if you were going to invite me to your > conference and not Rose Kline. Perform the same process for each contact you > wish to add. Once a contact has been successfully added using the spacebar or > enter key, their name will show up in the edit field as an embedded image. So > if you're not sure which names you've selected, just read that edit field > back to yourself. Anything that identifies itself as an image is a name > you've added. Any text which is not an image will be something you're > searching for in your contact list. Or at least Skype will assume so. When > you finish selecting contacts and hit the done button, Skype will call each > of the contacts you've added to a conversation. If you simply wish to add a > person to a conversation without calling them, type /add and then a Skype > username into the chat field of your conversation. You can separate multiple > names with commas. If you wish to hang up on an individual person in the > conference and you are the conference host, find the name of that person in > the conversation. It may be before the scroll area or inside it. Vo-shift-m > on their name and hit hang up. Additionally, please bear in mind that if the > conference host hangs up, everyone will get hung up. A new person can host, > but do not try to call each person individually. You must call the entire > conference or no one at all. Only the master of a conference can kick people > from a conference if everyone's rank remains unmodified. That is to say, if > no one receives a promotion by the conference master. Helpers can also kick > people but only if promoted to said level by a master. The master is the > person who added people to a conversation, from what I gather. This can be > different than the creator. Like, say I open up a message to Jeff. I'm the > conference creator. Jeff adds Cara to the chat. Jeff is the master, because > he added Cara. Only the master can promote people to the master rank level. > For more information about the skype ranking system in conferences, type > /help in any Skype chat window. > > Hth, > Rose > > On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Brianna Snyder wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Just like the subject says, I'd like to know if you can make a conference in >> Skype 5. I have not been able to figure out how to add someone to an >> existing call. Any help would be appreciated. >> >> Thanks, >> Brianna -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. 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