7th
2011
Feedback to Skype on the new v5 beta
Dear Skype:
I very much dislike most of the changes in the Skype 5 beta - nearly everything I do with Skype has gotten more tedious. Some features that were poor in earlier versions have gotten worse.
Some examples:
1) I often keep many many chats open at once. The interface for how to create a new ad hoc chat with multiple participants is completely inscrutable. I almost _NEVER_ want to “add additional participants to an existing chat” in order to make a new chat with multiple people, yet that seems to be the only way. Doing so seems to give those people access to the entire chat history of the previous participants. This has never been great, but now it’s worse. I would also like the option for manual sorting of chats back. (Update: okay, there seems to be a way to create a new chat, and there are now “favorites” that appear at the top of the list, but which are still unsortable other than alphabetically.)
2) I often copy and paste phone numbers from other sources. The single most important and almost always immediately subsequent thing I want to do with those numbers is _DIAL THEM_. I don’t want to muck about with searching my address book or adding them (though maybe afterwards) - I just find a phone number on a website and I want to call it. It used to be possible to do this by tabbing and pressing enter, but now it seems to require the mouse, which takes a lot longer.
3) Almost as annoying, I often need to dial numbers into the keypad immediately after dialing a number, if it’s for a company. Having to search around for the keypad is quite annoying, having it not always present as part of the “current call” window makes it difficult to find. Additionally, you seem to have removed the ability to paste numbers directly into the dial pad, which makes it REALLY tedious to enter numbers for a conference call service, which yes I sometimes have to still use because not everyone uses Skype and even when they do the conference quality is hit or miss depending on their bandwidth situation.
4) Also, now with the integrated “call and chat” in a single window, it’s extremely tedious to switch between a call in progress and other existing chats. I often participate in chats while on a call, and this interface makes this difficult.
5) Your growl notifications of new chats are broken and clicking on them doesn’t take you directly to the chat from which they came, only to the main Skype window.
6) (Addendum: What is the deal with the new Europop ringtone?!?!)
I’m sure there’s more.
cc: Skype Feedback
