Tweetdeck for Chrome
First of all, this is not a comparison of Tweetdeck for desktop Air vs. HTML5 versions. If I’ll do that comparison, I can innumerate more than 10 missing features but this post is not about that.
This is a comparison of the new Tweetdeck for Chrome vs. old Tweetdeck for Chrome.
1. Horizontal scroll bars
Instead of horizontal scroll bars what we have are these rolling columns that hides some streams if there is not enough room on your browser. The navigation provided to move to the hidden columns are these nasty looking “next page” arrow.
What’s more disappointing is leaving behind the “previous page”. You are now forced to use the little column navigation on top to move to the previous columns because there’s nothing to click on the left edge of the browser.
If Tweetdeck retained the horizontal scroll bars this won’t be an issue in user experience.
2. RT (old-school Retweet)
Previously you can retweet the tweet internally or click edit your retweet to use RT. Now you are only given an option to quote tweets.
Quoting gives you curly quotes enclosing the original Tweet.
You can remove them manually but it’s tedious to remove them one by one on each retweets. Why can’t Twitter just embrace the old RT convention like it used to be?
3. Merged / combined columns
I don’t know if anyone noticed but the merged columns for “me” and “inbox” seems to be missing and there is no immediate option or setting to create such column.
However, if you were using the old Tweetdeck for Chrome, there is a chance that the old merged columns are still working… or maybe not. The point is, it’s not there anymore.
4. Translate
You can instantly translate a foreign language right in Tweetdeck for Chrome before. Now, that feature is totally gone. I wish they’ll put it back soon.
5. Shortened link preview
This is one of the most common complain from Tweetdeck for Chrome users. Before, you can instantly get the shortened link preview even if you have not sent the tweet you have composed. Now, you have to send the tweet first before you’ll get a shortened link.
The character count will not count the length of the long link but instead use the length of the shortened link. It is a bit misleading for first-time users because they will think that Tweetdeck is still counting the characters of the long links but it works just fine — you just don’t get the preview of the shortened link.
If it works so well before why change it?
6. In-line picture preview
Before you’ll get a small thumbnail in your timeline and get a preview of whatever picture or video is attached on a tweet. Now you have to click on the body of the tweet to get the preview. Clicking the link will lunch a new tab or window for the picture hosting or the actual picture itself.
7. Foursquare (and defunct Google Buzz)
Well, obviously Google Buzz is a no-go but Foursquare is missing. Maybe Twitter will add it later or sooner but right now, it’s missing.
Small fixes rolling out
Since last week, there some small features that Tweetdeck team fixed or changed like the context menu– it’s already back:
There are minor tweaks like how the username will appear when retweeted. Before it gives you an option to choose between the full name or the Ttwitter username but now it shows both to avoid confusion.
Trends only show Worldwide trends. I hope that local trends will be back soon.
I’ve seen some improvement since the new Tweetdeck was first release so this is not the final version of Tweetdeck for Chrome or the HTML5 client for desktop.
Let’s just hope that Tweetdeck will address the concerns I’ve mentioned here as soon as possible.
