Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been chatting with my buddies on Google Hangouts and Facebook using this fantastic new Mac app called Flamingo. Flamingo is a gorgeous instant messaging app released today for Mac that lets you sign in with your Google Hangouts, Facebook or even XMPP accounts and see which of your buddies are online, add new ones & chat with them — all in a slick, native & modern interface.
![Face Face](https://zappy.zapier.com/tox 2019-06-1016 at 16.46.50.jpg)
Social networking monolith Facebook quietly launched beta versions of dedicated Facebook Workplace Chat apps for Mac and PC that incorporate screen sharing, as well as the usual list of basic chat. Notifications Don't miss any messages from your friends. Goofy uses Notification Center, and you can even quick-reply right in notifications!
The chat apps that come as defaults on your phone — both Apple and Google make their own Messages app for iOS and Android, respectively — pack in a lot of features. While this article is mainly about the best Facebook desktop apps for Windows and Mac, I cannot help but list Messenger Lite (formerly Lite Messenger) for Facebook. It’s an Android app that manages chats much better than Facebook’s own chat program. You can check news and notifications too, so it isn’t all about the chat. Every chat matters Launch our Mac desktop app right from the Dock and keep it going in the background while you're working on other tasks. LiveChat will keep you notified about any new messages from customers browsing your website. Automatically invite customers to a chat.
Flamingo has been designed by Christian Dalonzo, best know for designing Stream for App.net and developed by Indragie Karunaratne, best known as the developer of Sonora — the beautiful music player for Mac. If you’ve tried their apps before, Flamingo’s amazingness shouldn’t come as a surprise to you at all. Not only is Flamingo intricately designed with modern interface elements and superb use of colors, it also features some fantastically executed animations and transitions that make it an absolutely delight to use.
Flamingo primarily uses a typical “three-pane” layout — the leftmost pane lists all your buddies from the services you’re currently signed in with, along with their statuses (online, idle, offline, etc.). When you double tap on a buddy to chat with him/her, the buddy appears in the center pane and the actual conversation is displayed in the right most pane. Of course, Flamingo doesn’t limit you to this layout. In the buddy list, Flamingo smartly collates your buddies who have accounts on multiple services into a single contact. For example, if John Doe has an account on both Facebook and Google Hangouts, Flamingo will just display him once under the “Unified” title. Flamingo’s smartness goes beyond this, as if while chatting with him, he logs off one one service, you can continue your conversation with him in the same window on the other service. At your end, the jump is transparent.
Flamingo’s layout is designed such that you’ll only see your buddy avatars by default. Only when you hover over the leftmost pane, it reveals their full names. At the bottom of this pane, you can search your buddy list or add a new buddy on any of the services. The middle pane lists all your active chats. By default, you can click on any of the active chats and the rightmost pane will display the conversation. However, you can also double click on any active chat to open it to the right of the rightmost conversation window. This way, you can have multiple conversations open in view at the same time. Not just that, you can drag out a conversation by holding it at the bottom left and have it as a standalone floating window. This is brilliant.
I love the way the duo has worked out the animations in the conversation view. When you send a message, the bubble slowly animates with the text you’ve sent, along with the timestamp for that message appearing on the left. Little things like these add to the overall delight when using the app. You can change from one service to another using the dropdown on the left here.
Flamingo also supports inline previews for services like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Droplr & CloudApp. So any links from these services in your chat will instead be displayed as rich content. The app is already ready for OS X Mavericks and utilizes the Mavericks notifications’ feature letting you reply right from the notification bubble. Flamingo also supports File Transfers and full message search. It stores your entire conversation history, so it’s easy to lookup something via Flamingo (and it doesn’t Freeze like iMessage).
![Facebook Mac Chat App Facebook Mac Chat App](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134143794/714724028.png)
Unfortunately, neither Google Hangouts, nor Facebook extend the group chat feature to client apps, so Flamingo only supports one-to-one conversations with your buddies. Moreover, the version I’ve been testing has been flaky at times, but the developers are also very responsive to feedback, which is always a good thing. Flamingo is a fantastic Mac app if you often chat via Hangouts, Facebook or XMPP. You can grab it from the Mac App Store for just $9.99.
Bonus: Look up @FlamingoforMac in the new Tweetbot 3 for iPhone and see how awesome their avatar looks in the timeline.
Social networking monolith Facebook quietly launched beta versions of dedicated Facebook Workplace Chat apps for Mac and PC that incorporate screen sharing, as well as the usual list of basic chat client features.
Discovered buried in a Facebook FAQ on Thursday by TechCrunch, the new desktop chat app is currently restricted to users of the company's Workplace enterprise collaboration tool.
The beta app, dubbed Workplace Chat, appears to function similarly to the identically named Workplace Chat website, and boasts the same text chat and media sharing capabilities. In addition, Facebook is building in support for screen sharing, which is rolling out both in app and on the web.
'This was one of the most widely requested features by customers, so we built it,' Facebook spokesperson Vanessa Chan told the publication. 'The desktop app is still in beta and being tested by Workplace customers who are providing feedback that we'll use to improve the product before a wider rollout.'
According to Facebook, the app supports voice and video calling, screen-sharing, customized push notifications and one-to-one and group chats.
As for the new screen sharing feature, TechCrunch notes users can elect to share their entire desktop workspace or only certain app windows, a key consideration that benefits user privacy.
Free Chat Apps
Facebook is quickly building out its Workplace feature set after launching the service last October. Designed to rival collaborative services like Slack, Workplace allows users to build custom profiles, view ad-free news feeds, create multi-organization groups, make audio and video calls, and host live video broadcasts.
The company charges $1 to $3 per user depending on the size of a host organizations, and offers the product as a free service to non-profits and schools.
Users looking to try out the new Workplace Chat app can download Workplace Chat for Mac via the firm's website. The app requires macOS 10.9 Mavericks and above to work.
Facebook Mac Chat Apps
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