Take Control of Slack Basics
ISBN:978-1-61542-467-2
Version:1.0
Pages:185
Size (PDF):4.4 MB
Date:May 29, 2016
Use Slack to communicate effectively with your group and avoid being swamped!

Take Control of
Slack Basics

Glenn Fleishman

Wrap your head around how Slack group messaging works, learn to communicate and collaborate using its many features, and discover how to use integrations and notifications to get more out of it. The book explains finding channels, starting conversations, posting messages, interacting with bots, and more! The Slack Web app is covered, along with apps for OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android.

This product has been discontinued.

Note: This book is no longer for sale. It has been replaced by Take Control of Slack, which covers similar territory but with a new, up-to-date approach.

The Slack group messaging system can be overwhelming, but with Glenn Fleishman’s real-world advice, new users can come up to speed quickly, and more experienced users will find numerous techniques for participating more efficiently.

Slack is all about communication, so you’ll learn how to write, edit, and react to messages; use snippets, posts, and audio calls to collaborate with team members; and create and manage both channels and direct message conversations.

You’ll also see how to configure Slack’s flexible notification system so you’re alerted appropriately but not nagged. Plus, Glenn covers how to search old messages effectively, how to make Slack your control center by centralizing reports from other services via integrations, and numerous techniques for improving your productivity in (and with) Slack.

Questions answered for you in this book include:

  • How do people find and enter those little emoji icons in messages?
  • Is there any way to edit the message I just posted so I can fix a mistake?
  • Are there more channels in my Slack team? How do I find them?
  • What does it mean when names in the sidebar are bold or italic?
  • What do the numbers next to channel or conversation names indicate?
  • How can I reduce the number of notifications I get on my iPhone?
  • Can I have Slack send me email for important notifications?
  • How private are direct messages? What about private channels?
  • What, exactly is Slackbot, and why is it talking to me?
  • How do I find old conversations from last month?
  • What techniques can I employ to be more productive in Slack?
Glenn Fleishman

About Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman is a veteran technology writer who has contributed to dozens of publications across his career, including Macworld, Fast Company, and Increment. He has also written dozens of editions of books in the Take Control series. He spent 2019 and 2020 building 100 tiny type museums full of real printing artifacts. Glenn lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

Slack Adds Threads

Posted by Glenn Fleishman on February 1, 2017

Slack has finally added one of its most requested features: threads! Updated versions of Slack for all platforms and the Web now allow you to start a thread in reply to any message. Threads are shown in both a channel-specific sidebar in the Web and desktop apps, and in a pane in the mobile apps. You can also view threads in which you’re a participant in a new All Threads/New Threads view reachable from the sidebar. I wrote a TidBITS article explaining the feature and how best to use it.

At this writing, we have no plans to update this book. The addition of threading didn’t change other features in the ecosystem.

Glenn Cuts Us All Some Slack on MacVoices

Posted by Michael E. Cohen on June 10, 2016

It’s rare when an author shows up with two books to discuss on MacVoices, but Glenn (who can sometimes talk twice as fast as normal humans) was up to the task, helping to lead Chuck Joiner through both the basics of Slack and some of its administrative features in his discussion of his latest duology, Take Control of Slack Basics and Take Control of Slack Admin.

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