It’s simple and easy-to-use. Users can create “channels” (chat rooms) for projects or teams and invite others to join them. Conversations are shown in the large pane in the center of the window. Files can be shared through the app simply by dragging them and dropping them onto the chat window; any images that are uploaded are displayed with a live preview.

One small irritation that I noticed when testing out the demo is that the chat window doesn’t actually update in real-time; I’d occasionally have to refresh my browser window to see the latest update from the other users. Additionally, users do need to upload an avatar, otherwise it’s difficult to determine who said what, and also the “chunky” design means that busy conversations would require a lot of scrolling to follow. However, it works pretty well and as it’s an open-source project, it can be built upon or modified as required. If you’re looking for a basic self-hosted group chat app it’s certainly worth checking out.

Holla is a Rails application; it can be downloaded from Github. If you’d just like to try it out, there’s a free live demo here.

What group chat apps do you use?

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(via Download Squad)

Propane

It’s a fine way to power a BBQ, but it’s also more than that. Propane is a new piece of beta software that does what I previously did using a Fluid browser instance. Specifically, it runs Campfire-based chatrooms, which are a popular tool for people who need to collaborate in real-time with a distributed team. I use Campfire rooms to coordinate with other writers at various blog sites where time and scheduling is a primary concern, but that’s just one possible use.

Like with a Fluid instance, Propane provides Campfire with the bare minimum of browser chrome, so that it does in fact look like a native OS X app. It also provides some nice bells and whistles that allow you to customize the how and why of notification sounds and messages, including Growl notifications. There’s also great tools for better file sharing, including automatic source detection when you drag content (text and images) from a Safari window into your active chatroom in Propane.

Mailplane

I’m not actively trying to rhyme these app names, it’s just working out that way. Gmail is great, and Mail.app is nice enough, but I’d rather not use the two together if possible. I love Gmail’s web interface, but I’m not crazy about trying to manage my email activities in a browser window. Maybe that makes me old school, but I grew up on Outlook, and old habits die hard.

Mailplane delivers all the Gmail interface goodness with a nice, native app wrapper. Basically it, like Propane, is just a browser instance with some additional features specific to the web app in question that makes it easier to use. It’s those features that make the app worthwhile, though. Mailplane takes advantage of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts to allow you to view and create new messages, reply, attach media, and more using convenient buttons located along the top of the app window. It also badges the app icon in your dock with the number of unread emails, and can notify you of new mail using sound and Growl.

Those with Google Apps and multiple accounts are also in luck, because it supports easy account switching and storage. There’s also an option to display an icon in the menu bar, including new mail count. You can try it out for free for a month, but it is a paid program, and will set you back $24.95 if you do decide to purchase.

Gdocsuploader

This is less an app and more of a handy little applet, but the single, focused service it provides is incredibly useful: a simple drag-and-drop interface for uploading documents to Google Docs. It may not seem like much, but it saves a lot of steps vs. the traditional method, which can quickly add up if you do most of your document editing in Google Docs, like I do.

All you have to do to use it is keep the app icon in your dock, and then drag any document onto the icon to upload it. It’ll prompt you once for your Google name and password, and afterward it’ll just work. If you prefer, opening the app will automatically take you to a file browser for selecting a file to upload manually.

None of the above apps does anything that you can’t do using the web, but they do offer time-saving and usability enhancements that you won’t necessarily get using only the corresponding app for each in a normal browser window. Just because web apps are often convenient and user-friendly doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be more so with a more solid connection to your desktop.

Have any tips on how to make web apps more native? Share them in the comments.

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1. Get a Unified Client. Assuming that you have contacts spread across multiple services (as most of us do), the first thing to do is to get a unified client to cut down on the number of applications that you have to run at one time. This also gets rid of time spent flipping through interfaces, trying to remember whether Jane was on MSN or GTalk. I’m using Adium (OS X only) at the moment; in the past, I’ve had success with Trillian or Miranda on Windows as well. These solutions aren’t ideal – I’d love to find something that aggregates all the chats I’m in – but they help.

2. Shove it Off to the Side: Unless chatting is your business, you need to put the chat windows somewhere that they won’t obscure whatever code or other project you’re actually working on. I run all of my communication applications on my laptop, which sits off to the side of my desktop monitors. That puts them close at hand, but ensures that they don’t overlap whatever I’m trying to see. I’m seriously considering adding a second monitor to the laptop to get more pixels for chat windows. If you don’t have a second computer, consider putting the chat windows on their own monitor, or at least a second workspace.

3. Set up Attention Flags: Particularly if you’re monitoring chat rooms, you probably don’t need to watch every message flow by. I’ve found it helpful to use software (like Conversation for IRC, or the Growl notification Greasemonkey script for Campfire, that can make a noise when my name (or a keyword) is mentioned.

4. Keep Logs: Disk space is cheap. Time spent trying to remember what was said, or embarrassment in having to ask contacts to repeat themselves, is expensive. Accordingly, I make sure to use clients that can log everything – and keep the logs. Surprisingly often I find myself searching these for a tip, URL, or action item.

I don’t claim to have the perfect strategy, but doing these things helps me keep up an active bunch of online communications while still managing to write code. What tips do you have to add for online conversation management?

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