Skype 4 beta- yes you can shrink those windows
The new Skype beta we told you about seems to have a lot of people unhappy due to the larger "conversation" window that takes up a lot of screen real estate. I’ve seen a number of people complain about this including Laptop Magazine’s Joanna Stern who is using Skype on a lot of those mini-notebooks with no screen real estate to spare. I decided to see what could be done about that large Skype window and I’m happy to report that shrinking it down to a proper size is very simple to do. First up, here’s a screen snap of the default Skype beta with the main window shrunk as much as possible:
This was taken on screen with a screen resolution of 1280×768. The Skype window is still pretty big and it’s easy to see why some are complaining about it. The problematic pane is the conversation pane on the right where Kevin’s shadow is located. When in a video call this is where the video is displayed and when in a text chat that is displayed here. This pane in combination with the contacts pane on the left is what makes this new Skype window too large. I did some experimenting and discovered you can easily pop the conversation pane into a separate window all by itself:
As you can see this text chat pane is no bigger than the old Skype window and quite manageable. Paring the conversation pane out by itself is a simple matter of tapping the little round button in the upper right of the pane. When you hover over it Skype tells you the button will "show the conversation in a separate window". Once you have the chat window split off you can just minimize the main Skype window and it’s totally out of the way. You can split the video window off the same way and shrink it down as small as you want and free up most of the screen for other things.
All of these screens were taken at 1280×768 resolution which is the primary advantage I find the HP Mini-Note has over other mini-notebooks. Part of the difficulty that others are having with screen real estate is due to most mini-notebooks, like the Asus EEE PC 1000h, only run at 1024×600 which is not big enough for multi-tasking like this.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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James, I agree. I prefer to pop out the chat window and minimize the main Skype contact list. Fingers crossed but the beta seems to be holding up pretty well. Hasn’t crashed on the Eee PCs yet or on my desktop.
While I appreciate their efforts, I think the beta version is going in the wrong direction. I think they need to stick with a two window setup. Keep the main screen simple with a list of contacts, etc. Then, another screen to handle the conversations, maybe using tabs for separate conversations.
Personally, I like the Mac client more than the Windows client. I think they need to start a the Windows 4.0 client with something based on the simplicity of the Mac client.
So your “solution” to the bloated Skype window is to iconify it? How lame is that? If that’s the case, then why not save a lot more screen space, and system resources, and just not bother with Skype at all?
JA Watson, no, the solution is to split the conversation window separate from the main window. Not lame at all. And Skype is too useful to just ignore it.
Hello. Maybe someone knows how to leave public chat in skype 4? Not just close it but leave? Thank you.
You’re totally wrong – people don’t want the wasted space. Make it default – fine. The average user will normally only be doing one thing at a time on their computer, so why not.
But for the business world, and the rest of us, please god make the extra part of the contact list a ‘pop-out’ and optional.
And please god I hope Skype gets a clue and makes ‘pop out’ windows a default by option.
I ran across an interesting article titled “Talk Is Cheap” reviewing top VoIP programs at DealDogs.net. This is the article link here to read a description and see videos about top webchat programs.
Yep, check this:
http://mrgnome.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/help-the-new-skype-window-is-huge/
In Skype 4 you need to switch to Compact view for this to work – under view menu (unless you are already in Compact view).