[New Feature] Indicator of number of other rooms with unread messages

[bizzbyster]

Description

In many chat applications, one is given an indication of other "rooms" that have unread messages inside a given "room" like the "4" to the right of the back arrow in this screenshot:

I recently tried to get my daughter to use Rocket.chat Android and she said she couldn't switch b/c it didn't have this feature -- not sure it is so crucial for everyone but that is one user's experience.

[rafaelks]

@thiagosanchz Adding Thiago here, I also like this (iOS has it).

[bizzbyster]

@rafaelks can you provide a note or two on how this should be implemented to help simplify this for a developer who might want to do the work?

[ubarsaiyan]

@bizzbyster This is how it looks now. I'll try to move the badge a little left. Any other suggestions?

[ubarsaiyan]

Code is @ https://github.com/ubarsaiyan/Rocket.Chat.Android/tree/notif-count

[thiagosanchz]

I think if you show all unread message on the header of the room will be a lot of distraction to the users. We created this solution:

[bizzbyster]

@thiagosanchz what happens when you click that FAB? My intuition is that you would scroll to the bottom of the room but not go back to the list of rooms.

[ubarsaiyan]

@thiagosanchz The FAB button would only notify the users of the new messages in the current room but the unread badge in the top will notify the users of new messages in other rooms. I think we can make it more subtle if it is distracting.

[ubarsaiyan]

Different UI implementations:

[ubarsaiyan]

I prefer the first one (rounded square with number)

[rafaelks]

@thiagosanchz @filipedelimabrito Please take a look on these ideas ^^

[thiagosanchz]

I agree with @ubarsaiyan The first idea with the number inside a square makes more sense. But I'm still worried about users that have a lot of unread messages, will be a big distraction. IMHO just a circle on the navbar represents nothing.

[ubarsaiyan]

@thiagosanchz Maybe per room notification settings (a high priority feature IMHO) like in the web client, can solve the problem of overwhelming the user with many unread rooms. Users can turn off the counter for rooms like #general and #sandbox and won't see the unread badge in the home screen as well as in this unread badge in the top bar. Can anyone think of other ideas?