More uses for the area above chat edit and the status bar

[KitsuneRal]

Historically it was a place to show typing notifications; then it gained completion candidates. In general, this very much looks like another status line. I see two options, judging by what I see in other applications:

• Remove this gap entirely and show typing and completion notifications
  • either in the status bar
  • pros: ridiculously easy to implement, and we have the status bar anyway
  • cons: people aren't accustomed to even have status bars in chat applications, let alone look at them
  • or in the footer of the chat timeline
  • pros: matches the overall 'dialog' feeling of the chat UI, 'I type here, events come there'
  • cons: needs more effort to implement
• Use this gap for special user interaction (a kind of 'inline dialogs' that have one or two buttons or a simple entry box - a notable example is the join room flow, or a quick question whether a user wants to mark the whole room as read upon opening it
  • pros: special user interaction is special so neither the timeline nor the status bar (both assumed for passive reading) go well for that purpose; on the other hand, a modal message box used for the join flow now disrupts UX like hell, collapsing it to this 'quick interaction bar' would be quite an improvement
  • cons: we still have 3(!) places where user has to scan for events: the status bar, that area in discussion and the chat timeline

I tend to still shift notifications to the timeline but keep this area for a 'quick interaction bar', only opening it when needed.

[KitsuneRal]

Consider that typing notifications are very transient; if they are put to the timeline they will make the timeline move around or obscure the last message, which may be slightly annoying.

[KitsuneRal]

On the other hand, looks like we have an inadvertent A/B test since a user with Qt 5.7.1 on FreeBSD sees an empty QLabel getting zero height, effectively collapsing if there's nothing to show. And the user is happy with that.

[KitsuneRal]

Apparently, the issue really depends on the platform and the Qt version: Qt 5.10 on Windows 7 collapses the label as well. There's still an issue with the label strutting the window to the sides when too many people are typing (#93); so the case with using the QML list footer (that can hold a QML Label with text eliding capabilities that QLabel doesn't have) instead still holds. Update: #93 no more reproduces with Qt 5.10 either; so this panel is yet to stay.

[KitsuneRal]

Typing notifications should still go to the status bar - I don't see them as so important that they have to show up in the most prominent place). As for the panel about the message input, it will thereby be dubbed "system dialog panel" or "system confirmations panel" and in the future versions swallow those modal dialogs for joining, forgetting (#236) and probably banning.