signalapp / Signal-Desktop

A private messenger for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
https://signal.org/download
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Gif search - Any statement? #4841

Closed error401de closed 3 years ago

error401de commented 3 years ago

Rant incoming.. I'm happy Signal is riding the Whatsapp-Leave-Wave and that's why I'm trying to raise this topic again. As this is actually holding people back from switching as this, in the meantime, should be a very basic feature.

Signal is promising a GIF search in desktop client since over 4 years now (https://signal.org/blog/giphy-experiment/). An issue has been muted without any comment https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/1862

As I know this is not the right platform I asked on Twitter for the status. No answer. I asked on Reddit, no answer. I asked at Signals AMA @ reddit and got ignored even there.

Can someone from Signal please finally give an ETA on something which is promised since 2016?

EvanHahn-Signal commented 3 years ago

We have no ETA on this feature, as it's relatively low-priority given the other things we need to work on. But this is still on our radar even after all these years!

I'm going to close this issue because it's a duplicate of #1862.

joenepraat commented 3 years ago

We have no ETA on this feature, as it's relatively low-priority given the other things we need to work on. But this is still on our radar even after all these years!

I'm going to close this issue because it's a duplicate of #1862.

@EvanHahn-Signal Why is this low priority? It dazzles me that people can use stickers, but not GIF's on the desktop. GIF's are very popular with my Signal friends, but it irritates me that I always have to grab my phone to send a GIF. Other messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram have this feature implemented in their desktop app for a very long time now. Please raise the priority.

EvanHahn-Signal commented 3 years ago

Why is this low priority? It dazzles me that people can use stickers, but not GIF's on the desktop. GIF's are very popular with my Signal friends, but it irritates me that I always have to grab my phone to send a GIF. Other messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram have this feature implemented in their desktop app for a very long time now. Please raise the priority.

Speaking as a member of the team and not for Signal at large: we spend a lot of time on prioritization.

There are a lot of things that we need to do on Desktop. We have missing features, like GIFs (this issue) and group creation/administration (#1655). But we also have urgent bugs like encryption errors when receiving messages and performance issues like #4054. With limited time, do we implement GIF support or group administration? Do we try to improve the app's startup time or do we add system tray support?

We ask ourselves these prioritization questions a lot, and while we may not come to the same conclusions, trust that we're doing our absolute best here.

This isn't the best place to discuss Desktop's prioritization (the community forums are a better place) or GIF support (see #1862), so let's move discussion there.

joenepraat commented 3 years ago

@EvanHahn-Signal Thank you for your reply. The mentioned issue is locked, so it wouldn't be possible to move over there. I will continue on the discourse forum.

error401de commented 3 years ago

It makes me really sad to see the mentioned community forum is full of requests for something which is promised since years - and in the end something like a screensharing is suddenly released out of nowhere. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/releases/tag/v5.3.0-beta.3

I am very thankful for what Signal is doing, but I do not understand this "prioritization" at all anymore.

Sorry for using this request again, instead of the community. But over there, there is no reaction to all this users at all.

joenepraat commented 2 years ago

Any update about GIF support?

willevertsen commented 2 years ago

Although it seems that this issue is "Closed," I think the conversation needs to continue for a couple of reasons.

  1. The prioritization as mentioned by @EvanHahn-Signal sounds valid on the surface, but what I hear when I read this is there's a lack of sufficient developer personnel to simultaneously work on issues like privacy/encryption as well as "user experience" issues like GIFs. Being in IT, I'm acutely aware of the need for proper workflow priorities, but this is obviously a very popular feature request (as evidenced by the conversation going on in the forums and Reddit).
  2. While I'm obviously not a developer at Signal, it seems to me that implementing GIF support on the desktop app should be a pretty low effort. It exists on mobile apps, and if there's a good architecture supporting the platform, that adds to my assumption that it's not a ton of work to get it on desktop.
  3. Signal says they value user feedback and input, but honestly, just like every other tech company, it seems as though that statement is little more than "virtue signaling" (pun not intended).
  4. Lastly, going back to priority, it's been a feature request for six years now. I find it difficult to believe that in the last six years, there's been no time to slip this in. Perhaps Signal should add more product managers in addition to more developers.
jucor commented 2 years ago

@EvanHahn-Signal thanks for the context. #1862 which you refer to has been automatically closed too, and locked. Would it be possible to reopen either https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/1862 or this one, please?

joenepraat commented 2 years ago

@EvanHahn-Signal thanks for the context. #1862 which you refer to has been automatically closed too, and locked. Would it be possible to reopen either #1862 or this one, please?

Don't bother, they won't do that. Users should go to https://community.signalusers.org/, although if asking this question or any other ETA question, your reply will be hidden by the mods. 🤷🏻

error401de commented 2 years ago

Yeah, there is a full disconnection to the community. I don't understand what the "Feature request" section in the community is actually for, in the meantime there is 0 collaboration with the Signal team anymore (but hiding questions regarding a request which is now promised since 6 years, which in the end is a more or less simple modal, as the backend logic is already existing).

error401de commented 2 years ago

@EvanHahn-Signal Would you merge a PR with this functionality?

MikulasZelinka commented 8 months ago

I've made a simple Python tool that allows you to paste a gif into a Signal Desktop app with a single global hotkey as long as you have the URL in your clipboard: https://github.com/MikulasZelinka/signal-desktop-gif

drewvenegas commented 5 months ago

reviving this thread in sadness and despair :(

skrish13 commented 1 month ago

why is this neglected so badly? is there any stats on % of desktop users?