Categories in list of chats

[brawaru]

When user have a large number of chats, the list looks dirty, it is inconvenient to navigate. I suggest making the possibility to sort chats in categories, as well as the ability to disable notifications for the entire category.

For example, I made a 'concept' new kind of list:

When the user receive the messages:

UPD from 20 Apr 2016:

There, on concept's images, you can see custom categories.

Default set of categories is:

• Chats
• Groups
• Bots
• Channels
• Favorites

Any of this categories can be changed. Also, you can create your own categories, like "School friends" or "My bots". In names of categories supported Emoji.

Settings for categories:

Categories
[■] Enable categories

Default category for..
 Users:           [ Users       🔽 ]
 Bots:            [ Bots        🔽 ]
 Groups:          [ Groups      🔽 ]
 Supergroups:     [ Groups      🔽 ]
 Сhannels:        [ Channels    🔽 ]

Categories:

Users ✏️
  [■] Don't delete row on deleting chat
  [Members] [Remove]

Bots ✏️
  [■] Don't delete row on deleting chat
  [Members] [Remove]

Groups ✏️
  [ ] Don't delete row on deleting chat
  [Members] [Remove]

[ Channels| ] ✅
  [ ] Don't delete row on deleting chat
  [Members] [Remove]

[ + Add ]

And.. As you can see row of "Botfather" doesn't contain message, it's because chat is empty. You can enable it in settings of categories to keep row even on deleting chat (or unsubscribe from channel).

You can add users to categories in user's profile.

Sorry for my bad English

[auchri]

that looks nice :+1:

[sergioad]

I really do not know if could be good include a bots category but I agree with the favorites category, I also suggest a low priority category, a category of chats wich does not counts how many new messages you have in the chats sidebar because it only shows a red badge with an exclamation sign, the chats listed on this category should still sending you desktop notiffications but with not adding any badge in the TDesktop's tray icon, only a red exclamation badge on the sidebar and no more :smile:

[Aokromes]

As long the categories is customizable it have my vote :)

[kanishkablack]

Yep agreed, Bots are invading the list, searching though contacts is becoming harder and harder

[nicolasdejong]

Telegram is more and more used in a professional environment e.g. by sending files, images, links or questions to colleagues. Contact categories would fit in perfectly there as well so that one can have e.g. 'private' and 'work' categories (and various 'channels' categories like twitter groups).

[caiodias]

Categories with the possibility of rename each one could be nice.

[auchri]

Categories with user defined names would need a new api

[mattmezza]

:+1: I'm using group chats as thread based chats and for this reason I have got a very huge number of open chats... It would be very good to have the possibility to categorize (either automatically or manually) my chats in order to be able to create different workspaces (per job, per client, work/family, per exam, per activity).

[aaomidi]

Is there any actual information that this is in the works?

[telegramdesktop]

@aaomidi This is not in the work, sorry.

[urbansheep]

With wider spread of channels and with Telegram becoming a news source (many muted channels available to be read on demand), this filter is even more important — personal chats get drowned in the bots/channels/groups.

Some kind of filtering/grouping for different chat types would help a lot.

[kanishkablack]

@telegramdesktop sync categorises can't be synced across the devices, is the reason, why its been dropped or any other peculiar reason ? I am suspecting that's the same reason why the secret chat is dropped in desktop..

If thats the main reason, there can be a work around the issue

[aaomidi]

I would just like to say that adding this would be a tremendous feature and would help organization. Please reconsider your decision :)

[amiremami]

Guyz maybe something like this:

I have to say the more features telegram add the more harder is working with it. It's becoming impossible to follow more channels and groups because this section is not organised at all.

Thanks

[haevalencia]

+1 tabs to separate contacts, chats, groups and channels.

[code88899091]

+1 to allow catergorizing by any way. Let's consider some media project that has several channels, some live chats and bots. I would like to make a single category for them. Artifical division of them by bots/channels/chats will have less sense.

[auchri]

@code88899091 no api for that

[aaomidi]

@auchri Even though there is no API for that, it could still be implemented on the local level and hopefully official telegram provides an API to take it to the cloud level.

[auchri]

yes, it could be. But I'm sure nobody of the Telegram team wants this.

[zackpollard]

@auchri Right, but they could also add this functionality into MTProto as it is a highly requested feature that people have now made a campaign about in numerous channels http://www.zackpollard.pro/at-screenshots/qJavbFFd.png . It should be considered to be added, it would be very helpful as right now navigating through the numerous chats, channels, bots and groups that you are in is a very tedious task and is becoming very annoying to do.

[amiremami]

Unfortunately it's not so easy following more than 10 channels with a lot of contacts and groups. It's becoming so messy! :(

[aaomidi]

Honestly makes no sense that Telegram doesn't want this. I really wish someone explained the downside of this feature.

[zaz600]

+1 too many channels too hard to read chats jumping in list

[code88899091]

@auchri seems members of the telegram team has only a few of groups.

[brawaru]

@GanGMaN, please use new Github Reactions feature

[SniperRus]

very usefull tab realisation in android Plus Messenger (clone Telegram) there are several tabs there - all, users, groups,supergroups,channels, bot,favs and you could setting up additionally group unreaded chats in desc order

[aaomidi]

I would rather have it so I can make my own categories.

[dandaka]

A must have feature for Telegram. Right now I'm not subscribing to Bots/Blogs channels to not mess with messages.

[amiremami]

It seems we won't see this feature in near future. But is it possible to add "pinning chats" feature at least? #821 and #601 .

Right now I'm not subscribing to Bots/Blogs channels to not mess with messages.

This is the biggest problem of webmasters, because hundreds of users leave the channels daily because of this reason.

[flick1999]

Please reconsider this in terms of prioritization. Now that TG use has exploded, it's become as painful as Hangouts! More so, actually, since at least Hangouts mobile app has the concept of Favorites.

[whyfuture]

How come this is not in top-prio? After subscribing to bots and channels — list is a mess and I tend to miss out important messages.

[tomcpc]

This is becoming more and more of a pain to me. It came to the point where I left many of my groups and stored the invitation links to them in a channel only to myself. Now I only enter the groups when I need and I leave them as soon as possible.

And looks like people are desperate for this feature, there is a $150 bounty for it at Bountysource: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/26799986-categories-in-list-of-chats

[Salkin2]

@telegramdesktop

Is there any reason for that? I mean this idea is a great usability improvement. Telegram is becoming much more than a messenger, it's becoming a sort of "microinternet", with lots of channels, groups and bots that often have links to each others. In reality I think that many people have more "chats" from groups and channels than conversations with friends and family, who usually are on Whatsapp. Well, this is great and makes Telegram the messenger app with a most promising and interesting future, but it needs a way to order all those cool things. It's a complete mess to have 2 or 3 hundreds of conversations all mixed up in a same window. TG really needs to use tabs to order then according to categories like "Bots", "Channels", etc. Please reconsider your decision and try to make this a priority; I don't want to deprecate things, but I think we need tabs much more than we need decorative photo filters, for example. And if you can't implement this function soon, please tell us something like "There are technical diffculties like this and that and those", at least we shall know that you have taken this idea seriously into account" and other developers perhaps could contribute with code to solve those difficulties. That's the greatness of open source, no?

Best regards.

[stek29]

@Salkin2 There are really some technical difficulties. Current implementation of chat list won't fit with categories. When "Work mode" was implemented Dev just added second List with important chats only in it. Now Imagine there are 5 categories. 5 Lists, and each one should be reordered each time a new message arrives.

Also, other official apps don't have tabs but do have features like "decorative photo filters" and games, and TDesktop Developer has to implement those first.

[Salkin2]

@stek29 Thanks for your clarifying answer. So, maybe the current implementation would need an important redesign. The current one leaves its unique list a complete mess when you start to have a few dozens of conversations, channels, groups, etc. BTW, I didn't know there was only one developer working on the official clients. I thought there was a more or less numerous team of developers. I understand then that it must be a lot of work for just one person, but anyway I hope he/she takes this popular request into account for the not too far future.

[stek29]

@Salkin2 one app -- one developer. That's the idea. Also, TDesktop is not an independent app. IMO It can't just add a feature like this one without "asking a permission" of Telegram team.

[ghost]

any good news about this feature ? I really want this categorization thing

[whyfuture]

Indeed, uncontrolled flow of threads is a massacre;(

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 09:26, alnour altegani notifications@github.com wrote: any good news about this feature ? I really want this categorization thing

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub [https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/1107#issuecomment-258361272] , or mute the thread [https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AL9uvsqS3Alhmv0OMXe4WGwZKAnC95y3ks5q6t42gaJpZM4GATxK] .

[raonyguimaraes]

Everyone is waiting for this feature, I don't think would be that hard implement... Please :)

[anmiles]

There are so many groups last time (channels, bots etc. appeared). It's so hard to understand them. Please, simplify our lives, please, please! :)

[amiremami]

If it helps, I also insist again on adding this feature!

[rufusht]

Please give us any feature that can organize "chat hell"! Peoples want it for all telegram apps, not only for "tdesktop". It is obvious. :/ Where is the place where we can request vital features for all telegram apps? Thanks

[tomcpc]

@stek29 I understand that TDesktop can't add features on its own and that there are features present at other official apps that it is missing. Also, I'm sure you understand that even though the request is in this repository, in fact people want it for all Telegram apps.

There is a chance that I'm overestimating the importance of this feature since it's so important to me, but I have the impression that the community would be much happier with this than with many of other features implemented recently - don't get me wrong, I like every feature, it's just a matter of priorities.

That being said, is there a place to suggest and discuss feature requests for Telegram as a whole? Discussing the feature requests with other users and being able to see how popular each of them are is much better than sending an e-mail to the support and getting a vague "thank you" answer days later.

People come to GitHub and make such general requests as this one in the repositories either because there isn't a place to make and discuss feature requests for Telegram as whole, or either because they can't find such place.

[FiretronP75]

If Telegram didn't want this, it would be closed. The fact that it is open means they are considering it. Telegram simply left a comment that "it is not in the works" yet, not that it never will be. They did not start working on it, but, they didn't throw the idea out. Other things are just higher priority to get done first. All the related suggestions are being closed as duplicates of this one.

p.s. I also very much want this feature. p.p.s. I just had a look through the code for the new feature of reordering pinned chats: https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/commit/d1b9b8e3a3c3d2bdfa70127ce71d0b41f7deca0f and it looks as tho having categories would be a similar effort.

[stek29]

@FiretronP75 Telegram almost never says never, and even if it does it still may happen. But the fact they didn't close this doesn't mean it would be implemented.

[Twilightssuperb]

Telegram dev team should look at iGram—tiny desktop Telegram fork with not almost tabs, but sidebar: Also it shows the whole notifications counter. iGram came from Iran, but supports English language. Warning: after launch iGram can subscribe you to some arabic channels.

[stek29]

@Twilightssuperb yay, another GPL Violation :D

[ThiPv]

2 important points:

• Categories shouldn't be limited like 1 for private chats, 1 for groups, 1 for bots... Please don't. Let the user create and order the categories as users personal needs. It's usual to have private chat, groups, bots, channels with a common subject that would be interesting to group together.

• Don't forget to let the option to hide categories (or even private chats, groups, bots, channels). It may be a little (or much) embarrassing, for instance, if we have a group that​ eventually (or always) post some porn content so this group goes to the top of the list exactly when we are showing something in the app to other person (like a family member), it's very undesirable.

This will be a very good improvement to the app in terms of usability and privacy.

[NabiKAZ]

This have benefits.
At least User's Chats, Channels, Groups, Bots are needed in separate categories.
Sample GUI of mobogram:

[ghost]

I think that everybody here would benefit from using a piece of mechanism to sort the chats, for both the mobile and the desktop version. I'm using plus messenger on android and i have tabs, but i'm keeping the mess on the desktop version. Moreover, i'm using Linux, so i don't have many chances.