Click on unread count to mark as read

[izzues]

Just a small potential UI improvement: Rather than three clicks in different places to mark messages as read (open dropdown > click "Mark as read" > confirm on popup), let the user click on the unread count to do it, maybe twice to avoid accidental actions.

Also, maybe instead of showing a popup, show an unobstrusive "tooltip" as a warning the first time you click, and then mark as read if you click again.

As always, thanks a lot for your work!

(Uhh... Sorry for the initial empty post. The textarea lost focus, I pressed Enter to create a new line, and the browser sent the form.)

[tomer8007]

Hmm, I think the need to click on the unread counter may be a little non-intuitive for users, since usually they need to click on 'Mark as Read'.

Maybe I'll make the popup appear only for the first time you send a receipt, though. (or make it a tooltip too)

And if we're already talking about GUI, do you think that it is comfortable to have a conversation while the read receipts blocking is on? Or do you usually just turn it off?

[izzues]

Maybe the extension could offer both options. For instance, show a tooltip when the user hovers over the unread count with something like "click to mark as unread" and show a popup the first time the user uses either method. The popup could contain an image indicating both options and a short explanation.

do you think that it is comfortable to have a conversation while the read receipts blocking is on?

I personally always leave blocking on, and manually mark as read before replying. My use case is probably not that common, though - I don't talk a lot, so it's not a huge issue for me. But I do think most users would find (double-)clicking the unread count much easier once learned.

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I have a few other slightly related ideas and questions, but I'm not sure if it would be better to open multiple new issues so I hope it's ok to group them here (also, it may be useful to put the answers to the questions in the README - I can help you with that if you want!):

• How about white/black lists/tables? (E.g. always/never block receipts for certain users/groups, use defaults for everyone else)
• Can people see "[User] is typing..." while blocking is on?
• While blocking is on, are conversations automatically marked as read whenever you send a message? Or just under certain conditions? (E.g. when replying to a specific message)
• Do you think it would be a good idea to add the option to fake more natural conversations by marking them as read when you hit "send" (only if they're unread, of course), and delaying sending the message by some time (maybe proportional to the message length)? I don't think this is a very elegant idea, but it's a more hands-off alternative than the current options (manually marking as read or setting a fixed time after you've viewed the conversation).

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Sorry for the huge amount of text and thanks a lot again!

[tomer8007]

To answer the questions:

• This is a great idea, and I wanted to implement it in the past. It's probably more useful than the timeout feature (it's worth a different issue)
• No, they can't, since this issue.
• All unread messages in a certain conversation are automatically marked as read whenever you send a message in it. It could be improved by detecting replays and then sending receipt only for the message you replayed to.
• I think it could be nice, but I'm afraid that sending messages in delay could cause some bugs. Also, the delay should be very short to preserve realtime-ness in the conversation.

Regarding the popup\tooltip feature, I might implement it in the future, depending on my time. I think it's useful to be able to skip the popup.

[izzues]

Thank you for all the answers!

I've just thought of a simpler alternative for "naturalness": An option to temporarily disable blocking for that contact as soon as you start typing (or after some small delay), and then enable it again after some period of idleness. What do you think?

[tomer8007]

If it's enabled by default, I think this could be a bit dangerous in cases where someone starts writing a potential replay but not realiazing that the receipt is already on its way. If it's just another option in the menu, that might be too many check-boxes for one menu...

[izzues]

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that all these options should coexist in the extension. Actually I think the last one (auto-disable blocking) would be a nice replacement for all the other ones (since the user could set the delay to anything, including zero). This means the menu would stay with just two or three checkboxes. The whitelist/blacklist feature could also cover this.

And yes, I agree it should be disabled by default!

[tomer8007]

I don't think clicking on the unread counter to mark as read is better than using the more explicit context menu.