Feature request: block message removals

[justanotheranonymoususer]

It's not exactly related to being incognito, but I think that it can be a nice addition, and perhaps it's easy to do with the toolset you already have. When somebody deletes a message, I believe it's possible to block the request on the browser and leave it at least until the page is refreshed. What do you think?

[tomer8007]

Interesting idea, it's just not so obvious that all users would want it

[justanotheranonymoususer]

Can be made opt-in I guess

[tomer8007]

But that would make the UI uglier

[justanotheranonymoususer]

Looks great (with one empty box as well)

[tomer8007]

Hmm, I'm not sure, what do you think about making this feature non opt-in (always enabled)?

[justanotheranonymoususer]

I'd be using it anyway, so I don't mind. But sometimes there might be value in allowing to disable selected features. In this case, maybe it can break WA one day. It's up to you, I'd be happy to get this feature in any form and with any UI :)

[tomer8007]

Alright, I'll implment this sometime

[tomer8007]

OK, so it appears that message deletions are implemented as packets of type modify_tag, and then the reception of another message (I guess that is the "This message was deleted" text.)

Not sure how blocking will be done based on that, but right now the extension does not have the abillity to manipulate incoming packets, so I'm making this possible first.

[justanotheranonymoususer]

Thanks for the update!

P.S.1. There's something remotely similar for telegram. Quite different tech but same goal, perhaps you're interested to know.

P.S.2. Does whatsapp-web-incognito block online status and typing...? If not, I can create feature request issues for these too :)

[tomer8007]

It blocks presence updates (I guess that's what you mean by online status?) and "composing" events (typing). It also blocks read receipts for statuses. I recommend checking that yourself, and if that doesn't work for some reason let me know.

[tomer8007]

UPDATE: Message removal blocking was implemented in 7217eb384aefb82284bd7ceab2dc140f556fde9b.

[justanotheranonymoususer]

I checked the privacy stuff.

It blocks presence updates

True. Even though the checkbox was unchecked by itself on my computer, not sure why. Perhaps after an update. I checked it again and now looks like it's good.

"composing" events (typing)

Also, very nice.

Message removal blocking was implemented

Confirmed too, works nicely, thanks! A small nice addition can be to add an 🚫 icon or something near the message to mark it as removed, to get some indication and know to back it up or something if relevant.

[tomer8007]

Yeah, this is indeed a nice improvement, maybe in the future.

EDIT: Message restore was implemented by @Tkaixiang in #47 .