Minimize UI noise in message feed

[bnvk]

Description

Using the metric of "messages are the most important info in the message feed" the current state is a tad bit cluttered with less important visual information.

This is the current state of the message view

• Before Image

Here is with my proposed changes.

• After Image

[image no longer available]

Changes specifically relate to "... joined the room" messages:

1. Remove shrunken avatars as they are too small to really see anyway
2. Reduce font from 14px to 12px as this is not really interesting info and is redundant with list of people in sidebar and status
3. Remove / make configurable the "Seen by" avatars in the right. I suggest tucking this into checkmarks tooltip
4. Shrunk the "user is typing" height a bit to reduce size it takes up

I realize 3. might be contentious as it's modeled after what other messaging clients do. In one-on-one threads this makes more sense, but in large public group rooms it just adds too much noise.

Additionally, I'd suggest making the hover on message styling of "joined the room" messages a simple HREF color change instead of the background.

Steps to reproduce

Just log in and look at any group message feed, it currently looks like this:

Version information

• Platform: web affects all platforms and browsers

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I'm happy to submit a pull-req with these changes if they are likely to be accepted 😉

[t3chguy]

You can both hide read avatars (3.)
and make the timeline more compact in settings.

[bnvk]

@t3chguy nifty this has been somewhat worked on already!

Using compact timeline fixes some of the noise, but is actually quite cramped in a different way. Seeing the joined messages is useful, my proposal is just to make it less important in the interface.

I still argue 3. should be more intelligent. Disabling it means I cannot see in private message thread read receipts. Perhaps making it a "room" setting with default off for public rooms would suffice?

[t3chguy]

As to the per-room thing, I have Granular Settings (setting applicable per device/per room) on my todo list, just stuck behind some golang stuff right now

[grahamperrin]

Thumbs up to any preference that will allow the user to minimise noise.

[MadLittleMods]

The UI has iterated a lot since 2017 and although it probably hasn't adapted to your standard of noise, future improvements should probably be tracked in new individual issues.