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Is there like, any UI/UX plan for the main chat view in Element X? I feel like I've been using it for a year now and every time I see an update available I find

Is there like, any UI/UX plan for the main chat view in Element X? I feel like I've been using it for a year now and every time I see an update available I find myself hoping it's fixed the glaring spacing/padding issues in that particular view. There's a lot of talk of Element competing with mainstream chat applications, but I don't see how it does that with what feels like an incomplete UI. I also just don't quite get how you ship a chat application in 2024 with issues like this, considering chat UI itself is somewhat of a solved problem. It's like one of those things that just has no reason to be badly laid out. (Is this just SwiftUI being less than ideal for some types of views...?) To be clear, I like and use Matrix daily. It's definitely still got rough edges but I appreciate the work they're doing and I think it'll eventually "get there", so I don't want to just be a (total) detractor.

telgareith 2y ago
I'm probably biased by the fact that the first time I got Synapse running it was the release where it'd endlessly try and fail to join a room with more than 10 people. But, every time I've looked at Matrix Chat it's been a disaster. That it tries, at all, to authenticate every personal(?home?) server as soon as you join #matrix is... Bad, from a lot of perspectives. Privacy? Just put up your own DNS and find out what new servers are joining. Security? Easy slowloris type attacks at several layers- DNS, http, etc. Performance- eagerly enumerating all federated servers before joining a channel places a hard cap on channel and overall network size. And it provides a terrible experience. The more I look, the less I like what I see. As a potential user, a software dev, and an admin it leaves me with two impressions: sloppy at best, braindead at worst.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Yay. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/matthew/msc4136/proposals/4136-shared-retry-hints.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mat... is the bug you're complaining about so constructively. It's on the radar; we prioritised fixing unable-to-decrypt errors.
Arathorn 2y ago
I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about here - the roomlist is pure SwiftUI, and looks almost identical to iMessage or WhatsApp to me. What is the "glaring spacing/padding issues" you're talking about? Similarly on the timeline views... Can you link to a bug on github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues please?
- Klonoar 2y ago
  I'm not talking about the room list - that (along with settings) looks fine and is absolutely on-par or nicer than standard Element. :) "Main chat view" is the actual chatroom view. The bubble layout has spacing that makes it hard to scan messages - there's small padding on the bubbles themselves, but then you have inconsistent spacing on e.g if there's a list or something in that bubble, with lists in particular having a seemingly different line-height or spacing between items. Bubbles themselves have little spacing between each other, and then day separators also have odd spacing. Additionally, I still have a weird green floating box showing up in the chat input box. It's on and off with every update and it's not click/tap-able, and I have zero clue why it's there.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    honestly, without annotated screenshots filed in github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues to highlight precisely what the problem is (ideally comparing with an equivalent app which you feel gets it correct) i’m not sure we’re going to be able to help you. the green box sounds like an accessibility helper feature of some kind which has got confused?
    - Klonoar 2y ago
      > honestly, without annotated screenshots filed in github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues to highlight precisely what the problem is (ideally comparing with an equivalent app which you feel gets it correct) i’m not sure we’re going to be able to help you. I mean, I'm not asking you to help me, I was just curious whether there was any more resources dedicated to the UI/UX of that particular view. If the answer is "no, and we feel the view is fine", then just say that. I might not agree with your choices but it's not going to stop me using the app. ;P I'm unlikely to stop and annotate a bunch of screenshots and put them on GitHub as I've other things to do with my time. The older I get, the more protective I am of my free time... as much as it sucks from an OSS perspective. > the green box sounds like an accessibility helper feature of some kind which has got confused? You mean in Element X itself? I have no accessibility features enabled on my devices, so I doubt it's an OS-level control in the way.

telgareith 2y ago

I'm probably biased by the fact that the first time I got Synapse running it was the release where it'd endlessly try and fail to join a room with more than 10 people. But, every time I've looked at Matrix Chat it's been a disaster. That it tries, at all, to authenticate every personal(?home?) server as soon as you join #matrix is... Bad, from a lot of perspectives. Privacy? Just put up your own DNS and find out what new servers are joining. Security? Easy slowloris type attacks at several layers- DNS, http, etc. Performance- eagerly enumerating all federated servers before joining a channel places a hard cap on channel and overall network size. And it provides a terrible experience. The more I look, the less I like what I see. As a potential user, a software dev, and an admin it leaves me with two impressions: sloppy at best, braindead at worst.

Arathorn 2y ago
Yay. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/matthew/msc4136/proposals/4136-shared-retry-hints.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mat... is the bug you're complaining about so constructively. It's on the radar; we prioritised fixing unable-to-decrypt errors.

Arathorn 2y ago

I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about here - the roomlist is pure SwiftUI, and looks almost identical to iMessage or WhatsApp to me. What is the "glaring spacing/padding issues" you're talking about? Similarly on the timeline views... Can you link to a bug on github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues please?

Klonoar 2y ago
I'm not talking about the room list - that (along with settings) looks fine and is absolutely on-par or nicer than standard Element. :) "Main chat view" is the actual chatroom view. The bubble layout has spacing that makes it hard to scan messages - there's small padding on the bubbles themselves, but then you have inconsistent spacing on e.g if there's a list or something in that bubble, with lists in particular having a seemingly different line-height or spacing between items. Bubbles themselves have little spacing between each other, and then day separators also have odd spacing. Additionally, I still have a weird green floating box showing up in the chat input box. It's on and off with every update and it's not click/tap-able, and I have zero clue why it's there.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  honestly, without annotated screenshots filed in github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues to highlight precisely what the problem is (ideally comparing with an equivalent app which you feel gets it correct) i’m not sure we’re going to be able to help you. the green box sounds like an accessibility helper feature of some kind which has got confused?
  - Klonoar 2y ago
    > honestly, without annotated screenshots filed in github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues to highlight precisely what the problem is (ideally comparing with an equivalent app which you feel gets it correct) i’m not sure we’re going to be able to help you. I mean, I'm not asking you to help me, I was just curious whether there was any more resources dedicated to the UI/UX of that particular view. If the answer is "no, and we feel the view is fine", then just say that. I might not agree with your choices but it's not going to stop me using the app. ;P I'm unlikely to stop and annotate a bunch of screenshots and put them on GitHub as I've other things to do with my time. The older I get, the more protective I am of my free time... as much as it sucks from an OSS perspective. > the green box sounds like an accessibility helper feature of some kind which has got confused? You mean in Element X itself? I have no accessibility features enabled on my devices, so I doubt it's an OS-level control in the way.