https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/othxkn/quality_of_life_improvements_for_chat/
created by schrista on 28/07/2021 at 20:11 UTC
81 upvotes, 24 top-level comments (showing 24)
Hello redditors,
We want to announce some quality improvements the team has been working on for chat. Over the past year we have collected your feedback and consistently heard about reducing spam and improving chat channel management.
We are excited to announce updates on all three platforms (Desktop, iOS and Android) that will improve your chat experience on these issues.
We are making it easier to take quick actions on invites by enabling them directly on your chat tab. On iOS and Android you can now mark invites as spam, block them, ignore them or accept them directly from the chat tab screen by sliding left on each tab. Moreover, if you choose to open the invite tab screen (if you have more than two invites) you can use the same quick actions to mark invites as spam, block, accept or ignore.
On Desktop, in addition to accepting or declining an invite, invite screens will now present a third option to mark as spam or mark as block.
Making it easier to mark an invite as spam is a crucial step towards effectively reducing spam, as it allows our systems to identify and address spam efforts faster and more effectively.
We are also adding the ability to leave, mute or unmute, and block or mark a conversation as spam from the chat channel tab. You can now easily declutter your chat tab and manage your channels by having the option to leave a group or one-to-one chat.
If you leave a group chat and want to re-join, you will need to be re-invited to that group via the chat channel. The history of the group chat will reappear once you’ve re-joined the channel. In addition, once you’ve left a group chat or channel, you will no longer receive any type of notifications for them.
For one-to-one chat, leaving does not delete conversation history (and you can revisit it by starting a chat with the user) nor does it notify the other user you have left the conversation.
In addition, the block option will now be available for one-to-one chats via the quick action menu.
We have redesigned the settings menu to match the updated design of Reddit’s chat. There is one key functional change. We have collapsed mute options from mute push notifications and mute badge notifications into just one: **mute notifications**. Moving forward, “mute notifications” will mute both badging and push notifications for a given channel.
If you have a channel that has muted push notifications but unmuted badging, this will stay as is. If you choose to mute or unmute the conversation in the new settings menu it will impact both push notifications and badges. Muting and unmuting is now much simpler with the quick action of swiping and it all sits under one setting.
These changes will be released as an experiment on all platforms this week. Provided that everything goes well, we will release it to all users in a couple of weeks.
This is just the first of a few quality focused changes we plan on bringing to chat in the coming months. We plan to release as an experiment a filter allowing you to select the channel type to only see your one-to-one or group chats. Moreover, we are working on slash commands, a UI refresh of the chat bubbles (iOS and Android) and a few larger features that you have been asking for.
Please comment below what other changes or improvements you would like to see for chat. We’ll stick around to answer any questions you might have.
u/schrista
Comment by AlternateNickname at 28/07/2021 at 20:17 UTC
24 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Chat should have search functionality.
Comment by Python_Child at 28/07/2021 at 20:36 UTC
11 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Can you please make it so we can pin a chat?
This is awesome for moderators who get their inboxes flooded and just want to send a message to a certain group chat
Comment by MajorParadox at 28/07/2021 at 20:25 UTC*
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Thanks for the updates!
We have redesigned the settings menu to match the updated design of Reddit’s chat. There is one key functional change. We have collapsed mute options from mute push notifications and mute badge notifications into just one: mute notifications. Moving forward, “mute notifications” will mute both badging and push notifications for a given channel.
To clarify, mute notifications means we won't get notifications or see that we have new messages on the chat icon? So we either need to get a notification for every message or always remember to go check the chat just in case someone has spoken last?
I understand removing the confusion (which was because Reddit is swapping terminology used on other chat platforms), but the functionality was always important to me. When I'm in a group chat, I don't want my phone blowing up every time someone says anything. But I do want to see there are unread messages in a chat without having to keep loading it.
Please comment below what other changes or improvements you would like to see for chat. We’ll stick around to answer any questions you might have.
I'd like to see live chat posts somewhere there too. So I don't have to go to the subreddits and find them again.
Oh also, has it been fixed that push notifications don't stop if I'm actively in a chat? If not, that'd be a nice update, if it were possible.
Comment by iamthatis at 28/07/2021 at 20:14 UTC
39 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Hi! I’d love to integrate some of these changes into my app, but there’s still no Chat API even for something as simple as sending a message, despite Chat being years old now. Will this change?
Comment by [deleted] at 28/07/2021 at 21:10 UTC
61 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 29/07/2021 at 00:34 UTC
9 upvotes, 3 direct replies
It worked better before to **hide a chat when it wasn't active** - no longer being able to do this has really cluttered up the chat area for me. I don't want to block or leave a group, I just want it hidden until someone says something please. I don't know why this was removed.
Chat messages for awards are SO annoying. I have found that apparently they arrive when an award is given non anonymously. Anon awards may or may not go to PMs - this appears to be completely random if you even get a notification. I much prefer all award messages to go to PMs. It also appears to **not give the recipient the message that you wrote for the award** where you already have an existing chat with the person. It also seems to get confused if you have given awards to each other and does not always keep a record of the award notification. It's just weird and not working properly.
Chat notifications work sporadically. They currently appear to require a specific refresh in the chat window to appear. It makes it like a Christmas surprise when you check though... "wooo! I got a message, lucky I checked" so it's not all bad ... /s
I really like PMs and I would prefer that they are continued. I do use chat for group things though and that helps when not everyone has discord.
Thankyou for any help that you can give. If you need more info, I am more than happy to provide further thoughts.
Comment by [deleted] at 28/07/2021 at 20:16 UTC*
16 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by SoundOfTomorrow at 28/07/2021 at 23:07 UTC
18 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How do I disable it completely because the only people who message me are spammers and/or scammers?
Comment by [deleted] at 28/07/2021 at 20:26 UTC*
11 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Add a report function for Christ's sake. One user I've talked to has been getting death threats and hateful messages for the last several weeks, while another was followed by someone posting LITERAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY on their profile. Why this isn't a standard feature to begin with is beyond me
Comment by ahackercalled4chan at 29/07/2021 at 01:48 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
you know what would be awesome? a way to disable chat in user preferences.
I'm never in the chat and every time i log in on desktop i have 40 messages from rando's asking me to hack their ex's FB...
Comment by MajorParadox at 28/07/2021 at 20:34 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
FYI, you forgot to distinguish this post!
Comment by PurposefulAccident at 02/08/2021 at 05:27 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The only improvement you can make to it is scrapping it entirely. It's a waste of time and effort and there are plenty of other things reddit is launching half baked that could use more updates so as to actually improve the quality of reddit than the fuck chat feature.
Just let chat die.
Comment by [deleted] at 29/07/2021 at 02:36 UTC*
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Quirky-Promotion4163 at 28/07/2021 at 20:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I just would like to have my chat working at this point. It has not been working at all since the last update. It says. Something has gone wrong and the conversation couldn't be created. I have tried Uninstalled and reinstalled. I have tried close chats by the leave chat function. It isn't the user flair. So for 7 days now it hasn't worked. I have reported it multiple places and heard nothing back. They must not care. It worked fine before the last update. Can you help please.
Comment by 001Guy001 at 28/07/2021 at 21:05 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I wish there was an RSS feed for chats. Even just for updates about the conversations as a whole and not for every new message (i.e. "Chat Conversation X has 3 new messages" instead of getting 3 separate alerts)
The last 2 times I tried using the chat (Firefox on PC) I would not always get alerted about new chat messages.
Comment by Minedave16 at 29/07/2021 at 11:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Wholesome
Comment by [deleted] at 02/08/2021 at 01:33 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Please. For the love of fucking god. Remove this god awful shit video player. I’m honestly thinking of completely deleting this good for nothing app
Comment by bvttfvcker at 29/07/2021 at 00:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hey OP, I'm seeing a lot of comments auto-collapsed on certain subs- these comments are awarded and have positive karma. Can you explain that?
Comment by WinXPbootsup at 29/07/2021 at 13:26 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is good. But what about fixing the video player?
Comment by justcool393 at 28/07/2021 at 22:50 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Please comment below what other changes or improvements you would like to see for chat.
Hi,
I'd like for my account to be able to use chat. People can't send chat messages to me and I can't send messages to others, which is incredibly confusing for others and is slightly annoying for me.
I know it isn't my cache or anything. I think the chat account somehow accidentally got marked as disabled.
I usually just use the normal PM system, but a lot of people use chat to communicate, so I'd like to be in the loop on that front
Comment by Quirky-Promotion4163 at 28/07/2021 at 20:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
At this point I would just like for my chat to work!!!!. It has not worked since the last update. I have turned it in everywhere and no one gets back with or cares I guess. It says Sorry something has gone wrong and the conversation couldn't be created. I have Uninstalled and reinstalled. I have did the leave chat and closed all of them. The user flair is not the problem. It was working just fine before the last update. Can you help???
Comment by Quirky-Promotion4163 at 28/07/2021 at 20:56 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What about making chats roll off so that way you don't ever get to many and also make it so you can save a chat that you want to. So it doesn't roll off if you was to do that. There shouldn't be a limit put on chats.
Comment by vorst17735 at 29/07/2021 at 15:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'd love to be able to send a photo or two if I needed to :)
However, that aside, thanks for all your hard work!
Comment by MajorParadox at 31/07/2021 at 02:04 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
One more question: Do you foresee a rise in false spam reports? I imagine a lot of people will just click that button because they don't like chat at all and consider it all spam.
Also, I imagine it will get used for harassment, threats, and other offensive chat requests, but I guess it can be argued those as spam too. I just hope those don't inadvertently get categorized in a less higher priority than it may need to be.
