The new channels don't show any indication when someone has left a message in them which means anyone using them gets ignored. The text window appears in the window of any streams popped out into separate windows rather than in the primary client window. Overall, as they are now, they are much less useful than the previous channels.
#Revert to the previous text channels for Voice channels.
ebon siren
desert flower
I'm new and I don't real like it too
When you text no one is getting any notification and is hard to spot
wintry quartz
I'm guessing the notification bubble in the voice channel isn't enough since you only see it if you're there when the message was sent.
Actually, it also shows how many new messages there are.
But I imagine most people will find it hard to see.
ebon siren
I only see a notification bubble if someone mentions me directly.
I wonder if you have notifications for all messages turned on?
Most people do not have that as their setting.
pure plume
I kinda agree with Mike, I do think the new chat stuff is great, but it needs more QoL.
wintry quartz
I wonder if you have notifications for all messages turned on?
I do not. It's part of the voice channel UI, so you only see it when you're looking at the channel, i.e. someone's stream or camera.
ebon siren
ah
wintry quartz
ebon siren
I see. What I find less useful is there's no indication in the side window that someone has posted something. Before with the other channels the text would change color and we would know someone had posted.
I can keep an eye on feedback etc... even if I'm in other voice with that.
wintry quartz
OK. What is the use case for keeping an eye on the text chat for voice channels you're not currently in?
ebon siren
Sometimes when people are new they don't know where to ask for help, or a lot of times are uncomfortable using a microphone (especially when English isn't their first language.) The biggest issue is not having an indication someone has posted something in the main window.
wintry quartz
Sometimes when people are new they don't know where to ask for help, or a lot of...
No-mic folks is one of the primary use cases for this feature, so I get that. I'm just trying to understand what's gained by seeing indicators for new messages in the text chat for a voice channel you're not participating in.
Does that make you want to switch voice channels or something?
ebon siren
Not really. You just have it where people will post and join feedback when it's empty and post a question even though there's 10 of us in another channel. Honestly that's an edge case and not one of the main points I was trying to make here.
ebon siren
The lack of any indication someone has made a post.
wintry quartz
You don't like having to look at the voice channel in order to see when new messages show up in the text chat?
ebon siren
It leads to people being ignored
yes. that.
The visual indication means if someone doens't have a mic we still notice there's a post
wintry quartz
Well, there is an indication if you're in the voice channel and engaging with it.
I'm trying to understand how you guys use voice chat so I can give Discord good feedback. 🙂
ebon siren
ok,
I don't typically have the "voice" screen in the window if I'm in a voice chat.
so here there would be no indication if someone posts a message in the text channel for the voice
wintry quartz
OK, I see.
empty flare
i agree, some kind of indication next to the voice channel that there are new text messages there would be ideal
wintry quartz
Interesting. I didn't know people used voice chat in that way.
empty flare
like where that open chat button is
ebon siren
The other thing is a dislike rather than something that reduces useabilty
empty flare
also, you don't even see that button unless you roll over the channel name
ebon siren
is how the new chat appears
empty flare
would be good if you could see that icon on the voice channel always
wintry quartz
would be good if you could see that icon on the voice channel always
What would that do, besides providing an opportunity to show a little badge with a new message count?
ebon siren
A lot of times I just leave it open while working and will just jump in to help out when I see someone has asked for help
Maybe, even if the icon just showed a new message count
wintry quartz
So it sounds like maybe you guys want this icon to be visible next to the voice channel name, at all times.
ebon siren
It would also be more useful if the text appeared in the main window rather than attaching to the stream window
empty flare
1, it would let people know there even is a text channel (considering it's a new feature) and 2. it'd give a clear indicator area for new messages so you wouldn't have to always have the text channel section open (specially when watching a stream) to know a message has been sent
you could click it, see the message, respond, and close it until the next indicator
wintry quartz
Interesting.
ebon siren
Mippi to the rescue with clear communication.
empty flare
as when you have the text channel open, it greatly reduces visibility of the stream, specially when doing technical stuff where you have to read alot of text on say nodes and such
so we don't typically have it open all the time
in fact, rarely lol
wintry quartz
That's exactly why they have the chat bubbles that pop up when new messages are sent.
I think they have that use case covered, but that's a different issue from the lack of activity indicator in the channels list.
empty flare
also, i'm not advocating for reversing the text channels
ebon siren
Those pop up bubbles are not useful
empty flare
i'm actually against that, as i do think this has more pros than cons
wintry quartz
Those pop up bubbles are not useful
Why not?
ebon siren
They will almost never be seen because they momentarily appear in the stream window and only if you have it open
empty flare
like right now, we're in this channel, we're typing here, we have no idea if people are typing in the voice channel atm
wintry quartz
They're designed for the use case Mippi described. When you're looking at the voice screen but have text chat collapsed.
empty flare
in order to be aware of this, we have to leave this area
then go to that area, click into it, and then check
a simple icon could resolve this
wintry quartz
like right now, we're in this channel, we're typing here, we have no idea if peo...
Yeah I'm putting my personal bias aside here because to me, this sounds like desired behavior.
lol
empty flare
it's more of a UX issue as well, the icon being in the top right, directly below the exit button to discord
it's not a place we use in discord for notifcations
wintry quartz
Maybe they'll end up adding an activity indicator to voice channels, like regular text channels.
empty flare
and identifiers
ebon siren
Even if it had the same ui as with threads it would be more useful
empty flare
historically, that happens along the left side of the screen
not the top right
but now only for this one thing, in this one channel mode, we have a new visual interest area to try to notice
wintry quartz
Well top left wouldn't make sense because the chat is on the right. Spatially it makes sense.
ebon siren
just some indication that there's been activity in the voice text channel that apears where every other indicator for that does, in the left sidebar
empty flare
but next to the channels / servers area where all the other notifications happen would make sense
as that's where they have always been
wintry quartz
Yeah, but the indicator would have to be unique, like the chat icon you mentioned.
You can't use the same indicator as text channels because it has a different meaning.
empty flare
one, sec, mocking something up
as i don't think communication of this is happening effectively
ebon siren
Right now, if I try and open one of those text channels it appears on the side of my third monitor because that's where I put the streams I'm watching.
And not in the same window as this.
wintry quartz
That makes sense.
Text chat for a voice channel should go where the voice channel's UI is, right?
Maybe they can do something different for folks like you who break out the window.
But I'm not sure what that would look like.
And it could hinder people's ability to memorize where the text chat is if it keeps moving depending on where you put popout windows.
If you pop out the stream you're watching, you're essentially popping out the voice channel, so the text chat follows it.
ebon siren
We're typically using the stream to share something technical. having the text chat reduce that window by a considerable amount is not desirable.
empty flare
as you can already barely read stuff on people's streams
having it smaller makes it completely unreadable
empty flare
waht it looks like for the average user
and that's IF your mouse is focused in the stream area
if not, it looks liek this
and if you don't have the mouse focused and you don't have the chat actively open, it looks like this
no indication of anything
ebon siren
It doesn't affect me too much since I can ignore the text channels but we have users who can't speak, or who have a hard time with english etc... who use those text channels and they will get ignored.
empty flare
yes, mostly that, for most use cases, this is not an issue, most people who come into voice chat, actually use their voice or have good enough english that it's not an issue
and they vocally let us know "i posted in blah blah channel"
so we look
but we do have a fair amount of people who are too shy, too quiet, don't own a mic, or can't speak english well enough to communicate well, that rely on those text channels to talk to us and get help or help others
the only way we knew they ever typed was just seeing that the text channel was a different color (subtle but it was effective)
now there are alot of barriers to notice that, but again, i am not advocating for the reversal back to the previous set up
i' m just saying, i understand this issue, and the UX def needs some improvement on discord's part
a minor change would make all the difference
wintry quartz
I don't see them moving the chat icon to the left. Doesn't look good and shouldn't always be there.
empty flare
i'll let them problem solve it however they want to solve it
but currently, the set up is not good
ebon siren
Those two things would fix it entirely. Having an indictor that a message has been added and having the text in the main window again. Left or right doesn't matter. They have an icon there if it just appeared when there are new messages it would be functional
empty flare
i don't think it's the responsibility of the communities to give them solutions, they have staff for that
however, we can address and point out pain points, and let them sort it out their way
it doesn't even need to always be there, just having something next to the channel to let users know there are unread messages there would solve it
could be the little half dot thing
even that would be suffecient
wintry quartz
What state is the app in here? There should be icons at the top right.
empty flare
that's the state of when you don't have your mouse actively clicked into it
ebon siren
There's only icons if you are actively mousing over it.
It's not a good design to have to check there.
empty flare
like the majority of us don't have it actively in the window, as we're doing other stuff than just 100% discord only
wintry quartz
I figured. We're always multitasking ourselves into oblivion.
empty flare
i personally have discord up on one monitor and doing work on other monitors, so i don't ever see those icons in the top right
wintry quartz
It's not great.
Well thanks for all the detailed feedback. Good to hear all this from folks who are in voice chat almost every day.
empty flare
^_^
wintry quartz
I'll be sure to pass it on to Discord.
empty flare
it's a small thing, but it really does effect us as active voice users
ebon siren
i'm actually against that, as i do think this has more pros than cons
What are the pros as you see them?
empty flare
having the text channel attached to the voice channel instead of being a separate channel, that users have to either be told to type in (we do that quite often)
it resolves an existing friction point that users had where they couldn't view the text channels associated with the voice chats (not a problem mods have to deal with, but i've heard many people complain about that, granted that is partially our fault, the limitations of how we can set up the bots to give permissions, etc etc)
it also adds additional channel customization on the back end, along with additional moderations and role / permissions functionality in general
The new bots for Manny and his friend, releasing soon, will have new things as well that will utilize some of this
It reduces the visual channel count, and isn't named differently than the voice chat as a separate channel
(not for this discord) but it will grow the api for game integration and overlays to eventually dynamically show text chat based on what voice channel you are in
for mobile users, it's actually a far far far better experience for them, to view chat they simply swipe left, to view streams they swipe right
if you turn on message previews, it'll actually show the messages as a small (truncated if the message is too long) bubble of text with an image of the user who sent the message, right on the streaming window without having to even view the chat at all, so if the message isn't too long, you can just watch the streaming window and read the messages that way (they do vanish after a period of time and only 3 or 4 of them can show at a time i think)
Also, at the end of this month, any new voice channels created in any server on discord will default to this behavior, and if a server doesn't want it for that channel, they will have to go turn it off
the only real con there is, is the new chat indication communication that we discussed previously, and i'd also personally like more customization over the stream / chat layout, maybe having chat at bottom and streams at top, or choose text on left and streams on right, etc etc etc
example of the message previews, as i think i had to turn this on, as it wasn't on by default? can't remember
and it seems like you don't have to have the window focused for this to happen
ebon siren
The first point was a self inflicted wound with how permissions were setup. Having less channels in the list is relatively minor but could have been solved by having a single text channel and enabling threads. A lot of what you bring up about API and permissions is not specific to the text channels directly linked to voice or doesn't apply here. I do see where the improvement to the mobile experience could be a benefit but is it really worth a loss of usefulness for most users? I'm just not seeing where there is any benefit that out weighs the actual loss of usefulness.
Could we just get a single normal text channel with threads enabled?