DC Desktop does not remember scroll position when switching between chats

[farooqkz]

Expected behavior

You select chat A, you scroll to somewhere, you switch to chat B then you again switch back to chat A. And chat A is on the same position as it was before the switch(es). There is also a Setting/Preference to turn this feature on/off.

Actual behavior

When you switch between chats, each chat appears at the last message.

[r10s]

seems not to be that clear when looking at other apps. eg. Telegram remembers position - while WhatsApp and Signal behave like Delta Chat, so do most mobile apps. probably to avoid confusion and to have a always same, working path.

so, not sure, if that is an unconditional improvement. i never have seen a real issue here. if you scroll to find sth. important, you eg. can always save to “Saved Messages” and there is the search.

but let’s see if others chime in here.

for an option: well, we usually avoid options wherever we can. and for this level of detail, that seems not fitting. if we decide we want to go for it, it seems easy enough to use the scroll down button

[bencan]

In fact somebody else already requested this:

Continue where I stayed in the chat

:page_facing_up:Sometimes I am reviewing the conversations in some chats, and for some reason I must leave the chat, and I hope that when I return to the chat, I can continue reading where I stayed, but on the contrary, the chat automatically returns to the beginning, and I have to search manually where I stayed, wasting some time. So: :bulb:I recommend keeping the chat reading status, unless you find new messages.

Personally I would find this very useful. I frequently switch between chats and manually scrolling to find the part of the chat I was reading is very time consuming, so if Delta Chat remembers the position in the chat instead of scrolling to the bottom every time, I would welcome that.

@r10s

we usually avoid options wherever we can

From a user perspective I think options are very useful for helping people with different workflows or different preferences make the most out of the app, but if it requires a lot of code to implement or maintain, I can understand why it might not be worth the effort for developers.

If it is better to avoid an option for this, I think it makes sense to not automatically scroll to the bottom because as you point out, it is easy to do this by tapping the scroll button.

By the way there is another feature proposal which is similar but not quite the same, which proposes keeping the position in the chat instead of automatically scrolling to the bottom when a message is sent:

Feature Request: Option to disable scroll to bottom

Hello! I spotted a usability enhancement which would make working with larger groups less cumbersome. I’m coming from using the Cheogram (an xmpp client) on android. On that client, there is an option to disable scrolling down after sending a message. Working with larger groups, where you may be replying to multiple previous messages, this cuts down on so much extra scrolling up and down when responding. The feature is listed in their interface settings as “Scroll to bottom” Scroll down a…

I would also find this useful, since I often refer to messages higher in the chat when writing messages and need to keep scrolling up after every message I send.