Internal webxdc app as unified sticker picker

[Raiden]

The sticker situation across different DC versions is inconsistent. DC-Desktop has its own picker, DC-iOS uses the iOS picker, and DC-Android only has a rudimentary one. Furthermore, some DC versions recognize certain file formats as animated stickers, while others do not.

Perhaps it would make sense to develop a unified picker in the form of an internal webxdc app for all DC versions? By “internal,” I mean that it would be seamlessly integrated into DC so that users wouldn’t notice it’s a webxdc app.

That would certainly have advantages: no need to develop separately for each version, simplify maintenance, also because DC wouldn’t need to be adapted to changes in the iOS picker to remain compatible.

I’m not a software developer, but as far as I know, webxdc apps are essentially websites, and DC-Desktop is based on Electron. Perhaps it’s therefore possible to adopt parts of the sticker picker code from DC-Desktop?

If a decision were made to develop a unified sticker picker, one could also consider integrating a GIF picker, similar to WhatsApp? Their picker has two tabs: one for stickers and one for GIFs. Similar to this proposal:

GIF-Tab in Emoji picker

Expected behavior Users can view their GIF collection in the Emoji picker and post GIFs in a chat. Actual behavior There is no GIF tab in the Emoji picker, so they must be selected as a file. Explanation Emojis, stickers and GIFs give users more ways to express themselves. They also improve the appearance of a chat. I think these three things belong together and it would therefore make sense to add a GIF tab to the emoji sticker picker. Example Images [GIF-Tab]

[Simon]

You may want to sync your sticker collection across multiple devices, that could be a challenge.

I could think of that there could be either a core API that handles sticker storage,

Or a hacky way sending webxdc updates in saved messages with the stickers, but those could be huge updates when you import new sticker packs.

Telegram allows bots/mini apps to appear in their attachment menu, if we go for something similar we can look into how telegram solved it UX and UI wise.

[WofWca]

I heard that there are plans to improve the sticker stuff.

And to be the “well actually” guy, looks like you don’t mean that this has to be a WebXDC app per se. What you probably mean is “web app”, which is to be displayed in a WebView, like e.g. GitHub - deltachat/calls-webapp: P2P videocalls via WebRTC for integration into Delta Chat · GitHub used to be used on all platforms before Android and iOS migrated to a native implementation.

But the idea of using a unified web app is IDK. The same idea can be applied to basically any part of the UI, I don’t see how the sticker picker is different.

[Raiden]

@WofWca

But the idea of using a unified web app is IDK. The same idea can be applied to basically any part of the UI, I don’t see how the sticker picker is different.

I thought that would be the easiest way to implement and maintain it. While I do consider stickers and GIFs important, they aren’t necessarily a fundamental feature that needs to be built directly into the app.

[Low]

Stickers are indeed being actively worked on. I just saw a good PR on GitHub for iOS, but it didn’t get merged because stickers are changing structurally or something.