I propose more flexibility regarding to disappearing messages. Sometimes contacts take long time to reply, or you want to make appointments in advance, and so having option for longer then 5 weeks is nice for these cases.
WhatsApp has option for 90 day disappearing messages, which is suitable for these cases.
Signal also has option for custom disappearing time, so user can set number of days or weeks if the default time is not suitable. The UI feels clean.
Maybe Delta Chat can also have option like 90 day disappearing messages and custom disappearing time?
For days highest number is 6 and for weeks highest number is 4, so you cannot even set it to 5 weeks or 15 days with these settings. Translating resulting info messages will also become much more difficult.
You can turn on ādisappearing messagesā in the settings of a chat, at the top right of the chat window, by selecting a time span between 1 minute and 5 weeks.
this would also sync settings closer to āauto deleteā, where after ā5 weeksā the next option is also ā1 yearā - and that without many complains afaik
For what itās worth, I use 1 year for security reasons. Avoiding decades long storage at rest in case of device theft on either end, while opting for relatively high convenience.
I agree there is a valid security reason. Each user has to find the right balance of security vs convenience, for some users that is 1 day and for some users that is 1 year or something in between.
ftr, at least on signal-ios, the max is at 4 weeks, even with custom UI.
for Delta Chat, a custom UI will probably not happen, focus is sth. else, but adding ā90 days optionā seems reasonable esp. as whatsapp offers that as well.
but instead of just adding stuff and clutter lists, i would at least think about streamlining the other options - do we really need all of them? with the new one, it would be 9 - whatsapp has 4 - where a magic number in UI is 7 (+/-, yes) when it comes to list which one to sacrify
If itās really necessary to sacrifice an option, I would vote to remove one of the first three (1 minute/5 minutes/30 minutes), however I thought that the idea of the magic number 7 was a myth based on a misinterpretation of Millerās Law?
Personally, I doubt that a couple of extra options would clutter the list or make it unusable, especially if they are distinct and meaningful options which users will find valuable (but of course user testing and feedback would reveal more insight).
yeah, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, indeed. and another option would not make the thing unusable.
still, human short-term memory has limitations and overloading users with too much information can reduce usability. apart from smaller devices not fitting all options etc.
and also still, when anyway on that part, it is good to at least think about whether the existing options make sense.
space is not a problem, the list would be scrollable in small device, in mine there is space for several more options actually,
anyways I actually think it makes sense to remove the first option, the times I have seen it used it only added confusion, you barely have time to read so it was not really useful and losing messages without fully reading them all
I think short durations like 1min only really make sense if they are counted from when the message or image is viewed. But that is not our target use case in delta chat.
(we have expiry timer that starts when the message is sent, not when it is viewed)
Edit: @r10s corrected me, looks like I confused this with āauto deleting messages from deviceā.
There could possibly be a āLongerā option at the end of the list, which could open a dialog where you type in the number of days. for longer times there is no need to specify hours or minutes and having just the days as the only number to input is much easier UI to add than a complex duration picker with multiple input fields/spinners.
that they are shown on the screen doesnāt mean they have been read, ex you could have 3 messages displayed on screen at the same time, more in desktop where the screen is bigger, and you might take time reading or understanding some message before you read the next
the disappearing messages expiry timer starts when the messageās chat is viewed. it does not matter when it was sent or received.
agree with @adbenitez, that this can mean three long messages are displayed at the same time on desktop, and you have to hurry to read them. though, sender would also notice its a bad idea to post chapters of the new book with disappearing messages time set to 1 minute
this was the case in the past, but IIRC we changed it because someone complained that some messages were never disappearing, because they were never seen/displayed on screen, so we changed it to trigger the timer on āchat noticedā (when chat is open, even if message is not marked as seen), or that is what I vaguely remember
I know some users that wonāt let me enable disappearing messages unless thereās a 12 month option. I think thatās also the Telegram maximum. (Iām not saying Delta Chat needs to copy that, but perhaps it should.)
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is there a reason for not using a combo box that only takes digits, followed by a drop-down list with the choices minutes/hours/days/weeks/(months/)years?
which one to sacrify