No messages shown in "contact requests"

[Lexi]

Hi Simon, thanks for the useful table, information is easy to grasp that way. So I edited it in the way I’d like DeltaChat to work instead:

Option	contact requests	Messages
Chat only	dc messages from unknown contacts	all dc messages from accepted contacts/groups
Email only from accepted contacts	dc messages and emails from unknown contacts	also show email messages that come from accepted contacts/groups
All Emails	dc messages and emails from unknown contacts	messages (chat or email from accepted contacts/groups

With the change in bold letters.

Do you think that would be confusing or is it a sensible suggestion? (Or alternatively show a button to load the last few “dc messages and emails from unknown contacts”. Because right now if I take a look at my regular email inbox and see an email by someone I’d like to reply with DeltaChat to I have to get the mail address and make a new conversation in DeltaChat. Just selecting the mail from a list would be more convenient, faster and easier.

Thanks for reading and contributing to software freedom!

[Simon]

You can propose a new setting that fits your use-case, but I disagree with changing the existing one.
Also I think the option for your use-case needs to do another thing: don’t show the chatlistitem/banner for the last contactrequest.
Also a prerequisite to this is a redesign of the contact request view, because it will be really confusing with all messages from all your email in the current chat format.

Also this needs to have a warning about increased data usage, because all messages will be downloaded in this case.

@Lexi

Or alternatively show a button to load the last few “dc messages and emails from unknown contacts”

That sounds rather complicated, I’m not sure whether the core developers want to implement that.

[Lexi]

Hi Simon, thanks for your reply.

@Simon

You can propose a new setting that fits your use-case, but I disagree with changing the existing one.

Because of the reasons detailed in your last message? Or anything else in addition?

@Simon

Also I think the option for your use-case needs to do another thing: don’t show the chatlistitem/banner for the last contactrequest.

I already wanted that, yeah. I was only talking about the contact requests view, not about the chatlistitem/banner in the conversations/chats list. But I guess that needs extra development work, because right now it’s not independently implemented?

@Simon

Also a prerequisite to this is a redesign of the contact request view, because it will be really confusing with all messages from all your email in the current chat format.
Also this needs to have a warning about increased data usage, because all messages will be downloaded in this case.

Isn’t that already the case if the setting is set to “All”?

@Simon

@Lexi

Or alternatively show a button to load the last few “dc messages and emails from unknown contacts”

That sounds rather complicated, I’m not sure whether the core developers want to implement that.

Hmm I thought the functionality/code is already there for the “All” setting, is that not correct?

[Simon]

@Lexi

Because of the reasons detailed in your last message? Or anything else in addition?

Because I don’t like the idea of changing what a mode does that the user had selected, I already see complaints about increased data usage.

@Lexi

But I guess that needs extra development work, because right now it’s not independently implemented?

Yes its the same system underneath, so this would need adjustment. We should upgrade the whole contact request thing in general, also because it gets really messy with many messages and it sometimes shows weird info message ("X left/joined the group"s of chats you deleted, or split groups for example).
For the contactRequestChatListItem there is already an proposal for an alternative way to indicate new contact requests to the user: (see especially the image in the first post) Make Contact Requests more visible

@Lexi

Isn’t that already the case if the setting is set to “All”?

the “redesign”/ux improvement is necessary there as well as described above.
In this case the user chooses all and so its not surprising when all messages are downloaded.

@Lexi

Hmm I thought the functionality/code is already there for the “All” setting, is that not correct?

I don’t know the exact logic of when contact requests are downloaded, but I think they are handled like other messages, only that they are stored in the “deaddrop/contactrequest”-pseudo-chat.

I believe we should think about how we can improve this, maybe create the chats (give them some kind of deadrop attribute) so that the contact requests could be chats instead of messages.
But its also important to look whether a mini change could already bring an improvement, so a recent suggestion (I believe I heard it from @r10s) was to only show the last message of a contact request person/thread/chat) that would already clean up the contact request chat a fair bit.

I don’t do much core development currently so I don’t know the exact inner workings in this area.

Also we’re touching too much topics at the same time so lets identify them and split them up into their own smaller feature proposals.

[adbenitez]

Hi @Lexi, did I get it wrong or what you propose is the same as “all emails”, how could you get email contact requests from unknown contacts if the setting is called “Email only from accepted contacts”???
that setting do exactly what it is expected, you will never get a contact request from an accepted contact. The contact request view has the same use as for “chat only” in this situation.
Best regards,
adb

[Lexi]

Thanks Simon, my suggestion does have too many drawbacks after all that I now know about because you explained them. You also said work is already done to improve contact requests, so I’ll see what comes out of it. Maybe it’s possible to just download a list of addresses that sent mails instead of the mail to save data? Just an idea I’m putting out there, no discussion needed

adbenitez, my idea was to not get contact requests that show up at the top of the conversations list but instead only get them in the contact requests view. Since I never got any requests with the “Email only from accepted contacts” setting, I assumed it was an oversight that no mails showed up in the “contact requests” view. I thought a request is a request independent from the setting and the setting only applied to the contact requests that pop up at the top of the conversations list. Maybe this is something that would be cool to improve as well in the future.