An e-mail subject is important to better communicate with non-DC users.
While I was thinking about this, I came up with a few ideas that I would like to discuss here.
Three questions need to be answered:
1.) How to integrate entering an email subject into the UI?
2.) How should the subject be displayed?
3.) Does a subject also make sense in chats with DC users?
1.)
I would place the subject function in the attachment menu.
Strictly speaking, a subject is of course not an attachment, but you could interpret it as “attaching” a subject to the message. This would leave the chat view unchanged and it would not be overloaded with additional icons.
After the menu item “Subject” had been selected, a second input line would be displayed.
It could be closed again with the X icon. By having the “X” on the left side, accidental sending of the message would be avoided. In addition, the path for the pointer or finger would be shorter.
Example images:
2.)
The subject could be italicized or bolded in or above the speech bubble to make it stand out from the message body. But the chat view would probably quickly appear more confusing and less tidy.
Maybe it would be better to show the subject only once with the first email and otherwise only in case it should be changed. It might look like a Webxdc status message. This would make it clear to the user that a specific topic will be discussed from this point onwards. In addition, the email subject is displayed in “Show Full Message” anyway.
Example image:
3.)
Maybe it is possible to create something like threads using the subject.
Just like Webxdc messages, the subject could be displayed in the “Chat Audit Log” of DC-Desktop.
This way one could jump directly to the relevant topics/threads and continue them with “Reply”.
A separate thread overview is also conceivable.
One could access it by clicking on the subject.