Message Bubbles

[jakewb-b]

Summary
Optional display of messages in bubbles alternating left/right for ease of reading, and familiarity from consumer messaging platforms.

Intended Outcome
Ability for users to select the view that they prefer, including one which displays messages in bubbles, with received messages aligned left and sent messages aligned right.

TBD whether message bubbles will display in DMs only, DMs and rooms, or whether this will be a user-configured option.

[PxBCPG]

I don't personally like this style of displaying messages, so maybe a user-configured option will be better.

[Flam3z]

I don't personally like this style of displaying messages, so maybe a user-configured option will be better.

Theres an issue on the android section discussing it Here

[wjbeckett]

Even if the android app was to mirror the element web settings for chat layout, that'd be great. Element web has the chat bubbles view and personally I like it much better. But that's just me.

Implementing this the same way element web has done will give users the option to choose their preferred style. I think this would be the best for everyone.

[brevilo]

How about making this not a general setting but a room/chat-specific one? IMHO, 1:1 chats would benefit from using bubbles while more technical chats won't. IOW, would be great to set this preference specifically, not just on a global level.

[lindhe]

As far as I'm concerned, the default should be whatever seems to be the status quo among other chat services (so probably bubbles). Having a setting to override this globally is certainly good for the users, and being able to configure it for individual rooms would be even better.

But the level of user customization must be weitht against the impact it has on maintainability for devs and perceived clutter/bloat for users... If we can hide this setting in an "Advanced settings" menu, I think clutter is basically a non-issue.

[brevilo]

Well, for Element Web the global setting is already found under "Appearance". While it's already great to switch between IRC and modern IM styles, it would be great to be able to choose the style per use case (i.e. room). I didn't find this being discussed, so I wanted to add that idea. Matrix/Element covers way more use cases than any old IM app, so it'd be just great to harness that potential. But I agree, clutter needs to be avoided or user will eventually avoid the whole thing :)