I sometimes juggle private conversations and it can get hard to track which messages are going to who. Would it be possible to add a little colored dot or bar or something next to the ‘to’ names to match focus colors?
5 Likes
Should be a fairly straight forward little UX improvement to do, focus colored underline or something else on the to-name line. Or even just the focus bar like it is for messages received. Would be glad to see this through if @Accipiter will accept a PR for this. I’ve had the same issue come up.
1 Like
Hello, just checking in to see if this could still be a thing!
Just wanted to add my support to this feature request.
I recently discovered the focus command and it’s changed my Wolfery experience for the better, but as @Zalyra mentions, it only highlights received messages.
Highlighting sent messages would be a QoL boost that would facilitate the flow of private conversations.
Well, I have a rather simple candidate implementation on this, but can’t really test it due to some issues with the Test Realm. Gonna try summoning @Accipiter once more: Can't authenticate to test realm from localhost · Issue #269 · mucklet/mucklet-client · GitHub 
In the meanwhile, proposal for the look:
Double stripe on outgoing messages to separate the focus from incoming messages with a “lighter” look.
Alternatively, dotted, because balls:
3 Likes
Ahh got it. Thanks for taking a look!
So to describe how I use focus a little in general, I don’t usually stare at Wolfery. I’m often getting up to do something else around my home for a few minutes, spin in my chair to poke at something else, etcetera. And then I glance over and with the focus colors I can quickly see if my self-focus is the last color or if there’s someone else, and that’s been great! Even if I just have it in another window, I usually just glance for colors to see if I need to read anything new, as I avoid using notifications.
So with that in mind, I’d have two concerns with the above. The first is that I’m not sure I could keep using focus in the same way if I see the outgoing color being the other character’s focus color. Maybe with balls I could get used to the different texture and recognize that. The second concern would be how it handles multiple recipients. What would it do if I message two people in a group chat thing that I both have focused with different colors? That’s why my mind originally went to adding colored dots or something by the ‘To’ line, so it’s enough at a quick skim to know which messages are going where but it still keeps the big block of self-focus so I can follow the flow of things like I do now.
2 Likes
That’s a good point, and an additionally good point is that currently in group messages only the first participant is shown at all currently on the address bar. This version was basically a 15 minute handwave so definitely not out of the question to improve on it either.
I imagine you mean something like this:
Or maybe even
2 Likes
Yes, that’s exactly what was in my head! Specifically the second but the first absolutely works as well. Just a little splash of the focus color makes it instantly recognizable.
1 Like
I was today years old when I learned this was possible. 
1 Like
I like this. And I think your suggestion looks really nice, @Kelmi .
I will add a GitHub issue for it. And I will accept a PR for it!
I actually just finished writing a testable hack/mod for this through the userscript extension.
I also tweaked the title row to display the first names of all receipients, since there can be only 5 AFAIU. Clicking the tooltip open for the message still displays the full names of all participants anyway.
I’ll be happy to migrate that into a proper PR for the client too.
I think it looks really nice that way!
And good point with just using first names. Let’s try that and see what the feedback is.
1 Like