It's time to update the chat window

[eldritchAvatar]

It looks like we're really out here using AIM chat.

We need emojis. It's 2024. People are really making macros to post ASCII pictures like it's 2008.

Heck, maybe make a hanging out setting so our portraits appear next to the text chat like a dialogue box.

Maybe give us a font or something.

[Catwho]

It looks like we're really out here using AIM chat.

We need emojis. It's 2024. People are really making macros to post ASCII pictures like it's 2008.

Heck, maybe make a hanging out setting so our portraits appear next to the text chat like a dialogue box.

Maybe give us a font or something.

I'm a bit nervous about emojis, and I've always found our ascii art macros charming, but you to have a good point.

I think the real hidebound thinking around the chatbox UI is because of the requirements of the Japanese language interface, since it's got to allow them to pull in the kanji in a way that the English/French/German language interfaces don't have to deal with. Namely that it has to work with the IME.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...b-713a96476916

[eldritchAvatar]

Well It sounds like this is a bit more involved than I thought.

Still, being able to customize your own chat box would be another layer of investment players could achieve. Could you imagine if everything you typed to your party outside of dungeons had both your portrait and a custom speech bubble effect?? Like I want a dragoon to be able to use that chat box that Dragons use when they're speaking. I'd pay money for high end stuff like that, and it makes portraits have another appearance besides the brief flash right before you do a dungeon.

[Rueby]

There's little chat realestate and adding portraits or emojis will likely impact the readibility. I already struggle to read stuff when people add special characters to their text. I like the way the chat is simple personally.

- I'd rather them offer us more custom chat tabs to customize/rename.
- Adding more custom chat bubbles option similar to the way they provide us different UI options, perhaps a dark mode for speech bubbles and maybe that classic blue mode for those that prefer that.

[Minali]

I'd already be happy about the option to create and manage more than 4 tabs. They are not enough.

I don't really feel the need for emojis, clicking them together takes more time than writing anyway (unless your messenger of choice automatically converts this, like Discord or this very forum.) But I'm also old enough to remember years of IRC use, so maybe I'm biased.

Also, enabling emojis often means including the standard emojis you have at every messenger. These Ascii Art macros are very specialized, people would still post this.

[Silvernode]

All the comments about the level of complications that the chat box needs to meet under the hood are valid.

First off, a chat box redesign is going to take a lot of development, money, time, and research to make sure it is up to the heavy list of requirements.

Second, if emoji support is important to people, it can be implemented in a way where it gets converted to text or disabled per channel or system wide.

At the end of the day, will a chat box redesign be an enormous undertaking? Yes, but no matter how much time, money, effort and research it takes, the fact is that this has to be done. The current chat box we have now cannot go on forever. Something will have to be done sooner or later. The more they wait, the already high expections from players will only expand and the issue will be greater as time goes on.

I am considering creating a mockup UI with functionality identifiers which I can give to the community for feedback until we have something solid.

[Catwho]

I am considering creating a mockup UI with functionality identifiers which I can give to the community for feedback until we have something solid.

That would be very generous of you!

If you do undertake this, I'll pass along my real wish list for this feature:

- The ability to lock the window in place. I accidentally stretched it over my hot bars the other day in raiding and I was doing my rotation blind. (I can do my rotation blind, which is nice to know, but it was scary. I couldn't fix it until we wiped.)
- The ability to do extremely basic formatting. Italics, bold, underline, strikethrough. I'm not sure we need emojis, but basic rich text would be reeeeaaaallly helpful
- Quick filters within a channel - sometimes I want to focus on a conversation but I don't want to permanently hide all the other chat channels on that tab. I would like to temporarily hide the other chat channels and then unhide them when that conversation is done.
- Similarly, a temporary local mute for people. I don't want to blacklist them, but they're being particularly chatty and I'm trying to concentrate Right click, mute for 1 hour.
- Make the tabs a little bit bigger. The chat log isn't part of the standard HUD resize feature and the only way to increase the size is to increase the whole font.
- ALTERNATE TO TABS ENTIRELY: As a mentor, I have an icon for the Novice Network list. It would be nice for certain chat channels to straight up have an icon assigned to them itself of text. That way I wouldn't need to have a text tab for them. I could have a single icon assigned to, say, a cross world hunt linkshell tab, with the hunt symbol. (And these icons could be bigger.)
- Ability to lock a tab in place temporarily so I don't accidentally go to the wrong tab mid battle (this has happened)

[Arohk]

is this what you want? (WoW)

[Canadane]

ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ) No emojis please.